For Prospective Students of the Rose Mathematics Programs
Message from the Department Head
Hi,
my name is Allen Broughton and I am the head of the Mathematics Department
at Rose-Hulman. I am are very pleased that you are considering Rose-Hulman and the mathematics department, and urge you to explore our programs further. We have excellent
and challenging programs, while at the same time a nurturing atmosphere focused
on undergraduate student learning and development. All the faculty in the
department have come to Rose-Hulman because they are dedicated teachers and
scholars who enjoy working with undergraduate students both in the classroom, as well as a casual
chat in the office or hallway.
For more information, I'd like to tell you about our program
and department in three ways: a thumbnail sketch, a Question and Answer session with a prospective student who has recently graduated, and links to some of our department
web pages. Thanks for your attention to our programs. If you have any
questions about Rose-Hulman or our program, I or a professor in our department
would be more than happy to get you the information or the right person to
talk to.
To see some of the careers chosen by our majors and double majors you should check out our alumni
profiles site.
S. Allen Broughton
Professor and Head of Mathematics
Rose Math Department at a Glance
- 25 faculty, all of whom are active and dedicated teacher-scholars, with
interests in many fields of pure and applied mathematics (faculty
expertise page)
- a friendly, happy department where professors have strong personal
contact with their students
- math program has a strong general education component in the humanities
and science and concentrations in
- general mathematics,
- applied discrete math,
- applied continuous math, and
- statistics and operations research
- the program is flexible and can be adjusted either for graduate school preparation or direct entry into careers in business, industry and government
- a strong double majors program with the programs science, engineering and economics, with
more than half the math majors as double majors
- three area minor programs: mathematics, statistics, computational science
- a large number of students who are interested in mathematics, even though they may not be math majors
- even though not all students are math majors, we start at calculus and 45% of entering
freshman have one to three courses of AP credit in math
- students graduating with a major or double major in mathematics,
have career opportunities on par with engineering and science
majors
- computing intensive curriculum with good computing facilities
- opportunities for undergraduate research and hands on projects, especially in our senior thesis
/ senior project program
- strong program in mathematics competitions
Questions and Answers
These are the answers to a letter I received a few years ago from a student
who has recently graduated. The questions are the same though the answers
have been updated to reflect changes.
Question 1: What percentage of students at Rose-Hulman
graduate as math majors?
Answer 1: Before answering your question let me
explain the idea of double majors which
presents an excellent opportunity here at Rose. Most math majors at Rose-Hulman
are double majors about 2/3 of which take math as a second major. We are
now graduating about 20 math majors and double majors each year. So
even though the number of strictly math majors seems small there are many
advanced math courses.
Question 2: How many math majors applied to graduate
school this past year (other than medical and law schools), and how many
were accepted? What graduate schools are they attending?
Answer 2: I have been here for over 15 years.
In the past 15 years every graduate who
applied to graduate school has been accepted at a good school.
Sometimes the students go on to graduate programs in areas other than mathematics. Each year a few
students go on to grad school. Many of those who do not, still have the talent and drive to do so,
they just have other interests. Most of the students who do not, are very interested in using their
math skills to solve hard real life problems in a variety of areas. Here is a web page
of grad schools attended by our students. http://www.rose-hulman.edu/math/alumnicareers/careers.php
The department has revised its curriculum so that students who want to go on to graduate school will be able to take the right courses to prepare them. The courses are offered on a regular basis.
Part of this is cultural. Most students at Rose major in engineering, and for
most of them immediate employment after graduate school with further advanced
training or graduate school after a few years on the job is the typical career
path (50% eventually). A very large percentage of our students
have the intellect and work ethic to be a strong success in good graduate
schools. If they decide to do so their education at Rose is a very good preparation.
However, our excellent success
in placement makes getting a good position after school extremely attractive to many
of our students.
Question 3: Approximately what percent of current
math majors are female?
Answer 3: During the first few years after the first coeducational
graduations in 1999 about 15% of the math majors and double major graduates were women.
About 18% of Rose-Hulman students are women. Now, we are attracting more women into the freshman
class and the percentage for female math majors and double majors is around 35%. We work very hard
to make our department welcoming to women, but don't have any special programs or scholarships that
target women, beyond Rose-Hulman programs. As you may know Rose-Hulman has only been a coed institution
for 15 years. However, I feel, based on my experiences at other schools, that women feel as comfortable
here as at other schools. In my classes there have been as few as 1 woman in a class of 16, however
in the classroom the female students have always been accepted on par with the other students. Of
course there is the normal social banter that goes on between college students.
Question 4: What do you consider the strengths and
weaknesses of your department as compared to other schools?
Answer 4:
Strengths
- many, many "math nerds" - students who like math and who are pretty
good at it without being a math major
- large faculty for a small private school, all of whom are dedicated teachers and active scholars
- excellent opportunity for a double major, especially with computer science,
physics, economics or chemistry, double majors with other engineering disciplines
such as electrical, computer or mechanical engineering.
- exceptionally strong focus on undergraduate mathematics education and
undergraduate math research
- exceptional computing environment
- Rose is a student (learning and development) centered environment and
our department is a full player in that philosophy.
Weakness
- We are a focused institution with a few excellent (9-10) programs not
a full service university. Though our humanities and social science department
is very talented and offers a rich set of courses we are an institution focused on engineering, science, and mathematics. For a student who is pretty confident that they are interested
in a career in engineering, science, or mathematics and prefers a smaller college
environment to the large state school, I think Rose is one of the best
in the nation. On the other hand if you are not prepared to focus your
career choices so narrowly a comprehensive university is a better choice.
Question 5: What opportunities are there for a math
major to learn about specific fields of interest?
Answer 5: In our math program we have many elective courses.
We require students to take a breadth of science and humanities courses as
well. In addition we also require our students to take at least 6 sophomore
and higher courses in other program areas to develop a breadth and depth of experience.
Our idea is for students to have a solid idea of how math applies to these
areas. We especially encourage our majors to get a minor or double major
in some other area, if they are not going to grad school. If they are going
to grad school we recommend using electives for a deeper study of mathematics.
Question 6: What else do you think I should know
about Rose-Hulman's math department that would influence my decision?
Answer 6: If you have time, please check out our
web site. It has a lot of information. One thing that may interest you is
our unusual level of success in various mathematics competitions. We usually have the largest numbers of competitors
of any school our size, probably about 5 times the size of comparable schools.
(Note that the student asking questions was the winner of our freshman mathematics competition.)
Rose-Hulman and Rose Math Dept Web Links
- Rose-Hulman Main Page
and Admissions
- Main Page and Department Overview
- Faculty and Staff
- Math Alumni
- Programs
- Math Career Info Page
- Advanced Placement
- Fast Track Calculus
- Facilities
- Undergraduate Mathematics Research
- Math Competitions
