The Backseat Driver

What I get out of the REU depends on my role.

As an educator I get to work with hard-working students who are creative and willing to tackle ill-posed problems with messy data sets and complex dynamics. These students are a rare breed and it is a privilege spending eight weeks with them tackling a difficult problem. They need to learn a lot of mathematics that normally does not get covered until graduate school and they need to learn how to become a mathematical researcher in a very short timeframe. Furthermore, they need to take this newly attained skill set and assimilate it into their problem-solving abilities to address the REU problem they have selected. It is gratifying, as an educator, to work with students through this process and witness their development from inchoate to adept researcher in a compressed time interval. I am proud to be an instrumental part of their education.