doing a phd in math

• Doing a PhD in Mathematics
• Doing a PhD

What Does a PhD in Maths Involve?

Maths is a vast subject, both in breadth and in depth. As such, there’s a significant number of different areas you can research as a math student. These areas usually fall into one of three categories: pure mathematics, applied mathematics or statistics. Some examples of topics you can research are:

• Number theory
• Numerical analysis
• String theory
• Random matrix theory
• Graph theory
• Quantum mechanics
• Statistical forecasting
• Matroid theory
• Control theory

Besides this, because maths focuses on addressing interdisciplinary real-world problems, you may work and collaborate with other STEM researchers. For example, your research topic may relate to:

• Biomechanics and transport processes
• Evidence-based medicine
• Fluid dynamics
• Financial mathematics
• Machine learning
• Theoretical and Computational Optimisation

What you do day-to-day will largely depend on your specific research topic. However, you’ll likely:

• Continually read literature – This will be to help develop your knowledge and identify current gaps in the overall body of knowledge surrounding your research topic.
• Undertake research specific to your topic – This can include defining ideas, proving theorems and identifying relationships between models.
• Collect and analyse data – This could comprise developing computational models, running simulations and interpreting forecasts etc.
• Liaise with others – This could take many forms. For example, you may work shoulder-to-shoulder with individuals from different disciplines supporting your research, e.g. Computer scientists for machine learning-based projects. Alternatively, you may need frequent input from those who supplied the data for your research, e.g. Financial institutions or biological research colleagues.
• Attend a wide range of lectures, seminars and events.

Browse PhD Opportunities in Mathematics

Application of artificial intelligence to multiphysics problems in materials design, study of the human-vehicle interactions by a high-end dynamic driving simulator, physical layer algorithm design in 6g non-terrestrial communications, machine learning for autonomous robot exploration, detecting subtle but clinically significant cognitive change in an ageing population, how long does it take to get a phd in maths.

The average programme duration for a mathematics PhD in the UK is 3 to 4 years for a full-time studying. Although not all universities offer part-time maths PhD programmes, those that do have a typical programme duration of 5 to 7 years.

Again, although the exact arrangement will depend on the university, most maths doctorates will require you to first register for an MPhil . At the end of your first year, your supervisor will assess your progress to decide whether you should be registered for a PhD.

Additional Learning Modules

Some Mathematics departments will require you to enrol on to taught modules as part of your programme. These are to help improve your knowledge and understanding of broader subjects within your field, for example, Fourier Analysis, Differential Geometry and Riemann Surfaces. Even if taught modules aren’t compulsory in several universities, your supervisor will still encourage you to attend them for your development.

Most UK universities will also have access to specialised mathematical training courses. The most common of these include Pure Mathematics courses hosted by Mathematics Access Grid Conferencing ( MAGIC ) and London Taught Course Centre ( LTCC ) and Statistics courses hosted by Academy for PhD Training in Statistics ( APTS ).

What Are the Typical Entry Requirements for A PhD in Maths?

In the UK, the typical entry requirements for a Maths PhD is an upper second-class (2:1) Master’s degree (or international equivalent) in Mathematics or Statistics [1] .

However, there is some variation on this. From writing, the lowest entry requirement is an upper second-class (2:1) Bachelor’s degree in any math-related subject. The highest entry requirement is a first-class (1st) honours Master’s degree in a Mathematics or Statistics degree only.

It’s worth noting if you’re applying to a position which comes with funding provided directly by the Department, the entry requirements will usually be on the higher side because of their competitiveness.

In terms of English Language requirements, most mathematics departments require at least an overall IELTS (International English Language Testing System) score of 6.5, with no less than 6.0 in each individual subtest.

Tips to Consider when Making Your Application

When applying to any mathematics PhD, you’ll be expected to have a good understanding of both your subject field and the specific research topic you are applying to. To help show this, it’s advisable that you demonstrate recent engagement in your research topic. This could be by describing the significance of a research paper you recently read and outlining which parts interested you the most, and why. Additionally, you can discuss a recent mathematics event you attended and suggest ways in how what you learnt might apply to your research topic.

As with most STEM PhDs, most maths PhD professors prefer you to discuss your application with them directly before putting in a formal application. The benefits of this is two folds. First, you’ll get more information on what their department has to offer. Second, the supervisor can better discover your interest in the project and gauge whether you’d be a suitable candidate. Therefore, we encourage you to contact potential supervisors for positions you’re interested in before making any formal applications.

How Much Does a Maths PhD Typically Cost?

The typical tuition fee for a PhD in Maths in the UK is £4,407 per year for UK/EU students and £20,230 per year for international students. This, alongside the range in tuition fees you can expect, is summarised below:

Note: The above tuition fees are based on 12 UK Universities [1]  for 2020/21 Mathematic PhD positions. The typical fee has been taken as the median value.

In addition to the above, it’s not unheard of for research students to be charged a bench fee. In case you’re unfamiliar with a bench fee, it’s an annual fee additional to your tuition, which covers the cost of specialist equipment or resources associated with your research. This can include the upkeep of supercomputers you may use, training in specialist analysis software, or travelling to conferences. The exact fee will depend on your specific research topic; however, it should be minimal for most mathematic projects.

What Specific Funding Opportunities Are There for A PhD in Mathematics?

Alongside the usual funding opportunities available to all PhD Research students such as doctoral loans, departmental scholarships, there are a few other sources of funding available to math PhD students. Examples of these include:

You can find more information on these funding sources here: DiscoverPhDs funding guide .

What Specific Skills Do You Gain from Doing a PhD in Mathematics?

A doctorate in Mathematics not only demonstrates your commitment to continuous learning, but it also provides you with highly marketable skills. Besides subject-specific skills, you’ll also gain many transferable skills which will prove useful in almost all industries. A sample of these skills is listed below.

• Logical ability to consider and analyse complex issues,
• Commitment and persistence towards reaching research goals,
• Outstanding verbal and written skills,
• Strong attention to detail,
• The ability to liaise with others from unique disciple backgrounds and work as part of a team
• Holistic deduction and reasoning skills,
• Forming and explaining mathematical and logical solutions to a wide range of real-world problems,
• Exceptional numeracy skills.

What Jobs Can You Get with A Maths PhD?

One of the greatest benefits maths PostDocs will have is the ability to pursue a wide range of career paths. This is because all sciences are built on core principles which, to varying extents, are supported by the core principles of mathematics. As a result, it’s not uncommon to ask students what path they intend to follow after completing their degree and receive entirely different answers. Although not extensive by any means, the most common career paths Math PostDocs take are listed below:

• Academia – Many individuals teach undergraduate students at the university they studied at or ones they gained ties to during their research. This path is usually the preferred among students who want to continue focusing on mathematical theories and concepts as part of their career.
• Postdoctoral Researcher – Others continue researching with their University or with an independent organisation. This can be a popular path because of the opportunities it provides in collaborative working, supervising others, undertaking research and attending conferences etc.
• Finance – Because of their deepened analytical skills, it’s no surprise that many PostDocs choose a career in finance. This involves working for some of the most significant players in the financial district in prime locations including London, Frankfurt and Hong Kong. Specific job titles can include Actuarial, Investment Analyst or Risk Modeller.
• Computer Programming – Some students whose research involves computational mathematics launch their career as a computer programmer. Due to their background, they’ll typically work on specialised projects which require high levels of understanding on the problem at hand. For example, they may work with physicists and biomedical engineers to develop a software package that supports their more complex research.
• Data Analyst – Those who enjoy number crunching and developing complex models often go into data analytics. This can involve various niches such as forecasting or optimisation, across various fields such as marketing and weather.

What Are Some of The Typical Employers Who Hire Maths PostDocs?

As mentioned above, there’s a high demand for skilled mathematicians and statisticians across a broad range of sectors. Some typical employers are:

• Education – All UK and international universities
• Governments – STFC and Department for Transport
• Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals – NHS, GSK, Pfizer
• Finance & Banking – e.g. Barclays Capital, PwC and J. P. Morgan
• Computing – IBM, Microsoft and Facebook
• Engineering – Boeing, Shell and Dyson

The above is only a small selection of employers. In reality, mathematic PostDocs can work in almost any industry, assuming the role is numerical-based or data-driven.

How Much Can You Earn with A PhD in Maths?

As a mathematics PhD PostDoc, your earning potential will mostly depend on your chosen career path. Due to the wide range of options, it’s impossible to provide an arbitrary value for the typical salary you can expect.

However, if you pursue one of the below paths or enter their respective industry, you can roughly expect to earn [3] :

Academic Lecturer

• Approximately £30,000 – £35,000 starting salary
• Approximately £40,000 with a few years experience
• Approximately £45,000 – £55,000 with 10 years experience
• Approximately £60,000 and over with significant experience and a leadership role. Certain academic positions can earn over £80,000 depending on the management duties.

Actuary or Finance

• Approximately £35,000 starting salary
• Approximately £45,000 – £55,000 with a few years experience
• Approximately £70,000 and over with 10 years experience
• Approximately £180,000 and above with significant experience and a leadership role.

Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering

• Approximately £28,000 starting salary
• Approximately £35,000 – £40,000 with a few years experience
• Approximately £60,000 and over with 10 years experience

Data Analyst

• Approximately £45,000 – £50,000 with a few years experience
• Approximately £90,000 and above with significant experience and a leadership role.

Again, we stress that the above are indicative values only. Actual salaries will depend on the specific organisation and position and responsibilities of the individual.

Facts and Statistics About Maths PhD Holders

The below chart provides useful insight into the destination of Math PostDocs after completing their PhD. The most popular career paths from other of highest to lowest is education, information and communication, finance and scientific research, manufacturing and government.

Note: The above chart is based on ‘UK Higher Education Leavers’ data [2] between 2012/13 and 2016/17 and contains a data size of 200 PostDocs. The data was obtained from the Higher Education Statistics Agency ( HESA ).

Which Noteworthy People Hold a PhD in Maths?

Alan turing.

