Teaching applied mathematics mathematics courses to our non-major (business) students at Babson is really rewarding, and this is especially true of our electives. There are a set of challenges that come with the territory, ranging from motivating, introducing, and layering more abstract mathematical structures and arguments to encouraging students to master mathematical programming techniques. Overcoming these hurdles often gives students a brand new perspective on the applicability of mathematics to questions outside of basic data analysis. 

Babson's Teaching Innovation Fund was kind enough to sponsor my writing a course pack, including lecture notes, problems, solutions, and teaching notes, for a cryptography course. Some notable features of the course include:

  • Guided implementation of classic cryptosystems (encryption, decryption, and cryptanalysis) in MATLAB
  • Ethics articles and discussion questions
  • Studio problems and solutions for all lessons
  • Teaching notes discussing major themes, common student misunderstandings, and directions for further development




Special thanks to Kathy Esper and Cheryl Kirschner for all their help on preparing and editing the deliverable. 

This document is offered free of charge under the Creative Commons license. Feel free to edit, redistribute, remix, etc. as you see fit. If you end up using part or all of these notes in a course, I'd appreciate your letting me know. 

Below is a short sample which includes the table of contents. You can also download the full document and the LaTeX source.