Chapter 5

Looking Ahead: Taking Professional Steps

If you are an undergraduate student majoring in mathematics, you may be thinking

about what you will do when you graduate. Do you plan to attend a graduate program in
mathematics or in a different subject? Do you wish to become a teacher of mathematics?
Would you like to be employed in an industry or a government agency? Many options exist
for graduates with specializations in mathematics. While you are a student, it’s prudent to
take steps that will lead you toward your goals.

Here are some steps that you can take to help you in your future role as a mathematics
professional:

• Learn about the culture of mathematics. Mathematical culture includes knowledge of

math history, awareness of famous mathematicians and what they have accomplished,
familiarity with the branches of mathematics, and exposure to famous conjectures and
unsolved problems.
As a start toward learning math culture, you may want to look up the origin of the
word “mathematics.” You can find this in most general dictionaries.
A great resource for the history of mathematics is The MacTutor History of Mathe-
matics archive, mentioned in Chapter 7.
Here are some films that portray various aspects of mathematical life:

35
36 5 Looking Ahead: Taking Professional Steps

– Hard Problems (about high school students participating in the Mathematical

Olympiad)
– Julia Robinson and Hilbert’s Tenth Problem (about the mathematician Julia
Robinson)
– N is a Number (about the mathematician Paul Erdős)
– The Proof (about the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem)
– The CMI Millennium Meeting (about the Clay Mathematics Institute prize prob-
lems meeting)
– VideoMath Festival (math videos shown at the International Congress of Math-
ematicians)
– Music of the Spheres (an episode of the educational television series The Ascent
of Man)
– Donald in Mathmagic Land (about Donald Duck’s adventures in Mathmagic
Land)

Math jokes are also part of the culture. Here is the shortest math joke that we know:
“Let epsilon be less than zero.” Why is this funny? If you don’t know, ask your
Advanced Calculus instructor.
• Speaking of math culture, you should take the time to investigate the cultural and
artistic productions of mathematics, such as plays, films, art (origami, sculpture, etc.),
architecture, and poetry. Math is big in our societal culture these days, in television
programs such as Numb3rs and plays such as Proof , in poems such as Rita Dove’s
“Flash Cards” and JoAnne Growney’s “My Dance is Mathematics,” in the sculpture
of Kenneth Snelson and the knitting patterns of sarah-marie belcastro and Carolyn
Yackel, in the paintings of Frank Stella and Bernar Venet, and in films such as Starship
Troopers, Jurassic Park , Good Will Hunting, and The Wizard of Oz .
• Read mathematical journals and magazines that publish expository articles, such
as The American Mathematical Monthly, Mathematics Magazine, and The College
Mathematics Journal . Some journals have problem solving sections where you can be
challenged and send in your solutions.
• Become a student member of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), the
American Mathematical Society (AMS), Society for Industrial and Applied Mathe-
matics (SIAM), or Kappa Mu Epsilon (KME), a mathematics honor society. The
MAA organizes state and local conferences and co-sponsors the large, annual Joint
Mathematics Meetings. Take every opportunity to give a mathematics talk. If you
attend the Joint Mathematics Meetings, you may be able to give a talk or participate
in a poster session. In a poster session, you show a poster display of your research
and people ask you questions about it; there are prizes for the top presentations.
• Take part in departmental seminars that are accessible to students. You can learn a
lot from your professors and peers in these settings, and you may have the opportunity
to present your own work, whether it is research or exposition. When you give a talk
in your department, it helps you prepare for giving talks later as a graduate student,
teacher, or employee of a business or agency.
• If a guest speaker addresses your department, you should take the opportunity to
attend. As well as learning new mathematics, you may find out valuable information
about where to attend a graduate program or apply for a job.
 5 Looking Ahead: Taking Professional Steps 37

• Take part in local, regional, and national problem solving contests. These activities
help keep your skills sharp. The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition
(organized by the MAA) is an annual problem solving competition for undergraduate
students in the United States and Canada. Although students work individually,
three students at each institution may be designated as a team and their combined
ranks represent a rank for that institution. The Mathematical Contest in Modeling
(organized by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications (COMAP)) is
a team competition in which institutions field teams of three students who work
together to solve an applied mathematics problem. Some good books on mathematical
modeling are [22] and [39]. The Internet magazine Plus offers an issue devoted to
mathematical modeling at plus.maths.org/issue44.
There are many books on mathematical problem solving. Check some out at your
college library. We recommend the books by master problem-solver George Pólya.

• Speaking of your college library, browse in it for books besides your textbooks that
might be helpful in your mathematical studies. Remember the advice that “there is
always a better explanation available.” You might find a better explanation in one
of these books. We recommend the expository math books by Martin Gardner and
Ross Honsberger. You may want to purchase some especially useful books for your
own collection.

• While you’re in the library, look at original sources in important areas of mathematics.
For example, you may find books containing original papers in Calculus.

• When doing homework assignments, and any other papers, pay attention to all aspects
of your writing. It is important to write mathematics well, because someone has to
read what you write. There is an ulterior motive too: Someday, you may wish to
ask an instructor for a letter of reference. Students who write well make a positive
impression and it’s a pleasure to give recommendations for them.

• Become a math tutor, grader, or teaching assistant (TA). Participating in these ac-
tivities will help you improve your skills in whatever subject you are responsible for,
and will help improve your “people skills” as you interact with peers and instructors.

• Prepare for the Mathematics GRE (Graduate Record Examination). Doing well on
the GRE can help you get into the graduate program of your choice. To get a feel for
the test, check out some books that contain test-type questions. Then review your
coursework in the areas that are represented in the test. You can count on Calculus
and Linear Algebra to make up a large part of the Mathematics GRE, but other areas
are also important, such as Discrete Mathematics and Abstract Algebra.

• Participate in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). These are funded

by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

• Consider enrolling in the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics (BSM) program, in

Budapest, Hungary. This is an academic program for North American undergraduate
students. You can learn a lot of powerful mathematics, giving your math career a
boost. Hungary has produced some of the world’s top mathematicians.

• Write a senior-year mathematics paper. In some departments, this is required. It

is an excellent opportunity to hone your research skills and give a math talk. Con-
sider publishing your research in one of the student journals mentioned at the end of
Chapter 4.
38 5 Looking Ahead: Taking Professional Steps

• Find out about service learning in mathematics. (See [23].)

• Ask yourself: What activities can I participate in that will make me more knowledge-
able and skilled as I go forth in my career?

Exercises
1. Make a résumé. You may want to use LATEX (see Chapter 9) and/or put your résumé
on a Web page (see Chapter 15).

2. Find out about the process for becoming a student member of the Mathematical
Association of America (MAA).
3. Find out about the process for participation in an REU (Research Experience for
Undergraduates).

4. Look up recent problems in the Putnam Competition. What are the techniques used
to solve these problems?

5. Look up past problems in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling. What are the
techniques used to solve these problems?

6. Use the The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive to look up a biography of

Carl Friedrich Gauss. What geometric construction did Gauss discover when he was
17 years old?

7. Who is the subject of JoAnne Growney’s poem “My Dance is Mathematics”?

8. Read three or four poems about mathematics/mathematicians in [15]. What are your
favorites and why?

9. Look at sample problems of the GRE Mathematics Subject Test. What areas of
mathematics are represented?