The following highlights of a Master's program are described in more detail in later sections.
A Master's degree in mathematics has three main requirements.
The graduate director works closely with new students to help them select their courses and to get them off to a good start. Beyond the required courses considerable variety is possible in elective courses. These may be taken in computer science and statistics as well as mathematics. For the applied option courses may be taken in a discipline outside of the mathematical sciences. Electives are chosen to meet each individual student's interests and career objectives.
Although the actual course sequences taken by students are dependent on their own individual situations, there are fairly ``standard'' plans for course work. A sample plan of study for each option is given in the next section. During the second semester of study each student, with the aid of the graduate director , sets up a Master's committee of three faculty members. The chairman and the other two members of this committee advise and oversee the student's progress toward a degree.
Each Master's student, working individually with a faculty member, must complete a creative component, report, or thesis. This project, which provides an excellent opportunity to investigate a topic in an area of special interest to the student, includes writing a paper and giving a public oral presentation. The differences among these options are in the length and the amount of originality required.
Each Master's student must pass a comprehensive examination covering some of the basic concepts in modern mathematics or complete three of the core doctoral sequences.