Math Club
Led and mentored by Qin Lu, associate professor of mathematics, the student Math Club meets weekly to work on math problems presented at previous national competitions.
Its weekly work allows for nontraditional, competition-style problems not typically covered in the curriculum.
Small but mighty, the club produces members who have proven themselves to be highly successful against large math powerhouse universities that send their best to compete in collegiate competitions.
Late last year, Trung Nguyen ’29 placed 231 out of the 4,329 students in the 86th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, receiving 40 points out of 120; the median score on the exam was two points out of 120. A six-hour exam consisting of 12 difficult problems, the Putnam exam is considered one of the hardest undergraduate math exams in the world.
Asked what he enjoys about math and solving math problems, he says it’s about learning new things as each math problem offers its own set of challenges, firing his brain to look for solutions.
“The Putnam was definitely a difficult competition, but it’s not high pressure,” Nguyen says. “It feels like you’re living in a room for many hours, dedicated to solving a puzzle. Before you know it, it’s over.”
He and his other club members, Turner Day ’28 (mathematics and computer science) Wonhee Choi ’29 (mathematics and physics), and Huiyan Zou ’26 (mathematics), enjoy math because there’s always an answer.
Lu says the students thrive in the stressfree environment of Math Club. “There’s no boundary here, no pressure. No one feels intimidated. It’s just fun,” she observes. “In the classroom, sometimes you may have only 30 minutes to solve a problem.”
