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- Hi, my name's Daniel Rosen.
I'm a sophomore from Pomona college majoring in mathematics.
I'm from Chicago, Illinois
and here at Pamona, I run cross country
and I sing in the Pomona College choir.
A typical day, I'll wake up around nine o'clock
I'll go to breakfast at Frary dining hall right over there
and then I'll go to class at 10 o'clock
either computer science class and then a math class
at 11 o'clock and then I'll go get lunch.
And then, from then on, I'll do some last minute work
before our 2:45 class
and then I'll go to practice after that.
And then some days after practice
I'll have a choir rehearsal
and then after that is homework.
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We're sitting on Walker Beach
which is one of the big fields we have in Pomona
it's like, kind of a quad.
Behind is Walker wall where students can write messages,
whatever they want to say, advertise for events
or their views.
- So this is in the Pomona section
of the Claremont Colleges?
- Yes
- What exactly does it mean that your at Pomona
but in the Claremont consortium?
- So, the school you attend is generally where you live.
You will probably take the most classes
at the school you attend but you have the option
of taking classes at other schools.
If you attend Pomona you're most likely
to major at Pomona, but students at Pitzer or Scripps
are known to major at Pomona in Computer Science or math.
- So what made you choose Pomona as opposed to
maybe, one of the other five C's?
- Pomona, one of the big draws for Pomona
was when I visited.
I visited as a runner and the team was very welcoming
and it was really a great vibe I got from the school,
from the people at the school.
That was a huge factor in my decision.
Pomona's also the biggest campus here
with 1600 students and largest area campus,
so that's another consideration
and I think they have the most class options
of professors as well.
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- So this is Edmunds, this is the computer science
and Cog Sci lab building
and this is where I take all my computer science classes.
- Great. What's the sort of balance between
computer science classes that you take
and strictly math courses that you take?
- So, this semester I took two math courses
one computer science course
and the next semester's the same.
I'll probably have to switch that up at some point
to get both majors.
I might be a double major, I haven't declared or anything.
- What's been your favorite CS class so far?
- CS class, I'm in still in the intro sequence,
this semester was really, or no
last semester was more fun,
last semester was functional programming
and a lot of lower level stuff, working in assembly,
working in like finite automata.
- Yeah, yeah.
I can pretend to know anything about that
and that would be a lie.
Well, yeah, let's head on in then.
- Sure.
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- Tell me about the Pomona math department.
- Our math department is very strong.
We've got a lot of really good professors.
A lot of people who teach what they research
so they're very passionate about what's being taught.
They're very knowledgeable about what's being taught
and it's just a really awesome department.
- Great. What are the requirements of the math major?
- Requirements of the math major
it depends on what track you're in.
So there's three tracks, there's a general track
a pure track and then a stat track.
There might be an applied track too, I'm not actually sure.
But not a lot of people do that here.
Right now I'm on the pure track
so that requires the interest sequence
which goes up through linear algebra and calc three
and then a bunch of different transition classes
like middle level and then probably
five upper division pure math classes after that.
I'm about three classes away after this semester, from that.
And then the stats track has more classes, stats of course.
And then general is kind of a mix of both
but a little bit easier to get.
- Really. What's been your favorite class so far,
if you had to choose?
- Right now my favorite class is reanalysis.
I'm in there right now,
it's just a very conceptually rewarding class.
You learn a lot of, it's like understanding
the underpinnings of calculus or why we can do calculus
and that's really cool.
- I guess overall, why math? What draws you to do math?
What makes you passionate about math?
- I just really think it's cool.
There's also a lot of jobs in math
biostats is a huge field right now.
A lot of big tech companies
are looking to hire biostat majors and it pays very well.
So that's definitely a motivation there.
And then, other than that, it's just, I find it fun.
I find it rewarding.
- But what do you think makes Pomona's math department
unique from other math departments that you were
looking at when you're applying to schools?
- I think a huge thing is interactions with profesors,
they're all very willing to reach out
they all have office hours every week.
You can talk to any of them, they're friendly
they're encouraging, they're funny, it's awesome.
They're very cool.
Very cool professors.
- Great, amazing! Gus you got anything else?
(laughter)
- [Interviewer] Come on! Come on!
- [Daniel] Nine.
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- So what is a week on the team look like?
- A week on the team
so our workouts are generally Tuesday, Thursday,
those are faster effort, kind of long things what we do.
And then every other day is generally recovery.
Race days are Saturdays and then we do a long day on Sunday.
That's generally what in season looks like.
During cross country we do more higher volume workouts
and then in track we cut down and do lower volume
but a little bit faster.
- Sure, yeah and what's your event?
- I do the steeplechase, 3K steeplechase,
jump over barriers.
- [Interviewer] Into water?
- One of them, a lap, is water jump, not all of them.
God, that would be horrible.
- How do you balance your commitments on the team
with your academics?
- We have a joke on, oh academics,
we have a joke on the team
that you're not allowed to have friends off the team.
- No friends outside of the team.
- No friends off the team
- No friends.
- With academics, it's not too bad.
The team takes up a lot of time but being efficient,
it helps you be efficient
outside of the time that you can't study.
It hasn't like hurt at all.
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- What has been the most surprising thing about
studying at Pomona for you?
- So, to me, the most surprising thing
is how tight the communities are within each major
and as a school there's this great sense of community
that we have.
Professors will reach out to students
students will reach out to professors
events are organized, it's a really cool thing
everyone's supportive of each other
and I think it really helps build the Pomona environment.
- Amazing. And what sort of advice would you give
to say the younger version of yourself,
high school senior who's thinking about applying here?
- First thing would be, pick a place
all schools are great right, all colleges are incredible.
Most of the schools people are applying to
are just excellent institutions.
But you want to find a place that the professors
and the people there really care.
You want to find a place where the people are cool
the people you can get along with
and professors who are interested in you
and will reach out to you.
And the second thing is if you don't find a place like that
know that you can't wrong.
There's not a lot of bad places you can end up for college.
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