专业描述

The Mathematics Department at Oklahoma State University offers degrees from the bachelors through the doctorate. There are 38 faculty in the department with research interests in several subfields of mathematics, including number theory, combinatorics, commutative algebra, Lie groups and representation theory, topology, applied mathematics, algebraic geometry, analysis and mathematics education. The faculty maintain active research programs, publish regularly, and give presentations both nationally and internationally. Many of the faculty members have obtained research grants and awards from the National Science Foundation and other sources. Undergraduate majors can customize their studies under tracks for pure mathematics, applied mathematics, mathematics certification for secondary education or actuarial science and financial mathematics. Currently we have over 100 students who have declared mathematics as a major. The College of Arts and Sciences has a cooperative program (OSUTeach) with the College of Education where students interested in secondary education in mathematics and science obtain the B.S. degree with teacher certification with a math or science major in the College of Arts and Sciences. Students in physics and engineering often choose mathematics for a minor. Mathematics graduates work in business, industry, government, teach or go into graduate studies. Currently there are 54 graduate students in the department. Of these over half are in the Ph.D. program. Almost all of the graduate students are supported as graduate teaching assistants. In this capacity they teach lower division classes or assist faculty. Among the graduate students there are students from China, Japan, Peru, India, Nepal, Korea, and the United States. Students pursue concentrated work in the areas where the faculty are active in research. Typically students receiving doctorates take academic positions. Masters program graduates go into many different careers or pursue further graduate study. For more than twenty years the mathematics department has had a special facility known as the Mathematics Learning Success Center (MLSC) which provides help to students in lower division mathematics classes. The MLSC is located in a beautiful, 8000 sq ft facility in the central library on Campus. The center provides free tutoring from instructors in lower-division courses and undergraduate tutors, has a 130 station laboratory with access to the web and media for self guided study. The department also holds an annual mathematics contest for high school students. This contest brings a few hundred of the brightest mathematics students to campus for three hours of intense problem solving. The top scorers are offered scholarships to OSU.