The majority of this site’s contributers are from the Kitchener/Waterloo area or go to school at the university of waterloo. While putting fingers to keys in our luxurious office (the Waterloo tech library) we overheard some exciting news, the University of Waterloo is hosting the Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference this summer.
It’s a week long annual conference that has been running for 17 years and it hasn’t been hosted at Waterloo since 1996. This time around, it should be twenty times as good with some extremely well decorated keynote speakers and 170 attendees.
I know exactly what you’re thinking: Its math… That’s what we (with the exception of the CSers and Mathies amongst us) thought too until we heard about the format of the conference and who the keynote speakers are. The way it works is students attending the conference are invited to give talks about any subject pertaining to math: pure mathematics, theoretical physics, computer science, economics, whatever you’re into. Student lectures done in a non-competitive and supportive environment with no Profs or pros to show you up. Not only is it great experience, but also it will look outstanding on a resume.
The student talks will be held throughout the day with breaks for the keynote speeches. This years speakers are the primary cause for our excitement, with big names from the math, finance and computer science worlds giving talks. Most notably, Waterloo CUMC has flown in Frank Morgan, the vice-president of the American math Society, to talk about the physical-geometric theory of soap bubbles. Phelim Boyle, the inventor on Monte Carlo methods in option pricing, will also be delivering a speech that should not be missed by any ECON or AFM student. The full list of speakers can be found here here on the CUMC website.
Talking to the conference organizer, I asked him what his favorite part of the event is:
“its really refreshing to meet a bunch of enthusiastic people you’re age when you’re into math. Its weird when you’re into math, and you spend a lot of time and energy on it, thinking that maybe there is no one else in the world, just you and your textbooks who find mathematics interesting. Last year when I showed up I was blown away by all the friendly down to earth people who found the subject as interesting as I do.”
At $90 registration, the whole thing is relatively cheap. A tip to any undergrads that want to go but are afraid the cost of travel/stay/ticket price is outside of their means -talk to you’re university or college’s math department. You might be able to get them to sponsor you. If you would like to attend, lecture or sponsor this kick-ass event visit the CUMC’10 website at http://cumc.math.ca/2010/en/ or contact them at [email protected]