Undergraduate Seminar in Discrete Mathematics

Spring 2020, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Class meetings: Mondays and Wednesdays 2:30pm–4:00pm in 2-146 (before March 14, 2020) and at Zoom online (after March 14, 2020)

Instructor: Zilin Jiang

Communication specialist: Malcah Effron

Course description

Seminar in combinatorics, graph theory, and discrete mathematics in general. Participants read and present papers from recent mathematics literature. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided. Enrollment limited.

Grading

2 chalkboard presentations worth 20% each, 1 slides presentation 15%, 2 in-class take-home midterms 10% each, and the term paper 25%.

Attendance policy: Without a valid excuse such as illness, failure to show up at one’s own talk or missing more than 3 classes results an immediate failure.

Schedule

M		W
2/3	Introduction	2/5	Presentation workshop
2/10	Ziad Mansour Nelson Niu	2/12	Rachel Leighton Discussion
T 2/18	Jesus Herrera Justin Lim	2/19	Cynthia Liu Pavle Lazarevic
2/24	Jason Lu Lingjie Mei	2/26	Sichen Chao Brian Gu
3/2	Luis Garcia Sarah Wang	3/4	William Nash Aleksejs Popovs
3/9	Ziad Mansour Aleksejs Popovs	3/11	Jason Lu Sarah Wang
3/16	Canceled	3/18	Canceled
3/23	No class (Spring vacation)	3/25	No class (Spring vacation)
3/30	Justin Lim Lingjie Mei	4/1	Jesus Herrera Writing workshop
4/6	Rachel Leighton Cynthia Liu	4/8	Brian Gu Pavle Lazarevic
4/13	Sichen Chao Nelson Niu	4/15	Luis Garcia William Nash
4/20	No class (Patriots’ Day)	4/22	Brian Gu Luis Garcia William Nash
4/27	Lingjie Mei Justin Lim Jason Lu	4/29	Rachel Leighton Cynthia Liu Sarah Wang
5/4	Jesus Herrera Ziad Mansour Aleksejs Popovs	5/6	Sichen Chao Pavle Lazarevic Nelson Niu
5/11	Peer critique