This is to invite interested undergraduates with excellent math skills (any major) to consider participating in the Putnam Competition on Dec 03 (which is the first Saturday in December) and/or in the Virginia Tech Regional Math Competition (VTRMC) on Oct 22 (also a Saturday).

Both competitions will be proctored locally at each participating institution, so you won’t have to travel for it.

You may also consider signing up for Math 309 `Putnam Training’. The course is listed as `TBD’ because we have typically small signup numbers and can schedule to work around participants’ other classes, rather than preventing anybody from signing up due to scheduling conflicts. There is still time to sign up, and we haven’t started yet (customarily start in the second week). Right now I am entertaining the idea to meet Thursday 5pm, if possible, but this is up to negotiation yet.

The Putnam Competition is the most prestigious Math competition available and even `small’ successes make a strong point in the CV, when applying for grad school. The VTRMC was invented to be a `warmup’ for Putnam, but may be considered as worthwhile in its own right.

Students may take either competition without taking 309 (but we believe taking 309 helps), and conversely you may signup for Math 309 even if you don’t plan to take either competition (but why skip out on the competition, since participation is free, except for the time investment).

If interested, please contact Dr. Jochen Denzler.