<p>Do undergraduates get to help with research in the math department? How common is it for a freshmen to help with math research? does it happen at all?</p>
<p>anyone???</p>
<p>Perhaps ask the faculty members listed in the various areas here:
[Berkeley</a> Mathematical Research Areas - UC Berkeley Department of Mathematics](<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/research.html]Berkeley”>http://math.berkeley.edu/research.html)</p>
<p>I’m sure it’s pretty uncommon. There’s not much undergraduates or even graduates can do to help pure mathematicians. You can probably find something for applied math research, but that would usually cross-over with other departments as well. For pure math, you usually do your research separately, have some advisor (or teacher), and you produce a paper by the end (some math grad classes are like this I think).</p>
<p>For pure math one of the best ways to get research experience is through summer REU programs. You apply for those in Feb-March of the preceding Spring. You can find the REU program list on the AMS website at [Research</a> Experience for Undergraduates Summer Programs](<a href=“http://www.ams.org/employment/reu.html]Research”>AMS :: Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs)). You can also get a professor to sponsor you in an independent study (Math 199) or an honors thesis (Math 196). And sometimes there are Math 191 courses which are research-based.</p>