A good DRP topic is one that is not covered in a typical undergraduate class. This topic should be chosen by the student with guidance from the mentor. Students may have a broad idea of what they are interested in, and mentors can help narrow things down to what might be feasible to learn in a semester.
The possible range of projects is completely open and depends on the mutual interests and backgrounds of the mentor and mentee. Students are encouraged to have a background in proof-writing. Depending on the availability of mentors, we welcome students interested in pure mathematics, applied mathematics, mathematical physics, mathematical education, and statistics.
Students are expected to meet with their mentors once per week for about an hour. Between meetings, they should spend ~3 hours on DRP-related work, although their coursework should take priority. They should let their mentor know if a week gets too busy. At the end of the semester, they are expected to give a 15-minute talk at the DRP Colloquium.
On commencing the DRP, a student is committed to the program for the rest of the semester. Students who cease participation without notifying or communicating with their mentor will not be considered for the program again.
Mentors are expected to meet with their students once per week for about an hour and are required to attend the end-of-semester DRP Colloquium.
It is important to let the DRP organizers know immediately if any issues arise. These issues might include a student repeatedly not preparing for meetings or deciding to leave the program. If a student misses two meetings in a row without forewarning, please email the DRP organizers. The organizers will attempt to mediate.
Mentors are encouraged to introduce and help their students practice LaTeX. This includes introducing them to Beamer, which will be useful for their final 15-minute DRP Colloquium talk. A Beamer template can be found here.
At the end of the semester, each student will give a 15-minute talk about something they learned. The talk in not intended to cover everything the student learned during that time. It’s best to do an overview with a few worked-out examples, or pick one thing to describe in detail, such as the proof of a theorem.
One of the goals of DRP is for students to practise communicating mathematics. Students are encouraged to give practice talks to their mentors. Mentors are encouraged to help their students build their talk.
The talks will be held during the last week of classes.
Undergraduate students should be honest about their levels. It is natural to be confused and not understand something quickly. A good exercise for the mentor-mentee pair will be to work out examples together. This is the most efficient way to gauge understanding of the material.
Graduate mentors are recommended to talk to their students about balancing abstract intuition and concrete skills in math. Having a level of comfort with abstract things is important so that one is not always bogged down in the details — math is often about seeing the big picture. However, if all one sees is the big picture, one likely does not understand how things work in practice. As such, it is important to work out specific examples and details.