Students?

Man U babe

Out of curiosity, who here is actually doing maths in college?
Or has done so in the past?
If so, state what you're doing.

I'll start.
2nd mathematical science, UCD

ecksor

I'm taking an introductory course in pure mathematics via distance learning.

GuanYin

I did Fourier Analysis and Calculus of Several Variables as an option along with Bio-Engineering/Fluid Flow & Mass Transfer Equations.

I can happily say I do none of them now!

pooka

I've just finished a degree in Maynooth, single honours mathematics. Thoroughly worthwhile business, studying pure maths. )

Cian

Sev

I'll be starting first year theoretical physics in trinity in october.

quarryman

Thoroughly worthwhile business

I've finished my degree in Maynooth and can't say there was anything worthwhile about Maths. It is also the easiset course offered in the Science curriculum I.M.O. But what is there to do with it? Not much that i can tell.

ecksor

Originally posted by quarryman
But what is there to do with it? Not much that i can tell.

His precise wording was that the study of it was worthwhile, not that Maths was worthwhile. Some people find it worthwhile to study apart from any practical use that can be made of it. New models of thought along with rigour and conciseness/clarity of expression are valuable life skills.

But, there are lots of things you can do with mathematics. Most of the obvious applications fall into computer science (or maybe that's just my perspective), and the theoretical physicists are basically mathematicians nowadays. The fourier analysis and calculus that sykeirl mentioned are very useful to a scientist for analysing data, although I suppose they'd be mostly considered tools of the applied mathematician. Number theory's uses in cryptography is probably the most cliched example, but that makes it no less true.

Perhaps if you are more precise about what exactly you studied then relevant motivations can be found for you.

Victor

I did Construction Economics in college, which had an Applied Maths and various Mensuration subjects

silverside

DCU Mathematical Sciences - broad course including stats/programming/economics etc.

Going back for more now! Financial Maths in Warwick.

Don't knock it - lots of things are based on maths (engineering, operations research, computer science, etc, etc) - what is abstract research today may become taken for granted by manufacturing industry in a few years time.

flyz

I'm doing Mathematical Methods and Modelling with Open University. I'll have a diploma this year and will go on to do a degree with them.

Victor

Originally posted by Victor
I did Construction Economics in college, which had an Applied Maths and various Mensuration subjects

Oh and Materials Science and Mechanics.

Nietzschean

Theoretical physics in trinity, going into 2nd year, but will be transferring to pure maths(phy smells...)

smiles

Finished first year of Financial Maths and Economics (NUI Galway).
Love the stuff.

<< Fio >>

tribble

Ancillary Maths - DIT Kevin Street.
It's maths for people who are stupid enough to do 2 majors (Chemisery and Comp. Sci:(:() and not clever enough to drop one of those and do a real maths degree.

I hate the stuff, always end up learning off 1000's of examples and applying the best fit to the question on the exam sheet...
Don't understand it at all - but appreciate it's usefulness no end.
Doesn't help that i can't hold more thatn 4 numbers in my head at any one time (unless they have a pattern).

Spare a though for us retards

tribble

Garth Farley

Originally posted by Serialkiller
Theoretical physics in trinity, going into 2nd year, but will be transferring to pure maths(phy smells...)

Good man, stay away from the Dark Side.

I myself, 2 years of pure Mathematics in Trinity completed.

GF

Nietzschean

Originally posted by quarryman
It is also the easiset course offered in the Science curriculum I.M.O.

Easiest course? bit odd to have some form of pure maths referred to as that. Better keep yer opinion to yerself, can't have the lay people think'n we arn't unusually clever to be able to do these courses.........

Good man, stay away from the Dark Side.

Dark and completely retarded side...phy dept.....ugh...

and odd alias, i can't see any Gareth's just completed 2nd yr...well there is one...but 2nd name alot diff...

Syth

I'm going into 2nd Science in UCD, doing loadsa maths subjects, Maths, Maths Phys (Oh yes!), and Computer Science.

Yay! We have a maths board! This is the kind of things you miss when you go on holiday to net-less Clare.

