- Objectives of course
- To give students the opportunity to do in-depth and independent
mathematics-related research projects that would require students to
integrate their mathematical knowledge from one or more different areas.
- To give students the opportunity to enhance their communication
skills by way of written reports and oral presentations.
- Overview
Welcome to the 2002-2003 math discipline senior seminar!
In this seminar, you will be working on a single topic throughout
the academic year, writing a paper on it, and presenting your topic to
an audience consisting of at least the Math Faculty and
your peers in this course.
You
will be meeting regularly with your advisor(s), member(s) of the math
or stats disciplines faculty, throughout the process.
In addition to your advisor, it is strongly recommended that you
have a SECOND READER for your paper
so that you receive constructive suggestions from more than one
person (advisor) way before you submit your near-final version to
the math & statistics faculty.
This second reader should be another faculty member.
- Your topic.
You will be spending a
lot of time on studying your topic, so make sure you have a topic that
interests you! Topics in pure mathematics, applied mathematics,
and statistics are all very welcome. A topic directly related to
something in a course you have taken or are taking would be a good idea.
- Your paper.
Papers are typically about 10-15 single-spaced pages in length,
including small figures and tables, if any. Some papers may have
lengthy appendices containing data, computer-generated tables, etc.
- Your presentation.
Presentations are 40 minutes in length, the first 15 minutes of which
should be geared towards a general audience; a good suggestion
for the 1st 15 minutes would be to touch on the motivation or the
general mathematical ideas behind your project.
The audience will include
the mathematics & statistics faculty
members and the other students in the 2002-2003 seminar. There will be
others in the audience as well: students interested in the 2002-2003
seminar, whoever responds to your poster or to the announcement in
the University Bulletin, friends you invite, etc. This is a UMM event.
The Senior Seminar is meant to be an integrative experience for you.
You may be combining things you learned from more than one class.
You may be combining your mathematical knowledge with a personal
interest. Certainly the paper will require you to use your
writing skills as well as your mathematical skill. For many students,
the presentation is a totally new experience, requiring mastery of the
subject matter, technical control over the mode of presentation, and
public speaking skills. We are sure you will find your year-long
experience challenging while at the same time, fun and worthwhile.
- Details and timeframe.
Similar to last academic year, there will be two different
time-lines that a student can follow to complete Math 4901.
Regardless of which timeline you choose,
the total length of time (from the beginning till the final report is
turned in) for a student to work on senior seminar is
``two semesters".
- Spring Semester Year X till Fall Semester Year X.
Students who are either planning to graduate at the end of fall semesters,
or planning to do student teaching during Spring Year X+1, or
planning to do study abroad or just simply not being on campus
during Spring Year X+1, are requested to sign up for this timeline.
- Fall Semester Year X till Spring Semester Year X+1.
This is a more common timeline for those who will be here on
campus for the entire academic year right before their graduation.
Only under extenuating circumstances will other
arrangements may be made.
Deadlines are
| |
Fall 2002-Spring 2003 |
Spring 2003-Fall 2003 |
Fall 2003- Spring 2004 |
| Advisor Chosen |
Aug 30 |
Jan 20 |
Aug 29 |
| General Area Chosen |
Aug 30 |
Jan 20 |
Aug 29 |
| Specific Topic Chosen |
Sept 27 |
Feb 17 |
Sept 26 |
| Project proposal with mathematical foundation and
research plans due: |
Dec 9 |
May 1 |
Dec 8 |
| Near final version due |
March 21 |
Nov 14 |
March 19 |
| Discussion with faculty committee |
April 1-5 |
Nov 20-25 |
April 1-6 |
| Presentations |
April 14-18,
21-24 |
Dec 2-4 |
April 12-16,
19-22 |
| Final version due |
April 25 |
Dec 5 |
April 23 |
- Discussion (15 minutes) with faculty committee
At this discussion, the faculty committee will give you their responses
to your near final version of your reports and they will give
you a few suggestions or even have questions for you.
