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.

Pure Mathematics Concentration

What do UNO Alumni Chief Operating Officer Matt Culek of Citadel Securities, Senior Industrial Logician Andrew Gacek of Rockwell Collins, Microsoft Data Scientist Daniel Miller and University of Toronto Post-doc Melissa Emory have in common? They sought out the strongest foundation in mathematics available here at UNO, taking the courses required for the Pure Mathematics Concentration.

This concentration is strongly recommended for students interested in a pursuing a graduate degree in mathematics, but as indicated above, is highly recommended for any student interested in getting the most out of their mathematics major.

Students pursuing a graduate degree are expected to have a strong foundation based in analysis, topology, and abstract algebra. This is what this concentration provides.   

Challenging yourself has other advantages. Matt Culek credits his ability to trouble-shoot proposals brought to him by quantitative analysts at Citadel Securities to the habits of thought developed in his undergraduate course in number theory here at UNO.