MT1003 and the unhelpfulness of the Maths department.

[smallmonkey]

this exam is actually a joke..

can anyone do this module?

been going through the past papers.

lets hope groups doesn't come up.
or solution curves.
or proof of primes.
or any applied stuff.
or like any of the Campell/Quick stuff.

someone pointed out - at the top of the exam paper it clearly says "Answer no more than EIGHT questions". therefore as a mathematician surely anything less than eight is also acceptable, and should merit full awards.

'nuff said

[Q]

I am really not looking forward to this exam at all!!!

As it has been said, looking at the past papers, they seem quite difficult!

I really think that the teaching in MT1003 was poor. I expressed this view in the module assessment form. I don't think they pay much attention to them though.

[Bryn]

Hrm, I think I was absent the day the module assessment forms went out :-/

[Dee]

Good luck with the exam.

[my gud]

[s]Bryn wrote on 14:38, 24th May 2004:
Did you even read what I wrote? I did ask him multiple times. I also haven't been complaining about the quality of the course - simply the availability of notes and the fact that the lecturers were unhelpful and didn't do as they promised.

Well you obviously didn't read what I wrote, I clearly said that people were referring not only to your predicament but the other people that have posted. Start paying more attention perhaps is also a good tip. And chasing it up means talking to your course-co ordinator and class rep or head of teaching then head of school if talking to the lecturer is unhelpful - it doesn't sound like you did that at all. Hence why I said it was up to you to chase it up.

As for the person (not you Bryn by the way ) who said it because of not being used to it in school...exactly, this is why you shouldn't be moaning. Other people have dealt with it well or otherwise but it's never an excuse to blame other people.

Accept your own repsonsibility, realise there is nothing anyone could have said other than what they have, and learn for next time. But don't moan and blame other people, that's what annoys older students and makes their advice sound harsh. You would be told the same things by Dave Roberts if there are no other factors, and by any sane lecturer. And if you expect everyone to always be nice to you then you are in for a big shock when you get a job in the "real" world. You know you've done wrong so now just deal with it and learn for next time, it's the only advice there is.

[ob]

i have been to almost every lecture and im none the wiser to what the hell this course is about. notes that i took in lecture are rubbish and i wrote down everything, and also notes from tutorial are rubbish and i wrote down everything. campbell was rubbish as a lecturer and tutor. all i can say is that i wish gd luck to everyone in the same position as me, aka every1 else in the class.god is with us all!!

[Guest]

Pure and Applied Mathematics was a relatively easy course (especially in comparison to Mathematics (MT1002)), although they have changed two lecturers since I took the course. To put lecture notes online is not a simple task - Right into Junior Honours, I was still handing in handwritten work. But to put lecture notes on the internet, the notes have to be typed into the computer, which would be relatively easy if it were History or English (where there are also less lectures anyway and more own research in general), but have you ever tried to type in mathematics, especially multiple lines of evaluating an equation? You will find that Microsoft Word will only give you the basics and is slow and tedious to use for such a purpose. Such texts involving lots of mathematics are generally written in a package called LaTeX where every formatting command in typed in (like HTML in notepad)! It then has to compiled before it is viewed. It can do far more than Word etc., but things like graphs or diagrammes are complex/difficult to type in. Members of the department (quite rightly) advises against Senior Honours students learning this package for their project dissertations unless it has hundreds of equations, as it is hard to learn. Even if the lecture notes are typed up, we had one of the lecturers who complied a set of one of the Honours courses into a book which had a pricetag of �230, but it was in the library!

As for the course: For the first part of the pure part of the course, we even obtained weekly summaries (they are still online and written by the previous lecturer and a list of twelve proofs to learn for the exam). The new lecturer for this part seems to have the most comprehensive online set of information anyway - this could be helpful, but it could be too late now. The lecturers/tutors are friendly, and will help with (small) questions about the course, i.e. not "Can you tell me everything?" If you have done the work required, it should be trival matter to get a reasonable mark, otherwise it is the fault of the student for not doing the work or asking for assistance a long time before the examination!

[EviLTwiN]

yeah, without wishing to sound harsh, the course wasn't taught particularly well when i sat it, and yet most people i know who went on to do a maths degree didn't find it difficult at all.
You'll find all thru honours, where it counts, that some courses aren't taught in a particularly great way... you've got to find a way to deal with it if you want to get a good degree...


of course what is a 'good way' is very subjective. the way uni is meant to work - the way it always used to work - was you're given a topic, and you have to go away and learn it yourself, with lectures only for guidance. Nowadays we're spoonfed as it is, with practically everything in the exam in a lecture. Now you can go thru an exam and do ok without fully understanding the topics, but simply being prepared to answer by rote from a list of very specific questions.

If something comes up that you weren't taught there would be a huge outcry, and yet that is what is meant to happen... it sorts those who read around the subject from those who don't.

just my little rant at universities lowering standards

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http://www.the-leaving.com

[n01]

[s]Bryn wrote on 19:02, 24th May 2004:
I still would like to have a copy of the lecture notes even if I was at the lecture. It gives me something to check my own notes against, in case they are incomplete or incoherant.




Bryn, you were absent most of the time it seems.

Exam was straight-forward. I don't know what you're complaining about.

[tintin]

Just a thought for all those who find the Maths department bad: Teaching quality has been rated as "Excellent", one of only two in the UK Mathematics departments to be rated so (the other was Edinburgh).

We are third behind Cambridge and Bath for the subject and have one of the highest employment prospects in the country for maths graduates.

Perhaps if you're finding the subject so difficult, it's not for you? Just a thought.

[source: Times Online, 26th May]

[niall]

all i can say is:

At least its not stats


(i pity daa fools that are sitting MT2005 atm)

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