Mathematics Major/Minor Brochure: Facilities
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Undergraduate Common Room
Hill Center 323 is a place for undergraduate math majors to meet, discuss mathematics, and use computers. The room is also used for meetings of the undergraduate honors seminar, and for special talks for undergraduates about mathematics or careers in the mathematical sciences.
All Rutgers students are entitled to an account on the university computer eden and every campus in Rutgers - New Brunswick/Piscataway has fully equipped computer labs for the use of students.
The computer terminals in the undergraduate common room, Hill 323, are for math
majors only. To use them it is necessary to open an account on the
undergraduate server, gauss. This computer is
for declared mathematics majors. Interested majors should inquire in
Hill 322 (see Risa Hynes).
The department offers several courses which require the use of software packages capable of sophisticated scientific calculation, three-dimensional graphics, and symbolic manipulation.
In some courses, including third-semester calculus, differental equations, and numerical analysis, Maple is used. Rutgers has a license that makes Maple available on many systems, including eden, the PC labs on every campus, and the mathematics department's servers.
In other courses, for example the computer sections of linear algebra (Math 250, C sections), and Math 357, Matlab is used. Matlab is available on gauss and at the Rutgers computer labs.
For information on software and the servers where it is available, see the list of campus computing facilities.
Full-scale versions of these software packages are costly. Student versions are available at a moderate price at the Rutgers University Bookstore and elsewhere. These student versions can handle only objects of moderate size (adequate for most uses) and do not include user support.
Although formal courses dealing solely with the use of these packages do not constitute college-level work, it should be part of every mathematics student's out-of-class education to become thoroughly familiar with at least one such package.