Alan Turing was a British Mathematician, WW2 code-breaker and arguably the father of computer science. Alongside his lengthy list of achievements, Turning achieved a PhD in Mathematics at Princeton University, New Jersey. His thesis titled ‘Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals’ focused on the concepts of ordinal logic and relative computing; you can read it online here . To this day, Turning pioneering works continues to play a fundamental role in shaping the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

Ruth Lawrence

Ruth Lawrence is a famous British–Israeli Mathematician well known within the academic community. Lawrence earned her PhD in Mathematics from Oxford University at the young age of 17! Her work focused on algebraic topology and knot theory; you can read her interesting collection of research papers here . Among her many contributions to Maths, her most notable include the representation of the braid groups, more formally known as Lawrence–Krammer representations.

Emmy Noether

Emmy Noether was a German mathematician who received her PhD from the University of Erlangen, Germany. Her research has significantly contributed to both abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Additionally, she proved a groundbreaking theorem important to Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. In doing so, her theorem, Noether’s theorem , is regarded as one of the most influential developments in physics.

Other Useful Resources

Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) – IMA is the UK’s professional body for mathematicians. It contains a wide range of useful information, from the benefits of further education in Maths to details on grants and upcoming events.

Maths Careers – Math Careers is a site associated with IMA that provides a wide range of advice to mathematicians of all ages. It has a section dedicated to undergraduates and graduates and contains a handful of information about progressing into research.

Resources for Graduate Students – Produced by Dr Mak Tomford, this webpage contains an extensive collection of detailed advice for Mathematic PhD students. Although the site uses US terminology in places, don’t let that put you off as this resource will prove incredibly helpful in both applying to and undertaking your PhD.

Student Interviews – Still wondering whether a PhD is for you? If so, our collection of PhD interviews would be a great place to get an insider perspective. We’ve interviewed a wide range of PhD students across the UK to find out what doing a PhD is like, how it’s helped them and what advice they have for other prospective students who may be thinking of applying to one. You can read our insightful collection of interviews here .

[1] Universities used to determine the typical (median) and range of entry requirements and tuition fees for 2020/21 Mathematics PhD positions.

• http://www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse/Graduate/Degree-programmes-2020/MPhilPhD-Mathematics
• https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/dphil-mathematics?wssl=1
• https://www.graduate.study.cam.ac.uk/courses/directory/mapmpdpms
• https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate/research-degrees/mathematics-mphil-phd
• http://www.bristol.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/2020/sci/phd-mathematics/
• https://www.surrey.ac.uk/postgraduate/mathematics-phd
• https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/school-of-mathematics/studying-here/pgr/phd-application
• https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/postgraduate-courses/mathematics-phd/
• https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/phd/degrees/mathematics-phd
• https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/programmes/list/05325/phd-pure-mathematics/
• https://warwick.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research/courses-2020/mathematicsphd/
• https://www.exeter.ac.uk/pg-research/degrees/mathematics/

[2] Higher Education Leavers Statistics: UK, 2016/17 – Outcomes by subject studied – https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/28-06-2018/sfr250-higher-education-leaver-statistics-subjects

[3] Typical salaries have been extracted from a combination of the below resources. It should be noted that although every effort has been made to keep the reported salaries as relevant to Math PostDocs as possible (i.e. filtering for positions which specify a PhD qualification as one of their requirements/preferences), small inaccuracies may exist due to data availability.

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Applied Mathematics - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Mathematics 3 (M3) Building on Waterloo's Campus

Conduct mathematics-based research and generate new knowledge in a multidisciplinary environment with the PhD in Applied Mathematics program.

At North America’s only dedicated Faculty of Mathematics and the #1 school in Canada for mathematics and computer science, you’ll connect theoretical advances and innovative mathematics to develop novel solutions to the pressing problems facing today’s world.   

Through a combination of coursework and original research, you’ll learn cutting-edge applications of mathematical theory in a broad range of fundamental and applied sciences, with five areas of research to choose from including control theory and dynamical systems, fluid mechanics, mathematical medicine and biology, mathematical physics, and scientific computation.  

With the competitive edge provided by mentorship through the Faculty’s connections around the world, you’ll be prepar ed to pursue a career in academia, government or industry.  

Research areas and degree options:

• Control and Dynamical Systems
• Fluid Mechanics
• Mathematical Medicine and Biology
• Mathematical Physics
• Scientific Computing

Program overview

Department/School : Applied Mathematics Faculty : Faculty of Mathematics Admit term(s) : Fall (September - December), Winter (January - April), Spring (May - August) Delivery mode : On-campus Program type : Doctoral, Research Length of program : 48 months (full-time) Registration option(s) : Full-time, Part-time Study option(s) : Thesis

Application Deadlines

• January 15 (for admission in September)
• June 1 (for admission in January of the following year)
• October 1 (for admission in May of the following year)

Key contacts

[email protected]

I see all these great scholars around me, like my supervisor Sue Ann Campbell. And like Anita Layton, Ghazal Geshnizjani, my committee members, and so many others in the department. I see their passion for what they do and their dedication to helping us grad students succeed. It’s very heartening. It motivates me to reach that level where I can give back in the same way. Maliha Ahmed, Applied Mathematics, PhD

Supervisors

• Review the  finding a supervisor resources

Admission requirements

• Minimum grade point average: 78% or its equivalent
• It is absolutely essential that the application for admission into the program contain evidence of potential for performing original research. This should be provided by successful completion of a Master's thesis in a mathematics-related discipline.
• In some circumstances a student enrolled in the MMath program (thesis) in Applied Mathematics may transfer to the PhD program without completing their MMath program

Degree requirements

• Review the   degree requirements   in the Graduate Studies Academic Calendar, including the courses that you can anticipate taking as part of completing the degree
• Check out   Waterloo's institutional thesis repository - UWspace   to see recent submissions from the department of Applied Mathematics graduate students

Application materials

• The SIF contains questions specific to your program, typically about why you want to enrol and your experience in that field. Review the  application documents web page  for more information about this requirement
• If a statement or letter is required by your program, review the  writing your personal statement resources  for helpful tips and tricks on completion
• Transcript(s)
• Three  references , normally from academic sources
• TOEFL 90 (writing 25, speaking 25), IELTS 7.0 (writing 6.5, speaking 6.5)

Tuition and fees

Visit the  graduate program tuition page  on the Finance website to determine the tuition and incidental fees per term for your program

Review living costs and housing

Review the   funding graduate school resources   for graduate students

School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences College of Sciences

Applying to the ph.d in mathematics and statistics with interdisciplinary applications program.

Admission is available for either Fall or Spring semesters. The deadline for Fall admission is February 15 and the deadline for Spring admission is October 15.

The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)   in Mathematics and Statistics with Interdisciplinary Applications is designed to provide a strong mathematics and statistics background to support intense quantitative work in diverse disciplines. The curriculum will prepare scholars to work on problems at the intersection of mathematics, science, engineering, medicine, finance, computer science, and other quantitative disciplines. The program aims to be the most inclusive and broadly interdisciplinary in Texas.

Admissions Requirements

To apply:  Submit a UTRGV Graduate Application at  www.utrgv.edu/gradapply . There is no application fee.

The minimum admissions criteria for this program are:

• B.S. or B.A. in a STEM field or related field, with at least 3 advanced undergraduate courses in  Mathematics from the following: Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Modern Algebra I, Real Analysis I, Probability and Statistics I, Complex Variables OR  Earned a Master's degree in Mathematics or a related field from a regionally accredited institution in the United States or a recognized international equivalent in a similar or related field with at least 3 undergraduate classes as given above;
• Official transcripts from each institution attended (must be submitted directly to UTRGV).
• Personal Statement.
• Curriculum Vita.
• Three letters of recommendation. 

Note: GRE is no longer required.

Applicants whose native language is not English or who studied at a university outside the U.S. have the following additional requirements:

Foreign Credential Evaluation

International credentials (transcripts) must be evaluated through an approved evaluation service. The evaluation is the sole responsibility of the applicant and must be submitted for evaluation to one of the following credential evaluation services:   World Education Services   (WES),  Foreign Credential Service of America  (FCSA),  SPANTRAN  or  International Education Evaluations  (IEE).  Applicants are required to select the course-by-course report option. General reports are not sufficient

English Proficiency Exam Scores

Students whose native language is not English will be expected to provide test scores for either the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or Duolingo.  The minimum scores are given below:

TOEFL Minimum Scores

• 550 Paper-Based
• 213 Computer-based
• 79 Internet-Based

TOEFL Essentials Minimum Scores

IELTS Minimum Score

To find out if your country is exempt from the English Proficiency requirement, please check here .

Other requirements for international students

For further details on international admissions, please see International Admissions .

PhD GTA/GRA positions

SMSS offers a limited number of highly-competitive Graduate Teaching Assistantships (GTAs). Graduate Research Assistantships (GRA) may also be available. Generally, these positions offer tuition support and a monthly stipend of up to $2,400 per month during the academic year. Additional summer support may also be available. All full-time applicants will be considered for any available opportunities.

Math Misery?

"do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. i assure you, mine are still greater." -albert einstein, should i get a phd … in math.

If you’re asking this question, then the answer is “Yes, go and work towards a PhD.”

Now for some details.

Every so often (about once a semester), I have a student, a friend, an acquaintance, a client, etc. ask me if they should “get a PhD in Mathematics”. But that’s actually not where the question ends nor is that really the question. Usually the back story is as follows:

• The person is thinking about graduate school in a technical discipline because they happen to be reasonably good with mathematics (and for the sciences, being reasonably good, at least mechanically, at mathematics is a prerequisite).
• They have a burning desire for something beyond what their undergraduate curriculum offers.
• They’ve been in the workforce for some time and now want to go back to graduate school — these folks often have a science, engineering, or math undergraduate degree and their work environment has been technical.

From here the following types of statements are said when the individual goes to seek out the opinions of friends and colleagues for getting a PhD in Mathematics:

• Don’t get a PhD, you’ll have no job prospects.
• All you can do with a PhD in Math is teach and you won’t make a lot of money.
• You’ll be overqualified for industry positions.
• Don’t get a PhD, you’ll be an expert in something that only 10 people know about.
• You have to publish papers all the time to keep your professor position.

