Pacific Coast Undergraduate Mathematics Conference 2013

Pepperdine University, Malibu CA

Investigators

Abstract

The Pacific Coast Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (PCUMC) is a one-day conference specifically for undergraduate math students in the Southern California region. The conference is held annually each spring at rotating institutions in Southern California and will be held at California Polytechnic State University at Pomona on March 9, 2013. The conference has been designed so that all sessions and keynote addresses are accessible to undergraduates and that panel discussion topics would be of particular interest to math majors and students in math-related fields. The key components of each conference are (1) student talks in all fields of mathematics, (2) panel discussions on career opportunities, summer opportunities and/or graduate programs in mathematics, and (3)lively, accessible keynote addresses by reputable professionals. The conference organizers strive to attract student participants and speakers at all levels and provide them with valuable information about professional opportunities in mathematics. By designing some of the student sessions specifically for first or second year students, the organizers hope to encourage more freshmen and sophomore math students to attend the conference and participate in the sessions. Students can present on everything from results of original research to purely expository work. The conference organizers have also been extremely successful in encouraging the participation of women and underrepresented minorities. Through participant tracking, we expect to see that the PCUMC students are positively impacted in their mathematical career trajectories, including likelihood to consider graduate school, increased participation in extracurricular mathematics opportunities and success in finding mathematical employment. There is a national need for more well trained mathematicians, and the PCUMC is designed to play a role in encouraging bright mathematics students early to persist in and expand their mathematical studies.