Wash U Graduate Program in Mathematics : The Mathematics Department

The Graduate Program in the Department of Mathematics strives to provide an atmosphere that encourages good teaching, good scholarship, and learning in the broadest and deepest sense.

• It combines excellence in teaching with close student-teacher interaction.
• It offers a strong curriculum in pure mathematics, with additional courses in applied mathematics.
• It fosters creative research under the guidance of active mathematicians who are very much involved with the research community worldwide.
• The department offers generous financial aid to promising students.

Graduates of the program find that a Washington University Ph.D. is a strong start to an academic career; many of our students have received offers from top departments around the world. Others have found stimulating careers in a variety of positions in private research, industry, and government jobs.

One measure of the quality of our program is the small attrition rate: in recent years well over two thirds of the students who completed the first year have gone on to complete the Ph.D. program. We consider teaching and scholarship to be important components of our mission. Students can participate early and often in seminars, colloquia, and other scholarly activities. Attendance at department colloquia is frequently forty or more, and usually more than half of those in the audience are students. At Washington University, graduate students are treated---almost from the very first---more like colleagues than like students.

There are 43 graduate students enrolled in the 2007-2008 academic year, 42 of them working towards the Ph.D. The department has 25 regular faculty and three visiting or post-doctoral faculty. In addition, numerous mathematicians visit for periods from a few days to several weeks. Virtually all of the faculty play a role in the graduate program, either by teaching advanced courses or by supervising research. The compact size of the Washington University Mathematics Department means that we cannot direct theses in every mathematical discipline; but the areas that we cover---analysis, algebra, probability, statistics, and geometry---we try to cover very well. An advantage to our size is that students find it easy to become quickly acquainted with the faculty and with each other. Qualifying exam courses tend to have at most 10 students, so that graduate students get individual attention from the very outset.

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