Elements of Mathematical Modeling

Introductory course providing basic approaches for describing real-world problems. Students will learn and practice the mathematical modeling process, in which they will iteratively identify a real-world problem, define variables, perform mathematics, analyze, test, and refine their solution, and eventually implement their model and present results. A variety of types of models will be introduced, including linear and nonlinear models, discrete dynamical systems, optimization, and statistics. The real-world problems will connect to a running theme throughout each semester.