Degrees & Programs Mathematics
When you study mathematics at Westmont you actively participate in your learning and work closely with both students and professors.
You belong to a supportive community of mathematicians becoming fluent in the language of the natural world. You look beyond numbers and formulas to abstract patterns, using your imagination and stretching your creativity. As you develop deeper understanding of the fundamentals of mathematics, you’ll become a well-educated and well-rounded person. Through your classes and work on research projects, you’ll gain knowledge and skills that make you a better thinker and communicator and prepare you for interesting and rewarding careers.
Sample Schedule
B.A. in Mathematics |
B.S. in Mathematics |
Fall (17)
Spring (17)
|
Fall (17)
Spring (17)
|
B.A. in Mathematics |
B.S. in Mathematics |
Fall (17)
Spring (17)
|
Fall (17)
Spring (17)
|
B.A. in Mathematics |
B.S. in Mathematics |
Fall (16) - Even Years
Spring (16)
|
Fall (16) - Even Years
Spring (16)
|
*Third and Fourth years can be swapped depending on an even or odd year.
B.A. in Mathematics |
B.S. in Mathematics |
Fall (16) - Odd Years
Spring (14)
|
Fall (16) - Odd Years
Spring (14)
|
*Third and Fourth years can be swapped depending on an even or odd year.
Faculty Highlights
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Pursues effective and efficient processes in mathematics, data science, and mathematics education
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A mathematician and musician interested in data science
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Views mathematics through the eyes of faith
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Major Requirements
See the Mathematics section of the college catalog for official major and minor requirements, course descriptions, and prerequisites. Upper-division courses are offered every other year according to the following schedule:
- Fall, even years: MA-108, MA-124
- Spring, odd years: MA-109, MA-130, MA-155
- Fall, odd years: MA-110, MA-136
- Spring, even years: MA-111, MA-135, MA-140
Tutoring
If you are a community member looking for a mathematics tutor, please contact our department assistant Susan Leyva (sleyva@flcoastline.com).
Career Paths
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment occupations that require a strong background in math or computer science continues to grow at faster than average rates. Our graduates find jobs in many areas, including:
- Education
- Linguistics
- Medicine
- Law
- Finance
- Biomedical Research
- Software Development
- Systems Analysis
- Operations Research
- Government Service
- Data Analytics
See career paths for graduates who majored or minored in mathematics at Westmont.
Mathematics Field Day
Every winter term Westmont College hosts a "Mathematics Field Day" for high school students, and Westmont students play a major role in running the event.
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Kudos to Curtis Barnhart, Sam Tang (current students), and Isaac Jessop (2023 grad) who learned that a paper they submitted with Professor Russell Howell was accepted for publication by the American Mathematical Monthly, a highly-selective journal that has less than a 10% acceptance rate. Their paper was based on research that took place last summer with funds from Westmont to support their work. Entitled "Flip a Coin, Get an Annular Function?" their article investigates the probability of whether randomly-generated functions of complex numbers (sometimes called imaginary numbers) have a specialized property.
Ten students and three faculty members were among nearly 6,000 other mathematicians at the 2024 Joint Mathematics Meetings, hosted by the American Mathematical Society.
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Russell Howell delivered a paper, “Revitalizing Complex Analysis,” at the 21st biennial conference of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences (ACMS) in Charleston, South Carolina, in June. At that meeting the ACMS board selected Russ to be the editor of their conference Proceedings, which has now become a peer-reviewed journal. Ray Rosentrater gave a talk at the same conference, “Bicycle Routes and Euler Double Paths.”
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David Hunter’s research students from summer 2016 presented their work at the Southern California-Nevada Section Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) at CSU Northridge in spring 2017. McKalie Drown gave a talk, “Smoothing Binned Data by Recursive Subdivision: Estimating Income Inequality.” Emma Donelson and Bethany Le presented a poster, “Using Quaternions to Improve Statistical Analysis in SO(3): A New Two-Sample Hypothesis Test for Orientation Data.” MAA’s Tensor Foundation Women in Mathematics Grant provided partial funding for these research projects. In addition, Russ Howell’s student David Kyle gave a talk on his complex analysis research, “The Count of Monte Disco,” while Kyle Hansen, Olivia Hughes and Samuel Muthiah presented posters on their work in the 2016 spring semester Problem Solving seminar.
Mathematics Alumni Highlights
Kyle Bechler ’06 works as a data scientist with CBRE in Santa Barbara. In 2015, Kyle completed his Ph.D. in statistics from UC Santa Barbara. His areas of expertise include predictive modeling, machine learning, leveraged credit, and financial modeling.
Robby Cherry ’06 earned a master’s degree in education, coached cross country and track, and worked as a substitute teacher. He now teaches mathematics at Crean Lutheran High School in Irvine, Calif., and serves as an assistant coach for cross country and track and field. He has fond memories of tea and snacks at his professors’ homes accompanied by conversations about trisecting angles.
Kristin Kidd Demmert ’06 received her nursing degree at Johns Hopkins University and works at an infertility clinic in Denver, Colo. She is earning a master’s degree in nursing. She fondly remembers hours of reviewing concepts in the math office at the chalkboard, all of the dinners together, and learning math in such a tight-knit group.
Melissa McCleod ’06 teaches middle school and high school math at an international school in China, everything from sixth-grade math to AP calculus. Her students come from all over the world, including South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada and Turkey. Her Westmont education prepared her well for some of the questions students ask, such as, “Where exactly is pi on the number line?”
Patsy Calderon Lloyd ’01 earned a master’s degree in biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health and works as a statistician at International Partnership for Microbicides, helping run clinical trials for HIV microbicides for women. She’s also working on a doctorate in epidemiology. She writes, “I appreciate the dedication of my professors, who were genuinely concerned that I not only learned the material they taught, but that I understood the process of learning itself. That process is usually uncomfortable; trying to stay up all night to cram new material into your brain before homework is due is usually not the way to go. My all-time favorite quote from Dr. Rosentrater: ‘Patsy, you need sleep.’”
Stephanie Earney Meriaux ’01 graduated with a degree in math and promptly left the comforts of equations for a 4,500-mile bicycle trip across the country followed by an ironman triathlon and a brief career in outdoor education working for Outward Bound and the Boojum Institute. She lives in France and uses her travel and mathematics skills as a project manager for a geographic information systems company that collects and analyzes geographic and demographic information for corporations.
Mike Petty ’06 worked for an internet communications provider and a software developer for manufacturing after finishing his degree in mathematics. He joined the staff of Youth with a Mission and works in Romania. Mike says, “I was a little blown away when I was first introduced to non-Euclidean geometry. But once I was given the tools and theorems to explore, it became much more exciting to wander around this place I’d never been before.”
Paige Baird Whiting ’00 spent a number of years after graduation working as a high school math teacher. She now lives in India and works for India Christian Ministries, giving children at risk a home life in the church and an education at the local, private, English-speaking school.
Faculty Emeriti
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Served as president of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences
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A gifted musician who thinks deeply about the role of music in worship