Teaching
Mathematics has almost certainly been taught at the university from its foundation in 1479. It was an integrated part of the artes liberals that were taught to all university students.
1848 saw the creation of the degree of “magisterkonferens” in the natural sciences opening the first possibility of majoring in mathematics. It was followed in 1883 by the “skoleembedseksamen” that was more oriented towards a career as a high school teacher. This education, in turn, was reorganized and changed its name to “Naturvidenskabelig Embedseksamen” in 1960. In the beginning, the number of graduating candidates was limited to a few each year growing only slowly until the 1960s when it began to increase dramatically to about 60 per year in the 1990s, a level that has remained more or less constant since then.
In 1917 a special exam in insurance mathematics and statistics was established at the Faculty of Political Sciences. It was divided in 1958 in two separate exams, one in insurance mathematics and another in statistics.
Finally, in 1986 an education in Mathematics-Economy was established in collaboration between the Department of Mathematical Sciences and the Department of Economy.
As in mathematics, the number of students and candidates of statistics and insurance mathematics began to grow in the 1960s. Over the last years, the number of candidates of statistics has been around 20, in Insurance Mathematics, the number is about 30 and a similar number of Mathematics-Economy candidates graduate each year.
Since the foundation of the university mathematicians have taught mathematics to students majoring in other fields. These activities have diversified after the merger with the Agricultural School. The department now teaches mathematics and statistics to the students of physics, chemistry, computer science, biology, many educations at the Frederiksberg campus as well as students at the Business School (CBS).