数学是对模式，结构和变化的研究。尽管它是最古老的学科之一，但每天都在创造新的数学。从互联网安全到绿色能源技术，再到华尔街投资策略，都可以找到它。数学系的课程着重于分析思维和解决问题的技能，这些技能不仅为数学创造了坚实的基础，而且为包括法律，商业和一系列技术领域在内的许多其他职业奠定了坚实的基础。
Mathematics reveals hidden patterns that help us understand the world around us. Now much more than arithmetic and geometry, mathematics today is a diverse discipline that deals with data, measurements, and observations from science, with inference, deduction, and proof, and with mathematical models of natural phenomena, of human behavior, and of social systems.<br><br>As a practical matter, Mathematics is a science of pattern and order. Its domain is not molecules or cells, but numbers, chance, form, algorithms, and change. As a science of abstract objects, Mathematics relies on logic rather than on observation as its standard of truth, yet employs observation, simulation, and even experimentation as means of discovering truth. From: Everybody Counts: A Report to the Nation on the Future of Mathematics Education (c) 1989 National Academy of Sciences.