Praising the Hard Work of Faculty, Staff, and Students: Excellent Job!
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RooMath News Department of Mathematics & Statistics Newsletter http://cas.umkc.edu/Mathematics Volume 10, Issue 1 Praising the Hard Work of Faculty, Fall 2017 Staff, and Students: Excellent Job! Inside this issue: Alumni, students, friends old and students on numerous administrative new, welcome! tasks. Greetings from the De- 1 partment Since the last issue of RooMath News Our graduate and undergradu- The Importance of Sum- 2 there have been several activities fos- ate students have been actively partic- mer Internships tered by faculty, staff and students of ipating and presenting their research Interview: Mary Ellen 2 the UMKC math and stat department. at different conferences such as the Cox -Summer Internship In this short note, we highlight a few Undergraduate Symposium of Re- Industrial Math 4 of them. search & Scholarly Creativity, the Recent Graduates, 6 Math and Stat Research Day, the An- Student News During the 2016-2017 school nual Meeting of SIAM Central States, UMKC Alumna—Love of 15 year, math and stat faculty members Math published more than 24 research arti- and the Joint Mathematics Meetings. UMKC’s Math Competition team par- Post-Quantum Cryptog- 16 cles in well-regarded journals, orga- raphy ticipated in the Missouri Collegiate nized several conferences, seminars, Faculty News Mathematics Competition. 17 and symposia, presented research at Golden Ratio 1-6-18 22 Some students obtained sum- various national and international Math Club, MSGSO mer internships, joined different Re- 23 conferences, trained several graduate Department Contacts search Experience for Undergraduates 24 students and taught more than 60 math and stat courses at both the Summer Programs, published their graduate and undergraduate levels. research, or completed a research project with a math/stat faculty mem- admitted to either the BS/ Since fall 2016, more than 34 ber. MS in mathematics or BS/ students have been trained by the MS in statistics program. faculty and graduated from UMKC The Math Club, MSGSO and As you read this with a mathematics or statistics de- Chess Club organized several events newsletter you will find the gree. These are only a few examples such as the Integration Bee, Pi Day, praise worthy efforts of of the work done by faculty members the end of the semester gathering, faculty, staff and students of UMKC’s department of mathe- and chess tournaments. during 2016-2017 school matics and statistics. The “fast track” five-year Bach- year. The Department of elor/Master of Science program has Our only administrative assis- Mathematics and Statistics become popular and several under- tant, Ms. Tanya Henderson has been continues to be a vibrant, graduates (typically in their sopho- very supportive. Throughout the year energetic, and diverse more or junior year) applied and were she has coordinated with faculty and community of scholars. 1 Internship and Career Information in Industry, Research The Importance of Summer In- Institutions, and Government Labs,https:// www.siam.org/careers/internships.php ternships for Math Majors Research in Industrial Projects (RIPS) Program, http:// “During the school year, students may feel over- www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/student-research- whelmed with coursework, sports, or co-curricular ac- programs/research-in-industrial-projects-for-students- tivities that may keep them extremely busy while leav- rips-2017/ ing no time to think of doing an internship or a job. However, Internships are a proven way to gain relevant National Institute of Standards and Technology's Sum- knowledge, skills, and experience while establishing mer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (NIST SURF), important connections in the field. Internships may be https://www.nist.gov/surf/surf-gaithersburg completed during fall or spring semester or full time over the course of the summer.” [1] [1] https://www.thebalance.com/is-an-internship-really -all-that-important-1986800 Internships provide a positive learning experience for students by allowing the development of professional skills and an assessment of possible career paths. Interview with Current Math Many UMKC mathematics majors and graduate stu- dents have obtained summer internships and eventual Major Mary Ellen Cox: Summer permanent employment . There are several internship Internship in Kansas City opportunities available in the Kansas City metropolitan 1. You obtained a summer internship this year and area such as worked full time during the summer. Could you let us offered by Sprint, know about the company and its clients? Cerner, and H&R I obtained an internship for Lockton Companies. Lock- Block. Note that the ton is the world’s largest privately held Insurance Bro- deadlines for sum- ker. I specifically worked within the holding company mer programs usu- which was located in the Kansas City office, but just one ally occur during of the floors. Lockton has many different types of cli- January to March of ents because companies big and small all need the ser- vices that Lockton provides. This summer Lockton in each year. Kansas City hired 25 interns, some of them for the holding company and some working for the Kansas City Students can also earn UMKC course credit while work- office. ing as an intern for a company or for a government 2. What kind of questions can we expect in an intern- agency. For more information please visit: http:// ship interview? cas2.umkc.edu/Mathematics/int.asp My interview process with the company was excellent. I interviewed directly with the performance coach that The following websites contain internship information I ended up working with this summer, and the COO of for undergraduate mathematics and statistics majors. the U.S. company. I did not get many questions like the ones that I would usually prepare for in an interview; it was more of a conversation. The people at Lockton re- AMS Undergraduate Math Majors web page: ally seemed to want to get to know me as a person http://www.ams.org/programs/students/emp- through the process. internships (continued on Page 3) 2 These are just 2 examples of what I did this summer. I completed 3 personal presentations, and 6 separate 3. Name a few specific skills needed to do your job. deliverables for my supervisor’s presentations. To do my job, which was in the Operations Depart- 6. What math or stat skill would you like to learn to be ment, I used a lot of analytical skills, soft skills, leader- better at your internship? ship, creativity, time management, and teamwork. Be- I would like to gain knowledge in statistical software, ing good at Excel was a major plus to my internship, as specifically SPSS, SASS, and R. I worked a lot with the there was not one project that I worked on where I did analytics team this summer and I had some exposure to not use Excel. I had 3 major presentations this sum- the software, but I personally did not have a chance to mer, so being a strong public speaker was a key aspect learn about it. I would like to learn about this software of why I feel like my summer was very successful. because it can help me solve problems independently. 4. What are the career expectations and characteris- I know that this summer was just the start to a lot of tics of your internship? practical applications of what I am learning in school. I This summer my internship consisted of being given a would still like to continue to take in everything that I broad question and trying to answer that question with the use of large data sets. I was asked multiple ques- tions, anywhere from growth of the company to new markets. Once I found a way to convey what I wanted to say through the data, I was able to make delivera- bles to give my boss and the other executives to help them present about the issue at hand. My career expectations are to do something like a big data and consulting role. I enjoyed this summer and how I was able to take a large data set and project fu- ture growth, or look at past trends, and then try to make inferences about what that means for the com- pany and what we could do about it. I know that I could excel in continuing with work similar to what I have done this summer. 5. Where and how did you use mathematics or statis- tics in your internship? I used statistics in my internship through many of my projects. Some of the data that we used, we were giv- en, and some we had to collect. Within the data sets, we had to manipulate the formulas and numbers in Excel to do many different things like projecting growth. We had to find out which of the offices were not growing at adequate rates, project growth for the future with current trends, and see where the focus should be to correct the problems. can. In this internship, we focused a lot on trends. We looked specifically at the New Hires of the company 7. Tell us about your supervisors and their roles in and their experiences. We had to find a way to quantify training and preparing you for a future career. that to see what offices were doing above or below I had 2 supervisors, one was the Director of Develop- average, what departments were doing above or below ment and the other was the Vice President of Opera- average, and then how that played out through each tions. They both did an excellent job in training me this office. This allowed us to see the trends in what Lock- summer and preparing me for my future. They gave me ton can improve on.