Student Profiles

 

Name: Kaelly Simpson
Major: Mathematics
Minor: Music

I have always loved math and music. I came to CSB/SJU to study math and also to continue playing my flute. While I have been here I have been able to play in the CSB/SJU Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Flute Choir, and Opera. Throughout my math and music classes I have been able to see the many connections between the two—from the musical ratios discovered by Pythagoras to the group theory and combinatorics behind some of the new atonal music. 

I love studying mathematics because it challenges me to think logically in order to solve problems. It is so exciting for me to finally understand the proof of a difficult theorem and then be able to explain it to someone else. I have always been interested in teaching and thought it would be really neat to be a math teacher.

At CSB/SJU I had the opportunity to be a Calculus Teaching Assistant. Through that experience I learned that I really loved teaching and explaining things to other people. I decided that I wanted to become a mathematics professor. Next year I will be attending the University of Nebraska Lincoln for graduate school in mathematics and hopefully become a professor.  Right now I am unsure of what I want to concentrate on, but I have been intrigued by so many areas of mathematics. Some of my favorites are combinatorics, coding theory, and math biology.

 

Name: Theodore "Ted" Leonard
Major: Mathematics

I have always been drawn to challenges. I get bored when things are too easy or simply trivial and I was not really interested in gliding through college or taking an “easy” major. I knew when I choose math as a major, I would have to work hard and earn the grades I got. In math, there weren’t any easy tests or inflated grades, so I knew that every success or failure I had was an honest response to the work I produced.

 

Math is much more than studying formulas and memorizing equations. Every theorem, topic and course is a new tool to be placed in your logical tool box. Through all of the different courses and professors I have taken, I have had the opportunity to learn many different problem-solving tools. It has been really rewarding to accumulate these different tools and not only use them in math classes, but in all other areas of life too. During my junior year I decided to add an English minor to my degree and found that my logic skills and mathematical mindset helped me pass English grammar tests more than simple drill and practice ever could.

 

In my senior year I had the opportunity to use what I learned to develop an independent Senior thesis. My thesis, titled “Winning darts: Where to aim to minimize risk and maximize expected value in the classic darts game 501” gave me the opportunity to use all of the logical tools I have learned on a wide variety of problems. Some of these logical problems involved computer programming, which eventually materialized into full-time job as Programmer Analyst at Securian. I am really excited to begin my new job. I don’t really know what I am getting into, but I know it will be a challenge and I am confident that my math background has prepared me well for whatever lies ahead.