Some half-truths, some full-blown lies.

Zeroth, who says that there are no job prospects? What is their background? Where / how are they making this claim? Every time I ask these sets of questions, the demographics of the folks who discourage others from further academic pursuit of mathematics are folks who themselves have either failed out of a PhD program or had made their decision to stop further pursuit because of someone else who told them not to. It would be like me saying to someone, don’t pursue a career in Graphic Design, you’re just going to spend the whole time touching up other people’s crappy design work. I’m not a Graphic Designer! I don’t work in that capacity! And even if I did work in that capacity, then seek out a few other opinions! This guy is an awesome graphic designer (he’s my brother).

First, check out 101 Careers in Mathematics . I haven’t read it, but the title alone should be convincing.

Next, at a personal level. I work and have worked as a mathematician in industry. I also teach part-time. I regularly get messages or phone calls from recruiters about full-time opportunities for someone with a strong mathematical and technical background. Depending on the recruiter, it can be hit or miss. Some recruiters don’t really understand the expertise and just see math, math, math, everywhere on my resumé. The recruiters that don’t understand my background will send me full-time positions for Bachelor’s degree candidates. Technical recruiters tend to have a better time understanding the various backgrounds. I am overqualified for some positions, mis-qualified for others, underqualified still for others, or a perfect match. This qualification problem is going to happen no matter what degree one holds. The best thing I can do for myself is to see which positions are within my technical expertise, but for which I am underqualified and start learning those topics. I may not want to apply for that job, but it’s an indication of something I don’t know.

I ran a Math department for a few years in the corporate world with three US offices directly reporting to me and a total of eight global offices over which I had policy oversight. I didn’t do the math in the Math department — I hired people with math and computer science backgrounds to take care of the day-to-day mechanical work. What I had to do was set up sensible and rigorous math policy, field technical questions from clients, create efficient processes, explain the mathematical underpinnings of certain methods to non-math savvy regulators, etc. — in effect, I was a business manager with a very technical background. That is exactly what was needed for that position. The company needed someone who was external facing who could speak about mathematical topics with proven authority in the field without speaking in subscripts.

I now work in a consulting role. I work with organizations to help streamline business processes so that they are cost-efficient without sacrificing quality. How do I do that? I write programs. I analyze the entire product development life cycle and see where bottlenecks are. I track relevant and necessary statistics to measure how effective these processes are. I also run pre-analysis to give a sense of what the expected gains are of a new process or method. And it doesn’t stop there. I also look at existing technical code and see where things can be more efficient.

Some of my clients are also individuals who are working professionals. Some are going through a career change, others just feel that they are falling behind the times and want to get “caught up”. Career changes often requires going back to school, taking some type of graduate school entrance exam, taking a statistics course, etc. Those who feel they are falling behind really just want to learn how to program. I’ve worked with company vice presidents, small business owners, working professionals returning to school for an MBA (for example), medical doctors, finance professionals, and even aspiring math teachers. I have yet to work with a school — I would love to do that, but I’ve found that there’s an immense amount of red tape. Anyone know how I can go about working with a school — math training, professional development, software development, leadership training, classroom management, “cool math stuff seminars”, etc.?

Finally, it is true that there are many teaching positions available with a PhD in Mathematics. It is also true that it is not all fun and glamour, living the life of luxury of an esteemed professor’s life. But tell me, how many other career choices are that glamorous? And if you wanted glamour, go do something else! Either that or solve a popular and open problem in mathematics. Then you’ll have fame! People confuse the fact that there are many teaching positions with there are only teaching positions.

If you are thinking about working towards a PhD in Mathematics and do not want to teach, then absolutely, you must learn to program. Without a reasonably strong programming background, there are fewer industry positions available (“fewer” does not equal “none”). If you do want to teach mathematics, I’d still encourage you to learn to program. It will help with teaching. Students will want to see the theory in action and not just in an academic setting. This is how I teach many of the “applied” courses or units like Graph Theory, Probability, Statistics, Personal Finance, etc.

The point here is that the degree is the degree and in some sense it’s irrelevant, but, if you have the degree and can actually put it to use, there are opportunities beyond teaching. A PhD in Mathematics is not somehow making a person unemployable. It just means that the type of employment one will find is different.

“Getting” a PhD

One does not “get” a PhD by hanging around in the system for a bunch of years. Unlike Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees where the majority of the requirement is to complete coursework in an academically satisfactory way, a PhD is not quite the same. There are few courses that one actually takes as “requirement”. The majority of the time is spent doing research, writing papers, giving talks, and even perhaps, networking within the math community.

Several of the people who have been interested in a PhD were under the impression that the process works as follows: 4 years for a Bachelor’s, 2 years for a Master’s, and then 4 years for a PhD. That may be a reasonable average for the length of time that it takes, but the content is different. The Bachelor’s programs are coursework heavy, with perhaps a senior project that is professor-led. The Master’s degree also tends to be coursework heavy. But there are two types of Master’s degrees. There is the Master’s degree that is not research-oriented, and then there’s a Master’s degree that is research-oriented. The research-oriented degrees are typically set ups for entrance into the PhD program. The non-research-oriented degree is coursework heavy and does not often require the same focus on theory as the research-oriented Master’s degree does. The two degrees have a lot of overlap, but there are nuanced differences in coursework.

Getting into a PhD program often requires the completion of the Master’s level coursework. Some programs award a Master’s degree and then require that the student “reapply” for the PhD program by successfully passing a grueling set of exams known as “Qualifying Exams” (“quals”). Once a student has passed the quals, they are admitted into the PhD program and are now considered to be a PhD Candidate. Other programs have one of two tracks — a Master’s track or a PhD track. If one enters the PhD track, it’s do or die and there’s no Master’s degree awarded regardless of the outcome. If one enters the Master’s track, then they have to apply to a different university for their PhD.

Your Advisor And Your Research

As I said earlier, the PhD is not a degree that one just “gets”. There is a “Master / Apprentice” type relationship between the PhD Candidate and his/her Advisor. There are many, many horror stories of tyrannical advisors who work their apprentices into the ground. I’ve been witness to a few of these incidents. It’s a bit scary and terrifying to have one maniacal individual control several years of a person’s life. For this reason, if you are pursuing a PhD in Mathematics (or any field), choose your advisor very carefully. You will be working with him/her closely for many an hour.

I had the great fortune of having probably the best advisor a student could have. Not only was he a capable and energetic researcher, he was patient, thoughtful, kind, and knew how to work with a variety of personalities and work habits. He left me alone to fiddle. I did a lot of work under him. He pushed me to present and publish. But in all of this, he was never once a tyrant. This is the type of person you want as your advisor. So, when you are working on your Master’s degree towards your PhD, pay close attention to graduate and research faculty. Interact with them. See how they treat their graduate students.

Your advisor, if you are able to cultivate a healthy relationship with him/her, will be your mentor for your life. It really is a Master / Apprentice relationship. You just have to decide if your Master is a Sith Lord or a Jedi Master and then you have to decide what you will become.

Your research is your baby. Nurture it, grow it, cultivate it, and stay with it. That’s a mistake I’ve made. I haven’t kept up with research mostly because I am not working in academia full-time. Regardless, I still make it a point to read the latest in the literature and keep fresh in my mind the things I worked on. One day I will get back into it.

Your research trajectory isn’t necessarily going to go the way you planned. You may start out studying Partial Differential Equations, but before you know it, as you wind through the maze that is Mathematics research, you may find yourself deeply immersed in Stochastic Calculus. Don’t pigeonhole yourself from the outset. Let research take you where it takes you and be excited about everything.

Research is not easy business. There are going to be many, many failures. Some even soul-crushing. My first soul-crushing failure was when one of my research papers was already published in full-generality! I had done an extensive literature review and had found nothing on the topic. Every few months I would do searches and nothing. Then once I had all my results ready and the paper written, I did one last literature review and wouldn’t you know, someone had already published it!

Research is open-ended. There is no textbook solution to the problem you are working on. There is no readily applicable theory. There are no existing methods. This is what you are doing. You are crafting the theory. You are devising the method. You are working on an unsolved problem, however esoteric as it may seem.

Failures define us just as much as our successes do. The sooner we can learn from our mistakes, overcome the setbacks, and get back on our feet, the closer we are to success. Working towards a PhD is not for the weak-willed and it isn’t a degree one just gets.

As I said at the beginning, if you are contemplating working towards a PhD, then do it. Do your homework with respect to who your advisor is, what research specialty you may want to start with, what the university program looks like, what the Math department looks like, etc. Ignore all the silly reasons that people give you about job prospects and the like. Anyone who tells you “don’t learn anymore”, isn’t your friend. Jettison them from your life, immediately.

10 thoughts on “ Should I Get A PhD … In Math? ”

Thank you for your post! I also really enjoy mathematics. I graduated with a Bachelor in Health Science with a minor in business with College Algebra and Calculus 1 courses completed. So fun. I am currently signed up to complete my Masters in Accounting degree, however, I also want to pursue mathematics. I considered completed my Masters in Accounting with a minor in mathematics, and then going on to a PhD in Mathematics. The reason I am considering a Masters in Accounting is due to the “job security,” as well as I kind of enjoy accounting, and the potential to work from home. I know I really enjoy mathematics, and it is one of the subjects that I caught on to the easiest throughout school. I didn’t have to study near as long with math, as I did with other subjects. (1) Moreover, would me pursing a Masters in Accounting with a minor in mathematics, and then going on to pursue a PhD in Mathematics a smart choice? Or should I plan to pursue a Masters in Mathematics, and then go on to the PhD in Mathematics? As a note, the path I would like to pursue with mathematics is to teach mathematics one day. Learning to program sounds cool too. Also, knowing what mathematics scholarships are available out there would be very helpful. (2) Do you know of any math scholarships that I can apply for? Thanks! Melissa Coppola

Thank you for the post…i am having few questions …. what are the benefits that a PhD in mathematics person get…..why should one do PhD in mathematics ..i mean a person is interested but he/she is confused in why one should do PhD ..what are the benifits in future after completing PhD . please reply for the same

Thank you for the post. I have dreamed of learning advanced math since I was in primary school, I have loved math so much, that I had spent my secondary school summers on learning math, solving math questions and equations, I had such a desire for learning math, that it was all I was thinking of and practicing, and I was very good at it. Now, when I graduated from secondary school, I was one of the top students in my country, and though I wanted to pursue a degree in a math related subjects, I ended up pursued to enter medical school, which ended miserably with a low GPA in Health Science. ;( Now I find myself dreaming about math again, wishing if things where different Anyways, do I have a chance? I did not study math at college, I am eager to study math again, I would love to spend up to 12 hours a day every single day studying math, I would feel energetic and happy. Do you have any advice for me, thanks.

