Maths at University

[autrejour]

My son is in Year 12 studying Maths, Further Maths , Physics and Economics at A level. He does not know what he wants to do career wise but he would like to pursue some kind Maths subject at University. I know we will need to start looking soon for courses and Universities and I would like to help him but completely lost on where to start. He is also quite sporty.
Would you wise ladies be able to help ? What are good Maths subjects for good career prospects and also which Universities should we be looking at. Sorry, just started looking and a bit clueless.

Also I see the entry requirements for MORSE is a lot lower than for Maths. Does this suggest that MORSE is not as sought after compared to Maths at Warwick?

Whatever he chooses, don't let him fall into the trap of accepting an offer from another school/dept with the belief that it is easy to switch to maths once he is there. He will still need to meet the maths entry requirements. Plus, they will need to have a spare seat and be satisfied that he is suitable to sit in it. It can happen, but it is rare.

Thank you all so much for amazing advice. A lot to think about and consider. DS is very academic, GCSE results were all 9s (except 8 in English and 7 in French), however things seem to come easy to him without too much effort (lucky sod), this this is why I am not so sure about Oxbridge, as I think a lot of effort is required to prepare for and sit the STEP exams. If he decides Oxbridge is what he wants , he is perfectly capable of passing the test but he needs to start putting the effort.
Silver mostly and occasional gold in the Maths challenges over the years.
I spoke to him last night and his preferred subject is Maths then Physics and Economics ( due to his dislike of writing essyas ). He is at a private school on top academic scholarship gained in year 7. They are preparing him for Oxbridge however not much other type of guidance. From your advise I think the Warwick MORSE sounds great. We will look into this and also Statistics, Data analytics and actuarial science. i have also ordered the book somebody recommended 'Why study Mathematics ?'. Thank you again, a lot of fantastic information.

DD did MMaths at Durham. She is now doing a further masters in the niche she wants to move into. I am not in the slightest bit worried about her employment prospects!
All her contemporaries are in employment. Yiu Lou really can't go wrong as long as you select the right course for your level. A couple of her A level contemporaries struggled at school and frankly shouldn't have been encouraged to continue, let alone to a maths degree - two dropped out - from Cardiff and Reading respectively. So chose your level. And if you get a get maths degree (from wherever really) you'll do fine.
I also have an English grad (Cambridge) who I worry about far more!

London it might reflect that the application demographic is slightly different. Warwick Maths scoops up Cambridge people who miss their STEP or who don't get an Oxford or Imperial offer.
Another factor might be different course modules. DS was quite fussy about what was on offer/available

autrejour, pick the right economics course and there are very few essays. DS is a determined essay avoider, who worked out he could complete his economics/EME degree taking only two economics courses out of 12. In the end he took three. Most of the rest were maths/statistics. He also managed a Masters degree without writing a single essay. (His father who studied PPE at Oxford thinks this is appalling, and both claim to be the "proper" economist.)

STEP is not needed for Oxford, though MAT is, and some others look at either STEP or MAT or grades. My understanding is that it has more of a maths challenge approach, but is tough. Therefore designed to sort out the natural mathematicians from the heavily tutored/very diligent. Maths can get more interesting as you get beyond school syllabi, so he may enjoy it more.

Silver mostly and occasional gold in the Maths challenges over the years

He may struggle with Oxbridge entry as UKMT appears to be a good predictor of ability for STEP and MAT. I think over 50% of students get A* & A grades in Maths at A level so they don't tend to use Maths predicted grades

Worth an entry though if he's keen. He would need to submit earlier in the cycle, around Oct/Nov.

He best approach is to read the course descriptions, have you heard of Heap Uni guide? And that will help shape his thinking, if he is keen on one course it may limit the Uni choices.

As others say, factors such as city or rural location, proximity to home and facilities are other deciding factors but he needs to be happy with the course. Maths and Computing have high drop out rates as students haven't looked into the actual courses and assume it's similar to A level, which it often isn't.

Good to think about what he wants to do after his degree. Has he considered operational research as a career? Very maths based but also problem structuring and solving.

Civil service employs lots of people, check out www.operational-research.gov.uk/recruitment/

Not entirely relevant now, but MEng with excellent employment prospects is readily available with a B in maths A level. Of course maths is a vital qualification but A* in FM is not needed to be successful. Thank God! Huge numbers of engineers don’t have it!

