Catfish Are Jumpin'...

This is a little odd.

About ten years ago, the university adopted a "capstone" requirement: graduating seniors in every department had to complete some sort of project displaying their mastery of the discipline. In my department, this takes the form of the Senior Assignment, a written paper on some mathematical topic which must then be presented orally to a committee of faculty. During a student's final year, s/he takes a project-prep class in which the outlines of the paper are worked out; during the following semester, s/he writes and presents the paper.

Now, until last year no student had ever approached me about supervising a Senior Assignment. Last year, I supervised my first, which I've mentioned before. This semester, I'm supervising two: one on the English mathematician George Peacock, and one on baseball statistics. In the past week, three more students - two of them currently in the project-prep class - have approached me. One wants to study the great David Hilbert; I haven't yet had a chance to discuss ideas with the other two. I have reason to believe that there are at least two more in the offing.

Ten years without a nibble, followed by six to eight in less than a year? It may be a statistical anomaly; enrollment in our department has gone up somewhat lately. But I'm still a little surprised. (And pleased, yes.)

[No, I'm not entirely sure what I mean by the title. For some reason, the old Creedence Doobie Brothers song "Black Water" is running through my head.]