Thanks for writing! I don’t know your exact situation, but if you have the time and resources, then absolutely pursue mathematics as you’ve wanted to all along! Generally, and broadly speaking, if you’ve been out of touch with mathematics (formally) for a while, don’t be surprised if it takes a little bit of time getting yourself back up to speed. Be patient, continue to work at it, and always try to ask ‘why’ when studying! Let me know how you are proceeding!

Thank you so much! Weeps.

You’re quite welcome!

Thank you for the post. I’m currently preparing to apply to a graduate program this January after 5+ years of community college teaching. This is great advice and quite encouraging.

By the way, what you say about your advisor is absolutely true, he taught my undergrad multivariable calculus course at Ball State when he was a postdoc. He was fantastic.

I’m so happy to know that this has helped in some way! And yes, Giray is great.

Thank you for this. I really want to study mathematics.. but right now I feel like a lot of door are closed since I pursued a different path. I still have a yearning. I have to see how that path will unfold. Your piece has helped a lot! Thanks

Thank you so much for your words! I’m glad this has helped. Feel free to get in touch if you need a sounding board!

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IIT Bombay Department of Mathematics

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2016 ). With state-of-the art infrastructural facilities and a sound research base, IITB Mathematics offers a Ph.D. programme in a wide variety of areas. The program leading to the Ph.D. degree involves a course credit requirement and a research project leading to thesis submission. All that you need to know about admissions to our PhD program can be found in the information brochure for PhD admissions, which can be found at the following link. ----- A special welcome to all who wish to pursue a career in Mathematics and Statistics research. The Department of Mathematics, IITB offers a Ph.D. program in a wide variety of areas. To know more about the research interests of faculty members, please visit the page here . The program leading to the Ph.D. degree involves a course credit requirement, clearing of qualifier examinations and a research project leading to thesis submission. For more details, follow one of the links below

A special welcome to all who wish to pursue a career in Mathematics and Statistics research. The Department of Mathematics, IITB offers Ph.D. program in the areas of Mathematics and Statistics. Admission to the PhD program is based on a written test and interview. There are separate written tests and interviews for students in Mathematics and Statistics. The syllabus is given below. Students are required to choose one option specifying either Mathematics or Statistics.

To know more about the research interests of faculty members, please visit the page here . The program leading to the Ph.D. degree involves a course credit requirement, clearing of qualifier examinations and a research project leading to thesis submission. For more details, follow one of the links below

Syllabus for Entrance exam can be found here Past question papers can be found here

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Stanford graduate school of education relaunches school’s in podcast.

From exploring entrepreneurship in education, to discussing the use of AI chatbots in the classroom, Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) Dean Dan Schwartz and Senior Lecturer Denise Pope are back hosting the School’s In podcast with a new lineup of expert guests and insights to help navigate the future of education.

The award-winning podcast relaunches after a two-year hiatus with 12 episodes and a new look, yet the same playful and straight talking hosts that School’s In listeners have come to know and love.

“I think the themes we cover this season are really important and often top of mind for educators and parents,” Pope said. “Our goal is also to help people get to know the amazing faculty members at the GSE and to have some fun along the way.”

The first episode of the new season features GSE Professor Thomas Dee discussing his research on post-pandemic learning and absenteeism in public schools.

“One of the reasons I do these podcasts is I get to learn from the faculty and their research –  it’s always interesting,” Schwartz said. “To be able to ask them questions, to follow up and think of questions that the listener might ask, really helps me understand it better.”

We spoke with the hosts about what to expect from the new season and what it’s like working together.

Why is the podcast important and who’s it for?

Dan: I think everybody has had a lot of experience with education, but I don’t think they can easily tap into the vantage of people who are studying it, who have a bigger horizon to make sense of things. School’s In brings the expertise and discoveries of our faculty into the conversation so people can benefit from them. 

Denise: The podcast is for parents and educators, or really anyone who is interested in hot topics in education. And for the Stanford community – both alumni and current students, faculty and staff – it offers another way to learn about each other as well as the subject matter.

I think there’s a lot of information out there and it’s really hard to know if it’s coming from a worthy source, if this information is correct, or if it’s at a level most can understand. I see the podcast as a way to translate really cutting-edge information into usable knowledge for people every day, which is really important to me.

How are the topics in this season relevant to what’s going on in the world?

Dan: This year, I think the episodes are really about meeting the moment. With COVID, the emergence of new technologies, the mental health crisis in our youth – there are big issues this year that people want to know about. This is an amazing period of time to share meaningful insights.

Denise: With everything we’re doing, we’re thinking what’s front-of-mind for listeners that we can offer insight because either our Stanford researchers are studying it, or it’s something we know will be studied.

What’s it like working together?

Dan: With Denise? She’s a great colleague. We have a good brother-sister rapport, and she’s phenomenal at summarizing things at the end of each episode. She also has this dulcet voice that’s really nice and rings like a bell.

Denise: I love working with Dan on the podcast. One of my favorite things about working with Dan is when we prep for a show by discussing themes, and then think of personal stories that relate. He has had such a diverse career, so I really look forward to hearing his stories and learning about his past teaching adventures. 

What’s different this season?

Dan: There’s a slightly new organization to it that we think will get into the topics at hand more quickly, but also keep it lively. There’s a little more foreshadowing of what’s going to be in the podcast, so we’ll see if the audience likes that.

Denise: Video is a different element that we’re introducing this season, so that’s kind of exciting. We are also offering more tips at the end for some of the episodes. We are also experimenting with some new formats for the show. I am excited to see how it all goes.

Check out the first episode of the new season of School's In, featuring Tom Dee, below.

Tom Dee (00:00):

Basically an additional six and a half million kids in K-12 public schools are now chronically absent.

Dan Schwartz (00:08):

Today we're tackling one of the most significant challenges post-pandemic, learning loss and chronic absenteeism. Our guest is Tom Dee. He's a professor at the Graduate School of Education and he's an expert in education policy and economics. He's also been deeply involved in researching the impact of Covid-19 on students' academic performance and their attendance.

Denise Pope (00:29):

Welcome to School's In, [00:00:30] your go-to podcast for cutting-edge insights in learning. Each episode, we dive into the latest trends, innovations, and challenges facing learners. I'm Denise Pope, senior lecturer at Stanford GSE and co-founder of Challenge Success, and I'm with my co-host, Dan Schwartz, Dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education, and the faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning.

Dan Schwartz (01:00):

[00:01:00] Denise, so good to see you. I hope you're doing well. It's good to be here and I'm looking forward to our show today, as always.

Denise Pope (01:08):

Me too, Dan. I'm so excited. It's going to be a really good one. If you were long-time listeners, we are so glad to have you back. We are so appreciative. And if you're new, we're glad you found us.

Dan Schwartz (01:21):

Denise, it is so good to hear the dulcet tones of your voice yet again.

Denise Pope (01:25):

Dan Schwartz (01:26):

I'm so glad we're back together.

Denise Pope (01:27):

It's very exciting.

Tom has [00:01:30] been spending a lot of time looking into what's happening in schools post-pandemic, and in today's episode we're going to hear about his research on learning loss and absenteeism, and we're going to discuss what schools and parents can do to help students get back on track. So important.

Tom, we are thrilled to have you here. So we're going to just go ahead and dig in with the big question, just how much learning was lost during the pandemic?

Tom Dee (01:54):

Thank you, and thanks for having me. So in terms of learning loss, pretty substantial. So [00:02:00] basically 20 years of test score gains have been wiped out with particularly large losses in math and smaller ones in reading. For those in the audience who used to listening or reading about education research, on the order of 10 to 15% of a standard deviation. So pretty substantial. But those gains over 20 years were more modest than we would like.

But I also think there are important dimensions of the pandemic learning loss that we have yet to understand. [00:02:30] In particular, what a lot of my work done in collaboration with journalists and collecting data on enrollment has shown is that the kids who experienced the most substantial disruptions missing pre-K, skipping kindergarten, switching schools, were our very youngest learners who are just beginning to age into testing windows where we'll really know about how their trajectories have changed.

So we're going to learn a lot more in the next few years about that as those kids grow up. And [00:03:00] I've argued in some of my writing too, it creates a kind of bias in our discourse because we look where the light shines, we look at the older kids in tested grades, but there may be very serious harm to the kids who aren't yet in the penumbra of that light. It's not shining on them yet.

Denise Pope (03:19):

That's a little scary.

Dan Schwartz (03:22):

No, I've been worried about this. In particular, is there a developmental window that closes that there was some kinds of learnings that you can't get [00:03:30] at another age? Language acquisition gets a lot harder as you get older. I'll be interested to see the results.

Tom Dee (03:37):

Also though, I want to stress a kind of historical-minded perspective on this because anyone who's studied education knows that crisis rhetoric comes up as regularly as the sun. And so I have that in the back of my mind as I'm sitting here saying, this feels very much like a crisis, that we've said this before, but we really mean it this time.

[00:04:00] But I think it is serious both because of that learning loss, because of the enrollment disruptions, but even more disturbingly what we're seeing about how kids are readjusting to a kind of return to normal and in-person instruction. And with some of the most recent work I've done in collaboration with the Associated Press has underscored this, that we've seen a near doubling of chronic absenteeism among students in the '21 - '22 school year. And all the data available [00:04:30] to us suggests that has persisted into the '22 - '23 school year, and to suggest a large scale failure of many kids to fully reintegrate into schooling as we knew it before the pandemic.

