Academic Advising
On the first day of camp, you choose an academic advisor from among the faculty, and that person's role is to help you address the question: What kind of academic experience do you want to create this summer?
The possibilities aren't endless, but they're vast: in a single summer, we teach 120+ courses, give 10+ colloquia, and run 20+ small-group projects. You can start a journey in "Intro Number Theory" that continues with "Modular Forms," "Riemann's Explicit Formula," and "Rational Points on Elliptic Curves," or you can try something off the beaten path with "Axiomatic Music Theory" or "Mathematical Art History." Delve into a research topic with one of our proposed projects, or suggest your own topic and we'll find an instructor to mentor you. You can even choose to teach your own class in the last week of Mathcamp (a great way to get deeply familiar with a topic), and we'll pair you with an instructor to coach you on both style and substance as you refine your talks on "The Curse of Dimensionality," "Dirichlet Series," and "A Slice of PIE."
You can choose any instructor to be your advisor (we'll ask you for your top preferences, and then run a matching algorithm to make the assignment); you just pick someone you think you'll be comfortable talking with. You'll meet with your academic advisor on orientation day at the beginning of camp, and then again once a week throughout the program, and they'll help you choose your classes and make sure that you're having a productive, fun summer.
The Mathcamp schedule is so packed that it may seem daunting at first. However, it is important to remember that none of the classes are mandatory. We assume that you are at Mathcamp because you want to do math, but exactly how much time you spend in class is up to you. In fact, we discourage students from going to too many classes. Some of your most important learning experiences will take place outside of class: thinking about what you've learned, doing homework, talking to the visiting lecturers, solving problems with friends, or working on your independent project.
There are no required classes at Mathcamp, and there is no minimum number of classes that you have to attend: you have full control over the design of your schedule. We expect you to do a lot of math (that's why you're at camp!), but we recommend that you do not go to a class in every time slot. Instead, we encourage you to use at least one period a day to review material from your classes, work on homework problems, or just take a break.
