These bring students face to face with current challenges that help them sharpen their analytic skills. As a result, many receive departmental honors. The math department has recently initiated a program that allows undergraduate students to experience the exciting process of research. Each summer, three to seven undergraduates, along with a graduate student instructor, a faculty member and several incoming graduate students, jointly undertake a computational investigation of interest to the mathematical community. The results of this National Science Foundation-funded summer project are written up in accepted mathematical form for distribution or possible publication.
Students receive a stipend and at the same time learn how mathematicians actually do mathematics.
All mathematics courses beyond the first calculus course are taught in small sections, which allow for more individual attention. Faculty members share the University's goal of doing everything possible to help every student succeed at MU and beyond. The AB requires more nonscience and foreign-language courses. The BS requires more science and allows students either to take a foreign language or to substitute an area of emphasis consisting of 12 upperclass units in an approved subject. Also, BS students may count more mathematics courses toward the degree requirements.