Dan Schwartz (04:43):

Yeah. So tell us more about that research. Part of my reaction to learning loss if I'm feeling jaded is does it really matter if kids graduate with one year less of schooling? At 12th grade you're not doing anything anyway, so [00:05:00] I can be sort of jaded. But then, if there's this part where there's sort of these lingering effects that are just going to keep cascading through the system, I start to get very, very worried. So say more about how you found out.

Tom Dee (05:12):

Yeah. Well, on how we found out, I mean this was really my work and my collaborators at the Associated Press most recently trying to infill the deep inadequacies of the data systems that the pandemic has exposed. Because I had been hearing scattered anecdotal accounts from districts [00:05:30] and a state or two that my gosh, chronic absenteeism has really spiked. And so there was a kind of folk wisdom among the cognoscente that this appeared to be a problem, but nothing like comprehensive data.

So I mounted this effort to go state by state and collect, verify and draw together those data, and that was the substance of the report that I put out in August. And the linked reporting from the Associated Press have documented that doubling, basically an additional [00:06:00] six and a half million kids in K-12 public schools are now chronically absent.

Denise Pope (06:06):

Tom, can you define chronically absent, because I don't know if people understand what that actually means?

Tom Dee (06:11):

Yeah, that's a great point. Thanks, Denise. It basically refers to kids who are missing 10% or more of school days for any reason, excused or unexcused. The typical school year has about 180 school days, so we're talking about kids missing typically 18 days or more. And this is a metric [00:06:30] that's really come into broad use as a kind of index for barriers to learning under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. Because schools were given a lot more flexibility to move beyond test scores and thinking about how they were meeting kids' needs, and chronic absenteeism became kind of instantiated as a very widely used measure.

And that's why I was able to collect these data because for the last five or six years, virtually all states have been reporting that. So we were able to get data covering [00:07:00] 92% of school kids across the US.

Denise Pope (07:04):

So it's missing 18 days. They don't have to be all in a row, just 18 days-

Tom Dee (07:09):

That's right-

Denise Pope (07:10):

... the course of a school year. What was interesting is you said excused or unexcused absences.

Tom Dee (07:16):

That's right. And it's very intentionally meant to be this sort of very broad index for, could be in school, out of school factors that are just inhibiting kids opportunities to learn.

Denise Pope (07:27):

Because you get Covid and [00:07:30] you can't go back when you're testing positive. That's practically in the old days, that was 14 days. I know it's less now. I think it's like five or six at schools, but still, you're like a third of the way there, you get Covid once.

Tom Dee (07:41):

I think that's right. And that raises the questions of how do we understand this sharp rise in chronic absenteeism? And I tried to engage that in my analysis. I think we're going to need richer, more disaggregated data to do this really definitively.

But basically I linked the state level growth in chronic absenteeism to a variety of candidate [00:08:00] factors that might explain it, the prevalence of Covid infections during that year kids were returning to school, the presence of bans on wearing masks or requirements to wear masks, information on CDC data on the deterioration in student mental health over this period, enrollment change. We might think that the differential exodus from public schools during the pandemic could mechanically create changes in the chronic absenteeism rate.

[00:08:30] None of these seem to explain the state level growth. Only one thing really did. And that was the extent to which during the previous 2020 - '21 school year, schools had been in remote only instruction. If the schools had been closed during that first full school year during the pandemic, predicted much higher chronic absenteeism when kids returned to school in fall of 2021.

So again, this is just [00:09:00] correlational, it's not definitive evidence, but it's consistent with the idea that the major factor was kids falling out of the habit of going to school or maybe parents no longer seeing the value in regular school attendance.

Dan Schwartz (09:14):

So Tom, the threshold of 10% is interesting to me. How do you choose it? I guess the question behind it is, is there a strong linear slope between absenteeism and school grades [00:09:30] or school achievement tests, or is it more of a dogleg that suddenly when you hit 18 days, test scores start to get affected?

Tom Dee (09:38):

Yeah, I don't think there's anything sacrosanct about that particular threshold. The way researchers commonly do, they alight upon it for a variety of reasons. But we see similar reductions in attendance. And all the evidence I've seen is that across all margins, attending school more is beneficial to kids on a variety of outcome indicators. [00:10:00] But there's nothing particularly sacred about the way we've chosen to define.

Dan Schwartz (10:05):

I'm worried about parents out there. If their kid misses four days, are they going to do worse, like six days or should the parents relax?

Tom Dee (10:14):

I think first they should relax 'cause being relaxed probably makes them better parents, but they should also try to make sure their kids are in school as much as they can healthfully be.

Dan Schwartz (10:29):

When [00:10:30] you were a kid, did your parents let you skip school and did they force you to make it up?

Denise Pope (10:36):

I was a kid a long time ago, Dan. That's asking me to really think back. I can tell you, it's sort of funny that you're asking this because we have this story in my family that my grandmother tells about missing school. So I'm going to sidestep that question and just tell you the grandma story for a second, which is I don't know why, but this comes up at family dinners where she'll say, "You know, I was absent on the one day that they [00:11:00] were teaching square root," and she always would say square root. And she said, "And I've regretted it my whole life."

So when any of our kids or at this dinner would say, "Oh, they weren't excited to go back to school," or whatever, she would say, "You know, be careful 'cause you could miss the one day where you learn square root." And so it's like ...

Dan Schwartz (11:19):

I had that experience.

Denise Pope (11:21):

What do you mean?

Dan Schwartz (11:22):

Oh, it was statistics in graduate school and there was one day where I was tired too much and I missed it. And it's turned out every year a graduate [00:11:30] student asks me exactly about the thing I missed. And I bluff. I do a good job of bluffing, but it is pretty amazing. It was that one, one day.

Tom, time to recover. How are schools doing? Anything working especially well?

Tom Dee (11:51):

I think we've got a few bright spots. I mean, there's a great deal of enthusiasm, for example, around providing tutoring opportunities for kids, though I think [00:12:00] real challenges in doing that well and at scale.

I think I'm also encouraged by the fact there's really good evidence on tier one initial strategies to promote school attendance among kids and tactics that are low cost and scalable with fidelity. In particular, there've been a number of carefully designed experiments that simply will communicate to parents through texting or through postcards, personalized information about how their child is [00:12:30] doing, that they might be missing too much school.

And there's some interesting design elements that are kind of psychologically informed that can enhance the impact of that. So for example, what in the literature is called social norming, saying this is where your kid is and this is where their classroom peers are. Adding that little bit of social context can be impactful.

And also attending to the language used in that communication, making it less judgmental and instead kind of underscoring shared purpose around having kids [00:13:00] attend school regularly. But getting that communication out is low cost, can be done at scale with great fidelity. And I think any school district that's not doing that now should really look into making that happen.

Dan Schwartz (13:13):

Tom, you're going to get a postcard from me pretty soon about the social norms of faculty.

Denise Pope (13:19):

Who else is showing up?

Tom Dee (13:20):

I don't think I'll be alone.

Denise Pope (13:23):

Is part of this just making it more attractive to go to school, making school more fun and exciting? Is part of this just like [00:13:30] school seems like boring and they took all the fun stuff away?

Tom Dee (13:34):

Well, I don't know that the school has changed per se, as much as just people's sense of engagement with it. I think we really, this is purely subjective on my part, as I said again in my home office, but we fell out of the habit of regularly going to the place of work or study, and I think that's proved enduring for kids in ways that are going to be problematic.

Dan Schwartz (13:57):

So Denise, you underestimate habits. [00:14:00] I'm wearing pajamas now at the office so..

Denise Pope (14:03):

We got out of the habit of coming in every day. That was our kids that were the adults. That was a bunch of us. Right? That's one theory.

Dan Schwartz (14:13):

So Tom, you did some interesting work on a reading curriculum or an interesting approach that showed some catch up effects. So talk a little bit about this study and intervention.

Tom Dee (14:24):

Yeah. And this is part of the Science of Reading debate, which I just think is one of the most fascinating issues in education [00:14:30] research and policy right now. Many listeners may be familiar with the decades-long reading wars, which basically had researchers and policymakers sparring over the best way to teach, in particular young learners how to read. And it pitted an older tradition of more phonics-based instruction against a newer tradition based on whole language and then a kind of middle ground called balanced literacy that purported to combine the two.

So there's been [00:15:00] that long-standing debate, but a shift in recent years I think, and a sense that the science of reading, which includes for young readers more phonics-based instruction is really the right way to go. Now the problem we have is that efforts to really make that happen in the classroom simply haven't worked.

There was a major federal initiative as part of No Child Left Behind that had no effects on student outcomes. And there've been a variety of state level initiatives that purport [00:15:30] to push out and encourage teachers to use science of reading practices and haven't really worked.

Now, we studied a California initiative that targeted the 70 lowest achieving elementary schools in California and came out of a legal settlement. The state had been sued for violating its constitutional obligation to educate children and to provide them with early literacy skills. As a result, they took around $50 million and directed it towards science [00:16:00] of reading pedagogy in these schools. And in a recent study with a Stanford doctoral student, we found looking over the first two years of that program that it really appears to be working. It's moving the needle on reading achievement in meaningful ways.

Denise Pope (16:14):

Okay. I have a hypothesis about this, and you can shoot me down, Tom 'cause you're the expert, but here's my hypothesis. When I was reading about this, they said they weren't just handing people a curriculum to use saying, "This is the Science of Reading curriculum, use it." But that money was going toward professional [00:16:30] development for educators, it was involving parents in this, and maybe you can say more about that, but it was doing a lot more than just saying, "Go back to those boring phonics instruction books."

Tom Dee (16:45):

Yeah, this is such an important question Denise, because I think generally in education, when we see a policy effort that appears to have been impactful, we have such trouble replicating it and doing it a second time. So I think it's really important to pay attention to the unique design and implementation [00:17:00] details of what went on with this money. And it was this, seems like this delicate balance between being prescriptive and also providing school flexibility.

