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Mathematics Program

News

Mathematics ranks Top Ten on Jobs List!
The CareerCast job ranking list has had Mathematician in the Top Ten for the last five years! Mathematicians "are the people who figure out if a decision makes sense for a company or organization ... They work in a variety of sectors, including energy, transportation, and IT." Key factors in the ranking are work environment, high income and outlook, and low stress. Other highly mathematical jobs in CareerCast's Top Ten are Statistician, Operations Research Analyst, Data Scientist, and Actuary!

Faculty Authors!
CRC Press is producing a Roanoke College series of textbooks, with Hannah Robbins' Functional Linear Algebra, Karin Saoub's Graph Theory, and Dave Taylor's Games, Gambling, and Probability joining three other faculty books in print. We put the RC in CRC! 

About the program

With classes that develop critical thinking skills and a range of advanced coursework, the mathematics program can be tailored to suit specific student interests and goals.

Why study math at Roanoke?

  • Uncover the unexpected. When you ask math students about their department, you hear words like unexpected, team, family, community and fun.
  • Be ready for anything. Because of their unique training in real-world problem-solving, Roanoke's math majors also describe themselves as superbly prepared to take on the challenges of graduate school and the workplace.
  • Get serious. Math students meet regularly for tea and conversation, celebrate Pi Day every March 14 (or 3.14) and bring Elvis the Calculus Dog to campus. They also have competed in COMAP's Mathematical Contest in Modeling with impressive results-earning recognition as a top tier team and beating competition from thousands of universities, including ivy league schools like Harvard and Yale.
  • Watch videos made by recent grads for an inside look at us!

Link to video 1 here    Link to video 2 here   Link to video 3 here

Explore math firsthand

There are many opportunities for firsthand learning in the math major:

What's next

Graduate school? Roanoke's math graduates have been accepted for graduate-level study at such schools as Clemson, Cornell, John Hopkins, North Carolina State and University of Virginia. Learn more.

Career? The CareerCast job ranking list has had Mathematician #1 (in 2014)! Mathematicians "work in a variety of sectors, including energy, transportation, and IT." Roanoke's math students have a great track record of finding success in the job market. Recent grads are working at such places as Motorola, the FBI, Booz Allen, Merck Laboratories, U.S. Bureau of Census, Envision EMI,  Mathematica Policy Research and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Learn more.

Program requirements and courses

student juggling in math class

Part of our dedication to teaching shows up in the careful design of our courses. In major courses, we balance innovative assignments to spark creativity and engagement with full topic coverage to ensure full preparation for industry and graduate school. For INQ and May Term, unique courses give students a window into diverse areas of mathematics, including the mathematics of games, the mathematics of sports, the mathematics of the television series Numb3rs, and so on. Even in major courses with standard syllabi, we include related diversions such as magic tricks and juggling. (There are several problems about juggling in our calculus book. This, of course, requires a demonstration!) Mathematics is fun!