<p>Worried_mom: I am currently taking Calc II for math and science majors which is the highest level of Calc II offered. Still, it is an elementary math course in the scheme of things. Overall I'd say that the course is sufficiently challenging and the professor is decent.</p>
<p>However, last semester I took a complete joke of a math course for Calc I. The teacher just did proofs all day and had no idea how to teach. The course was incredibly easy and most people did their homework in class.</p>
<p>From friends I have in other classes, it seems like the math courses are not incredibly challenging and have light courseloads. Perhaps xzews could give you a better description of upper level courses.</p>
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My son is a prospective math major who has done quite a bit of research and BC's math department is indeed respected by working professionals -- but it obviously is not a top 10 program. For a school of BC's size, the math department is actually pretty good.
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<p>I'd like to know the names of the companies those working professionals work for and their roles within those companies, because based on what I observed during my four year experience at BC, and while I don't believe that BC's math program is disrespected per se, I simply don't believe that BC's math program is respected, or at least not widely respected, amongst most working professionals from most fields. One of my friends from BC was a math major. His courseload, according to him, was pretty easy; but the reported level of difficulty of the math department, or of any department, usually depends on the aptitude of the person passing judgement. I personally felt more challenged in my physics courses than I did in my math courses; it's a matter of acquiring knowledge versus acquring knowledge and applying it towards something. I can tell you that while I was at BC I heard at least one person say that BC's math department was not very good, so ClassicGuitar is not the first person to negatively evaluate BC's math department. But keep in mind that I don't know what criteria they used to measure the strength of BC's math department, so their comments might as well have been a reflection of their own subjective opinion based on personal experience, comparatively negative perception or hearsay, as opposed to unbiased, objective assessment of the department itself. As for the fate of my math major friend, it took him a while to find a job after graduation, and he claims to be underpaid and underemployed. He told me that a friend of his, a math major who apparently graduated with honors, says that some people at BC advised him not to bother applying for a job at this government agency known for hiring math majors, because according to those people only very intelligent individuals work at that place. Go figure.</p>
<p>xzews, I did not say that I had looked up the top 10 math programs. In fact, I don't know of any such ranking for undergraduate math programs (although I have seen some for graduate programs.) I merely stated that BC's math department would not be among the top 10, because it certainly is not on a par with the math programs at the very top schools like Princeton, Harvey Mudd, Brown, etc. </p>
<p>I have no idea where BC's math department "ranks" but my son has compared it to the math programs at many other top-50 universities and it seems to stack up fairly well. We have talked to people working at Raytheon, Amica Insurance, Lockheed-Martin, and other companies, as well as math professors at other colleges, and they all felt BC's math program was pretty solid.</p>
<p>i was accepted and i agree that BC is overrated...i dont want to single it out because there are alot of schools like it that have solid academics but the popularity due to the location/sports/etc make the requirements for acceptance a bit ridiculous. ill be heading to a smaller university next year where there are better academics and a more nurturing atmosphere but doesnt necessarily have the prestige of the "BC" name</p>