Math Alumni Celebrate Pi Day

Andrew Shortt, BMath '20 - I always enjoyed stopping by for pie in MC on Pi day while I was a student. However, I must say my favourite math memory is going to empty classrooms in MC and working on assignments with friends. Hanging out and using the chalkboard made those difficult assignments so much more bearable, and perhaps even fun?

Yogesh Agarwal, BCS '21 - I’m in business school in Spain now, and there are hardly any UW grads around. A few weeks ago, I was studying for an exam and pulled out my old calculator. The person sitting across from me saw the Pink Tie on it and recognized it immediately! Turns out she graduated from Waterloo about ten years ago. Small world, right?

Emily Goodwin, BMath '21 - My favourite math memory was getting my pink tie and then getting to wear it 5 years later for my graduation. I really thought I would have lost it in that time! It was so special to have with me to remind me of where I started and how far I had come.

Shreya Thukral, BMath'21 - One of my favorite math memories from university was during my actuarial science course when we were tackling a complex survival analysis problem.

At first, the concept of hazard rates and life tables felt overwhelming, but after working through a real-world case study on insurance risk, everything started making sense. The moment I correctly calculated the probability of survival for a given cohort—and realized its direct application in the industry—I felt a deep appreciation for how math shapes financial decision-making.

It was the first time I truly saw the power of actuarial science in action!

Arri Yee, BCS '21 - Loved all the Math spirit and fun memories of all the orientations spent with students and other orientation leaders!

Queenie Chen, BCS '22 - My favourite Math memory was being an orientation leader during 3rd year! I met lots of cool people and it was fun to see how stuff was done behind the scenes (including the math dance choreography). Plus, I actually put my pink tie to good use :)

Navdeep Deol, BMath '22 - One of the most fun math memories at Waterloo was working on a ridiculously hard problem set with friends in the library late at night. We were all exhausted, running on caffeine, and at some point, the frustration turned into uncontrollable laughter. Someone suggested a completely absurd solution, and for a moment, we actually tried to justify it. Eventually, we cracked the problem, but the best part was the camaraderie—struggling together made even the hardest math enjoyable :)

Emily Drummond, BMath '22 - My favourite math memory is wearing a pair of leggings covered in math equations to every exam, even if it was the spring term and 30 degrees outside or we were online during COVID. I also wore them during open houses to show off how much we truly love math in the math faculty. I enjoyed surprising people with them and seeing their matched enthusiasm.

Ashley Pranajaya, BSC '22 - Favourite memory was visiting MC with some math colleagues and lining up for free pie each year (which started my annual pie on 3.14 tradition)! Have some great memories using the whiteboard walls just outside the Math C&D as well, good times 

Betty Qin, BMath '22 - In honor of Pi Day, I’m reminiscing about my first days at university during Math Orientation. It was such a memorable experience meeting so many of my closest friends and bonding over our shared love for math.

One of the highlights was doing the Math Dance with my classmates and even the professor—it was such a fun and unique way to kick off our journey together. A great reminder of how math brings people together in the most unexpected ways!

Laurent Fountaine, MMT '23 - One of my favorite math memories is teaching students the beauty of mathematics. My favorite moments is the AHA moments that the students get when there is true understanding. Their face gives it away, and that is a really cool experience to see.

Abbey Jayne Fox, BAFM '23 - My favourite math memory was math orientation and karaoke in MC!

Ely Golden, BMath '23 - Probably one of my favourite math memories was when I was trying to find the values of the entries in (this integer sequence) and I could not find the value for the number 37 and was not sure even at all to prove how it but lo and behold on Christmas day my computer found a value for the number 37! To this day however I'm not sure if a value always exists though.

Aditya Jain, PhD '23 - My favorite math memory is spending time working and eating at C&D cafe. The food, coffee and snacks were not just cheap but also good quality.

Joshua Perlman, BMath '23 - I remember when my favourite Math YouTuber Grant Sanderson AKA 3Blue1Brown released his Essence of Calculus series long before I formally took Calculus in high school. I thought it was so cool learning about something that felt advanced and important based on how people described Calculus in media.

Lyana Rahim, BMath '23 - I transferred to the faculty of mathematics during the pandemic in 2020 and this was quite frightening at the time since I was worried how I would be able to connect and find community within my program and the faculty while programming shifted remotely. I felt like I was taking this huge leap that my heart was leading me into, and I really didn’t know how my experience would feel once I transferred.