So just to sketch it out briefly, they began by offering eligible schools money to develop school level literacy action plans and support in the contours of that, making it consistent with the science of reading.

Then they provided oversight of those plans and looked at the proposed budgets before approving them. They gave [00:17:30] schools, it was over half a million dollars for three years to implement those plans on average and gave them broad spending guidelines, four different categories that could include professional development for teachers, additional instructional support staff, strategies for family and engagement, money for new textbooks and things of that sort. So broad guidelines, but then flexibility within them for schools to kind of design their own plan.

So I think these kind of design features are probably really critical [00:18:00] for the early success of this program. That balance of being prescriptive in evidence-based ways and flexible in ways that engage substantive change within the school and ultimately critically within the classroom.

Dan Schwartz (18:15):

So is it possible that the gains were just because the school got aligned as opposed to the science of reading? Everybody's lined up, right? They're consistent. They're coherent. There's an agreement. Is it possible this is what's driving these results [00:18:30] as opposed to the science of reading?

Tom Dee (18:32):

Well, that might be because there is that embedded in it, but there's always this challenge in understanding the impact of these kinds of policy initiatives because they're so multifaceted. And so there's often this effort when we see it's having an effect to say, "Okay, I see it was doing seven different things." It probably compelled some instructional coherence and alignment as you're describing along with the science of reading.

And so people will commonly ask what the special [00:19:00] sauce is. And I'm at a point where sometimes I think that question is too reductive and to think that there could be one singular silver bullet within it because they may interact in ways that aren't additive and they really have to be there together as complements.

But if we were to learn, it was really about forcing instructional coherence and alignment, I'm happy to claim that is the reason for the success. I have no history in the reading wars, [00:19:30] but I'd be curious what perspectives you guys have on that long-standing debate.

Denise Pope (19:35):

Well, there's actually an entire School's In show on the reading wars where Dan and I enter into a debate with Rebecca Silverman here, who's at the School of Education. So our listeners can find that one. It's a very juicy, interesting debate that if my memory serves, Dan and I completely lost to whatever the competition was that Rebecca was setting up about is it this or this? And we always [00:20:00] chose the wrong one. So I don't know. Dan, do you have a strong opinion, phonics versus whole language?

Dan Schwartz (20:05):

I'm a math science guy.

Denise Pope (20:08):

Way to skirt.

Dan Schwartz (20:09):

How's that?

Way to skirt the issue.

Denise Pope (20:10):

The thing I always wonder is how these wars get started is a war between ... I mean, it's like two faculty member quibbling with each other. How did it become a war?

Tom Dee (20:19):

Well, I think this is actually really fascinating. For all the attention that reading wars and the science of reading has received, at some level I feel it's as if it's not enough. Because when I think about [00:20:30] if you believe the science of reading and phonics-based instruction for early readers is important, the scale at which we've been failing is at some level mind-numbing 'cause surveys indicate that something like 80% of teachers are using three cueing methods in the classroom and have been doing so for something like four decades.

Denise Pope (20:50):

Three cueing. Tom, you want to just tell, again, tell our listeners-

Tom Dee (20:53):

Oh, sorry. Three cueing is an instructional method sometimes associated with balanced literacy, but really grounded [00:21:00] in whole language. And the idea is you don't have to be didactic in teaching students phonemic awareness, the sounds of words and their components and how to sight read. Instead, you have them draw clues from the context, the sentence, any graphical images available, et cetera.

And so the science of reading would emphatically discredit that type of three cueing instruction. Yet we've been doing it at scale for decades, and my rough calculations suggest in our nation of over 300 million [00:21:30] people, that implies that something like 200 million people have been taught a foundational academic skill the wrong way. So that's really striking, and-

Dan Schwartz (21:40):

Okay, maybe I do have an opinion...

Denise Pope (21:43):

Okay. I was waiting for this. Go ahead, Dan.

Tom Dee (21:45):

I knew I could draw him out.

Dan Schwartz (21:46):

Yeah, yeah. So meaning-based approaches where you're trying to figure things out and connect them are really important. You need to learn to interpret a passage, and that's meaning making. You can do it at the word level. What must this [00:22:00] word be?

On the other hand, there is some value at just memorizing routinized things like recognizing that BR is a blend and this is how you pronounce it. So I would've assumed that the blended would've won, except there's probably a mistake in the execution of the blending.

But you need both. I mean, I haven't memorized every word that exists. I have to look at some and figure it out, and I may not use context. I may sound it out.

Tom Dee (22:26):

So I think part of the confusion here too though, is that people think the science of reading [00:22:30] is just phonics.

Denise Pope (22:31):

Tom Dee (22:32):

It's phonics at early stages, but there are different science of reading for the kinds of comprehension and fluency you're describing. But it's just that the phonemic awareness and sight reading and all of those foundational skills are where you need to begin.

Dan Schwartz (22:47):

The number of times someone, I try to explain to someone that there's a different way to learn that might be more effective. And they say to me, "No, no, no, no. I learned that way. I did just fine." And my response to them is, "You [00:23:00] may have other people didn't work so well for."

Tom Dee (23:03):

I would just quickly note how we got here too, because based on what I've read about the evolution of the reading wars, at some level the villain is siloed academic scholarship. The fact that these different intellectual traditions were able to persist in isolation because intellectual communities within the academy were not talking to each other and engaging with each other sufficiently. And so that allowed those who were closer [00:23:30] with teacher training to have one view and another community to have a very different view. And we need to do better collectively, I think.

Denise Pope (23:38):

So important. So true. Thank you so much, Tom. What a great show.

Dan Schwartz (23:43):

I agree. Thank you, Tom.

The past year or so, we've finally started learning how consequential Covid was for our students and where the effects are taking place. So thank you.

Denise Pope (23:55):

100%. Now, as good educators, we like to end our [00:24:00] lessons with some tangible takeaways. So Dan, I'm going to put you on the spot. Are you ready for this? What stood out to you?

Dan Schwartz (24:08):

What stood out to me is that Tom's research just clearly shows that absenteeism is a problem that we need to get under control. You know some districts have had successes, but overall, getting kids back to school has been harder than everybody anticipated.

Denise Pope (24:20):

Oh my goodness, way harder than people anticipated.

You know another thing we heard was that schools need better communication strategies with parents and students. So [00:24:30] I'm thinking when Tom mentioned things like getting in front of parents more with text messages or other interesting low cost ways to just inform them and nudge them, it's really about ditching the judgment and together focusing on the shared purpose.

Dan Schwartz (24:50):

Okay, so that gets folks back in. Now we need to catch them up.

Denise Pope (24:51):

We absolutely do. Tom mentioned that a lot of schools are having success with tutoring, and I know there's a lot of research to back that up. Also, [00:25:00] we probably need to shed old ways of teaching and really be open to adopting more evidence-based approaches.

Dan Schwartz (25:06):

Tom did mention a recent study on a reading program that's boosting student achievement. It's a great example of how targeted evidence-based strategies can make a significant impact.

Denise Pope (25:16):

Well said, Dan. Thank you again to our guest, Tom Dee, for this thoughtful conversation. And thank you all for joining us on this episode of School's In. Remember to subscribe to our show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your [00:25:30] podcasts. I'm Denise Pope.

Dan Schwartz (25:32):

And I'm Dan Schwartz.

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All ways to do MSc/PhD Maths after B.Tech

• March 2, 2020

Dushyanth Edadasula

 “How to study Mathematics after engineering?”

To all those questions, the answer is,

“Yes!! you can study Mathematics after Engineering in India”

Hello, math enthusiasts.

                   Hey fellow Engineer!!! I actually am an engineer turned Physicist, After the success of my blog ‘Physics after Engineering’ which is for engineers switching to physics, I thought of building one such for mathematics as well. So, I have checked all the institutes that take engineers into Physics to see if they take engineers into also into mathematics. I’ve listed out all such I found.   I’ve tried my best to include as many as possible but I urge your help to complete the list and keep it updated as I am in the field of physics and not math. So, if you have any new information or correction in the blog, please comment below or in our WhatsApp group or mail me.

Here is  The link  to the “Maths after Engineering”  WhatsApp  group where all members are math enthusiastic engineers like you. I’d recommend joining the group because there are people who have joined IITs for MSc Math and some are about to join this year(2020), also you’ll be getting updates about notifications of any exams mentioned below and information on any new opportunities available.

Note: All that said, Reader discretion is advised on choosing a mathematics career cause one might not earn as much as one can with an engineering or MBA degree. It also takes a lot of time to settle in this field so be prepared to see all your crushes and Exes getting married and having a kid or two while you’re still studying. Also Cracking the competitive exams below and completing the degree require serious commitment and love for the subject. Assuming you have it all in you , Let’s now enter into details already !!!!

I just need an MSc Math degree for promotion. I don’t care much about learning Maths for fun and all that.

If you belong to this category you may go for the online MSC Mathematics courses section offered by the universities such as LPU, where you can do your master’s sitting at home at a low cost (and equally low quality LOL).

Ways to study Mathematics after Engineering

These are the major ways for doing Msc or Integrated Ph.D.(or direct Ph.D. in some cases) in Mathematics after Engineering.

Indian Statistical Institute(ISI)

• Other Entrance tests .
• Opportunities abroad (Math GRE, General GRE, IELTS, and TOFEL, etc)
• TIFR GS (Integrated Ph.D.  paper)
• GATE   Engineering score
• Online & Distance programs (At the bottom of the page)
• MS by research programs
• Direct  Ph.D.
• GATE Mathematics

         This is an exam conducted by IITs as an entrance test to MSc and an Integrated Ph.D. in IITs and IISC. Along with these, IISERs also take JAM rankers into Integrated Ph.D. and some have started MSc programs too. Actually, there is a small confusion about the eligibility of engineers into IITs through JAM. IITs require 4 semesters with at least one maths(or related) subject in your undergraduate(engineering) coursework. This is a vague statement but the IITs selection process and our (physics aspirants) experiences are even more confusing. So, do read this blog post about the experience of JAM physics rankers in the selection process of IITs to get some idea regarding this confusion (It is written from Physics aspirants’ experiences but is applicable to maths ones as well. Just read ‘maths’ wherever you find ‘physics’ in the post)

IIT Mandi, IISC, and IISERs  have their own application portal , you have to apply to each of them individually through their websites and not through the JAM counseling portal( where you can apply for all IITs in a single place) also, NITs take students through another counseling but none of them take Engineers in M.Sc Maths, NIT Arunachal Pradesh takes Engineers in mathematical physics course but it’s a pretty bad course and people recommend sitting for one more year and preparing for the exams again rather than taking admission there.

