The purpose of this event was to work on our elevator pitches. Many times when applying to jobs, both in academia and industry, we need to be able to quickly and efficiently describe our research or the area we are interested in. This event would periodically break the attendees into groups of 2 where each party would have 2-3 minutes to do just that. This event also doubled as a chance for graduate students to meet up “in person” and touch base on how school was going for the younger students who have yet to create strong bonds and support systems in the department.

The purpose of this event was to work on our elevator pitches. Many times when applying to jobs, both in academia and industry, we need to be able to quickly and efficiently describe our research or the area we are interested in. This event would periodically break the attendees into groups of 2 where each party would have 2-3 minutes to do just that. Multiple attendees commented on how they had never before thought about their pitch and how much it helped them to do this thought exercise and then practice it. This event also doubled as a chance for graduate students to meet up “in person” and touch base on how school was going for the younger students who have yet to create strong bonds and support systems in the department.

The first day of the workshop was focused on application materials for academia jobs, namely CVs and research statements. The day began with an hour-long Q&A session about CVs with a panel consisting of Rutgers professors Angela Gibney, Zheng-chao Han, and Simon Thomas. After the CV Q&A session, we had workshop time in Zoom breakout rooms so that some of the panelists could provide one-on-one feedback on our CVs while attendees could peer review each others’ CVs. In the afternoon there was a second Q&A session about research statements with a panel consisting of Rutgers professors Fioralba Cakoni and Chris Woodward and Utrecht University professor Lola Thompson. The second day ran slightly different and had a theme of industry jobs. Joe Scott, the Associate Director for Career Development led the day off with a talk about crafting a solid resume and writing a cover letter and during the workshop Joe had enough time to meet one-on-one and review every attendee's resume. Tolley St. Clair, an Organizational Psychology Intern at The Erdős Institute, finished the day up by giving us a rundown on the ins-and-outs of LinkedIn.

Each year the Rutgers Graduate Student Chapter of the American Mathematical Society gives out three awards: the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Research, the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Leadership, and the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Faculty. To help the AMS graduate student members to make an informed decision when voting for the recipient of the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Research, the chapter holds a research bonanza to give members an idea of the research of nominees for the award. This year's was held on May 6th through Zoom. Each nominee is given the opportunity to give a short talk about their research during the bonanza. During the research bonanza, each nominee was given five minutes to present and one minute for questions. To enhance the playful atmosphere, audience members gave warning noises to presenters who exceeded their time. After the research bonanza, graduate students voted for the winners of the three awards. Jeaheang Bang was awarded the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Research. Brooke Logan Ogrodnik and Jason Saied ties for the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Leadership. Finally, Alex Kontorovich was awarded the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Faculty.

On Friday May 1st at 4:30pm,, in the middle of a pandemic, we had over 25 students attend our virtual Math Graduate Panel. Our 5 panelists: Soham Chanda, Louis Gaudet, Nathan Mehlhop, Chloe Wawrzyniak, and Corrine Yap, represented a wide range of years, research topics, and interests. Students asked questions in the chat box along with the moderator's prewritten questions. The panel hit the big topics of what to be doing now as an undergrad, tips for choosing where to apply to, the application process, what graduate school is like, and what the panelists plan on doing with their degrees. We had questions asked like, What happens if you can't answer your research question? and When do you know that you are done?. We also spent some time talking about imposter syndrome and after the panel, was told by one undergrad, how it was something they were struggling with that they hadn't known there was a name for and how much better they feel, now knowing that it is common.

On March 2nd, 2020, we had Patrick Honner, a teacher in New York, as well as a blogger and writer for Quanta Magazine, give a talk entitled, “Math Outside the Bubble.” This talk stressed the need for math communication. The talk discussed ideas like the difference between knowing math and actually teaching/communicating it. It also highlighted the importance of having a hook about your research, engaging in mathematical outreach, and having empathy for those who struggle with math. After the talk, we had a catered dinner in which more conversations with Patrick continued well into the night.

• For more info : http://www.patrickhonner.com/about.html

On November 16, 2019, four of us math graduate students from Rutgers went on a field trip to the National Museum of Mathematics in Manhattan. It was a wonderful time. For three of us, it was our first time to visit this museum, and it exceeded our expectations when an origami expert from OrigamiUSA taught us how to fold several different origami models.

Each year the Rutgers Graduate Student Chapter of the American Mathematical Society gives out the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Research. To help the AMS graduate student members to make an informed decision when voting for the recipient of the award, the chapter holds a Research Bonanza to give members an idea of the research of nominees for the award. Each nominee is given the opportunity to give a short talk about their research during the Research Bonanza. On May 8th, twelve graduate students were nominated for the AMS Rutgers Student Chapter Award for Research. During the Research Bonanza, each nominee was given five minutes to present and one minute for questions. To enhance the playful atmosphere, kazoos were provided so that audience members could give warning toots to presenters who exceeded their time.

On May 1st, 2019 we hosted a panel for undergraduates to learn about grad school. The idea of the panel was to introduce the students to ways to start preparing for grad school, things to do to figure out if graduate school is for them, and just to make them realize that grad school is completely different than undergrad. For some of us, deciding to go to graduate school was a last minute decision and there were many ways to prepare and experiences to be had that we wished we knew about before.

On Thursday, December 6th 2018 we had Smiriti Bhagat come and give a talk entitled, “Friendships to Hashtags: A look at a few applications from a Math lens.” Smiriti received her PhD in computer science from Rutgers and now is a Data Scientist at Facebook working specifically with Instagram.

On October 13, 2018, our AMS graduate chapter organized a trip to the Escher Exhibition and Experience (see https://www.eschernyc.com) in Brooklyn and it was a fun and rewarding trip. We all found the exhibition to be quite fascinating, with over 200 works by M.C. Escher (the largest exhibition of Escher ever presented in the US), videos about Escher’s life and places where we can interact with the art. We learned how Escher’s artwork developed throughout the years, how he carried out his own methodical investigation/mathematical research, and how his work has sparked investigations and anticipated later discoveries by scientists and mathematicians.

On February 22, 2016, our AMS graduate chapter organized a talk by Jean Steiner a data scientist at Google. She presented a talk entitiled, "What can a math major do at Google?" This talk led to a coding group being created amongst the graduate students at Rutgers.