A math professor is a teacher who works at a junior college, four-year college, or university level and has a master’s degree at the very least. Teachers with a Ph.D. in mathematics are more common at universities. What a math professor can do is determined his or her teaching environment, personal strengths, interests, and education.
In junior colleges, a math professor may teach a variety of classes that progress beyond rudimentary topics like calculus and trigonometry and may serve as the start of advanced mathematics training. However, many junior colleges offer remedial math courses. The math professor may be assigned or take some remedial classes, where he or she will teach topics such as beginning or advanced algebra.
This allows students to catch up before moving on to more advanced levels of study. There are also math courses designed for non-math majors to fulfill liberal arts math requirements, and these courses are sometimes designed or taught the math professor. They frequently use a language-based approach to math, and sensitive teachers may volunteer to teach these classes because students may be anxious about math or have a history of failure in math topics.
The role of the math professor in four-year and higher-education institutions may differ slightly. There are fewer remedial classes available, but there are still a lot of introductory level classes to teach. However, these are just the beginning; professors may teach classes tailored to math majors that become increasingly difficult. Math professors may also be in charge of teaching statistics to students who are majoring in fields other than mathematics, such as business or accounting.
In college and university settings, math professors typically teach fewer courses. Full-time professors at junior colleges typically teach five classes per semester. This number could be reduced to four or three at other universities.
If graduate programs exist, students may be expected to teach a portion of the course, and professors may hire or supervise them as part of their work. Professors who teach graduate classes may also supervise graduate students in other ways. They may serve as thesis or dissertation advisors, with the responsibility of determining whether graduate students passed or failed these final projects.
Many universities require math professors to participate in research or study in order to advance the profession and give the university more credibility. Teachers will have more time for these activities if the number of classes they teach is reduced. Teachers may again use graduate students as research assistants because research is rarely done entirely on one’s own.
Because of its practical applications, mathematics has a wide range of applications. Math professors could spend their time helping to develop needed curricula for other departments that require a certain level of math proficiency, such as science, pre-med, public health, statistics, business, and many others. Professors from multiple disciplines may collaborate to design or teach courses that cross two majors, or math professors may work in a department other than mathematics.