Some Unis do "Financial Maths" as a BSC which is often roughly half "Maths" and half other related fields such as economics, accounting, etc. It's basically a Maths degree but focussed on finances as opposed to engineering etc.

Following with interest. Good move to get the Why Study Mathematics book. I’ve only read a bit of it but she does explain things clearly in a way that even I understand most of it - must read the rest. She came in to College to speak to year 12 recently and I think helped DS firm up what he wants to do.

Having read this I’m going to quiz DS on how he is finding statistics!

Percy, things may have changed, but generally talented mathematicians find more demanding courses more interesting. Unless there are compelling reasons otherwise, I would caution against someone who is likely to achieve A* in FM from looking at courses which are looking for a B in maths.

Top engineering courses do look for A* in maths and many will be hoping for (though not demanding) FM.

Whilst checking this I noticed that Imperial offer a free online maths course designed to help Yr 12 students "Develop your thinking skills, fluency and confidence to aim for an A* in A-level maths and prepare for undergraduate STEM degrees."

www.edx.org/course/a-level-mathematics-for-year-12-course-1-algebraic

I don't disagree that engineers need problem solving skills. My guess that is that for University the most obvious predictor of those skills is strong performance at A level, particularly FM and in STEP.

You do not need a top engineering course to be very successful as an engineer. You really do not. DH employs many qualified engineers and I bet next to zero have FM. It’s all too easy to get carried away by the requirements of Imperial College and similar but you really can aspire to being a very good engineer without going to these elite universities.

I do actually know this is the case. DH has employed engineers for over 40 years. They are a hugely successful consultancy. We need to get away from the idea that you need all these high level grades and FM to be successful at engineering. When I wrote originally I didn’t know the DC in question was a high flyer. However everyone does need to understand engineering is not just studied at elite universities: a B in maths is ok, (obviously a higher grade makes life easier) snd employers don’t want mathematical robots! People skills, communication skills, problem solving (it is absolutely not all maths!) snd a willingness to learn and understand engineering principles is what’s needed. My DH does no design now at all. He knows how to solve privkrns though. As consultants should.

DH now earns money by correcting poor design. In fact, unworkable, not fit for purpose, design. Maths didn’t help the engineers of these schemes. They were no doubt swanky grads but they get it wrong because they are not engineers in the true sense. Lots of practical engineers are found in fairly standard universities. Who, I am delighted to say, get their grads into brilliant jobs. Possibly because the courses are designed around employability. Not just using a computer program and being good at maths.

You have missed my point.

Talented mathematicians often happier on courses that offer more challenge. Entry requirements are a reasonable guide. OPs DC sounds very able.

Maybe. Of coursed the best qualified should look to higher tarriff courses. Fair enough. However, Oxbridge and Imperial may not be where very good students should go. Sheffield, Southampton, Nottingham, Manchester and Bristol etc are excellent for high flyers too.

Happiness is slightly different though. Happiness at work might not be sitting with a computer program all day and just surfacing when the computer says "yes". That way boredom lies. Running your own company and developing a wider skill set is often far more enjoyable.

DH now earns money by correcting poor design. In fact, unworkable, not fit for purpose, design. Maths didn’t help the engineers of these schemes.

That doesn't surprise me at all. Not all engineers are good designers.

@Needmoresleep

You have missed my point.

Talented mathematicians often happier on courses that offer more challenge. Entry requirements are a reasonable guide. OPs DC sounds very able.

Yes I have one of these. She actually went to boarding school at 14 so she could do more challenging math than was offered in our local (very good) high school.

She is now at a university that really challenges her, which she loves.

The other day she did her boyfriend’s math homework because she was bored...

She also tutors students in math as her work study job, and offers math tuition as a side job.

No idea who or where it comes from - none of the rest of us in the family are similar.

Yes, but it does not follow that she will not want other elements at work or indeed would not want to be self employed. Work often challenges engineers. Often university does not prep well for that.

Percy, I recognise that there is a MN thing that people should only study subjects because they lead to employment.