However, my time as a math student prove, even during the pandemic, to be some of my most cherished memories. I ended up joining a random breakout room in my MATH 136 classroom and found my mathie friends! We ended up facetiming every night almost to go over topics, complain and help each other understand topics .. while suffering through the stress at times together haha!

My favourite thing about my friend group was we’d literally make memes out of the things we’d currently learn or write out these super corny math pick up lines and it made the whole experience fun and I truly felt like I found my people while finding my passion as well.

I truly would not have survived my time without the incredible community I had found in the Math Faculty at Waterloo.

Khalid Talakshi, BCS '23 - My friends and I did a pi only day, so started with a quiche for breakfast (egg pie don’t judge me), followed by a Shepards pie for lunch, then a meat pie for dinner. Of course, for lunch and dinner we had desserts, so we had key lime and Boston cream pie respectively. It made us fat but worth it.

Vinojan Veluppilai, BCS '23 - My favourite memory would have to be the dance we did to ‘Keep Me Crazy’ by Sheppard during 2018 o week, whenever I hear this song now I get waves of nostalgia like no other and miss university immensely.

Julia Jomichova, BMath '24 - University was actually the best 6 years of my life so I have many favourite memories but I'm most grateful for the friends I made here. In grade 12, I was worried I'd fall apart with my high school friends and not make any new meaningful friendships but already in first semester, I found myself surrounded by the best friends I've ever had. 

My favourite memory occurred on the first day of my first semester in September 2018. I was on my way to class with one of my best friends from high school when we were stopped by a girl asking us for directions. By the best coincidence ever, she was searching for the same classroom that we were going to. We found the classroom together and arrived a few minutes early, giving us some time to chat. This was enough time for me to know that I really like this girl. To this day, she is one of my best friends.

Samantha Kaiser, BMath '24 - My favourite math memories are the pi-days. I remember making a point to enjoy my final pie in my last term, an hour before my exam. Worth it!

Vaanie Kathirkamar, BCS '24 - Dan Wolczuk: WHAT'S THE DEFINITION OF A BASIS?????????? Tired Math 136 8:30 class: AN INDEPENDENT SPANNING SET!!!!!!!!!!

Ellen Poirier, MMT '24 - My favourite math memory was having a casino day in my undergrad to learn how to run a casino day for future high school students! We played poker, craps, and roulette and calculated the various odds of different outcomes. Then I did one with my grade 9’s the next year and it was a BLAST!

Jeffrey Qiu, BAFM '24 - Getting lost in MC for the umpteenth time when there was a snowstorm out.

Rhea Rasquinha, BAFM '11 - Seeing everyone get into the spirit during orientation week. Pink ties all around and a pink tie adorning the MC building as well :) 

Heather Wiles, BMath '11 - It's 1A Undergrad 2006 in MATH 137 (Calculus), Professor Doug Park is explaining sine functions. In front of the entire class, he waves his arms up and down while saying "Sinusodal, Sinusodal".

It was a great laugh and got the concept across!

Michael Jacobs, MMT '14 - One of my favourite math memories is watching Donald in Mathmagic Land when I was nine years old. Up to then, math was something I did well in but was not necessarily something that I enjoyed. From the moment Donald appeared and noticed the funny-shaped trees ('Well, what d'ya know.. square roots'), I was spellbound. Donald and his friends showed us the connections between math and music, how the pentagram relates to the golden ratio and how this appears in nature, the math behind playing pool shots, conic sections, as well as looking into infinity. This short film opened my mathematical eyes and from that point, I began to enjoy math.

When I began to teach math myself, I got a copy of this and showed it to my students and I was happy to see them enjoy it too. When my own kids were old enough, I showed it to them too and they enjoyed it. Sure, it is a bit dated now but it still brings happy memories.

Happy Pi day!

Jessica Chan, BAFM '15 - My math memory is shopping around for a pink tie with my math friend!

Jo-Anne Riley, BMath '16 - My best math memory comes from teaching high school math ….teaching circle centers in grade 10 math was always brutal with the circumcentre. There would ALWAYS be a student who would call it (quite innocently!) a circumcision and ALWAYS another student who would call them on it and the class would then laugh. Of course, there would be the follow up question from someone "I don't get it...what's a circumcision anyway?"

Chelsea Zhu, BMath '17 - My favourite math memory is studying at the computer labs with classmates.

Jenny Li, BMath '18 - One of my fondest UW Math memories (other than claiming my free slice of pie on Pi Day) was getting those $2 Jamaican patties and $1 Arizona tea from the cafe in the MC building in between my calculus/stats classes back in first year.

