Undergraduate Honors Program
See Also: Overview | Evidence of Quality | Prospective Students | Honors Requirements
The UT Math Honors program has been recognized as one of the top undergraduate math programs in the country by the National Science Foundation, which in 2005 awarded the program a $1 million, five year grant. The grant provides scholarships of up to $5000 per year to incoming freshmen intending to major in math and current UT students who are accepted into the UT Math Honors program. The grant also provides a paid summer research experience for all UT Math Honors students who are US Citizens or permanent residents.
The UT Math Honors program offers highly talented students an accelerated curricular path that permits them to enroll in graduate-level mathematics courses as early as the sophomore or junior year, making them highly competitive for graduate fellowships and jobs upon completion of a BS degree. With careful planning, highly motivated honors students can earn both a BS in mathematics an MS in mathematics (or certain closely related areas) in five years. The rapid curriculum is coupled with careful advising to be sure that students are challenged but not pushed too hard. Dr. Conrad Plaut, head of the program, serves as academic advisor to all Math Honors students, and each Math Honors student is assigned a faculty mentor. The Math Honors program is a small community of undergraduate scholars that benefits greatly from the surrounding major research university. The program is built around the Undergraduate Honors Seminar (Math 497), in which potential and current undergraduate research projects are presented. The department also hosts a Junior Colloquium, in which students from all over campus and various majors attend a lecture on a subject accessible to any student with a background in basic calculus. Previous speakers have come from UT and other universities to give talks on subjects ranging from soap bubbles to quaternion numbers to tornadoes.
Recent math honors graduates have received graduate fellowships or assistantships to pursue a Ph.D. in the highly ranked graduate programs at Cornell, Georgia, Indiana, Stanford, UNC, and UVA. These fellowships and assistantships pay all graduate tuition and fees, as well as a living stipend. Most of the recent UT Goldwater scholars (a highly prestigious national scholarship for students in sciences) have been math majors or minors. A 2004 math honors graduate received very prestigious graduate fellowships from both the National Science Foundation and the National Security Agency. UT math honors students have also been very successful in securing paid summer positions to do undergraduate research at UT and elsewhere. In summer, 2005, a UT Math Honors Student participated in the extremely selective Director’s Summer Program of the National Security Agency. For more details, see the Accolades page. Despite the accomplishments of the students, the atmosphere of the honors program is not “cutthroat” but friendly and close.
Admission to the math honors program is dependent only on ability in abstract mathematics. Some math honors students have excellent high school records and are in the University Honors program. Other math honors students discover their talents in honors calculus or Math 300 (Introduction to Abstract Math), and finally realize why they were bored (and maybe didn't compile the highest GPA) in high school. Students who enjoyed doing proofs in high school geometry (if their geometry class actually did proofs) or doing math or logic puzzles may well be future math honors students. See the scholarships page for more information about applying as an incoming freshman. .
Current UT students who are interested in participating in the departmental honors program are urged to enroll in honors calculus and Math 300 as soon as possible. All math majors or prospective math majors should sign up for the UTKMATH e-mail list (go to listserv.utk.edu to sign up); more information about how to apply will be sent to the list in late spring semester. Admission is based on recommendation of UT mathematics faculty, including the student's teacher in Math 300 or an upper division mathematics honors course. All. Students are normally expected to be in the top 20% among Math 300 students to be admitted to the honors program. Those who are not admitted based on performance in Math 300 but who do exceptionally well in an upper division mathematics honors course may also be admitted. Membership in the University Honors Program is not required, nor does such membership guarantee admission into the departmental honors program.
Honors students must meet stronger requirements. Specifically, honors students must meet all the requirements for a BS in mathematics, but must also enroll in at least four hours of Math 497 and take two upper division mathematics sequences (instead of one), one of which must be an honors sequence. Honors students must also maintain a 3.4 cumulative GPA in all upper division math courses and write a senior thesis that must be approved by the honors thesis committee. The honors category upon graduation is determined as follows, based on the GPA of all upper division math courses: GPA at least 3.4-Honors; GPA at least 3.6-High Honors; GPA at least 3.8-Highest Honors.
updated: 08/2007