Meredith Math and Computer Science Majors Celebrate Pi Week

Meredith College math and computer science majors celebrated Pi Week, March 12-16, a week of events dedicated to math and computer science. Pi Day was a key part of the celebration.

Pi Day, which is March 14, is a day that represents “pi,” a mathematical constant for the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Meredith has celebrated Pi Day in past years, but this year the Canaday Math and Computer Science Club (CMCS), the event’s sponsor, decided to extend it to a full week.

Catherine Jones, ’19, president of CMCS, said the change was made to create a longer celebration of both computer science and mathematics disciplines.

“The club had a great time planning and attending the events, and we found that more students than anticipated were interested in developing their coding skills and learning new math concepts,” said Jones. “Getting our Meredith community excited about math and computer science is a goal of our club, and I believe we were successful.”

Pi Week’s kickoff event was a student-led Python Graphics workshop where students could create a turtle race game using computer coding. The course was open to anyone and was tailored for coding beginners.

On Wednesday, Phillip Andreae, assistant professor of mathematics, gave a talk titled “How to Survive the Hunger Games? Eat More Pi,” which addressed how strategies from The Hunger Games can connect to non-Euclidean geometry. That evening, a screening of The Imitation Game was held on the rooftop of Meredith’s Science and Math Building (SMB).

Pi Week ended on Friday with a professor being “pied” in the SMB atrium. Throughout the week, students raised funds through penny barrels in a contest to see which math or computer science professor would have a pie thrown in his or her face. Each professor had his or her own penny barrel, and at the end of the week all of the coins were counted. Victoria Weber, instructor of mathematics, was named the winner and was pied accordingly.

Learn more about mathematics and computer science at Meredith