I'm now almost 8 years post grad, I often still think about this memory every time I buy a can of Arizona or a Jamaican patty.

It's been 18 years (ouch) since that class, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

Tianqi Liu, BMath '18 - MATH135 136 137 138… in MC/M3 classrooms are still in my deep memory - Mean Value Theorem, Central Limit Theorem, Fundamental Theorem of Calculus are all from my first year courses at UWaterloo Math. Now I’m nowhere close to remember any of those, but the problem solving skills and analytical mindset acquired from these courses truly made some long lasting impacts everywhere in my career. 

Philip Martin, BSC '19 - I loved pi day when I was at UW for undergrad! It was so fun seeing the massive lineups for pie ha! ha! ha!

Victoria Watson, BMath '01 - Every pi day comes with some preparation! This includes cooking up pizza pie... or egg pie (quiche) to eat as meals for the day at home but also making sure to have a selection of pies to take to the office to eat at 1:59 pm!
 

Cherry Pi shirt at the ready to wear with a blazer and pi scarf to wear to ward off the cold. All in honor of the pink tie and my math cheat shirt that I have held dear for many years.  

Fei Chiang, MMath '03 - I graduated from Computer Science in 2003 with a MMath.

I remember walking to class Sept 11, 2001 morning in the MC building, and people in panic of the world coming to an end. It was a surreal day where all of us on campus were glued to TVs, and the shared experience of this event unfolding before us.

Winnie Liu, PDACT '03 - The Math Contest

I still remember the winter morning in 2002 when I took a high school math contest at the age of 29. It was an unconventional move, but I had my reasons. With a computer science degree already under my belt, I wanted to pursue a new career in actuarial science at the University of Waterloo.

As I sat among high school students, I felt a mix of curiosity and determination. I was driven by a desire to start anew in Canada and build a rewarding career.

Twenty years have passed since that contest. Today, I'm a successful actuary, grateful for the path I chose. Taking that math contest was a pivotal moment, marking the beginning of a new chapter in my life. It reminded me that sometimes, taking an unconventional path can lead to extraordinary outcomes. It all started with a math contest!

Raees Hussain-Aamir, BMath '04 - My favourite memory of Math is the time spent in the math comfy lounge on the 3rd floor, doing assignments late night.

Gordon Yun, BMath '04 - My fondest math memory is simply this morning, when my daughter and I learned (and relearned!) what Pi is, what 3.14 actually represents. 

Marie Cannon, BMath '05 - This year marks 20 years since my graduation from UW Math! To commemorate, my math memory has to be breaking my ankle two days prior to convocation and having to hobble across the stage in the PAC on crutches and with a bright purple cast under my gown :) 

Alex Perel, BMath '06 - Best memory…. I don’t know if it’s the “best”, but some friends and I celebrated the end of our undergrad exams with a couch and a barbecue outside the math building. Basking in glory! 

Peter Wood would remember this. They were good days! 

Diana Chiu, BA '07 - I remember my first days on campus seeing the famous gigantic pink tie hung proudly over the Math building as I entered UW as a frosh student. It is a memory I will never forget. 

Soomin Aga Lee, BMath '07 - My favourite math memory -- is coming to the math building to line up to receive a free slice of pie with fellow hungry students. 
 

But the Math grad ball (2006) was also lovely. I even got a few pictures from that day featured on my yearbook.  

Thank you for the great memories! 

Wallace Hui, BMath '08 - My favourite UW Math memory is, of course, the Pi Day events.

Jason Smith, BCS '09 - My Favourite Math Memory – A Turning Point

I’d like to share a math memory from my first year that stands out to me.

During my 1B term of first year I had to repeat MATH 137 (calculus). I had struggled in 1A, failing calculus and another course, which left me on academic probation. As a 4-stream co-op student, I was fresh off my first co-op term and I knew I needed to make a change academically. I decided to focus much harder on my studies. This time around, I made sure to complete all assignments and practice questions provided and thoroughly prepare for exams.

By the time the final exam came, I felt confident, having worked hard to bring my grade up to around 90%. I thought I did very well on the final. I was out of town in Montreal when the marks were released. When I checked my grade, I was shocked to see a final grade of 100%. At first, I thought there had been a mistake, but I quickly realized that my final exam score had been used as my final grade. It turns out I had really aced the final exam!

It was a rewarding experience that reminded me how persistence and hard work can turn things around. I look back on it fondly as a pivotal moment in my academic journey.

