Wolfram Early Professionals Program sign-up form »

Each year, it feels like 73 billion students use Mathematica and the Wolfram Language at their universities. As the person leading the Wolfram sales team, I see my group fielding questions from tons of students regarding their options for using Mathematica after they graduate. Receiving so many questions is a good thing—we’re always excited to help these brilliant young minds use Mathematica and the Wolfram Language to do basic repetitive tasks, from solving integrals or graphing trig functions in their undergraduate work to visualizing complex sets of data or building an AI system for their graduate-level research.

Some students get their own licenses, and the vast majority use the site license at their universities. In either case, students want to know their options for continuing to use Mathematica and the Wolfram Language after their final degree programs (bachelor’s, master’s, PhD, etc.) conclude. For those students going right into teaching or research at a university after graduation, they’ll find a site license to use at that school or university. For those going right to a government lab or major company, they’ll also have no problem getting access to licenses to use as well.

The issue that arises for about 68 billion students who reach out to us is that they aren’t sure yet what their next step is—or their first step may be only the first of many steps toward a career path in the future. They still need to use Mathematica, but can no longer access it through their university site license or by taking advantage of Mathematica Student Edition.

So, to bridge this gap, we have come up with the Wolfram Early Professionals Program to provide free licensing (and many other benefits) for students finishing their final degrees soon or who have finished them within the last year.

During the pandemic, we found a lot more students asking new questions about their first jobs after university. Usually, students move to the locales of their first jobs, whereas in a remote work environment, this doesn’t necessarily happen. Or the remote-work experience soured them on the path they thought they were planning, so an immediate shift in plans was in the works. The point is, we had a lot more recent graduates or soon-to-be-graduates who knew they wanted to continue to use Mathematica, but the question mark of who their first employers would be—or if their first jobs would have anything to do with their academic pursuits—swirled in these students’ heads, and they wanted a plan for how to proceed on their own.

Wolfram recently implemented single sign-on (SSO) for university site licenses, which automatically turns off access to students after graduation. Since student licenses can only be used while one is a current student anyway, a clean, easy solution is needed to retain access to Mathematica during your post-student, pre-established professional transition period.

The Wolfram Early Professionals Program provides Mathematica to those who have reached the end of their student careers, and have achieved their final degree programs. You will get six months of Mathematica for free for use on desktop machines and/or in the cloud—and for use at home and/or work. You don’t want to lose access to your license or your notebooks, and we don’t want you to lose that access, either. We have found that typically within six months, you are on your way to establishing a career path and have commercial/government projects or teaching/research assignments, where your license will be taken care of by the employer.

Your Mathematica Early Professionals license includes:

• A Mathematica | Desktop license for your work or home computer
• Mathematica | Online access via a web browser or mobile app to share and collaborate with colleagues online
• Complimentary updates and upgrades to keep your license up to date
• Technical help from our experts as you begin to utilize Mathematica for your work projects

But you may need more time because you’re starting in a training or internship program, or maybe even working for (or building your own) startup. You can continue your membership with the Early Professionals Program beyond the initial free six months and renew your license for up to two additional years (renewing one year at a time) at the very inexpensive Home Edition price. And you can continue to use it at work as well as at home during that time. It’s a very low-cost way to create a bridge from student-to-professional licensing that didn’t exist previously.

We think it will allow you and these 68 billion other students (or recent graduates) to keep loving and using Mathematica and the Wolfram Language to help you get that next job and get your projects solved in less time… saving your organization money and helping you to earn the tenure and/or promotion you seek.  With the license in hand after graduation, you’ll want to add Mathematica and the Wolfram Language to your resumé and LinkedIn profile to assist in your marketability to all the top companies, labs and universities that depend on Mathematica and the Wolfram Language for their success as well.

Here’s a list of all the benefits available to you through the Wolfram Early Professionals Program:

• License renewals for up to two additional years—for professional access at Home Edition pricing
• Access to the Wolfram Early Professionals LinkedIn group to network with other Mathematica users
• Discounts on special events, webinars and conferences
• Notification of internships and career opportunities for those with Wolfram Language experience
• Discounts on Wolfram Language certification
• Eligibility for nomination for an Early Professionals Innovator Award

So again, if this represents you, your students or people you know who might benefit from this program, send them this simple form to sign up.

When you sign up, you’ll immediately get Mathematica and a 14-day activation while we verify your eligibility for the program through your LinkedIn profile (or through other forms of verification provided by you). You’ll also be connected to the Wolfram Research personnel running the program through the Wolfram Early Professionals Program LinkedIn group to provide you with insights on potential Wolfram internships and full-time positions, as well as positions at other companies where Wolfram Language skills are required. And, in addition to the free licensing, we will provide a host of training opportunities to help you transition from using the Wolfram Language as a student to using the more marketable and professional applications of the language.

If you have questions on this program or to see if it’s a fit for you or your students, please feel free to reach out to early-professionals@wolfram.com.