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Student Profile: Al Garver ’10

Al Garver ‘10

  • B.S. in Mathematics from Augsburg College
  • University of Minnesota Mathematics Ph.D. Candidate

What do you value most about Augsburg?
I appreciated having the opportunity to speak with faculty of-ten. They brought the option of attending graduate school to my attention and encouraged me to apply.

What experiences have you had at Augsburg?
I have worked as a Supplemental Instructor for the Calculus Labs and had the opportunity to participate in the URGO Program and do undergraduate research with Professor Jody Sorenson. I also had the opportunity to do a summer internship at Thomson Reuters. During my senior year I studied abroad in Budapest, Hungary.

What prepared you most for graduate school?
A variety of experiences helped prepare me for graduate school. One of the most useful experiences I had was the REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) I completed at the University of Georgia. My experience in the REU was useful because there I started to learn what it meant to do research in mathematics. Upon the completion of the REU, I had the opportunity to give a talk at the Young Mathematics Conference at Ohio State University. I also took advanced mathematics courses in Budapest, Hungary my senior year and took a mathematics topics course at Macalester College.

Why did you choose to go to graduate school?
I wanted to attend graduate school because I wanted to do original research in mathematics. It is exciting to have the opportunity to work on finding solutions to previously unsolved problems. I also wanted to attend graduate school because it will provide me job opportunities for which I would otherwise not be qualified.

What advice would you give an undergraduate?
Find out what you love and do it for as long as you can. If you think you may want to go to graduate school, start planning for this as early as possible. Understand the commitment you are making when you apply to graduate school because the life of a graduate student, in my experience, is hard work for a long time.

Contact Al at alexander.garver@gmail.com