Further Maths A level- why?

[Tansie]

Genuinely- following on from another thread about A level choice advice... or lack of!

What sort of degree pathway would make having Further Maths a good idea?

'Engineering' is apparently one- any idea what sort of Engineering?

And- stupid question alert!- Is FM higher maths than plain Maths, or just more of the same? What differentiates one from t'other?

DDs' school has lots taking A level maths just not the further maths. Year 13 does have a further maths class but only 4 or 5 left in it after AS level. The AS results in normal maths were very good. DD1 got an A. I think at least 20 got an A out of about 60 that took it - the teaching is very good. That is why it is disappointing that DD2 cannot do further maths in lessons. The school discourage the students from taking more than 4 AS levels which I think is one of the reasons why hardly any selected further maths.

To be fair, it was a pretty small school, in a 'challenging' catchment, so I'm unsurprised that so few students wanted to study Maths for Alevel.

My current school has 3 classes of Maths and one class of Further Maths in both AS and A level. We get excellent results and are in no danger of ever losing Further Maths, although we may have to go down to 2 classes of single Maths some years, depending on numbers (and whether we're allowed to increase our entry requirements to an A at GCSE)

DS is doing it mainly because he really loves maths… (and is thinking of doing something economics related at university, possibly combined with more maths).

DD is doing Maths, Further Maths, Physics & Chemistry because she loves Maths (just as well, as tomorrow 3 out of her 4 lessons are Maths), and she is hoping to do Maths at Uni - though I think she can keep her options open and consider engineering, physics etc with that combination of A levels. She did Further Maths at GCSE in the last two terms of Yr 11 and really enjoyed it which I think has given her a good start at AS.

DS is self-studying it in his gap year. Although he has a university engineering offer without it, he's the kind of chap who likes to be sure he can cope.

I wish I'd asked here which modules he would be advised to pick though, as I think he's gone for FP1, S3(?) and M3 rather than FP1 and FP2.

MEng or BEng? Birdinthewings. MEng are likely to strongly prefer Further Maths, whatever the engineering discipline.

Bird FP2 has differential equations. Hard to imagine the engineering discipline where that's not useful.

In terms of which FM maths modules to study in a gap year, it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever whether it's a MEng or a BEng degree!

FP1 and FP2 cover a lot of the maths which used to be in A-level single maths (and is covered in a first year 'Maths for physics/engineering' course).
M3 is definitely worth looking at (although the syllabi for the higher mechanics modules get quite technical/challenging). Statistics in general is relevant to engineering, but FP2 is probably more useful than S3.

OK, thanks all! He's doing it via the online FurtherMaths site so has already signed up for those specific modules, but I'll suggest he invests in an FP2 textbook.

I did FM because I liked maths and my friend persuaded me to do it with her!