Mathematics and Statistics

Current Students

First Year Suggestions

New graduate students should focus on their classes in their first year so that they may advance to candidacy (see below). In the first month of the first semester, new students will need to fill out a Graduate Contract. Each emphasis (Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, and Mathematics Education) has its own set of requirements and its own contract. Consult with the graduate coordinator to fill out the Graduate Contract and figure out which courses to take.

Advancing to Candidacy

In order to begin working with a thesis adviser and earn credit for MAT 6910, 6960, or 6970, graduate students must be advanced to candidacy. A graduate student will be advanced to candidacy when all of the following conditions are satisfied:

  • Overall GPA of at least 3.0;
  • Satisfied all requirements stipulated by the graduate coordinator at the time of admission;
  • Contract approved by the graduate coordinator and the Associate Vice President for Graduate Studies;
  • Completed 4 courses on the student's contract, at least 2 of which must be at the 5000 level; and
  • 3.0 GPA on contract courses taken thus far.

Moving Toward Graduation

Graduate students who have advanced to candidacy should start preparing a thesis or studying for a Comprehensive Exam. An excellent time to start is  the summer before the last academic year.

MathSciNet

Graduate students in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics have access to the fantastic resources of  MathSciNet via the Library. This webpage allows students to find research articles in all branches of mathematics.

Graduate Timeline and Checklist

LaTeX

  • Write your thesis using LaTeX. Microsoft Word not an ideal tool and should be avoided.
  • Detexify is a helpful tool for finding the LaTeX command for a symbol.
  • The following programs are free to download:

LaTeX Thesis Template Files

Thanks to Dr. Berit Givens, Tzevetlin Petrov, Rolando de Santiago, Sarah Underwood, Brian Kahovec, and Alec Lewald for creating and sharing the files found here.

First, save cppSampleThesis.tex and CPP.cls files to the same folder. (Right-click below on each file nam to save.)  You may rename cppSampleThesis.tex to a different name if you like, but you may NOT rename CPP.cls.  Next, use your LaTeX program of choice (in our computer lab, your choices are WinEdt for Windows or TexShop for Macs) to open the potentially-renamed cppSampleThesis.tex file.  Follow the instructions written in the file.  If you encounter problems at format check time and think they could be fixed in the template, or if you have other suggestions, please fill out this form to help us improve the template.

Sample Thesis

Thanks to Rolando de Santiago and Alec Lewald for creating and sharing the files found here.