City’s math center has been relocated to the new L building and Director David Kater is satisfied with the new site.
“We were previously in room T-208, (and) it was the pits,” Kater said. “That room is for like a chemical lab, no AC. It was hotter than hell. This new room, L-208, is like heaven.”
The Math Center website says that its courses are “geared towards helping students overcome the hurdles associated with conventional math instruction. They are ideally suited to motivated, self-disciplined students who need flexible schedules or have special pacing needs.”
The center offers three different programs: on-campus self paced courses, online self paced courses and one-unit credit/no-credit refresher courses.
Available remedial courses for the on-campus self paced courses are Math 38, 46 and 96. For the online self-paced option students can take Math 46 and 96 only.
The refresher one-unit course option is typically taken by students that have been out of school for a long time. The refresher course prepares the returning student for a full 5 unit Math class.
Other students taking the refresher course do it to place into UC and USC transferable Math courses.
Kater reports that at the beginning of the semester, the Math Center had 400 students enrolled in one of their three self-paced programs. However, that number of enrolled students may jump even higher due to students being able to transfer into the Math Center.
“If a student is failing their regular lecture course, they can transfer to the Math Center,” said Kater. “If (students) stick with a class they are not passing, they could end up failing, so by transferring, they can get a second chance.”
Diana Desalvo, a math center student, said she likes the math center system and she’s taking math courses on site.
“The lecture class could be a lot of pressure for those who don’t understand math as much, so the way the center is ran with the tutors there to help, alleviates some of the pressure,” Desalvo said.
With the on campus self-paced courses, students set their own schedules. Depending on how many units a student has they have to commit 4-5 hours a week to the center. Students enrolled in the online self-paced courses are able to complete their math work from home 24 hours a day, via math center online services.
During open hours, math tutoring is offered on a first-come, first-served basis, but due to budget cuts, tutors are limited to the amount of time they can spend with each student.
Math Center tutor, Bryan Constantine, said he enjoys working for the center.
“I like being a math tutor so much; I changed my major to math. That is how much I enjoy tutoring at this center,” he said.
