By Brian Simanek
A small group at my University is currently toying with the idea of creating a “math boot camp” for incoming graduate students. This would be a short series of review courses intended to help students brush up on certain mathematical tools and skills. The target audience would be students in the applied sciences (engineering, computer science, etc.) who will be required to take some higher level math in graduate school.
What would you include in such a course?
Some of the suggested topics have included MATLAB coding and a review of integration techniques (though things are still in the planning stages). I have considered suggesting a brief introduction to advanced probability (random walks, martingales) or numerical methods for solving differential equations (such as Runge-Kutta). The lectures are not being designed specifically for pure mathematicians, so I was not thinking of suggesting a review of proof methods and techniques, but maybe I should. What do you think?