Major Mondays: Applied Mathematics
Major: Applied Mathematics is a flexible and fundamental major offered in the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. With the option to choose between a Bachelor of Arts (BA) and a Bachelor of Science (BS), the major allows students to really designate what they want to study. It’s a fascinating degree where you truly learn about qualitative reasoning as well as fundamental theories.
Professional Experience: Being a math major has given me unique opportunities and perspectives in a professional setting. I spent the summer of my freshmen year interning with NASA due to my proficiency in binary code, as well as my passion for extraterrestrial communication. A big reason behind my interview success at NASA was thanks to the unique and professional insight I gained from my professors during office hours.
Oftentimes, students like to pair a degree in Mathematics with a minor in Applied Analytics, creating a professional path to working in machine learning and AI development. What’s really cool about mathematics at the moment is that machine learning is in rapid development. As a result, many companies are looking for Math majors capable of working with machine learning concepts and applying advanced mathematics to furthering the science. Mathematics is truly a great major to pursue as it can easily become fundamental to any other area of study – for example, I spent the summer of my sophomore year interning as a software engineer. Despite not being a Computer Science major, my fundamentals in mathematics meant I had a lot of the computational skills required to be a successful software engineer.
Academic Experience: One of my favorite classes that I’ve taken here at USC is a proof-based class. One of the most challenging aspects of the major derives from not knowing how to properly prove something, or utilize proper proof notation, and I find that having a class that explicitly teaches proper proof notation has been essential to my success. MATH 290: Mathematical Reasoning and Problem Solving with Professor Crombeque was such a great experience and I highly recommend it for any students interested in getting a taste of what being a math major entails.
If you’re a prospective student looking to learn more about Mathematics, feel free to reach out to the Dornsife department. Fight on!
Written by: Jami Hah, USC Student Ambassador