Whitney Wong, BAFM '09 - In one of my lectures on Pi Day a student had brought in 4 pies that day to celebrate. The professor asked him why 4 pies and he then took the 4th pie and started eating it. The whole class was watching and then when he had one small sliver of pie left, he said “there you go, 3.14 pies left for pie day”!

The whole class started to laugh! 

Lori Yee, BMath '91 - I love sharing my passion for math with my students and seeing the moment when the light bulb goes on—or when they get genuinely excited about math. 

Michael Abramczuk, BMath '92 - One of my favourite memories is the cardboard boxes out front of the TAs' offices where we would turn in our assignments before midnight deadline. I'm so surprised no engineering pranksters relocated those boxes to the 5th floor dean's office!

Ian Klinck, BMath '94 - Playing cards in the Math Lounge! 

Isabelle Hemmings, BMath '96 - I think my favourite math memory was this enormous AHA moment, when in the middle of Ordinary Differential Equations, I finally grasped the usefulness of the linear algebra that we learned in first year. It unlocked a lot more for me, but that moment was both enlightening and empowering, allowing me to see the path forward to other parts of applied mathematics.

Second math memory: all the card games played in the Comfy Lounge

Amber Arid-Williams, BMath '98 - Frosh week sitting on a couch outside the math building with other mathies - defending the tie with water guns and a guitar for entertainment.

Gary Cohn, BMath '80 - I graduated with a B. Math in 1980. My favourite math memory is from a first year Linear Algebra class taught by the late, great Prof. Alan Adamson (if memory serves, he didn't like being called Dr. Adamson).

Sadly, I can't remember exactly what he was demonstrating to the class, except that it involved multiplying matrices together to show, in this particular example, that AB=BA.

After he had completed the proof on the chalkboard at the front of the lecture hall, he turned around, smiling proudly, to show us all that he was wearing an ABBA t-shirt. The class was delighted!

One of the greatest professors of all time in my book.

Come to think of it, why isn't the ABBA classic song used as the "official anthem" of UW?

Waterloo

I was defeated, you won the war

Waterloo

Promise to love you forevermore

Waterloo

Couldn't escape if I wanted to

Waterloo

Knowing my fate is to be with you

Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Waterloo

Finally facing my Waterloo

Marilyn Shaw, BMath '80 - I have a Bachelor's of Mathematics Honours degree majoring in Computer Science in the co-operative program from the University of Waterloo from 1980 and a Master's of Mathematics degree majoring in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo in 1982. 
 

In my first year at the University of Waterloo, in 1975-1976, we were still using punched cards. In my second year at the University of Waterloo, in Fall 1976, I got to use the new Widget computer system and no longer had to use punched cards. Wow!!! 

Ken BelFall, BMath '81 -

(Memory 1) I remember a large 1980 C&O take home assignment that included a question to prove an mathematician's obscure theorem. We were all stumped!

After wracking my brain that continually came up empty, I figured the person's theorem had to be documented somewhere. So one night I went over to the Dana Porter Library to research the theorem. Only one obscure book included the mathematician's theorem. Unfortunately I didn't completely understand it. Without down right plagiarism, I tried to simulate the proof in my paper.

Before the assignment was due, a lot of my classmates asked me how I answered the question. I showed them my lame attempt to prove the theorem, for fear they might think I was holding back on them.

When the Professor handed back the assignment, he said how disappointed he was in the class. He said nobody got the question correct and only one student got part marks.

(Memory 2) During the late 70's, I remember late nights in front of a terminal of the Honeywell mainframe computer.

I played a Star Trek simulation game where you had like 40 moves (years) traveling between 8x8 grid sectors within different 8x8 grid galaxies, to rid the existence of Klingons. (Visualize you are a Queen on 64 connected chess boards). You had to calculate the angles and distances to where you wanted to go, while being mindful of how much energy you had (there were space stations you could travel to so that you could reenergize). Once in a sector you could fire photon torpedoes, or wide range energy depleting phaser blasts to destroy klingons before they returned fire.

Early on during one mission, I traveled through a surprise space storm and I lost a lot of energy deflecting the disturbance. My starship entered a sector with 2 klingon warships. I only had enough power to launch a torpedo, so even if I destroyed the ship, the other vessel would have destroyed me because I had insufficient energy to fuel my shields. To make matters worse, the targeted Klingon was behind a star.

While taking a desperate torpedo shot, I tried to calculate the trajectory angle so as to use the gravity of the star to slingshot the torpedo and destroy the enemy.

