The faculty in the Department of Mathematics at Kansas State University have a long history of mentoring and supporting undergraduate studies and research by undergraduate math majors who go on to internships, research experiences, high tech jobs, and graduate study in a wide variety of fields. Our award winning faculty come from some of the best Universities in the world, and they conduct cutting edge mathematical research in a wide variety of fields. Our program has granted nearly 200 bachelor's degrees over the past 10 years. In recent years nearly half of our graduates went on to graduate school, one third went into high tech jobs, ten percent went into high school math teaching, and ten percent went into other jobs. K-State has been a very selective recommended mathematics program for more than twenty five years in Rugg's Recommendations on the Colleges. The Princeton Review has recognized Kansas State University as one of the Best Colleges and Best Value Colleges in the nation.
Our students begin their undergraduate studies with courses in calculus and elementary differential equations and then take an advanced calculus course, a modern algebra course, and a statistics course. Depending on their career interests, students may choose one of four concentrations which are distinguished by their upper level core courses, or students may design their own program. For students interested in the applications of mathematics in business, government, or industry, we offer an applied mathematics concentration which includes courses in applied matrix theory, discrete mathematics, digital image processing, numerical analysis, ordinary and partial differential equations, and dynamics, chaos, and fractals. For students interested in actuarial mathematics and the insurance profession, we offer an actuarial mathematics concentration which features courses in actuarial science, the theory of interest, and time series analysis taught by an experienced actuarial analyst. For students interested in graduate studies leading to an academic career or jobs in business, government, or industry, we offer a pre-graduate concentration which features courses in linear algebra, number theory, complex analysis, real analysis, abstract algebra, and topology, For students interested in high school math teaching, we offer a mathematics teacher preparation concentration which includes the mathematics courses required for teacher licensure. Our program is very flexble, and many of our students are dual majors in mathematics and another field such as computer science, physics, statistics, engineering, chemistry, economics, or education.
Undergraduates may do research projects in applied mathematics, pure mathematics, and interdisciplinary areas under the auspices of the Center for the Integration of Undergraduate, Graduate, and Postdoctoral Research (I-Center). Such an experience is pivotal for undergraduates to learn how to do creative research. Students involved in undergraduate research enhance their excellence in graduate schools and in a variety of majors. Through the Brent Smith Endowment and the Evan Stewart Endowment, the I-Center awards grants to undergraduate students to fund research projects under the supervision of faculty or post-doctoral fellows. We offer a math modeling seminar which introduces students to techniques and ideas from modeling and applied mathematics and helps prepare K-State teams for the international Mathematical Contest in Modeling.
Financial assistance is available in the form of mathematics grading positions, research and competition awards, and scholarships.