MAA's REU Program Lets Young Participants Feel Like Mathematicians

July 17, 2008

For sophomore Carolina Linskey, participating in the MAA's National Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program at the University of Texas at Arlington gives her a better understanding of a mathematician's life.

"It makes your aspirations go higher," Linskey told the school's newspaper. "I noticed that when you learn math, you have a textbook. In research, you have tools to learn. Tools serve to do more complicated things."

The UT Arlington program, in its third year, aims to help minority students polish their research skills, program director Tuncay Aktosun said.

This year, Aktosun's six students are working on solitary wave solutions to four nonlinear partial differential equations. They do calculations by hand and use software to create images of their mathematical findings. "By doing it by hand, we appreciate the work of the mathematician," Linskey said.

After writing research reports, Linskey and the other participants are required to give oral presentations based on their research. By the end of the summer program, the six participants "must be self-sufficient," Aktosun said.

Participant Sam Rivera singled out something else. The REU program is important, "because we get the experience most undergraduates don't," he said. "We perform like graduate [students]."

Source: The Shorthorn, University of Texas at Arlington, June 24, 2008.