Mathematics Senior Thesis

Every math major is required to write a thesis during her senior year. Typically, students are paired with an advisor at the Claremont Colleges whose field is closest to the topic of interest for her thesis. In the fall students meet with their advisors once a week and are enrolled in Math 191. Their thesis is completed in the spring after having approximately half a semester to learn to TeX their thesis.

The purpose of senior thesis is to learn to write a formal math paper, gain in-depth knowledge of a branch of mathematics she is interested in, and to understand the process of mathematics research as preparation for grad school and beyond.

Students are advised to look for a thesis advisor in the spring of junior year and to brainstorm topics of interest with them. Some theses are built from REU programs or other outside sources, but students are encouraged to ultimately pick a topic they would enjoy researching for six months. Below is an archival of past theses so that students may gain a better understanding of the expected end project — or for a visitor’s own benefit. Please cite pages that follow appropriately.

The Scripps Thesis and Scripps Poster Class

These classes are meant to be helpful for formatting a poster or a thesis. You do not have to use these classes to write your thesis/poster but might be a good start. To download these files, simply right click on the links and select “Save Target As…” These are zip files, so you need to unzip them using WinZip or StuffIt Expander. In each class, you are going to want to start by opening the “sample_thesis.tex” and “scripps_poster.tex” files, respectively.

Acknowledgments: These classes would not at all have been accomplished without the help of C.M. Connelly, who wrote the original Harvey Mudd LaTeX classes, Lisa Lambeth, who adapted the Scripps thesis class, and Natalya St. Clair, who adapted the Scripps poster class.

• The Scripps Thesis Class
• The Scripps Poster Class

Thesis Archive