Volume 13, No. 2

December, 2003

        All in all the people there were pretty cool, although a person could tire of their research partners at times.  When we weren't doing math we played a lot of sports, mostly basketball and ultimate Frisbee.  The weather in Pennsylvania was nice, although a little hot at times.  There were thirteen participants and all but four stayed for the Mass program.
        I would recommend the program to anyone seriously interested in mathematics, after all where else can you learn math, have fun, and get paid like you were working a full time job at minimum wage?  The Mass program, which I'm participating in right now, is also at  Penn State and those interested can read about both programs at

If nothing else you should check out the website to see the poster (which might still be on the bulletin board in Hilbert Space) which is pretty amusing when you know that all of the props those dorky kids are so excited about, not to mention the writing on the chalk board, have nothing to do with the Mass program.  They're just brought out once a year when the photographer comes because I guess they decided pictures of tired students taking notes might not be as appealing.  On the same note David Jordan and I are starring as two of those dorks on next years poster which should be appearing on a bulletin board in a Hilbert Space near you some time soon.

by Nathan Collins

      The Penn State 2003 Summer REU ran from June 23 through August 8.  It consisted of 2 mini-courses and a research project.  The mini-courses were Elliptic Curves and Elliptic Functions, and Introduction to Complex Dynamics.  They were 2 weeks apiece and were held consecutively.  Since the program was open not only to sophomores, but seniors and up as well (one kid is at graduate school at Berkeley right now), the pace was a little rough at times.  The research projects were assigned by the program director Misha Guysinski to groups of two, and in my case three, students.  They were from a wide range of topics but were all, at least remotely, related to one or both of the mini-courses.  Most of the projects begin with background reading, which led the students into the actual research.  In my case the project consisted almost entirely in writing Java® code, the research being the design of the algorithms.  The participants were also required, as part of the project, to write a paper outlining their research accomplishments.  A list of research groups along with project titles and papers is available at the Mass website at

Participants were paid about $2100 and were provided with free room and board in one of the dormitories.

Next Page