5
$\begingroup$

A close friend of mine is investigating Associate Degrees in Mathematics with the goal of assessing the plausibility of offering an online A.A.S. at a US institution. I'm curious if anyone here has any experience with such a degree and/or ideas about how to best set-up such a degree. My knee-jerk reaction to the question is that such a 2-year degree would mainly be intended as a transitional degree with the aim of entering a 4-year program in:

  • engineering
  • actuarial
  • mathematics
  • finance

With these goals in mind I would expect Calculus I, II and possibly III should be required as well as an entry-level linear algebra course. Probably Calculus-based statistics and discrete math would be wise as well. I would also want differential equations. It might be the A.A.S. should allow several varieties depending on the targeted transition.

Again, thoughts on how to set-up an A.A.S in Math or experience you have in dealing with such a program would be quite helpful to my friend. Thanks!

|improve this question
$\endgroup$
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @JoelReyesNoche Associate in Applied Science or American Astronomy Society etc. Probably the first one though. Often this is a degree earned by technicians in engineering fields of various flavors. $\endgroup$ – James S. Cook Apr 14 '18 at 13:57
7
$\begingroup$

Yes, the A.S. in Mathematics at my community college is pretty much exactly as you expect (I'm the head of assessment for this particular academic degree; CUNY/Kingsborough in NYC, USA). See requirements here (must click through to PDF; apologies for it not being HTML).

One corrected observation: The number of students taking such a degree is miniscule (maybe the smallest single major at our college?). This means that we can't support any course with only math majors as the clientele; every course must be a support course with mostly engineering and computer science majors, etc. There isn't any flexibility for offering different varieties of the major (which would instantly resolve as one-per-individual-student). There is no calculus-based statistics at our community college, or others with which I'm familiar.

|improve this answer
$\endgroup$
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Thanks Daniel. This is helpful. I suppose it makes more sense for such students to take a higher level stats sequence when they continue their education. There is just not that wide an audience for calculus-based statistics. I forget that calculus is a "higher" math course for most folks... I must admit, it is disappointing, when I was younger I had this idea of university as something to look up to that only some people could hack. How wrong I was. $\endgroup$ – James S. Cook Apr 16 '18 at 3:25

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.