However they are young and this is the time to explore interests. DD is taking some BEng and MEng courses as part of her current intercalation, simply because she thought they would be cool, and indeed they are providing to be really cool. They won't lead to her becoming an engineer, and she has no aspirations to own her own business. As it does not matter what grade she gets, she has opted to take more challenging courses, which presumably like ZZtop's DD, because the more challenge, the more interesting. However having those skills might well influence the direction her medical career goes. In my experience knowledge and educaiton rarely go unused.

A levels are a few years ago, so grades achieved then are pretty irrelevant. (They had a maths summer school to bring them up to speed.) What seems to matter is the ability to grasp concepts quickly.

Seriously though, there is time to think about careers later. Genuine maths aptitude is something that is in short supply, and there are a host of potential carers. OP's DC should look for something he thinks sounds cool and which will challenge him.

I’ve told DS to decide what he enjoys and look at the degrees based on that. If he felt he had a clear career path then that’s fine but he’s unsure at the moment. He started off thinking it would either be Physics, Maths or Computer Science but feels now he enjoys Maths the most, particularly Pure along with a bit of coding so is going to be looking for something he can focus on those but with the flexibility to pick up other things as his interests develop.

I agree with Need’s advice about challenge and entry grades but with one crucial caveat: a Maths-able DC is likely to be challenged as much if not more than the non-maths parts of courses than by how complicated the maths is.

Being good at maths does not mean you have other very important skills: design for one, as mentioned above, or strong communication and collaborative skills.

I wouldn’t say it was a MN thing because I don’t think there are “MN things”, but I certainly don’t agree with a view that being good at maths make you the best. That view seems to tie into the professions that have the highest earning potential.

A lot of people who are great at financial economics for example go into the city or who do academic work about statics and models used in the works of finance. Having worked for investment banks in the City, I’m personally not a fan of the type of people this work attracts.

So I don’t like this sense of snobbery about being good at maths that I read on here at times (usually by the same posters to be fair).

That’s not to take away from the fact that being good at Maths, loving Maths and having a maths degree does put a student in an excellent position. The OP’s son should certainly consider all of the degrees suggested on here. Personally I think MORSE sounds fab. And it may involve elements that challenge him not because they includes complicated maths, but precisely because they don’t

@PerMyLastEmail

Far too much importance is put on the elite universities regarding engineering on MN and, as posters are not anything to do with engineering, they do not understand the difference between maths and engineering.

Most engineering grads look for work in engineering. At some universities it is fewer but the majority see it as a career degree. Just doing a few modules is neither here nor there: besides the point really. The important thing is to choose an accredited degree and to think about employability. We need engineers, but we also need competent ones with useful skills. All employers will say this.

@PresentingPercy

I’m not quite sure why you directed that post at me? Perhaps because I said that I personally think MORSE sounds fab, and that had some engineering modules?

I have no reason to think you’re wrong. I was expressing a preference without thinking of it as a precursor to going into engineering.

I’m actually married to an engineer myself. We don’t talk in detail about the degrees and universities of the people he hires (or rejects); don’t think it’s an inherently interesting subject for either of us. Even if we did, I wouldn’t assume that him being an engineer gave me expertise regarding degrees...

But what I do know from him is what you have said, maths or theoretical ability does not always come hand in hand with design ability. Hence why much of my last post was agreeing with points you’d made.

Permylastemail,

I hope it was not coming across as snobbery. My point really is that if a DC is going to get A* in FM, most times they should be looking at courses where this level of ability is required. The danger is that if most of their peers have Bs or Cs at A level the course content will be less demanding and the group is likely to move at a slower pace.

My observation is there is a bit of an obsession about professions on this board: law,. engineering etc. Most 17/18 year olds are surely picking subjects they like, not deciding on say, MFL, because it is a good route into law. Equally those whose talents and interests lean towards STEM should pick courses that interest them. Almost certainly there will be as many career avenues waiting for them as those who opt for humanities.

Undoubtedly there will be some whose main ambition is to own their own engineering firm, and who are as busy practicing their handshakes and golf swings as they are practicing their p hacks. It takes all sorts. There will be room for the "mathematical robots" as well. Engineering, and indeed econometrics, can be exciting in itself if either my DC are anything to go by.

Is it worth doing STEP in maths in form 12?

What about MAT In year 12?