Competitive scholarships available
The Ross Mathematics Program is an excellent experience for ambitious high school students who are talented in mathematics. We are looking for the sort of students who are eager to spend their entire summer working on challenging math problems. Rather than presenting many mathematical tricks useful for quick solutions of contest problems, this Program concentrates on one narrow subject (number theory), and emphasizes the process of discovering patterns, making conjectures, writing accurate proofs, and generalizing results to other contexts. The Ross Program is an intensive summer experience designed to encourage motivated pre-college students to explore mathematics. During those eight weeks, students are immersed in a world of mathematical discovery. The central goal of the Ross Program has always been to instruct bright young students in the art of mathematical thinking and to inspire them to discover for themselves that abstract ideas are valuable and important. First year participants take the basic course in number theory. Students are asked to consider entirely new questions, to develop methods that they have not seen before, and to justify every answer. The value of a mathematics education lies not only in obtaining proficiency in computational tasks, but also in building a foundation for critical thinking. Students who have never asked why things work the way they do are not prepared to lead the way to future scientific innovation. It is precisely this independence of thought and questioning attitude that the Ross Program strives to nurture.
Links:
[1] http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/ross
STUDENT COMMENTS
From Monday through Friday, there was a mandatory lecture from 9:30 to 10:30 and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, there was a mandatory 1-hour seminar in the morning. There were optional courses in the evening on a wide range of mathematical topics. At the end of each lecture we were handed out a set of approximately 10-15 problems to solve. The difficulty of the sets constantly increased. The problems were nothing like what students are used to doing at school (especially in difficulty). We were required to come up with our own conjectures and then prove them, explore properties of various systems and much more. The fact that it was different than what I do at school is what I liked most about the program. I would definitely recommend this program to anyone who has a huge interest in mathematics and is willing to spend 8 weeks of his summer, working hard on mathematical problems. However, I must warn them that the program is VERY difficult.
The Ross Mathematics Program is an amazing program that goes very deep in the field of number theory. It is so deep is that it does not teach you number theory in the traditional way (by just giving answers through lectures) but it allows you to build your way up through solving numerous problem sets during the summer. The good thing about it, is that it allows you to work at your own pace, so you are not forced to finish a defined number of sets, but it allows you to do math when you please to (for those willing to go there for eight weeks, it is expected that “when you please” corresponds to the vast majority of your time). The best part about the program is that since you come up with conjectures and proofs (with guidance through the sets), you really get to understand number theory. However, the bad thing about the program is that it is only 8 weeks long…