Wel­come to the Math Club’s Guide to Under­grad­u­ate Life! If you’re here, you are prob­a­bly a cur­rent or prospec­tive under­grad­u­ate inter­ested in math­e­mat­ics. Prince­ton is a great place to do math. The depart­ment is rel­a­tively large, includ­ing 65 fac­ulty mem­bers, 66 grad­u­ate stu­dents, and 73 under­grad­u­ate math majors. Due to asso­ci­a­tions with stu­dents and fac­ulty in other depart­ments, the greater math com­mu­nity is even larger.

The close-knit under­grad­u­ate com­mu­nity includes stu­dents with aca­d­e­mic inter­ests rang­ing from alge­braic num­ber the­ory to finance eco­nom­ics, and per­sonal inter­ests rang­ing from row­ing to jug­gling. What­ever your own inter­ests, we’re sure you’ll find some peo­ple who share them! Poke around the Guide, drop by some of our events, and feel free to get in touch!

The Guide con­tains detailed descrip­tions of the Club’s activ­i­ties, as well as advice about the issues most impor­tant to under­grad­u­ates in the depart­ment. For ease of brows­ing, it is bro­ken down into the fol­low­ing sections:

• Course Guide. Gen­eral overviews of each of the major sub-fields of math­e­mat­ics, as well as detailed descrip­tions of the courses in that area and advice on which courses to take—and in what order.
• Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Study. Arti­cles describ­ing pop­u­lar inter­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­grams com­bin­ing math and another sub­ject, includ­ing com­puter sci­ence, physics, eco­nom­ics, and finance. If you’re inter­ested in study­ing math and one of these other sub­jects in par­al­lel, check it out!
• Applied Math. Guid­ance on how to focus on applied math at Prince­ton, includ­ing infor­ma­tion about the Pro­gram in Applied and Com­pu­ta­tional Math­e­mat­ics (PACM) and its certificate.
• Under­grad­u­ate Research. Advice on how to get involved in under­grad­u­ate research, both early in your Prince­ton career and through junior and senior inde­pen­dent work. You’ll also find sug­ges­tions about the research process and the mechan­ics of choos­ing advis­ers and problems.
• Sum­mer Oppor­tu­ni­ties. Infor­ma­tion about the var­i­ous sum­mer pro­grams of inter­est to math majors and those inter­ested in math­e­mat­ics. This includes research oppor­tu­ni­ties, teach­ing jobs at camps like PROMYS, and indus­try internships.
• Social Life. All about the Club’s social side. Yes, Math Club mem­bers are peo­ple, too. We enjoy board games, movies, pizza and pie (and Pi Day!), and din­ners, among other things. Check out the page, then come hang out!
• Aca­d­e­mic and Advis­ing Events. The Club runs sev­eral aca­d­e­mic pro­grams, includ­ing the Under­grad­u­ate Col­lo­quium lec­ture series, the Meet Your Pro­fes­sors ini­tia­tive, and peri­odic advis­ing ses­sions on top­ics like sum­mer pro­grams and under­grad­u­ate research.

Math­e­mat­i­cally yours,

• Max Rabi­novich ’13 (Pres­i­dent) [mra­bi­nov at prince­ton dot edu]
• Gene Kat­se­vich ’14 (Aca­d­e­mic Chair) [ekat­sevi at prince­ton dot edu]