Forest Math

Deborah Hughes Hallet describes growing up in the UK, attending a girls’ school but deciding to pursue science, which required daily travel to a boys’ boarding school for A-level sciences while doing math at her own school; the boys’ constant arguing taught her to defend herself and argue. At Cambridge in the early 1960s, she shifted from natural sciences to mathematics amid a newly changed syllabus, became her women’s college’s first math major, and navigated being one of seven women among 300+ math students by asking always questions despite hostility. She received a scholarship to Harvard, became among the first women in its math department, and discovered she enjoyed teaching after being assigned a teaching role involuntarily. She discusses interdisciplinary interests and advises students—especially women—to pursue what they genuinely enjoy, then make it useful, noting math as a respected springboard to many fields.