Video Transcript – Math

Video Transcript

[Josie Derrick, Undergraduate Student]: Well to me, math is really a tool for understanding the phenomenon that’s going on in the world. It’s way to describe everything that’s happening.

[Grady Wright, Mathematics Professor]: Mathematics to me is part language part utility language, it can be used to describe problems in the sciences very precisely, and it can also be used as utility to solve those problems.

[Josie Derrick]: As I progress and I got into higher mathematics I realized that there was a lot more to math than just plugging in numbers and getting out other numbers.

[Sasha Wang, Associate Professor]: To me it’s not really about the end product it’s more about this process, the process of problem solving and helping me to gain different skills.

[Grady Wright]: It doesn’t have to be a math problem that you have to encounter in order to apply the skills you learn as a math major. It’s about breaking things down and handling the problems in smaller pieces.

[Josie Derrick]: It’s intricate but there’s so many ways that you can approach things when you’re dealing with math in the real world.

[Sam Coskey, Associate Professor]: Students really like math because it’s one of the few areas in life where we can find absolute certainty, certainty in the form of a mathematical proof.

[Grady Wright]: and have succeeded and really flourished once they’ve gotten to college.

[Josie Derrick]: A math major is really welcoming. You have a lot of support and as long as you’re willing to put in the effort to learn the material then anyone can succeed as a math major. Ultimate goal when it really comes to pursuing a math major would be just really developing that understanding, not just of the math and how you do the math, but how that applies to situations and why we really care about what’s going on in math.

[Sam Coskey]: Mathematics includes a lot of different subfields: algebra, analysis, geometry and topology, it also includes probability and statistics. All of these areas have a pure side and an applied side that you can focus on.

[Josie Derrick]: Every professor or instructor etc. that I’ve ever had in any of my math classes is always really encouraged student success. They’ve always seemed to really care about like how well students understand the material not necessarily like what grade we’re getting, the numbers, but really if we’re showing understanding and then our grades really if like reflect what we understand. So professors are super awesome, like I said, they’re really supportive. They’re always willing to explain the material to you because you know they’re really interested in it and they want to help you understand it.

[Sam Coskey]: I have friends and students who have studied math and later gone into finance, consulting, optimization, artificial intelligence, and of course education at all levels. If you’re the kind of person who’s always asking why is that true, how can I find out more about that, what’s a better method than the method I’m using, then a math major might be for you.

[Sasha Wang]: Mathematics nowadays is not just about doing it but also sharing it and that’s why it’s a part of the human activity. It’s not just a thing, it’s the things that we share together.