Summer Reading List 2022

By Darren Glass, Gettysburg College Darren Glass Summer is once again here, and I know that many of us need a break after another long, hard year. And once again the editor of this blog has asked me to recommend some books that are not too technical but that have enough of a mathematical bent...

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It’s Okay to Move On

By Dr. Katelynn D. Kochalski Dr. Katelynn D. Kochalski Since my freshman year of college my dream has been to get a PhD in math and teach at a liberal arts college similar to my undergraduate institution. This goal helped me stubbornly hang on through the dark days of endless assignments and qualifying exam struggles...

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Students Speak: What Professors Can Do To Help Students in the Job Search Process

By Casey Fenster Casey Fenster Many students hope to pursue a career in industry after graduation. I recently graduated from Virginia Tech with a major in Computational Modeling and Data Analytics and minors in Computer Science and Statistics. In August, I will begin as a Data Analytics Consultant for CapTech in its Richmond, Virginia headquarters....

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Testimonios: Dr. Carrie Diaz Eaton

Testimonios, a new publication from MAA/AMS, brings together first-person narratives from the vibrant, diverse, and complex Latinx and Hispanic mathematical community. Starting with childhood and family, the authors recount their own particular stories, highlighting their upbringing, education, and career paths. Testimonios seeks to inspire the next generation of Latinx and Hispanic mathematicians by featuring the...

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Graduate Student Mental Health – Universities need to do better

By Chanel Lee @onlychanely Chanel Lee In May 2022, I withdrew from my PhD program. I spent two years trying everything to make it work, but it just didn’t work out. Why? I promise you it was not because I’m not good enough. The issue is that there is a systemic problem in academia. Academia...

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Classroom Community within Uncertainty

By Tim Chartier, Davidson College Tim Chartier The January 31, 2022 article “’It’s Just Stressful’: Students Feel the Weight of Pandemic Uncertainty” by Jacey Fortin and Giulia Heyward in The New York Times detailed examples of the pandemic and its stresses changing children and youth. The article notes how many were scrambling to catch up...

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Golden Ratio Poetry: Mathematical Poetry According to φ

By Radoslav Rochallyi I have been a professional poet for many years, and I’m interested in a variety of poetic styles such as FIB, CADAE, and several forms of mathematical poetry. (See my earlier Math Values post on Equation Poetry.) As James Henle has said, “the association of mathematics and poetry is ancient. It is...

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My Mathematical Journey: Issai Schur, Henry Alder, and Partitions

By: David Bressoud @dbressoud David Bressoud is DeWitt Wallace Professor Emeritus at Macalester College and former Director of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences MAA has just published Addressing Challenges to the Precalculus through Calculus II Sequence through Case Studies, the Notes volume summarizing the results of the NSF-sponsored project, Progress through Calculus, case...

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The Secret to Powerful Math is Often a Simple Diagram

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin This month’s essay continues a thread commenced with last month’s post. I gave a guest lecture at a local retirement community recently, my first in-person speaking gig since the start of the pandemic. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, my audience was, as I had initially assumed (and was confirmed...

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Mathematics for the Unemployed

By David Alan Grier “Work relief” Gertrude Blanch Until she encountered those two words, Gertrude Blanch had few prospects for a conventional career in mathematics. She was one of the very first women to receive a doctorate in mathematics (Cornell University) and she completed her studies in the depths of the Great Depression (1934). Beyond...

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