• ‘ How to start preparing for JAM Maths ‘ by Arnab Choudary (AIR-56)

Engineers are eligible for lots of courses in ISI which has multiple campuses across the country and the main campus at Kolkata. We are eligible for PG courses M.Math, M.Stat, MS(QE-Quantitative Economics), etc, and also for diploma courses in statistics. Go through their official website for full details.

Universities and Other Entrance tests

I’ve searched the eligibility criteria of almost all major colleges and universities and of them all, These are the ones that I found to give admission to Engineering grads in M.Sc/MA in Mathematics or related fields like applied mathematics. Almost all of the Institutes below don’t have any eligibility criteria for coursework unlike IITs which is a kind of saving grace for those who don’t satisfy the criteria

• Indian Statistical Institute (ISI)
• Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI)
• IISc, Bangalore (I Ph.D. program- Link )
• This is a Common entrance test for some Central Univs. Central Govt. is trying to bring all the central Univs under this one common entrance exam. There are some really good Univs. like JNU , and HCU , but most others are not-so-good Central Universities. More and more Univs. are joining this. Anyway, us engineers, are eligible only for 5-6 of them you should check out the list from the website [ Link ]
• IISER Pune [ Link ]
• IISER, Kolkata [ Link ]
• IISER, Bhopal [ Link ]
• IISER Tiruvanamthapuram [ Link ]
• LNMIIT, Jaipur [JAM qualified students can get in with an interview (without an entrance exam). They have excellent faculty and also give a monthly stipend of Rs.5000 to 10 out of the 15 students details here ]
• Shiv Nadar University, Noida [ Link ]
• Hyderabad Central University -HCU [ Link ]
• Delhi University (3 yrs or 6 sems of maths-related subjects required in bachelors- link )
• Pune University (you’ll be eligible for MSc but not MA- link )
• Somaiya University [ Link ]
• South Asian University ( SAU)-Delhi[ Link ]
• Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore[ link ]
• IIT Mandi (Himachal Pradesh)?
• Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai (ICT, Mumbai)?
• Christ University (Bangalore) [ Link ]
•  Ramanujan Institute, Chennai [ Link ]
• CHARUSAT, Gujarat?
• Utkal University,Bhubaneswar(maths?,statistics) [ Link ]
• LPU (Lovely Professional University) [LPUCET] [ Link]

I’m not sure about how good the last few institutes on the list are, do your own research!

Opportunities Abroad

• Applying Abroad for Master’s Degree  –  Rajnish
• Physics GRE preparation for Engineers  – Vaibhav Sharma (990/990 in PGRE)
• India or Abroad?  MS/M.Sc (Master’s) in Physics after Engineering?  – Vaibhav Sharma
• Applying for direct Ph.D. abroad right after Engineering (without masters)   –  Surendra Padamata  (External link)
• Visit the  Contents of the Math Dorm  and  scroll to the ‘Applying abroad’ section for posts with lists of universities and other useful stuff.

(A rant on the Indian govt) Our beloved Govt. of India has been reassuring us time and again how it’s going to underpay and undervalue the researchers and research institutes in the country. With acts like a minimal hike in Ph.D. stipend given after 4 years and intensive protests from scholars, time and again it proves that these conditions are going to prevail for a long time.

Anyway getting back to our topic, the General GRE with a combination of TOEFL or IELTS is necessary for the USA, and having a Maths GRE score is also recommended. As for the European countries, only IELTS is enough (Sending GRE scores might add to your profile but is not mandatory). The tuition fee is zero in some countries like Italy and Germany.

           TIFR is one of the elite research institutes in India if not the best. It has campuses in Mumbai, Banglore, Hyderabad, and Pune. Of them, the ones in Mumbai and in Banglore(ICTS) have mathematics departments. Engineers have to opt for an Integrated Ph.D. paper, Your questions will be from the BSc syllabus but the no.of questions will be rather less, and look for your deep understanding of a concept. Very few people get selected this way. The interviews will also be very thought-provoking. You need to be very strong with your fundamentals.

The best part of this(or any other Ph.D. course) is the stipend. You’ll receive a monthly fellowship of Rs 16,000/- for the first year. At the end of the first year, upon satisfactory performance, the fellowship is enhanced to Rs 25,000/- per month (further raised to Rs 28,000/- after registration for PhD. and annual contingency of Rs. 20,000/-(First Year Int. PhD. students)-Book Grant Only / 32,000/- per year [Ph.D. students and Int. Ph.D. students (Second Year onwards)]

• IMSc, Chennai
• HRI, Allahabad
• IISER, Pune

Through GATE Engineering score (any stream)

• IIST – M.Tech in Machine Learning and Computing ( Details )
• IISc – Ph.D., and IPh.D
• IMSc, Chennai Int Ph.D. (In exceptional cases)
• IIT Madras – Ph.D. (not sure)

Direct Ph.D.

         These are the institutes that offer direct Ph.D. to engineers. You need to have a good knowledge in some specific research field you are applying for, to crack the interviews

• Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) [Although it’s mentioned as a direct Ph.D. those who don’t have math background have to attend a year and a half of coursework. So It’s basically an Integrated Ph.D. program again)
• IISC Bangalore
• Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research ( JNCASR ) , Bangalore [ Eligibility ]
• BITS (All campuses)
• TCIS-TIFR Hyderabad
• IISERs: Pune, Mohali, Thiruvananthapuram, and Tirupati
• HRDD-BARC (Only M.E/M.Tech grads are eligible)

GATE and NET

• ICTS, Bangalore
• IISC, Banglore
• TIFR, Hyderabad
• IIST, Thiruvananthapuram
• IIT, Bombay
• IIT, Kanpur
• IISER, Kolkata
• IISC, Bangalore (Ph.D.)
• IIT Bombay, Kanpur, Roorkee, Dharwad, Guwahati, Gandhinagar (Ph.D.)
• IISER, Tirupati (Ph.D.)
• IUCAA, Pune (Ph.D.)
• IMSc, Chennai (I Ph.D.)
• ICTS, Bangalore (I Ph.D.)
• TIFR, Hyderabad (Ph.D. and I Ph.D.)
• NIT Roorkee and some other NITs

Online & Distance programs

Online degrees.

• Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology [Course fee: <Rs. 20k for 2 years ]
• LPU Online MSc Mathematics   [Course fee: < Rs. 60k for 2 years]
• There are a few other universities such as SRM and MMU to which Engineers seem to be ineligible, you may enquire with them and check if they might take you in.

Distance Degrees

• Madras University ( Link )
• Osmania University, Telangana ( Link )
• Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Open University ( Link )
• IGNOU [Post Graduate Diploma in Applied Statistics]
• Tamilnadu Open University( Link )
• Kuvempu University (Can’t find supporting links)
• Karnataka State Open University ( Link )
• Jaipur National University ( Link )
• Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University ( Link )
• Lalit Narayan Mithila University( Link )
• NIMS University ( Link )

Here is the link for our WhatsApp group of members all of whom are engineers who actively discuss and help each other out in entering mathematics stream after engineering. 

6 thoughts on “All ways to do MSc/PhD Maths after B.Tech”

you telegram link is not working it seems.

It's working fine I just checked. Try installing the telegram app and opening the link.

Hi Dushyanth! Any ideas for a MSc. Math course through distance education in Tamil Nadu? I am pursuing my career as a Software Engineer, and would like to do an M.Sc. Math and B.Ed. through distance education for my interest in taking up a government teaching job in Mathematics.

I've mentioned all the opportunities I've known brother, haven't found any such in tamilnadu. The list may still not be complete, you may try checking the websites are contacting the institutes to know if there are any. If you do find something kindly let me know, I'll put it up in the website.

Hi..I want to pursue MSc maths. I'm engineering student (ECE) and I had maths for 3 semesters and eligibility for IITs is 4 semesters. And for NITs eligibility is written as BSc. Are there any colleges which offer MSc course for ECE engineers?

Your Blogs are always helpful and they give hope that some or the other thing will work out! Thank you team CoS !

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Major in Mathematics

First upper-division math courses.

It should be emphasized that the character of mathematics changes sharply between lower and upper-division courses. The role of computation diminishes and there is a greater emphasis on deductive reasoning. While some students find the theoretical approach more congenial, most find upper-division courses more difficult. Because of this, it is strongly recommended that only students who earned grades of B- or better in all of Math 53, Math 54 or Math 56, and Math 55 apply to the major programs in Mathematics or Applied Mathematics. Additionally, the advising staff recommend Mathematics 110 as your first upper-division class. Students are more successful in making the transition with this course. Math 104 is a particularly demanding class and should be taken later in your program. Be aware that top students spend 12 to 15 hours per class beyond the lectures and sections, so plan your course load accordingly.

Eligibility to Declare the Major

You are eligible to declare the major in Mathematics or Applied Mathematics if you have met ALL of the following criteria:

• Completion of Math 1A & Math 1B (or equivalent) with averages grades of at least "C". For our policy on Advanced Placement scores, please see the following  link .
• Completion of Math 53, Math 54 or Math 56, and Math 55 (or equivalent) with minimum grades of "C" in each, or completion of two of those three courses (with minimum grades of "C" in each) and currently enrolled in the third.  If declaring while currently enrolled in the final lower-division requirement, that course will need to be completed with a letter grade of at least "C".  Please note that we will only accept Computer Science 70 in lieu of Math 55 if you are declared major in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and declare Mathematics/Applied Mathematics as an additional major.
• If you have already taken one or more upper division math courses, you should have a grade point average of at least 2.0 from those courses completed at the time of declaration. Note, however, that you do not need to have completed an upper division math course in order to declare.

