In her first year at Carleton, mathematics major Michelle Kovesi attended the Herzberg Formal for math and science students, one of her first events as part of the Carleton University Math Society.
She remembered it as a really great evening where she met people who are still her friends today, she said.
Now in her third year, Kovesi is president of the math society and said she plans to get people interested in a side of math that’s fun and accessible, even for students in other programs.
The society tries to make math fun with things like T-shirts that say, “√-1 ♥ Math” (which reads “I love math”) as a way of getting students from all programs to reconsider how they feel about math.
“We all love math and want to get other people to realize math can be fun and not just tedious calculations,” Kovesi said.
One way the society tries to do this is through colloquia.
“[Colloquia are] informal, enjoyable, roughly biweekly lectures where we get the professor to talk about fun math, rather than the rigorous classroom stuff,” Kovesi said.
Some past sessions include sudoku and paradoxes, topics that are both casual and popular.
Last year, she was approached about being the vice-president of colloquia and accepted the opportunity to get more involved.
She said the role was a great way to meet people and gave her a sense of belonging.
This year, Kovesi became the club’s president, a title that requires her to oversee all of the society’s actions.
Over 70 members make up this year’s math society, Kovesi explained. The team of executives, who are usually elected, deal with the planning and organization of social events and lectures for the rest of the society’s members.
“The whole team is so hardworking and enthusiastic about what they do, so without them, none of it would be possible,” she said.
While most of the events or tasks fall under one of the other executives’ categories, Kovesi said her role is to help where needed and to make their roles easier.
She described the math society’s two main purposes as planning social events, allowing students to meet one another and their professors in a less formal setting, and enrichment events, like colloquia.
Social events generally involve movie nights, the science and math formal in January and other parties. Enrichment activities, however, usually concern colloquia and ways to present math differently than it’s portrayed in the classroom.
It’s important for her to change the negative way most people see math after high school, when they may have had experiences that seemed tedious or repetitive, Kovesi said.
Her overall goal is to promote the love of math in a range of different people, she said.
