On Feb. 23, 2024, the inquisitive Club Mathematica held their monthly meeting. Club Mathematica, run by Student President Graci Postma, is a student club that strives to serve the math majors here at Washburn University an opportunity to get to know their peers.
The club members often play games, not limited to math, and eat lunch together . The club holds many events like having guest speakers as well as sponsors related to activities for math majors here at Washburn.
“It’s an organization where we have speakers that come in and have a chance for our students to learn about different mathematical career professions,” Postma said.
In this particular meeting, the club played all sorts of board games and had lunch together. The students in the meeting bonded together and got to know each other by collaborating in all sorts of games.
They started the meeting with a mind-bending question for the students to answer. It was a word puzzle that involved eliminating certain letters to form two words at the end of the puzzle. Throughout most of the meeting, the students tried vigorously to answer the question only to solve it around 30 minutes into the meeting.
Club Mathematica stands out as a social club for math lovers, it offers its members an enjoyable and calming time.
“I would tell them that our organization is very low commitment,” Postma said. “You just show up and sign in, other than that, you can just show up. You don’t have to come to every meeting.”
The club was never supposed to be solving intense math questions or finding the formula to Einstein’s theory of relativity. It was meant for a fun and engaging experience for students in the Math major to build a community.
“It is a space for math majors or anyone interested in math in any capacity to come and talk about math. Sometimes we do and we do logic problems or the occasional math problem, but we really enjoy getting together and hanging out playing games, eating good food, and occasionally having speakers come and talk about their experiences working in the field,” said Ellynor George, one of the current members of the club.
If you are looking for a group of like-minded individuals who love math, look no further than Washburn University’s Club Mathematica. The club is here to let you know not every math problem is impossible, as long as you have peers right beside you along the way.
Edited by Stuti Khadka and Aja Carter
