About MGSC

 Both attending students and speakers should familiarize themselves with the goals and philosophy of the mathematics graduate student colloquium (MGSC). Speakers should use these guidelines to help prepare the flavor and contents of their talks. 

 Goals

Mindful of the current graduate seminar operated by the faculty, the MGSC organizers set out to satisfy different, unfilled needs of the graduate student community. Among the goals:

1. The colloquium should provide the opportunity for students engaged in research to share their work with friends.

2. The colloquium should serve as a showcase of work being done by graduate students, particularly dissertation work.

3. The colloquium should provide an opportunity for graduate students to learn about other fields of specialty and keep up-to-date on the research occurring within the department.

4. The colloquium should be accessible to the entire mathematics graduate student community.

5. The colloquium should provide younger students a "safe", low-pressure environment to get accustomed to attending academic and professional talks. It should be a place where everybody feels comfortable asking questions.

6. The colloquium should provide students with an opportunity to sharpen their presentation skills.

7. The colloquium should expose first- and second-year graduate students to the work and work styles of various research groups in the department, thereby giving them a taste of what they, too, may be doing soon.

8. On a related note, the talks should be motivating/inspirational in nature, in that students witness firsthand the vital role graduate students play in cutting-edge research.

9. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, talks should be fun and help to further build our friendly graduate student community.

 History

Initial discussions on the goals and philosophy of the MGSC took place in the summer of 2006. Timothy Choi, John Lowengrub, and Paul Macklin greatly influenced the initial form of the colloquium. Simultaneously, Nick Alexander discussed the potential of a graduate student seminar with many graduate student colleagues. In September 2006, Nick and Paul decided to combine their efforts, and the MGSC was born.

 Tradition

• Our mascot is Hanekawa the Cat - CJH.

• Fried Chicken and Milk Tea: We provide the best fried chicken wings and milk tea in Irvine for our presentation attendees.

• Custom Drink Perks: MGSC organizers, presentation speakers, and anyone who helps with meal preparation are eligible to customize their own drink from the milk tea shop.

• Audience Engagement: To encourage active participation, we prepare 3-4 extra drinks for each event. When the presenter says "good question," a drink is awarded to the audience member who asked that question.

• Cosplay Events: Our talk near Halloween is cosplay-encouraged! By hosting cosplay-friendly events, we create a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere that promotes diverse participation and expression within the math graduate students community.

 Current Organizers

The current MGSC organizers are:

Jongwon D. Kim ( jongwodk AT uci DOT edu )
So Nakamura (snakam2 AT uci DOT edu)
Yiyun He (yiyunh4 AT uci DOT edu)

 Websites

This current website was created by Alex Sutherland in Fall 2020. The original website can be found here.

Image originally created for the UCI math department's Diversity in Mathematics Festival (see here)