And you will also be given a copy of the
evaluation form that will
be given to everyone who attends your presentation. This is so that
you will know the attributes that will be assessed.
Usually, it takes about 15 minutes per student for this discussion.
You are requested to incorporate changes or suggestions from the
faculty committee into your final version of your report and also
into your presentation.
- Advisory comments on procedure
All students need to register for Math 4901 for the semester
that they want to start their senior seminar.
You will be receiving a ``K'' grade at the end of the
first semester. You will be receiving an ``A-F'' grade at the end of
the second semester.
Since your choice of advisor and general area is important to you,
you should probably actually make these choices
during christmas break or summer break if you are starting
in Spring or Fall semesters, respectively.
You are expected to meet about twice
a month with your advisor throughout the
academic year. Towards the end of the first semester,
your advisor will expect to
be seeing
appropriate progress toward completion of the paper. You should be
becoming clearly more expert on your topic. You should be
gathering the necessary data or carrying out the necessary computer
work, if appropriate. The paper
should be taking shape. By the middle of the second semester,
you should start preparing
your presentation as well.
- Your grade
Grading Scheme
| 30% |
Active participation throughout the process |
| 10% |
Project Proposal with mathematical foundation and
research plans |
| 30% |
Final written paper |
| 30% |
40-min presentation |
Active participation throughout the process means primarily that you
have worked substantially in between meetings with your advisor and
you have attended all the math senior seminar presentations during the
two semesters that you are working on your senior seminar project.
Your overall course grade will be
decided by your advisor in consultation with the rest of the math
discipline
faculty.
To enhance the value of the presentation component of the course,
audience members will fill out
evaluation forms after each presentation.
Your advisor may use these comment forms to help determine your grade
for your presentation. However, the principal purpose of these forms is
to
provide you with useful feedback.
- Specific guidelines for paper and presentation.
- Periodic feedback on your progress
As mentioned in the overview section,
you
will be meeting regularly with your advisor(s), member(s) of the math
or stats disciplines faculty, throughout the process of doing your
project and writing up your paper.
In addition to your advisor, it is strongly recommended that you
have a SECOND READER for your paper
so that you receive constructive suggestions from more than one
person (advisor) way before you submit your near-final version to
the math & statistics faculty.
This second reader should be another faculty member.
- Originality
You should strive for some degree of originality
in your project. In pure mathematics, if you choose to
present a famous result, you might find
it hard to be original. In this case you might want to examine the
presentation of this result in two reference works. You could
combine what you felt was best from these two presentations, keeping
in mind your particular audience. You could perhaps add an example
that you worked out yourself. In applied mathematics or statistics,
applying something you learned in a class to your own situation or
your own data would be plenty original.
- Level
In your
paper and especially your presentation, you should aim to be
understandable to your fellow seminar members. It is easy to have
thought about the basics of your topic for so long that you forget
that others are just beginning in your topic. ``Blowing away'' the
audience by formula after formula in your presentation is severely
frowned upon!
- Mathematical content.
Many topics, especially in applied
mathematics and statistics, have
both a substantial non-mathematical component and a substantial
mathematical component. This being the math discipline seminar, you
should
make sure that the mathematical component of your topic gets
considerable attention.
Regardless of your topics and of the areas of your topics,
if you are actually using what you learned
in some of your advanced math courses here, you're probably on track. What to
include and what to omit in your paper and presentation is subtle;
your advisor should give you help here.
- Professional quality.
Your final paper and your presentation
should be quite polished. You are expected to use LaTeX or some
other high quality software for the paper. The visual component of
your presentation can be a mixture of blackboard work, transparencies,
and computer
projection. In most cases, the best choice is to work
primarily or exclusively with transparencies. It is best if the
spoken part of your presentation has a sense of informality to it.
Memorizing and repeating your written paper is not appropriate!
On the contrary, you can expect and should welcome questions that
might take you a bit to one side of what you planned to say. Again
your advisor should be able to help you out on all these issues.