Capt'n Midnight

Quote: I did Fourier Analysis and Calculus of Several Variables as an option along with Bio-Engineering/Fluid Flow & Mass Transfer Equations.

Reynolds number was easy to understand - it's where cigarette smoke becomes turbulent about two or three feet above the tip. The coresponding numbers for heat and diffusion were a tad more difficult to visualise.

We also did numerical analysis (lazy maths) as well - but they dropped that later cos it was the wrong type !

The main problem was that the answers to the complex equations were just another set of complex equations - most of the time we didn't know when to stop...

You know the way you get tired seeing letters in algebra and would rather have numbers - we got so many greek letters (one lecture we made the lecturer write out the entire greek alphabet 'cos we were convinced he was making them up ... ) that we longed for letters (we'd given up on numbers long before)

PS. One of the reasons the russians got into space first was they were better at differenciation in the days before computers

Tree

goin into 2nd yr physics and applied maths in ucc. cant wait to go back.

sceptre

Originally posted by ecksor
I'm taking an introductory course in pure mathematics via distance learning.

That sounds interesting. Mind if I ask who you're doing that with?

ecksor

OU, same as flyz.

http://www3.open.ac.uk/courses/bin/p12.dll?C02M203

covers a fair bit, nicely laid out course, good materials. Assignment questions are nice in that you haven't a breeze of doing them (or at least I didn't) if you don't understand the stuff reasonably well, but if you do know the material then they're quite straightforward, so they're really just making sure that you're covering the main bits of the course at least. The exam seems quite rigorous in that 70% of it is stuff you must answer, but on the other hand they don't seem to throw any curveballs in terms of questions.

I'd definitely recommend doing it, but if someone wants to do it then make every effort to do it before they do away with the residential school in 2006. I learned a tonne over there this year (and had a whale of a time).

Woden

Did maths to honours level in 1st year in UCD, now learn whatever maths I need through physics and chemistry

disco_rob_funk

Originally posted by Garth Farley
I myself, 2 years of pure Mathematics in Trinity completed.

GF

say what? I'm going into third year maths and I ain't heard of ya

RC

Nietzschean

Originally posted by disco_rob_funk
say what? I'm going into third year maths and I ain't heard of ya

RC

Well if it isn't disco rob, what happened to bloddy paintball?!?!

Garth Farley

Originally posted by disco_rob_funk
say what? I'm going into third year maths and I ain't heard of ya

RC

Ah sure, these name things sure are confusin' . Call me Gerry

You got thru! After Counter Strike? What is ninja for:ninja: ?

\newbie
G

Imposter

Me done/attempted 2 years of Pure Maths in Trinity before going and doing ICT. Best decision I ever made.

dudara

Finished Honours Physics Degree in UCC in 2000. Did honours maths and applied maths subjects up to fourth year. Included fourier analysis, advanced complex analysis and vector calculus (very handy for electromagnetism), graph theory, differential equations, group theory, number theory.

Problem is that none of the maths was taught when I needed it. The physics we were studying was way ahead of the maths, which you wouldn't learn for another year or so. When you did study the maths, you really didn't need it anymore. There needs to be more agreement between physics and maths departments, because the physics doesn't really make sense without the right tools.

Capt'n Midnight

Enough people have posted and the sample size is big enough to find out the Student's Distribution ....

---

OK forget I said that and have a look at History of Mathematics Pages
http://members.aol.com/jeff570/ -

c.f. William Sealy Gosset (1876-1937)
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/student.pdf 653KB

melachi

Maths for computing.

scojones

I am also doing Math this year (third year, CS). We were given a course outline last week, so here it is


Number Theory:
-- Cycles of residue
-- Modular Arithmetic
-- Cyrptography
-- Number Systems
-- Closure
-- Prime

Graph Theory:
-- Basic theory
-- Algorithms

Matrices:
-- Solving systems of equations
-- Graphics

Recurrence Relations

Operation Research:
-- Simplex method/linear programming
-- Transportation Problems
-- Hungarian assignment problems

charlieroot

Just finished my degree in Financial and Actuarial Mathematics in DCU - starting a postgrad on elliptic curve crypto and algebraic number theory.