<p>Yes, I know he is very involved in those programs with the Chicago public schools. I just had a math major friend here (graduated in '05 and on to bigger things), and she told me that I couldn’t miss not taking a class with him! I suppose I will hope for eventual placement in honors analysis, then.</p>
<p>Another question (sorry):</p>
<p>Are the majority of math majors male, or are the genders about 50-50? I suppose I am a little worried about that, being a female myself. Guys simply tend to excel in math and the sciences, and I am a little intimidated by them. . .</p>
<p>It’s mostly male, yes, but let me tell you something about most male math majors: as a girl, they’re going to be more scared of you than you are of them.</p>
<p>Don’t sweat it. Nobody is going to think less of you becase you’re female.</p>
<p>That sounds great; thank you. I have never been thought of as intimidating, but I suppose that getting through Chicago’s math program is quite a feat.</p>
<p>I’m so sorry to be inundating you with questions, Diocletian, but. . .</p>
<p>Do grad students mainly teach calculus courses? Do profs? Are there any specific teachers you can recommend that are NOT chalkboard mumblers? I know that is what they are notorious for doing, as well as pulling down multiple boards and making their way around the entire room in 50 minutes. . . Thanks again.</p>
<p>In general, yes, grad students teach the 130s and the 150s. Sometimes higher-ups do. For example, this last year Robert Fefferman, Dean of the Physical Sciences Division, taught one of the intro calculus sequences. I can’t say anything about the people teaching these classes because it changes most every year.</p>
<p>The 160s are typically taught by associate-type professors (usually LE Dickinson instructors – look it up if you’re curious). It’s not uncommong for fully tenured professors to teach it, and sometimes (very qualified) grad students do, too. This changes every year, also, so I can’t really say.</p>
<p>As an Honors math student at Michigan, I’m kinda curious as to what all is exactly covered by your Intro to Analysis sequence, since there are only a few schools like ours with theoretical introductory math sequences. It seems like yours goes a lot more in-depth into analysis, whereas for the past few years the end goal of ours has been differential geometry (though that’s changing now, apparently).</p>
<p>There are two analysis sequences at Chicago. I don’t really know what 200-202, the “regular” sequences covers. The honors sequence is comparable to Harvard’s Math 55, and it basically covers the material in Walter Rudin’s Principles of Mathematical Analysis. If you Google “honors analysis” on [url=<a href=“http://www.uchicago.edu%5Dwww.uchicago.edu%5B/url”>http://www.uchicago.edu]www.uchicago.edu[/url</a>] you’ll probably turn up some homework sets or such. The exact material varies from year-to-year, but this was the basic format when I took it.</p>
<p>Math 207:
Definition of basic algebraic structures like groups, rings, and fields, and their corresponding substructures. This culminated in the construction of the real numbers beginning with the integers.
Basic topology in the context of metric spaces, defining things like open, closed, compact, and so forth. Proving various things about various metric spaces.</p>
<p>Math 208:
Vector spaces and linear transformations, with a heavy emphasis on normed linear spaces.
Functional analysis. Theorems like Stone-Weierstra</p>
<p>Thank you, again. By the way, my mother took calculus from Fefferman when she was a student at the U. of C. in the early '70’s. He already was a full-fledged professor, despite the fact that he was areound 25 years old at the time. My mother said he is brilliant and a good teacher, as she actually understood the class, despite the fact that she is not very mathematically inclined. Oh, I would love to have him teach my calculus course here!</p>
<p>Yup, that seems like a good enough summary. I’m pretty sure I’m going to learn all the stuff that doesn’t overlap next year in our graduate complex analysis and real analysis classes. Maybe my friend will have a copy of Rudin’s book so I can take a glance at it sometime…</p>
<p>If you’re going into graduate analysis courses you should just read Rudin’s Real and Complex Analysis, rather than Baby Rudin. It’s a very fine book; I worked through about half of it last summer.</p>
<p>So is it accurate to say that one would take the algebra sequence the year after honors analysis? Also, is it common for students to take the graduate sequences (such as the graduate analysis sequence), before graduating? </p>
<p>The decision date is coming up pretty soon so, for what it’s worth, I’ve been trying to draw up some potential schedules to help decide.</p>
<p>**So is it accurate to say that one would take the algebra sequence the year after honors analysis? **</p>
<p>One doesn’t need to take Honors Analysis to take either algebra sequence. But most people take analysis before they take algebra, yes.</p>
<p>Also, is it common for students to take the graduate sequences (such as the graduate analysis sequence), before graduating?</p>
<p>No, it’s not very common at all. You need the permission of Paul Sally, which basically means he needs to know you personally and know how well you’d do in the class. If he doesn’t think you can get an ‘A’ he’s not going to let you take it.</p>
<p>I really don’t have time/choose not to work ahead on stuff during the summer. If anything, I’m teaching myself our introductory modern physics course which I got permission to skip.</p>
<p>And sheesh, we just have to ask for an override to get into the honors math sequence, and there are no restrictions to get into most graduate courses (only exceptions I can think of are a few hand-picked reading courses).</p>