Turns out I hit the star and destroyed billions of innocent lives, but not before both Klingon ships were vaporized. For punishment, the game sentenced me to 5 years (moves) on Devil's Asteroid, before placing me back in the game.

I won the Honeywell computer game and was promoted to Admiral. It would have made a great script for a motion picture, but I stuck with my BMath '81 accounting option career.

Gisele Andrews, BMath '82 - In 1981 while studying for my B. Math, I was hired as a part-time worker for professor Arnie Dyck. He was teaching a programming course for beginners via service mail, using keypunch cards. Folks from all over the country would pencil mark their cards for each assignment, bundle them up in the correct order using elastic bands and mail them to the University of Waterloo to be processed, via service mail. I was in charge of running their cards through the reader, in the exact order they had been bundled. This created a printout of their program including results. From there, errors were circled within the printed copy and returned to the student by service mail. Needless to say, too often, the keypunch cards arrived with broken elastics due to service mail handling and the student had to start the whole process over.

We should be thankful for what we have today.

Al Caughey, BMath '86 - One of my (many) favourite math memories dates back to the early 80's... 

I was in the MathSoc office in the M&C building and heard the approaching Engineering 'band'. We ran around giving everyone copies of the latest MathNews. When the engineers arrived on the floor, we all stared intently at our papers (& did acknowledge their presence). Their song tapered out and they stood awkwardly for a bit and then silently left. 
 

Mathies 1 / Engineers 0 

Ern Warren, MMath '86 - When I graduated high school in a small rural community, with 13 graduating students in the class, some 60 years ago, we had to write common provincial Public Exams, administered by the Provincial Department of Education. I scored a final mark of 98% in the mathematics exam. When I next saw my high school math teacher, he asked me what happened to the other 2 marks?
 

Since then, I have tried, in my life, to take a more positive attitude and emphasize the positive, rather than dwell on the negative. 
 

Cindy Eccles, BMath '89 - It’s hard to share just one memory of my time at UW. One of my great experiences was helping with the MathSoc Orientation in September 1986. Even though I still had a long path ahead of me to graduation it was a nice feeling to be able to help all the newly arrived Frosh get settled into life at Math at UW. The fun and camaraderie in that first week and finding a couple of good friends make the stressful adjustment so much easier. This was a very rewarding experience, and I was glad I got involved. 

Bill Foster, BMath '72 -After 50 years of not visiting the UofW campus, I was amazed at how the campus had grown and expanded. However, it did take me some time to find the original Math building. I had brought my grand nephew to entice him to follow his great uncle’s footsteps but, although he didn’t, there’s now a good chance his brother will. Happy PI Day ….. Bill

Judy Walsh, BMath '72 - My favourite math memory was being in Professor Fryer's first year calculus class when he announced to us that UW was planning a new cooperative program in teaching mathematics with work terms in high schools. I applied, the program was approved and I became a member of that inaugural class. It prepared me well for a 30+ year rewarding career teaching math in secondary schools. Thanks UW!!!!!

Joe Carpenter, BMath '75 -During the Graduation Ceremony our picture was taken. My Father & Mother and my wife. The picture was put in the next U of W student guide. That was very Special.

We also attended two U of W Alumni Meetings in Melbourne Australia.

Don Hall, BMath '78 - I have two special memories (among many others)

1) My first week in Prof. Graham's class in first year. He decided to take a class and bring us up to speed with Grade 13 Math.

2) I really enjoyed working, volunteering, on MathNews!

Andi Tepper-Klorman, MMath '78 - It's been decades, but some of the memories I have from my time at UW

include:
 

- all-nighters in the Math building, and dodging the guards that tried to not let me sleep on the couches

- the Red Room with the 360/75

- using WYLBUR and WRATS

- trudging across the muddy field from the Philip St. co-op to campus (this was a while ago!)

- exploring the underground maintenance tunnels when I could find an open door

- hanging out in the Grad House

Chris Uttley, BMath '78 - Playing Hearts in the lounge with the boys between classes. Was always fun! 

Ken Robins, BMath '69 - One memory that will always be with me is related to the value of Pi.  

After university, I taught math at Stratford Central Secondary School.  I put the value of Pi to 50 decimal places ending in "..." (taken from my math tables used in university) on pieces of paper with the numbers about 5" high.  I tacked this up above the side blackboard and it went the full length of the blackboard.

 I did this every year with the same pieces of paper and challenged my students to memorize the value of Pi to all 50 decimal places. Some students did it. All the students had an appreciation of the irrational number Pi and its value.