Calendar

The requirements for the undergraduate certificate in applied and computational mathematics consist of:

  1. a total of five courses normally 300 level or higher (requires letter grade; pass/D/fail not accepted), at least two of which are not included in the usual requirements for the candidates' major concentration and
  2. independent work consisting of a paper/course project/computational laboratory, possibly in the context of a course offered by PACM faculty or a senior thesis in the major department with a significant applied mathematics component (subject to approval of the PACM undergraduate representative). This independent work may not be used to satisfy the requirements of any other certificate and if your advisor is not associated with PACM, you will need to select a reader who is and
  3. participation in not-for-credit colloquium sponsored by PACM, providing a forum for presentation and discussion of independent work among all certificate students and introducing them to other areas of applied mathematics.

Coursework Requirement:

The five required courses may vary widely from department to department in order to include a broad spectrum of science and engineering students throughout the University. These courses should fit readily within the degree requirements of the respective departments of the engineering school or the economics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, molecular biology, and ecology and evolutionary biology, or other relevant departments, but will require a particular emphasis in applied mathematics.

The five required courses must be distributed between the following two areas, with at least two from each area:

  1. Mathematical foundations and techniques, including differential equations, real and complex analysis, discrete mathematics, probability, and statistics, typically offered by the Department of Mathematics.
  2. Mathematical applications, including signal processing, control theory, optimization, mathematical economics, typically offered by the economics, science, and engineering departments. 

Specific choices must be approved by the PACM undergraduate representative, Weinan E.

Independent Work Requirement:

The independent work can be completed as part of a course offered by applied and computational mathematics faculty or associated faculty on a wide range of topics of current interest in applied mathematics. Such courses vary from year to year and are designated to satisfy automatically the independent work requirement. Four courses developed and staffed by applied and computational mathematics faculty and offered regularly are the following:

Any other course that students might use to satisfy the independent work requirement must have prior approval from the applied and computational mathematics undergraduate representative. Students may satisfy the independent work requirement outside of a course after consultation with and approval by the undergraduate representative. If the senior thesis option is selected, attempts will be made to coordinate it with departmental requirements.