Northeastern REU

Outcomes:

• A written report of your project (at least 10 pages) in LaTeX

• An oral report of your project

Daily life:

• Meet regularly with your graduate student mentor

  • Report on your progress

  • Ask questions

  • Review your writing thus far

• Devote at least 20 hours per week to your project; meet virtually with group members. You will all be exploring/negotiating the best way to work with your group remotely.

• Write in LaTeX throughout the project

• Every so often, you will meet with your mentor and a post-doc organizer, where you will present your progress, and discuss up-coming milestones.

As we get started, we'd like to share some important dates with you.

• Monday May 10, 9 AM: Kick Off Meeting

• Thursday May 20, 10 AM: Colloquium -- One of the postdoc organizers will give a math seminar talk.

• Thursday June 3, 10 AM: Preliminary presentations -- your group will present some background on your area to all participants and mentors, and describe the intended trajectory of your project. 20 minutes per group.

• Thursday June 17, 10 AM: Colloquium -- The other postdoc organizer will give a math seminar talk.

• Tuesday June 29, 8 AM: Final presentations -- these presentations are open to the entire math department.

• Tuesday July 6: Final paper due

Over the next few weeks, under your mentor’s guidance, you’ll read and work through background material related to your group’s topic. You may find the reading very difficult to understand. Don't be discouraged by this; it is normal, and part of the learning experience. If you feel like you are not able to make progress, talk with your mentor -- they will help you move forward.

During the program, your group and your mentor should plan to meet on a regular basis. Frequency and duration of meetings may vary depending on many factors, and may change over the course of the summer -- for example, while getting started, you may feel the need to meet with your mentor much more often. It is important that you and your mentors be communicative with each other, in order to avoid spending too long in a state of being “stuck.”

While it is happening, the REU program is your main job. If the program were taking place in person, you would be expected to be working in the math department during the day on weekdays. It will be a challenge to all of us to try to recreate the spirit of an immersive research experience online. For example, we plan to organize some informal Zoom meetings, along the lines of “math department teatime,” so that you can all get to know each other, to create some semblance of a collaborative group environment.

If you have questions or concerns feel free to reach out to the postdoc organizers Dr. Penciak and Dr. Blankers:

northeastern [dot] summer [dot] math [at] gmail [dot] com