What is a DRP?
A Directed Reading Program (DRP) pairs undergraduate students with graduate student mentors for semester-long independent study projects. The first DRP started at UChicago in 2003. Since then, graduate students have started a DRP at Boston University, Brown, Dartmouth, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Indiana U, MIT, Princeton, Rice, Stanford, Texas A&M, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UGA, UMD, UMichigan, UMN, UNC, UPenn, UT Austin, among others.
The structure can vary between universities, but a DRP program is characterized by the following [as specified on the DRP network homepage]:
- Graduate students and undergraduates are matched in one-on-one pairings.
- Mentors and mentees meet for an hour once a week.
- The DRP project is a semester-long reading endeavor; it is not research. For more details on this, you can view previous projects or sample project topics.
- At the end of the semester, the undergraduate mentee will give a presentation or produce a final project to share with other DRP participants.
- The DRP is run by graduate students with a limited amount of faculty involvement.
What are the benefits of a DRP program?
A DRP can empower undergraduates to study something that interests them in an accessible and low-stakes setting. It can also give graduate students experience with mentorship and thereby develop critical career skills, and foster important connections between undergraduate and graduate students.
Undergraduates gain the educational experience of developing a written project for the end of the semester. This develops mathematical communication skills which an undergraduate does not typically learn in courses; by producing a short expository summary of what they read, students are required to synthesize knowledge and tell a story in a way that they do not on problem sets.
How are mentors and mentees paired?
The core interactions of a DRP are the semester-long reading projects of an undergraduate-graduate student pair. Undergraduates and graduate students who are interested in participating fill out an application form before the semester begins. Mathematical interests are gauged from both groups of students when they apply to the DRP program. Undergraduates do not need to have specific or sophisticated interests; “I’ve heard of knot theory and it seems cool” would be sufficient. After reviewing application forms, the organizers of the DRP try to make the best matches possible, which may mean that not every applicant is paired to a mentor or mentee that semester if there is not a great fit. At the beginning of the semester, there will be a meeting amongst mentors with the DRP organizers to provide mentoring resources and prepare them to act as DRP mentors.
Who can participate in the DRP?
Any graduate student who is interested in mentoring (and is on track to qualify/pass their prelims, if applicable) is welcome to apply to mentor.
Any undergraduate student interested in participating is encouraged to apply, regardless of mathematical background, coursework, or academic performance. When the number of undergraduate student applicants exceeds the number of available mentors, we will prioritize selecting students who haven’t yet had an opportunity like the DRP (such as an independent study course, undergraduate research project, etc). If a student is not selected to participate in the DRP, they are certainly welcome to reapply in future semesters.
Will I get a paper out of this?
A Directed Reading Project is expository in nature. It’s a chance to learn more about a topic outside of a typical undergraduate curriculum. As such, students shouldn’t expect to solve an original research problem or publish a paper. However, students will present what they learned to their peers at the end of the semester and are welcome to give an expository talk on the topic of their DRP at any undergraduate conferences or seminars that accept them. Additionally, the knowledge gained from a DRP project could certainly prepare students for an undergraduate research project in a related field.
Some mentors may ask students to produce a short expository write-up.
How long is a Directed Reading project and how often does the DRP run?
We plan to run the DRP every semester, and projects are one semester long. Due to limited resources (such as graduate student mentors’ availability), students who have already participated in the DRP may be less likely to be selected in future semesters. Thus, students should expect to complete their project in one semester, not continue it for several semesters.
How large is the DRP?
The Directed Reading Program at Duke is fairly small, mostly due to the size of the mathematics graduate program at Duke. The number of graduate students available to serve as mentors each semester will determine how many students participate. In any given semester, there will typically be 2-3 graduate student mentors and 2-5 undergraduate student participants.
To avoid over-burdening our graduate students, graduate students will take turns serving as DRP mentors. That is, which graduate students are participating in the program as mentors will change each semester so that no graduate student ends up mentoring for many semesters in a row.
