<p>Can current Yale math majors please comment on the math dept, profs, classes, etc? How is your experience so far? Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.</p>
<p>I am also interested in this...</p>
<p>Me three...</p>
<p>One good way to check is to see how many students graduated with a math degree over the past few years. Somewhere between 20-40 majors per year would be a healthy number that indicates the strength (and popularity) of the department.</p>
<p>I'm not a student, but when my son was weighing his options last year, I received a PM about mathematics at Yale from a knowledgeable CC poster. Here is an excerpt: </p>
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I think it is true that the top students in the pre-college mathematics competitions (USAMO and USMTS) often pick Harvard, MIT, Caltech, and to some extent Stanford over Yale. The top students on the university-level Putnam exams also come from these schools, somewhat more commonly than from Yale.</p>
<p>That said, the undergraduate education and research opportunities at Yale would satisfy the overwhelming majority of top math students. </p>
<p>I think that Math 301 at Yale is reasonably comparable to MIT's 18.100 (the most-dropped math course at MIT)--you can read about that course on MIT's web site. Math 230 at Yale also has a fair share of quite talented students coming in. There are plenty of students to ensure that higher-level math classes are offered, and to ensure that a student has people with whom to collaborate. </p>
<p>Research opportunities for undergraduates at Yale are quite good. I spoke with a freshman math major who was conducting research with a faculty member already. He was unusually well prepared coming in. I paid some attention to the recent winners of the Alice T. Schaefer award from the American Mathematical Society (for research by an undergraduate woman in mathematics), and noticed that Yale had a recent winner of that award, an indicator of the research opportunities offered for undergraduates.
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<p>Thank you wjb for that informative post. Any current math majors care to weigh in?</p>
<p>bump........</p>
<p>bump......</p>
<p>The best thing about Yale's math department is that it's small. No, seriously, it's fantastic. The professors are every bit as amazing as you would come to expect at Harvard or MIT, but they teach tiny classes and have like ten pure math majors each year. The faculty are approachable, and there's very little competition over anything. Are you good at math, and remotely serious? You'll get as much money for research as you need with almost no hassle, and incredible access to some fantastic professors. Yes, Yale hasn't had a Putnam Scholar in years, but who cares? If you come in knowing you want to major in math, the department will give you everything you could hope for.</p>
<p>Thanks for your imput George. I assume you're a math major?</p>
<p>wow. I was accepted to MIT early and I was thinking about majoring in math...but I thought yale was only good to be a lawyer if I ever want to be a patent lawyer one day....but yale is too close to my home as well. =/</p>
<p>anyway, I want to hear more about yale's math dept.</p>
<p>bummmppppppppppppppp</p>
<p>I'm a current undergrad.</p>
<p>My background: To be honest, I was a little uncertain about the math department at Yale and the general reputation of math at many colleges as indecipherable due to professors who can't speak English or who can't explain anything. I'm an Econ major, and I'm not one of those kids who did a lot of AMC crap, Math club, etc.</p>
<p>My experience: Nevertheless, I signed up to take Multivariable/Linear second semester Freshman year. I COULD HARDLY HAVE BEEN MORE SURPRISED! Yes, I was going into it a little ambivalent, but the class thus far -- 1/3 of way in -- has been fantastic. The teacher is from the Middle East but he is very understandable to listen to; the concepts are well explained; the homework and tests are difficult, but there is a curve and one should expect a challenge. And it is not like my high school math teachers were bad: my AP BC Calc teacher had a PhD in Math from MIT and was FANTASTIC as well so I had high hopes of what Math could be. My hopes were not let down. </p>
<p>I think part of the problem with college mathematics is that it is quite difficult, and therefore scares away a lot of people. Moreover, at some point it becomes too theoretical.</p>
<p>One thing that should be noted is that even introductory courses are taught in a seminar format. This is both good and bad. It means that you can ask questions comfortably, the teacher knows your name, etc. And yet, the bad part is that perhaps there is a higher risk of a bad seminar teacher than if all kids had the same lecturer. This downside, however, can be minimized by taking advantage of shopping period at yale and looking at prior reviews in order to make sure you don't get a bad teacher.</p>
<p>You'll need to talk to a major to get more information. However, I think Yale Math is actually ranked very highly and, from personal experience, thus far it has been really exciting/challenging/cool.</p>