One sum­mer option that has tra­di­tion­ally been pop­u­lar among math majors is to work at a math camp for high school stu­dents. Typ­i­cally, under­grad­u­ates serve as coun­selors, help­ing stu­dents with prob­lem sets, pro­vid­ing gen­eral super­vi­sion, and serv­ing as older friends and men­tors to the stu­dents. Many find the job to be both fun and reward­ing, and some Prince­ton stu­dents have cho­sen to spend most of their sum­mers at camps like this. The most pop­u­lar by far among Prince­ton stu­dents are the Ross Math­e­mat­ics Pro­gram, held at Ohio State Uni­ver­sity, and PROMYS, held at Boston University.

Ross Math­e­mat­ics Program

The Ross Math­e­mat­ics Pro­gram, pretty much uni­ver­sally called just “Ross,” is an inten­sive eight-week course in num­ber the­ory for high school stu­dents. Over the course of the pro­gram, the stu­dents work through a huge chunk of fun­da­men­tal num­ber the­ory, start­ing with an axiomatic con­struc­tion of the inte­gers and cul­mi­nat­ing with a proof of Gauss’s qua­dratic reci­procity the­o­rem. The empha­sis is on solv­ing problems—there’s a prob­lem set every day and the prob­lems guide the stu­dents step-by-step through proofs of many tricky results, includ­ing qua­dratic reciprocity—and learn­ing to think math­e­mat­i­cally, which is to say, both intu­itively and rig­or­ously. Coun­selors live in the dorms with the stu­dents and take charge of a small “fam­ily” (four to five stu­dents) and some­times a junior coun­selor, an advanced return­ing stu­dent who is osten­si­bly in train­ing for the role of coun­selor. If you work here, you’ll be expected to grade your stu­dents’ prob­lem sets quickly and pro­vide use­ful feed­back that will allow them to progress as far and as rapidly as they can. All in all, it’s a reward­ing job that leaves plenty of time for per­sonal inter­ests, and the Ross com­mu­nity is wonderful.

PROMYS

PROMYS is the child of the Ross pro­gram and is sim­i­lar in many ways. The pro­gram par­al­lels that of Ross, start­ing with an axiomatic con­struc­tion of the inte­gers and end­ing with a proof of Gauss’s qua­dratic reci­procity the­o­rem. Again, the empha­sis is on prob­lem solv­ing and think­ing math­e­mat­i­cally, and a prob­lem set is assigned daily. Stu­dent “fam­i­lies” con­sist of 4–5 stu­dents, usu­ally with one advanced return­ing stu­dent, who take advanced courses like Alge­bra, Galois The­ory, Geom­e­try and Sym­me­try, Com­bi­na­torics, and Mod­u­lar Forms. Coun­selors’ roles includes grad­ing fam­ily mem­bers’ prob­lem sets quickly, guid­ing stu­dents through the pro­gram, and mark­ing for an advanced course. There is spare time, how­ever, and fun activ­i­ties for both par­tic­i­pants and coun­selors. It’s a reward­ing job that, like Ross, has tra­di­tion­ally been pop­u­lar with Prince­ton undergraduates.

Canada/USA Math­Camp

Canada/USA Math­Camp is another major math sum­mer pro­gram for high school stu­dents. Under­grad­u­ates are hired to work as junior coun­selors (JC’s), a job which is much like that of coun­selor at Ross or PROMYS. Unlike these other pro­grams, how­ever, Canada/USA Math­Camp only hires alumni.

Con­tacts: Max Rabi­novich ’13 (mrabinov@princeton.edu); Erick Knight ’12 (rp2knight@gmail.com)