Alumna Shannon McDonough wins scholarship at Smith College

Math Department alumna Shannon McDonough has won a full scholarship to the Mathematics Post-Baccalaureate Program at Smith College. Ms. McDonough graduated with a B.S. from the Actuarial Sciences program in November 2005. After graduation McDonough spent a year as an AmeriCorps*VISTA at the Center for Ecological Technology (CET) in Massachusetts. There, she worked on community outreach and education, as well as some administrative work. Following her year of service, CET hired her and she continued to work there for another 6 months. After that she decided she was ready for a change, left on a road trip and moved to Boulder, Colorado, where she is currently residing.

The Post-Baccalaureate Program at Smith College is open to all women who have graduated from college with some upper level course work in math, and are interest in pursuing mathematics further. Students in the program spend a year at Smith taking 3 math courses each semester (including grad classes at 4 other neighboring campuses). They also attend a seminar/lecture series and have the opportunity to join a research team. The scholarship that McDonough received provides full tuition and a living stipend.

McDonough hopes that the program will help her decide about more study in the Mathematical Sciences. Currently she is mainly looking into Statistics programs, possibly concentrating in Environmental Statistics.