M.S. in Mathematics

Overview of Requirements

To graduate with an M.S. in Mathematics, a student must satisfy all of the following requirements:

    Satisfactorily complete a minimum of 30 credits in courses approved by the student’s advisory committee.

  • Satisfy one of the following:
    • Pass two prelims of the Ph.D. in Mathematics program at the level of a master’s pass.
    • Pass an oral exam; typically taken during the last semester of the study.
    • Write a master’s thesis under the direction of a member of the Graduate Faculty. In this case, the student must complete at least 21 credits of course work and a minimum of 9 additional credits of Master’s Thesis Research, GRAD 5950, or Full-time Master’s Research, GRAD 5960. Thesis templates (for LaTeX) are available on our Thesis Formatting page.

    • Note: Students in the PhD program who decide to leave with a master’s degree while remaining in the PhD program should still take prelim exams and core courses following the schedule described on the PhD program page until the request to switch to a masters degree track is approved.

Preliminary Examination

General information

Mathematics M.S. students may choose from courses below on which to be examined:

Students may mix these options or request a substitution of one other graduate mathematics course for one of the above courses. The philosophy of these options is that the Department wants its students to be knowledgeable in the basic mathematical subjects in the student’s area of study. Therefore, substitution of a course will only be permitted if that course is critical to the student’s plan of study. The substitution must be approved by the Graduate Program Committee and the student’s advisor.

Past Exams

The Department maintains a collection of past prelims going back to August 2000. Students are encouraged to peruse these in preparation for their own examinations.