Program Overview

The Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Degree Program prepares students for employment in the private or public sector, graduate school, and scientific research. Studying Mathematics naturally develops quantitative thinking and analytic problem solving, skills with universal application. Demand will always be high for individuals with these universal skills to solve society’s diverse and complex problems.

Students majoring in Math have two choices: the Concentration option or the No Concentration option. No Concentration students choose their own upper division courseload, while Concentration students take a set of upper division courses chosen by the department to best fit their Concentration. Students can choose to concentrate in Applied Mathematics, Data Science, Mathematics Education, Pre-Actuarial Math, Operations Research, Statistics, Computational Mathematics, and Pure Mathematics. Students can complete one Concentration or several.

Computational Mathematics Concentration

This concentration is recommended for students interested in inherently interdisciplinary subjects which apply to many problems that arise in the physical, biological, economic, social, and network sciences as well as in engineering. Applied Mathematics provides a set of qualitative and quantitative skills and knowledge for use in these fields.

Applied Mathematics has a profound impact on our daily lives. Whether it is weather forecasts, genetic or neural networks, search engines, climate research, evolution of species, stock market and finance, ground or air transportation, architecture, or movie recommendations, none of these would work the way they do without algorithms and tools from the mathematical sciences. The concentration in Applied Mathematics allows students to investigate the mathematics of problems arising in the physical, biological, economic, social, and network sciences as well as in engineering.

Applied Mathematics appeals to people with a variety of different interests, ranging from those with a desire to obtain a good quantitative background for use in some future career, to those who are interested in the basic techniques and approaches in themselves.