Recently, the results of 2023 U.S. MCM/ICM (Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM)/Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM)) were announced. WXIT’s Fundamental Disciplines Department organized 6 teams to participate in the competition, and won 2 awards of Meritorious Winner (namely international first prize), 2 awards of Honorable Mention (namely international second prize), and 6 awards of Successful Participant. Since WXIT’s participation in 2021, we have achieved a new breakthrough in this competition. According to the statistics, the total number of teams participating in the 2023 U.S. MCM is 11,296 (excluding the spring add-on competition), and the total number of teams participating in the ICM is 9,562, with a cumulative total of 20,858 teams participating in the competition, which makes the competition extremely fierce.
The U.S. MCM/ICM, sponsored by the Consortium for Mathematics and Its Application, has been successfully held for 38 times since 1985. The topics of the competition cover a wide range of fields such as economics, management, environment, resources, ecology, medicine, security, etc. The competition aims to cultivate students’ sense of innovation and creativity, as well as the spirit of teamwork, and improve students’ ability to build models and use computer technology to solve practical problems. The competition requires a group of three students to complete all the work from modeling, solving, verifying to writing an English paper on a specified problem within four days. During the preparation for the competition, teachers from the modeling team of the Fundamental Disciplines Department conducted a series of targeted training for the 10 participating teams.
WXIT has always attached great importance to the cultivation of students’ innovative and practice abilities, and encouraged students to participate in various innovative competitions. In order to strengthen students’ comprehensive ability of mathematics application, the Fundamental Disciplines Department has set up the “Comprehensive Application of Mathematical Knowledge Practice Week”, “Mathematical Modeling Mentorship Program” and “Mathematical Modeling Summer Intensive Training Course” and other practical application programs, with the strong support of WXIT’s Academic Affairs Office. These programs have effectively enhanced the ability of WXIT’s students in innovative application and independent learning. This competition fully demonstrated the solid mathematical application ability and scientific research level of WXIT’s students, and showed that WXIT has achieved good results in the exploration of innovative talent cultivation of fundamental disciplines. In the future, the Fundamental Disciplines Department will, as always, focus on improving the comprehensive quality of students and cultivating innovative and practice abilities, actively promote the educational and teaching reform of fundamental subjects, and continuously improve the quality of talent cultivation.
