NSF RTG Research Training Group
Research, honors, awards, and competitions
Students can conduct original research or independent study under the guidance of a faculty member. Possibilities include study of an advanced or special topic, work as a research assistant, participation in a problem-solving seminar, and investigation of open problems as part of an honors project. To get started, a student should find a willing faculty member to help design and oversee the effort; the departmental honors advisor can help with this step. Course credit can be obtained through the numbers MATH 290, 295, 296, or 699 (see http://www.math.unc.edu/for-undergrads/course-descriptions) with the approval of the supervising faculty member and the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Honors, Awards and Competitions
Graduations With Honors
College of Arts and Sciences requirements
Students must have a 3.2 overall grade point average to begin an honors project and must maintain the 3.2 average through the completion of their senior year.
B.A./B.S. Mathematics additional requirements
A student interested in pursuing a degree with Honors should meet before the senior year with the Departmental honors advisor to discuss a plan for fulfilling the requirements for a degree with Honors. The candidate must have a 3.5 grade point average in mathematics courses to begin an honors project and must maintain the 3.5 average through the completion of the senior year.
The candidate will take six advanced courses approved by the Departmental honors advisor and will either:
- complete and report satisfactorily on an independent Honors project; or
- pass an oral examination over five of these courses approved by the honors advisor.
The Honors project is conducted in association with a Departmental faculty member on a topic approved by the Departmental honors advisor, Professor Jason Metcalfe; the final report on the project includes both a written description and an oral presentation before a committee of three faculty (including the project advisor). The committee will then report to the Departmental honors advisor, who, in conjunction with a subcommittee of the Undergraduate Committee, will make the final recommendation on awarding a degree with Honors or Highest Honors.
National Honor Society
Pi Mu Epsilon (PME) is the Honorary National Mathematics Society, founded in 1914. It has more than 300 chapters at colleges and universities throughout the United States.The purpose of PME is the promotion of scholarly activity in mathematics among students. The UNC-CH chapter was founded in 1948. Mathematics majors with a high grade point average (at least 3.0 overall, and 3.5 in mathematics courses) are inducted in the spring semester of their junior or senior year, and the Department pays their first-year dues in recognition of their achievement.
Distinguished scholarships for undergraduate and graduate study
See the Office of Distinguished Scholarships.
Competitions
The William Lowell Putnam Competition is held annually on the first Saturday of December with morning and afternoon sessions. The Department provides lunch between sessions. Our students usually score well above the national average, and have finished as high as tenth in the nation.
The Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Contest is offered on the last Saturday morning in October and makes cash awards for the highest scores in the mid-Atlantic region. UNC students have often won these awards.
The Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) is a yearly team competition run by the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications, emphasizing creative solutions to real-world problems. Teams choose from a continuous and a discrete problem and are expected to formulate a solution and write a paper in a few days. Of the solutions judged "Outstanding" in the MCM, two are chosen to receive the SIAM Award (from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics), one for each problem.