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Math major and Putnam standout wants to change the way you think about math

Let’s talk numbers.

4,329 students. 487 institutions. 12 problems. 6 hours. A median score of 0 to 2 points out of 120.

Those are the numbers behind the most prestigious undergraduate mathematics exam in North America—the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition—where one 91¿ì»îÁÖ student’s impressive score of 30 put him in the top 500 students nationally.

But if you ask Sarthak Dassarma ’26, his biggest hope during this year’s Putnam Competition was not about getting a certain score, it was about being better able to think deeply about the concepts in the time given. For him, math is always about more than just numbers.

“Every math class is a bit of a story,” he says. “This is the journey you’re taking—you’re learning these things, and then you get to apply them later on.”

That philosophy started at home when Dassarma’s father handed him books of challenging math puzzles long before any classroom did. He considers himself privileged that his family cultivated that curiosity, so math became something to explore, not something to fear.

When he transferred into Santa Clara by way of UC Irvine and community college, he found an environment that matched that instinct—small classes led by faculty who prized genuine understanding over rote repetition.

“I think in theories instead of theorems,” Dassarma says. “When I see math problems today, I ask myself, ‘Am I able to grasp the whole story?’”

Three math myths—debunked

When it comes to telling a story, Dassarma is passionate about the details. Who tells that story? Who’s invited in? What does it get used for? 

Across his experiences in high school math club and weekly problem seminars at Santa Clara, Dassarma has thought about math’s story deeply, and he thinks we’re getting some key chapters wrong.

The first misconception: that some people are simply math people, and others aren’t.

“I think mathematics can be for everyone,” he says. “But access isn’t equal, and pretending otherwise does real harm.”

He points to classrooms where math is taught through rote memorization, word problems populated with names that don’t reflect the students reading them, and math clubs that skew heavily male.

The second myth: that math is an objective subject. According to Dassarma, who math is taught to and how it gets used in the world are deeply intertwined.

“Math can actually drive a lot of the inequality in this world,” he says, pointing to gerrymandering as a pointed example of mathematical tools deployed to entrench power. “It’s no use being good at something if you’re not going to make the community better.”

The third myth: that mathematics is a solitary pursuit, the domain of lone geniuses working in isolation. Dassarma finds this almost funny, as most mathematics publishing is done in partners or a team of people.

Plus, he recalls, one of the best moments after this year’s Putnam came from standing around after the test with a fellow student and a professor, all three of them puzzling over a matrix problem none of them could fully crack.

“It’s amazing how many times ideas get shared,” he says. “That’s the beauty of mathematics—we tell the story together.”

The Putnam play-by-play

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition splits into two three-hour sessions, each with six problems ranked roughly by difficulty. Most students—even exceptional ones like Dassarma—solve only a handful. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s about your ability to creatively problem-solve on the fly.

Here, Dassarma takes us deep into one of his favorite problems from this year’s exam.

Imagine the entire XY coordinate plane, every point colored either red or green. Now add one rule: if a circle passes through three points of the same color, its center must be that color too. Prove that, under this condition, every point on the plane has to be the same color. No mixing allowed.

His weapon of choice: proof by contradiction. Assume the opposite is true, follow the logic until it collapses on itself.

“It’s the sassiest way to prove something,” he says. “You just go: okay, fine, let’s say your claim is true. Let’s show how ridiculous this looks." He grins. “I feel very ‘slay’ when I write a contradiction proof.”

The limit does not exist

This spring, Dassarma graduates from Santa Clara and plans to head east to pursue a master’s in Applied and Computational Mathematics. After that, he hopes to work as a quantitative financial analyst where his love of stochastic math—the study of randomness—and his fascination with financial markets converge. The appeal, he says, isn’t that this field gives you the answers. It’s that it gives you a better way to ask the questions.

He’s still figuring out whether he’d like to take the research or developer path in quant analysis, as each requires a different mix of math, computer science, and financial knowledge. So, his plan is characteristically his own: get better at all of it, and let his niche reveal itself.

Before he goes, he has one message for students considering the Putnam: try it.

“It’s very rare that you’re truly allowed to sit for a long time with your thoughts,” he says. “There’s zero pressure. You just do what you want, have fun, and think about the problems. And of course, enjoy the free pizza.”