Any alterations to the above requirements must be authorized (in writing) by the Head Major Advisor, upon referral from an Undergraduate Advisor in 964 or 965 Evans Hall.

Major Declaration Procedures

Submit an Application for the Major in Mathematics/Applied Mathematics to our dedicated declaration email address, both of which you can find our our  declaration webpage . 

Note that double majors require signatures from both your departments. If we are the first to sign your Double Major Petition, we will send it back to you to take to your second department. If your Double Major Petition is already signed by your first department, we can forward it to L&S Advising for final approval.)

Honors Program

See our  Honors page  for information about graduating with honors in Math or Applied Math.

Course Enrollment and CalCentral

Each semester advising holds are placed on math and applied math majors who have been declared for more than one semester. Mathematics and Applied Mathematics majors must consult with their Faculty Advisor for their first CalCentral registration period after declaring the major.  In subsequent semesters, they may meet with the Staff Advisors. Meeting the Faculty or Staff Advisors should take place prior to the student's enrollment appointment to ensure removal of the hold in a timely manner. Before meeting with the Advisor, the student should plan a tentative program for the coming semester, and have an overall plan for completing the major. Enrollment packets consisting of a Course Approval Form (green) and a Major Checklist (white) which shows your completed courses and grades will be available in the Main Office (970 Evans) two weeks prior to the start of Phase I enrollment appointments. Faculty Advisors hold regular  office hours  during the academic year. These hours are also posted on the bulletin board outside 964 Evans. It is best to allow time for more than one meeting in case decisions depend on information not available at the first visit. When the Advisor and the student have agreed on a program of study, the Advisor will sign the Course Approval Form (green). Approved electives should be indicated on the bottom of the program form and initialed by the Advisor. Major holds are released by the Staff Advisors in 964 and 965 Evans Hall. Admitted transfer students should participate in orientation programs during the Summer preceding their first semester at Cal. Returning students should see their faculty advisor or the Undergraduate Advisor during the semester prior to their readmitted term. Although students are formally required to see their Faculty Advisors only when they first declare the major, they are strongly encouraged to consult with them, or seek the advice of any faculty member, at any time. If the Advisor's  office hours  conflict with the student's classes, the student should schedule an appointment with via email.

Credit by Examination

Outstanding  lower-division  students may choose to fulfill one or more of the lower-division requirements via credit-by-exam. Although the University awards only P/NP grades for credit-by-exam, credit-by-exam in any of the lower division prerequisite classes is acceptable for entry into the major. The Credit by Examination Petition is available through the following  link  on the Office of the Registrar's forms website. In order to file the petition, the student must acquire the approval of: (a) an instructor willing to administer the examination, and (b) the Major Advisor, ( only if already declared ).  The list of eligibility criteria for Credit by Examination can be found on page two of the petition. (Note: you must be registered in the term in which the examination is to be taken; you may only take Credit by Exam in Fall and Spring terms; you must already have a 2.0 or better UC GPA - meaning it can be taken only after at least one term at UC.)

Course Equivalency

Equivalency of courses taken at other colleges and universities should be determined early in the application process. Articulation agreements with the California Community Colleges can be found on assist.org and non-California Community College coursework will be individually evaluated by a Non-Major Faculty Advisor prior to the student declaring the major or minor. For more information about this process, visit our  Course Equivalency website .

Program Changes

Students can add or drop courses via CalCentral through the WEDNESDAY of the FOURTH week of classes. Grading option changes from letter grade to Pass/No Pass or from Pass/No Pass to letter grade can be done via CalCentral through the TENTH week of classes. Any student with fewer than 13 units needs permission from L&S Undergraduate Advising, located on the 2nd floor of Evans Hall, for a reduced study load.

Minimum and Maximum Limits of Number of Mathematics Courses Taken

Majors must take a minimum of four upper-division courses to establish residency in either of the math majors. The only limitation on the maximum number of upper-division and graduate mathematics courses a major may take is a College of Letters and Science regulation which states that students cannot register beyond the semester in which s/he surpasses their 130th unit. Advance planning can result in hitting 130 units and having an additional semester available, should you need it. An Undergraduate Advisor in 964 or 965 Evans can assist you.

Passed/Not Passed Grading (P/NP)

Courses taken to fulfill major requirements must be taken for a letter grade. The one exception is four units of Mathematics 199 (offered pass/not pass only) which may be used if approved by one's Faculty Advisor. Mathematics 199 cannot be used to study material covered in standard courses. To be eligible for enrollment, a student must have completed 60 units and have a minimum cumulative grade point average of 2.0. Additional regulations concerning 199 courses are outlined in the College of Letter and Science Earning Your Degree Guide. Staff in 970 Evans can assist students with the enrollment procedure.

Probation and Dismissal

A mathematics major whose cumulative grade-point average in the upper-division major taken at Berkeley falls below 2.0 will be placed on departmental probation. The departmental grade-point average computation includes both required courses in the major and approved electives. Any additional upper-division or graduate mathematics courses which are not used to satisfy major requirements are exempted. Students are expected to check their grades at the end of each semester. A student on probation will be subject to dismissal from the major if the grade-point average is not brought up to 2.0 within the following term. Questions concerning probation and dismissal may be directed to an Undergraduate Advisor in 964 or 965 Evans or the College of Letters and Science Advising, 206 Evans Hall.

Additional Academic Assistance

The Undergraduate Program Office, 970 Evans Hall, maintains a  list of tutors  for students seeking assistance. There are tutors listed for mathematics courses at all levels, from the most basic, precalculus courses, through upper-division, and even including basic graduate level courses. Students make arrangements with tutors on an individual basis. The  Student Learning Center , located in the Cesar Chavez Center, offers group and drop-in tutoring for the basic lower division classes: Mathematics 1A-1B, and 53-54. Call (510) 642-7332 for scheduling and other information. There are also Academic Centers located at the dorms that provide drop-in tutoring during the evenings.

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Doing a PhD in physics after doing bachelors and masters in mathematics

I have done my bachelors and currently doing masters in pure mathematics. I have done four physics courses during bachelors degree which also includes special relativity. What is the possibility that I may prosper in theoretical physics and earn a PhD in any branch of mathematical physics?

Also, I am going to take the GRE this year but I am little bit confused about choosing subject in subject GRE since scoring in maths is much easier than scoring in physics (if later its possible to change departments then of course I'll choose maths). Any suggestion regarding that is also welcome.

• mathematics
• changing-fields

• You should take up this issue with someone who you would like to be your supervisor –  Maarten van Wesel Commented Mar 30, 2015 at 8:32
• well...not much.....but i am little bit confused about choosing subject in subject gre since scoring in maths is much more easier than scoring in physics (if later its possible to change departments then of course i'll choose maths)......any suggestion regarding that is also welcome. –  SK ASFAQ HOSSAIN Commented Mar 30, 2015 at 9:02
• The first and second part are really two separate questions and should be asked separately (so future users can more easily search for them and so it is clear which answer to accept) –  WetlabStudent Commented Mar 30, 2015 at 14:56

2 Answers 2

First of all, please remember that PhD is not about learning; learning about many different areas/fields/subjects. More specifically, it is not about increasing you knowledge in breadth, i.e., you know Mathematics, you can now learn about physics, then you can learn about computer science and so on.

PhD is about training in research.

Ask your self this question:

How can I contribute to this area (may be theoretical physics or any) in this particular topic by utilizing the knowledge I already have (say, acquired during bachelors and masters) in this specific field (say, in pure mathematics)?

Once you get the answer to this question (it should be in the form of a nice research proposal) you will definitely be able to do your PhD in that area, which you would select and do homework for.

It really depends upon the institute and the department you are targeting to: what actually is the requirement there? And remember, some might not need GRE subject at all.

So, please make a list of the institutes/departments based upon your interests/priorities and mention their requirements. Then you would be in a better position to decide which one should you go for. Maybe, only because it is unavoidable or simply you can perform better in that.

I would suggest you to have a profound focus upon the first part. Chances are that you might end up targeting a Mathematics department only, still being able to contribute in physics. Even, otherwise would give you a clear vision of what should you do and what you don't.

• what about the second part? –  SK ASFAQ HOSSAIN Commented Mar 30, 2015 at 9:16
• 2 @SK - Not every answer on the Stack Exchange will answer both parts of a two-part question. You may have to wait for someone who feels more qualified to talk about the second part. –  J.R. Commented Mar 30, 2015 at 9:37

My understanding of your question is that you want to pursue your PhD in an interdisciplinary field (including both math and physics fields).

It is not uncommon to do such a thing... However, doing PhD level research is different than taking bachelor level courses in that field. Taking those bachelor courses familiarizes you with the basics and fundamentals but that's the beginning of the way to the state of the art knowledge you'll be working with during your PhD.

However, if I'm wrong about my hypothesis and you're changing your field entirely then that's a different thing which requires careful consideration of your interests and circumstances.

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Is it worth it to try to do a PhD while working full time?

So I've always wanted to be a mathematician. I went to a top 10 for my Master's and am now starting a PhD at a top 50 University. The problem is that I have a full time job in ML at the moment, and the job is _very_ likely to pay out a ton if I stay a couple years all while giving me the freedom and flexibility to work on projects I like, while contributing in many different ways.

Now that I've started the PhD I realize that it's not really possible to do both. The hours needed to do well in the courses I'm taking (while teaching and grading and working on lengthy assignments) means I've been working from the moment wake up till the moment I go to sleep every day, burning out, and still falling behind on work and my schooling.

So I'm not sure what to do, my job is giving me a once in a lifetime opportunity, in the field many with math PhDs proceed to work in following their PhDs

On the other hand, doing the PhD is something I've always dreamed of doing, and I want to make meaningful contributions to mathematics.

Any help from past math PhDs or people who've made decisions in similar circumstances would be greatly appreciated!

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