Math S499 - Independent study (1-3 credits)

Mentor: Wai-Tong (Louis) Fan

Office: Rawles Hall 225

Email: waifan@iu dot edu

Course description This is an independent study with guidance. Students will gain some hands-on experience in research. Each student will be given an individual project or a group project based on her/his background and interest.

Pre-requisites An introductory course on stochastic processes (such as discrete-time Markov chains and continuous-time Markov chains). Programming skills will be desirable but not necessary. At IU, it is Math 464.

Expectation

• A 3 credit course amounts to about 105 hours per semester (~ 7.5 hours per week), like a usual 3 credit course with weekly assignments.

• Students are expected to be proactive and hard working, with access to guidance in a serious research project.

• Read, write, read, write, read, write, ....... Students will discover and generate knowledge themselves, under guidance that maximize their learning outcome.

Evaluation Course grades will be based on presentations, regular meetings and the written report.

• (Written report) At the end of the semester, each student will submit a written report in Latex to the mentor.

  • The report is flexible, it can be very short (like 5 pages) or very long (like 50 pages).

  • A typical final report consists of 4 parts: (1) The questions under investigation, (2) Survey of known results with a list of references, (3) New results or methods, (4) Further discussions and problems.

• (Presentation) Students are expected to create a poster or slides to present their work in at least one public occasions, such as the Research Symposium at IU, to be held around April, 2019. Please register on time.

• (Regular meetings)

  • Before the meeting: the student is expected to send a type-up (about their findings in the previous week) to the mentor for feedback.

  • During the meeting: the student describe verbally their progress and ask questions.

  • HW 1 (Due in week 2 of the semester):

    • Write down a description of your project in Latex. It should be at most 1 page.

    • Submit a weekly plan that you have for this study.

    • The point of these is to make sure each student understands his/her project goal, and to identify difficulties of the student at an early stage.

Logistics (Spring 2019)

• Weekly/Bi-weekly meetings: ~30 mins for each student.

• Dropbox: students will frequently type up their thoughts in Latex.

• Mentor will grade and give specific feedback to the write up. The best works maybe turned into joint papers with the mentor and other co-authors. Mentor reserves the right to modify, share and use all materials organized in the Dropbox for academic purposes.

• 1-2 Group meetings for presentations and feedback (Tentative date: TBD, ~15 mins presentation + 5 mins Q&A)

Tentative schedule for individual meetings: TBD

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Other resource:

Online support about writing a thesis (and a synopsis).

http://betterthesis.dk/getting-started

Undergraduate research conferences:

Indiana University Undergraduate Research Conference

Typically being held near the end of November. There might also be another symposium in April (see webpage by Professor Katie A. Siek).

MCM competition, ICM competition

Rose Hulman undergraduate conference

https://www.rose-hulman.edu/academics/academic-departments/mathematics/student-opportunities/undergraduate-math-conference.html

Undergraduate journals:

Rose-Hulman Undergrad Math Journal (https://scholar.rose-hulman.edu/rhumj/)

Indiana University Journal of Undergraduate Research

https://iujur.iu.edu/

Journal of Undergraduate Science and Technology (JUST)

http://justjournal.org/about/

A biannual research journal written, edited, and published by UW undergraduates with the missions of supporting undergraduate researchers and making science accessible to the public.

https://unl.libguides.com/c.php?g=51642&p=333916