Mathematics

Choosing to study math is not unlike joining the CIA. You will be completely unable to discuss your work with any outsiders, even your closest friends and family. You’ll be assigned seemingly impossible missions (code named “problem sets”). And you will struggle in solitude or with a small band of comrades until you complete your mission. Suffer an ignominious defeat, and transfer to Computer Science.

On a more physical plane, the Math department occupies some prime real estate. Its lounge opens onto a balcony above the science center’s front doors and is equipped with coffee machines that dispense their bitter nectar to supplicants day, night, and that unclassifiable time in between.

Your freshman year “multivariable calculus/linear algebra” class introduces you to the field of Smathematics. The four courses at this level correspond to the four kinds of people in the world:

Math 21 is for those who will never be mathematicians, but need to be able to calculate some things. This is not really mathematics.

Math 23 is for those who wish that they could be mathematicians, but aren’t eager to sacrifice their health and sanity. They drink decaf coffee.

Math 25 is for those who have no such qualms, but with only an AP Calculus background. They have some psychopathic need to prove themselves to the world.

Math 55 is for those who have been reared from the cradle to be mathematicians. They aced the AP Calc exam at age 12, but may be unable to pass a Turing test.

Concentrators often finish requirements in their sophomore year by taking an introductory course in algebra, analysis, and geometry, or topology. After this, many students take graduate courses.

The professors who teach each course change almost every year, and many junior professors are only around for two years. This means that the CUE guide is often completely unhelpful, as a new professor means a new syllabus and often a different textbook for the same course.

Tutorials—seminars in most other departments—are taught by grad students in their area of research. As such, they have a high student-teacher ratio, high grading curve, and even higher esoterica index. Hardly Social Studies 10. However, economics, philosophy, and quantum mechanics classes all count toward the mathematics concentration, and writing a good proof is similar to writing a good legal argument.

Though official data isn’t released, anecdotal evidence suggests a gender ratio that could only be described with the technical terminology “sausage fest”.

Despite the politics surrounding math and gender, men in math are much less likely to be hostile to women than a little scared of them. Abandoning your sexuality at the door of the science center and developing a tolerance for inordinate amusement at phrases, such as “arbitrarily small balls,” usually does the trick.

Ultimately, after battling the demons of Galois theory all night, you throw on a sweatshirt and head to class, and recognize the same post-all-nighter glassy eyes and shaking hands of the kid sitting next to you. Welcome to Mathematics.