A bachelor's
degree in mathematics prepares students for employment
subsequent to graduation or for the pursuit of various graduate
degrees in mathematics, law, or other academic areas.
A degree in actuarial science
prepares students for both actuarial careers and for the pursuit of
a Master of Business Administration degree after
graduation.
A bachelor of arts degree in
mathematics (College of Liberal Arts and Sciences) and a bachelor
of science degree in education (College of
Education) prepare graduates to teach mathematics
at both the middle and high school levels.
Opportunities are available for students who wish to include
internships, tutoring, research, study abroad, and/or academic
competitions in their college career.
Congratulations to Our Phi Beta Kappa Initiates:
Rachel Frances Colby and Connor Patrick Hofmeister
Butler at Boston - the Joint Mathematics
Meeting
Eric Buenger, who is a Butler senior majoring in
Actuarial Science, is shown here describing his poster presentation
at the recent Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM). The JMM,
which was attended by more than 6,300 mathematicians in Boston in
early January, 2012, is a chance for members of both the
American Mathematics Society and the Mathematical Association of
America to present research results and to share ideas on pedagogy
and teaching mathematics. Eric's work was a collaborative
research project with Dr. Chris Wilson on mathematics and music,
where they used Markov processes to analyze the note structure of a
variety of well known melodies. An example is Aerosmith's
"Don't want to miss a thing". The project takes such melodies
and "morphs" them via associated probabilities - when one note is
played, the next is determined by a chance element, similar to a
"roll of the dice."
Butler faculty members presenting papers at the Joint
Mathematics Meetings included Jon Sorenson, who spoke on his
research regarding
Algorithms for Approximately Counting Semismooth
Integers, and Bill Johnston, who presented his work on a
book manuscript in a session titled Teaching the Lebesgue Integral
with a Calculus II Prerequisite.