Information for New Students
Mathematics Graduate Program


Here are some steps to take once you have decided to enter UNT's graduate program in mathematics. This list is geared towards supported students starting in the Fall; there are some modifications for those starting in the Spring.

  1. Plan to be at UNT on the Monday of the week before classes start. For example, in Fall 2020 the first day of class is Monday, August 24, so please be ready to come to the department the preceding Monday. There are some housing links at the bottom of this page.

  2. International students: follow the instructions here. In particular, complete the pre-arrival orientation online course in Canvas and do the document check-in via iNorthTX.

  3. There are usually two orientations for new graduate students, which will be listed here. These are not mandatory, but advance registration may be required.

  4. UNT email: please sign up for a my.unt.edu email address as soon as possible and send an email from that address to me, with copies to our Office Manager Jana.Watkins at unt dot edu and our Graduate Program Assistant Kristi.Nelson at unt dot edu. Include your student ID number in the email.

    Important: official UNT emails can only be sent to your my.unt.edu address, so you should either check it daily or set it to forward to an address you do check daily. This is the address where you will receive emails from your professors, the staff, and me, as well as emails to the department's "all-grad" mailing list.

  5. Send the Office Manager a current curriculum vitae (CV) and official transcripts indicating the date of your Bachelor's, and if held, Master's degrees. We must have these on file in the department before we can allow you to teach, so it is best if we collect them when you first arrive. I realize that you have already sent official transcripts to the Toulouse Graduate School, and I apologize for insisting on official duplicates!

  6. Start thinking about what courses you would like to take. Current and recent course offerings can be found here, along with descriptions of some courses. The course catalog gives further course descriptions. Most students take 3 courses every term. All students take the teacher training course (5000) in their first Fall term.

    There are four year-long core course sequences in pure math: Real Analysis (5310-5320), Complex Analysis (5410-5420), Algebra (5520-5530), and Topology (5610-5620). These sequences are good preparation for the pure math qualifying exams. It is good to take one of them in the first year, but in some cases it makes more sense to begin them in the second year. It is possible to take two core sequences in the first year, but this is rare and should only be tried after careful consideration.

    There are two year-long sequences in applied math: Probability & Statistics (5810-5820) and Applied Math (5210-5220). These courses are good preparation for the applied math qualifying exams.

    There are several introductory courses designed to prepare students for the core courses: the year-long sequence Introduction to Analysis (5110-5120), the Fall course Introduction to Complex Analysis (5400), and the Spring courses Introduction to Matrix Theory (5500) and Introduction to Topology (5600).

    There are some other options at the 5000 level, such as the Logic and Set Theory sequence (5010-5020) and the applied math course Topics in Contemporary Mathematics (5700). Other possibilities are reading courses (59xx/69xx) and 6000 level seminars. Reading courses are usually with faculty members you are considering doing research with, and 6000 level seminars are usually not taken until the second year.

  7. Teaching: In the first year most students are tutors, graders in our mathlab, and/or teaching assistants (TAs). If you have an M.S. or have taken six graduate courses you can be a teaching fellow (TF, i.e., instructor of record). Teaching assignments are made by Professor William Cherry, and tutoring and grading assignments are made by the Math Lab Manager. Information for instructors may be found here.

  8. The week before classes: In addition to the graduate school orientations mentioned above, there are several departmental meetings and orientations during the week before classes. These include a welcome meeting for the new math graduate students, the annual meeting of all the math graduate students, meetings related to your instructional duties, and an "on-boarding" session at which your payroll account will be established. The schedule of these meetings is posted here, under math department calendars.

    New international students will need to contact the Business Service Center (BSC) to obtain a temporary social security number (SSN) before on-boarding. The BSC will explain how to get a permanent SSN, which should be done within two weeks.


Staff Members: Our staff members are listed here. Questions about registering for courses should go to the Graduate Program Assistant, and questions about payroll and tuition waivers should go to the Office Manager. If you will be working in the mathlab, the Math Lab Manager will be supervising your instructional duties. If you will be teaching, the Associate Chair, Professor William Cherry, will be determining your assignment. Any time you have a question and are not sure whom to ask, feel free to send it to me.

Finances: I have collected information on tuition rates, salary levels, and health insurance here. Regarding pay, your assistantship is not a stipend or financial aid, but rather salaried employment for which you receive monthly pay. Be aware that your September paycheck will arrive on October 1.

Your portion of each semester's tuition is due at the beginning of the semester. If this is a hardship, Student Accounting (940-565-3225) offers an installment plan for tuition payment, as well as some short term loans. Note that if you pay for tuition with a credit card, UNT passes on the credit card service fee to you.

Out-of-state tuition: Tuition for supported students is assessed at in-state rates: if you are not a Texas resident you will be given an “employment waiver” to guarantee this. The Office Manager (scroll to the last entry) will send an email to the department's all-grad mailing list in August asking for a response from everyone who needs a waiver. If you are not currently a Texas resident, you should respond. (It will be necessary to repeat this process every term.) If you get a bill charging you out-of-state tuition before your receive the waiver email, don't panic, just email the Office Manager from your my.unt.edu address to let us know.

Links:

The mathematics graduate program site gives an overview of the program.

UNT's one page .pdf calendar. (If this is out of date, you can try changing the year in the http address in the obvious way. However, sometimes the current year's address still points to last year's calendar, and sometimes the Registrar's Office takes the entire page off-line for revisions.)

The Toulouse Graduate School New Students and Current Students tabs.

UNT-International has information for international students. See in particular the tabs labelled “International Center”, “Sponsored Students”, and “Intensive English”.

For housing, both domestic and international students may find UNT-International's orientation page useful. It has a housing section with an off-campus housing site. Scroll down for several apartment search engines and a furniture rental site.