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.

Operations Research Concentration

This concentration is recommended for students interested in a career as an operations research analyst or in pursuing a graduate degree in operations research or a related field.

The broad real-world applicability of operations research makes it an attractive choice for math majors. In operations research courses, students get a solid background in mathematical modeling of decision-making problems, algorithms for solving different types of these problems, as well as experience using appropriate software tools.

Operations research is the application of advanced analytical methods to enable better decision making. A plethora of problems may be solved using operations research; among these are (1) determining the route a delivery truck should take in order to make all deliveries while traveling the fewest number of miles; (2) determining the best location for a new facility such as a fire station; (3) scheduling airline flights and crew; and (4) determining the optimal distribution of bicycles in a bike sharing system.  Operations research includes problem-solving methods such as deterministic and stochastic optimization, machine learning, and simulation.