What is a Contract Course?
Contract Courses are supervised individual research or investigation under guidance of faculty member, with a culminating paper or project. These courses give students the opportunity to be mentored by a faculty member through individual learning or research while earning unit/course credits. The Mathematics Department offers 3 courses: Math 195, 197, and 199.Here are brief explanations of the difference between the three courses.
See Undergraduate Courses for the detailed course descriptions of Math 195, 197, and 199.
Math 195: Community Internships in Mathematics Education
A student may take this class at the same time as working for an internship. The internship does not have to require students to do mathematics on the job. In Math 195, students will learn about mathematics topics that bridge their field of study to their internship.
Example: A student is interning as a communications assistant for a marketing company. This internship does not require the student to do any mathematical computations. However, they can use Math 195 as a way to understand how mathematics applies to communications and marketing by learning about the mathematics behind content optimization/Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Math 197: Individual Studies in Mathematics
A student may enroll into this class to learn in-depth about a specific topic with a professor.
Example: A student is interested in exploring algebraic geometry, which is not offered as an undergraduate course. They may be able to find a professor that can teach them about Hodge Theory for the quarter.
Math 199: Individual Research in Mathematics
A student may want to work on a personal mathematics-related research project under the guidance of a professor.
Example: A student wants to study the transmission of a disease. They will use mathematical models to learn about susceptibility versus contagiousness and any other factors related to transmission.