UCLA Department of Mathematics
YEARLY ACTIVITIES
GSO coordinates with Stephanie and current graduate students to provide each incoming student with a ``graduate student mentor." These returning graduate students can answer new students' questions about departmental policies, quals, instructors, etc. Also, GSO organizes a mentor/mentee dinner at the end of fall quarter, to see how the new grad students are holding up.
GSO organizes a regular hour long talk given by professors introducing students to their area of research. This gives newer grad students the opportunity to find out more about the research currently done at UCLA and helps them decide on a specialization.
GSO coordinates with Stephanie and assists with Recruitment Day. This involves meeting recruits when they visit, giving tours and joining them for meals. Often several graduate students outside of GSO volunteer to assist.
In October, GSO organizes a session to discuss how to apply for fellowships. In the past, research summaries and CVs from past winners have been distributed, and the graduate vice-chair and past winners have been present to answer questions.
GSO organizes a ``How to Choose an Advisor" talk in May. In this talk, geared toward first- through third-year students, a panel of students with advisors discuss their experiences, followed by a faculty panel. Also, GSO has surveyed the faculty on their opinions of the advisor/student relationship. The faculty responses are on file with GSO.
In June, GSO organizes a session to discuss how to apply for both academic and non-academic jobs. The panel consists of both graduating Ph.D.'s and M.A.'s who have jobs lined up in both academia and industry. This covers the interests of all graduate students in the department. Also, GSO distributes a time line of important dates for graduation and other jobs/graduation-related material.
The Spring Quarter filing deadline for doctoral dissertations is usually the first Monday in June. On that day, GSO takes all graduating Ph.D.'s and M.A.'s out to dinner.
The principal goal of the GSO undergraduate women mentoring program is to encourage female undergraduate math majors at UCLA to pursue graduate degrees in mathematics and statistics. To this end, GSO (with the help of the Undergraduate Math Students' Association) will pair female graduate students from the mathematics and statistics departments with female undergraduate math majors.