An Equation for Success

On a Saturday morning, many middle schoolers might rather play video games or watch TV than learn about binary numbers. But on Saturday, April 2, 38 female middle school students gathered in SAS Hall on NC State’s campus to do just that — and discovered that it can be a lot of fun.

They had gathered for Sonia Kovalevsky Day, an annual event sponsored by NC State’s Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) chapter. The day is named for the first woman in Europe to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics; she was also a leading contributor to the theory of partial differential equations.

The activities were part of a long-running nationwide event that encourages young women to study math, helps math teachers support their students, and urges cooperation on math education between K–12 schools and local colleges and universities.

“It’s about trying to get more girls to realize they can do math,” said Kristina Martin, a graduate student in mathematics and one of the organizers of the event.

The students participated in three workshops during the half-day event. They used cryptography to crack codes, learned about binary numbers and explored structural engineering by competing to build the tallest or strongest structure using only newspapers and tape. All of the workshops were led by female NC State mathematics graduate students and featured hands-on activities, games and interactive lectures.

The students also heard from Lorena Bociu, an assistant professor of mathematics at NC State and AWM faculty adviser, who gave the keynote address to close the event. She focused on helping students understand the diverse opportunities math can offer.

“What can you do with a math degree?” she asked the students. “Anything you want.”

She described a variety of potential career paths, including economist, engineer, cryptologist, consultant, analyst and actuary.

“A math background is a considerable advantage in today’s workforce,” she said, noting that it teaches students logic, patience, discipline and problem solving.

Several of the 15 AWM students who volunteered for the event have been involved with it for multiple years. In addition to their work on the day of the event, club members raise all the money necessary to put it on through various campus fundraisers.

The volunteers believe the hard work that goes into the event pays off for the students. “The goal of the day is to show them that there’s so much more to math than arithmetic and algebra and what they learn in school,” Martin said.