Undergraduate Program, 2024
Our undergraduate math programs are thriving! Last Winter, undergraduate programs underwent its seven-year Program Review. The external reviewers described our Department “to be dynamic, welcoming and a great place to study Mathematics” and said that our program’s strength was centered around “committed faculty, lecturers, staff and TA’s that come together to deliver a strong program to incoming students through to graduate education.”
This past academic year, the Department awarded 184 degrees!
- 61 majors in Mathematics
- 71 in Applied Mathematics
- 10 in Math & Scientific Computation
- 8 in Math Analytics & Operations Research
- and 34 minors.
An impressive 22 students received special citations, scholarships, and prizes for their exceptional performance and service (see our list of Departmental Awards on the Math website). Many of last year's graduating students went on to graduate school at prestigious institutions across the country, while other graduates went on to jobs in education or in industry – ranging from a Tech Analyst at a financial institution, a technical solutions engineer, and a Cyber Risk Analyst. These achievements testify to the commitment and dedication of our students.
The clubs and events that the Department hosts also help to create a welcoming, supportive, and educational environment for our students.
Math Club
The UC Davis Math Club is dedicated to advancing mathematics by building a strong community among people who enjoy math. In addition to fun math puzzles, snacks, and networking opportunities, meetings often include movies, workshops, and short presentations by guest speakers from academia and industry, as well as academic support, wellness, and mental health. This year, the Math Club is organizing free tutoring for students in our Real Analysis, Introduction to Abstract Mathematics, and Modern Algebra courses.
Spurred by Timothy Blanton (the President of the Math Club at the time), many of our undergrads took advantage of the close proximity of the Joint Math Meetings (JMM) in San Francisco last January. The JMM is the largest mathematics gathering in the world, and it was a great opportunity for our students to be exposed to some of the latest research in mathematics, attend the Career and Grad School Fair, and network with the other academics attending. Having JMM in our backyard was a remarkable opportunity.
AWM
Our student chapter of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is a group that encourages and supports women, girls, and otherwise underrepresented minorities to study mathematics and pursue related careers. The AWM hosts networking, professional development, and outreach activities, and is open to everyone : all gender identities, and to faculty, researchers, and non-math majors, as well as to undergraduate and graduate math students.
Student Outreach
We've continued with our most successful student outreach this year. Some favorites are Coffee/Pizza with a Prof, giving students a relaxed atmosphere to connect with faculty; Final Exam Study Night, providing a welcoming space and snacks as well as visits by grads and faculty; and the Student Spotlight, highlighting the hard work of undergrads, this year with Timothy Blanton, Lawrence Cheung, and Sabrina Zhu.
Career Night
In Spring quarter, we plan to hold our annual Career Night jointly with the Statistics Department. Career Night features mathematicians working in industry, in education/academics, or in public service — usually UC Davis alumni — who talk to our current students about their experiences pursuing their career, what their profession looks like from the inside, what skills are needed for the career, and general career advice. We would love to share what you are doing with your Math degree with current Undergrads. Let us know if you would like to participate in Spring 2025 Career Night.
Special Topic Courses Each year, the Math Department of Mathematics offers a set of special topics courses (MAT 180) that give our undergraduate students the opportunity to learn fascinating material that is beyond our non-standard courses. This year, we are offering three special topics courses. In the Fall quarter, Prof. Anne Schilling is giving a course on Combinatorial Representation Theory; in the Winter, Professor Naoki Saito will run a course on Combinatorics and Geometry via Linear Algebra; and in the Spring, Professor Thomas Strohmer will give a course on Fairness and Privacy in Machine Learning.
Directed Reading Program
The very successful Directed Reading Program (DRP) will continue for its fourth year. The DRP is a primarily graduate-student run program that pairs undergraduates and graduate students to study advanced mathematics that are not typically covered in our undergraduate classes. Like our special topics courses, the DRP not only provides undergraduates an opportunity to explore fun new topics; it also provides them a possible entry point to research, graduate school, and beyond. This Fall there were over 100 undergrads interested in the DRP! As it did last year, the DRP plans to host a poster session in the Winter quarter and a conference for undergraduate presentations in the Spring quarter.
Undergraduate Research
Every year, many of our majors take part in undergraduate research experiences (REUs). Last year, seven of our students (Ian Chi, Yaotin Ji, Arthur Jiang, Chen Liang, Pan Lin and Wantong Zhu) spun their research experience into their senior theses. Undergraduate theses from last year and previous years can be found on our website.
On October 29, we hosted the 2024 Mathematics Undergraduate Conference. The conference was organized by our dynamic student services staff and our undergraduate research coordinator, Professor Jesús De Loera. Seven undergraduates (Amy Wang, Jenna Rashkovsky, Haotian “Simon” Bao, Jonathan Chang, Christopher Luevano, Raymond Iacobacci, Timothy Blanton, Andrew Patton, Chen Liang) gave presentations on research projects they conducted over the summer or the previous year. Professor De Loera then gave a short presentation describing the benefits of doing an undergraduate research experience and giving tips for how to get started in research, and the event ended with a Q&A session with a panel of student research and faculty. About 65 interested students attended the conference!
Also, last Spring, as part of the DRP and our undergraduate research program, we held a research presentation workshop to help our student researchers prepare effective research posters and talks. The event included a panel discussion in which faculty gave general advice to all students, and this was followed by break-out sessions in which students shared drafts of their presentations and got direct feedback from faculty. It was extremely successful, and we plan to make the workshop an annual event.
Calculus for Data Driven Applications
One big change on the course and curriculum front is that the Department launched a new calculus series, Calculus for Data Driven Applications. Unlike the traditional calculus sequence, the series covers a blend of calculus, probability, and discrete math centered around modeling and contextualized examples from economics, psychology, sociology, and environmental sciences. Furthermore, the courses in the new series have an integrated weekly computer lab component. The labs are designed to not only strengthen understanding of mathematical concepts being taught in the class, but also to expose students to computer programming, to provide them with experience in topically relevant mathematical modeling, and to offer them opportunities to analyze real data from the social sciences. The labs were developed with the help of a grant from the California Educational Learning Lab.
As you can see, our students, faculty, and staff have been extremely active with a variety of enriching activities that foster learning, engagement, and community, which is especially important in these extraordinary times.
Last but far from least, we would like to welcome our new Undergraduate Program coordinator, Dawn Chandler. Dawn brings a fresh perspective to our programs, hoping to inspire the next group of undergrads to achieve great things.
In closing, I want to thank all of the people who make these activities possible. Thank you to the wonderful faculty who volunteer their time and the many students who take leadership positions in our math community! Thanks to our tireless peer advisors, and our magnificent staff (current and past)! All of you make our undergraduate program vibrant and successful.