Suggestions on Starting a Mathematics Club

[Thinkaholic]

Hello. I’m an 8th grader who wants to start a math club open to people who love problem solving. I wouldn’t want it to be a competition club, instead I want it to be a club in which at every meeting, everyone would select a problem (when I say problems I mean the type of problems you’d see on a math olympiad or on Brilliant.org) and we would try to come up with different solutions to the problem using different approaches. I also would want to teach people different concepts in pure mathematics. I would want to make it open to high schoolers, and preferably those who have a knowledge of at least precalculus (I have taught myself math up to single variable calculus and set theory, so I am included in the latter category). I want to make this club because 1: I would have fun with it, 2: It would strengthen my problem solving skills, 3: it will help me prepare myself for lecturing students for later on in life, and 4: It would look good on my college resume [emoji6]

Does anybody have any suggestions on how I could make this a reality and on how I could run it?

 

[Scrumhalf]

Are you in the United States? If so, have you considered opening a Mu Alpha Theta chapter? I think my son did it in his school a few years ago (he is a senior now and about to go to college).

You can get details here:

http://www.mualphatheta.org/index.php?chapters/how-to-join

The advantage is that a) you have the gravitas of a mathematical society behind you and it isn't just something you are trying to cook up on your own b) they have done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of ideas of what you can do on a week by week basis, etc. and c) they have a formal structure of having a teacher in your school involved, which again can help in getting things organized, getting the school to chip in some resources, etc.

Good luck! It is great that you are thinking in these terms already as an 8th grader!

 

[berkeman]

It is great that you are thinking in these terms already as an 8th grader!

+1.0

Also, do you have a Mentor in mind for the club? You would usually want to have a teacher/instructor/tutor that is willing to help you organize and run the club. Do you know any of the math instructors at your school? I think it's a good idea to look at resources like @Scrumhalf mentioned before approaching the Mentor, though, to help show that you've been putting in your due diligence on the club founding and organization. I was the chairperson of our student IEEE club at my university, and we had a couple of good faculty Mentors who very much appreciated the efforts that I put in before approaching them with questions.