The department thus tries to portray mathematics as a discipline of extraordinary intrinsic beauty, highly deserving of study for the sake of that beauty, standing alone. But owing to its generality and breadth, mathematics is an indispensable component of rational discourse, sound public policy, scientific understanding and technological advancement. Duke offers both the A.B. degree and the B.S. degree with a major in mathematics, as well as a minor. Students who plan to attend graduate school in mathematics or the sciences should consider working toward the B.S. degree for which course requirements include more upper-level math courses, in addition to a number of physics courses. Both available degrees require a minimum of ten mathematics courses, at least eight of which must be at the 100 level or above, but the A.B. program might be better suited for students less oriented toward further study in the fields of math and science.
Students have the opportunity to graduate with distinction in mathematics.
In order to do so, they must maintain an overall GPA of at least 3.5 and a math GPA of at least 3.7, and they must complete one or more math classes at the 200 level. In addition, students who wish to graduate with distinction must write a paper demonstrating significant independent work in mathematics, which is usually done as part of an independent study senior year under the supervision of a tenured or tenure-track faculty member in the Department of Mathematics. Other resources and opportunities also enhance the department. For example, the department maintains two computer clusters of Unix workstations, ten RedHat Linux workstations, and twelve Sun workstations. The mathematical software packages Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab are also available to all users.