Ross Mathematics Program - Program Overview

Program Overview

The core of the program for first year students is a single course in number theory. Students attend daily lectures, participate in seminar groups, and work at their own pace through rigorous problem sets (which they receive in class every day). Students spend most of their time working on these sets, and, in doing so, gain an understanding both of number theory and the mathematical process itself. They investigate numerical patterns and draw conjectures based on their observations, and, later, revisit their ideas to prove them rigorously, and, finally, to generalize them to other contexts.

Students turn in problem sets to counselors as they complete them. Counselors review their students' work carefully and make detailed comments. There are no "grades" or anything similar; instead, counselors ask students to redo problems done incorrectly or incompletely, occasionally posing additional questions as mini-assignments for students to investigate.

Students who do well in the program may return for a second year, and many become junior counselors. Junior counselors finish the number theory sets, take advanced courses in topics such as group theory, geometry, and combinatorics, and work with the counselors in encouraging and assisting younger students. Counselors, too, may take advanced courses. Mathematical activity outside the number theory core also includes lectures and short courses by guest speakers on a variety of topics.

Students, junior counselors, and counselors all live together in a single dormitory on the Ohio State campus. By working on and discussing mathematics together throughout the summer, the program participants become a close-knit "community of scholars." One of the goals of the program is to give high school students an experience similar to that of a research scientist or mathematician.

Counselors are college students or college-bound and most have had at least two years of experience in the program.