University of Redlands
These outcomes are adapted from the Mathematical Association of America’s national guidelines for mathematics majors. (Committee on Undergraduate Program in Mathematics’ Curriculum Guide, 2004)
A Mathematics B.S. will have experience working with a broad range of mathematical ideas and see a number of contrasting but complementary points of view in the topics (continuous and discrete), techniques (algebraic and geometric), and approaches (theoretical and applied) to mathematics. They will develop a mastery of mathematics at a level that will allow them to be successful in a field requiring mathematical reasoning.
For example, some students use their mathematical skills to pursue:
• a career that uses mathematics in business, industry or government, or
• teaching mathematics at the secondary level, or
• graduate study in mathematics or fields related to mathematics.
Goal 1. Graduates will develop mathematical thinking, progressing from a procedural/computational understanding of mathematics to a broad understanding encompassing logical reasoning, generalization, abstraction, and formal proof.
a. Graduates will create and verify their own conjectures, rather than simply using provided formulas, rules and theorems in multiple courses throughout the mathematics curriculum.
b. Graduates will prove theorems using the language of mathematics in theoretical junior/senior level courses and present those results both orally and in writing.
Goal 2. Graduates will communicate mathematics in both oral and written form with precision, clarity, and organization.
a. Graduates will construct clear and well-supported mathematical arguments to explain mathematical problems, topics, and ideas in writing.
b. Graduates will give clear and well-organized presentations about mathematical topics that communicate mathematical arguments.
Goal 3. Graduates will apply mathematical or computational techniques to areas outside of mathematics. Graduates will extract mathematically relevant information from data, test hypotheses and assumptions, and formulate logical conclusions using mathematical analysis.
Goal 4. Graduates will explore some mathematical content independently, drawing on ideas and tools from previous coursework to extend their understanding.
a. Graduates will independently extend mathematical ideas and arguments from previous coursework to a mathematical topic not previously studied.
b. Graduates will interpret articles or books from the mathematical literature and incorporate ideas and results from the literature in their written and oral presentations.
Learning outcomes for all graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences
