Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 1 session / week, 1 hour / session
Presentations: 1 session / week, 1 hour / session
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites. It is offered as one of MIT’s First-Year Advising Seminars.
Course Description
This course is a seminar intended for undergraduate students who enjoy solving challenging mathematical problems, and to prepare them for the Putnam Competition. All students officially registered in the class are required to participate in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition—an annual mathematics contest for undergraduates in the USA and Canada.
Schedule and Expectations
Each problem set contains a (sometimes long) list of problems. You are encouraged to work on as many as you like, but only hand in your six best solutions, at least four from the problem set based on the lecture. For multi-part problems, you may decide what counts as “one solution,” as long as it is reasonable (i.e., not too trivial). Homework submissions are due at the end of class. They will be graded similarly to the Putnam competition.
Sources
At the top of each assignment, you must write either “Sources consulted: none” or a list of all sources consulted other than official course material. Examples include: names of people you discussed solutions with (whether or not they are taking the class), books, Wikipedia and other websites. Do not look up solutions to homework problems online (or offline).
Collaborations
“Reasonable” collaboration is permitted, everyone must write their solutions individually and acknowledge their collaborators in sources consulted.
Listeners
MIT students who are not officially enrolled in the subject are welcome to sit in and participate, but should not hand in homework.
Grading
Grading is based on homework and in-class presentations. Beyond grading for correctness, the grader may deduct points or grant bonus points based on the elegance of the solution and clarity of the writing. Class attendance is required. Too many unexcused absences is cause for concern.
