Putnam Competition

2023 Putnam Day at SFU

Are you an SFU undergraduate who relishes a challenge? The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is held on the first Saturday of December each year. In 2023, a total of 3857 undergraduates from 471 institutions in Canada and the USA entered the competition. Wikipedia has a good overview of the Competition.

The Putnam isn't easy. Typically more than half the entrants in any year score 0, 1 or 2 points — out of a possible 120! Yet the questions don't assume anything beyond standard undergraduate mathematics. Success in answering questions requires persistence, originality, and crystal-clear expression of ideas.

Interested?

Try your hand at a few problems from previous Putnam Competitions to see what it's all about.
Register for the writing-intensive course MATH 480W, The Art and Craft of Problem Solving.
To be included on the SFU Putnam email list and to be notified of problem-solving activities throughout the year please contact me.

In the 2023 Putnam Competition, Oscar Lautsch placed in the Top 500 and the team of Oscar Lautsch, Jonathan Aloni, Minsoo Choo, and Yupeng Zhao placed 2nd in the Pacific Northwest Section of the MAA.

Open training for the 2024 Putnam takes place 3:30pm–5:20pm in WMC 3513 every Thursday throughout the Fall Term. Just drop by!