Busy life but supportive friends :)

It’s been a few weeks since I lasted posted a blog, so I thought I’d write something. A few weeks ago, one of my friends called me up just for a casual chat and she commented on my blog writing. One of the things she recommended that I do was comment on what student life is like for a third year maths student. I thought this would a great idea and so I decided to write this blog. Back in January I wrote about the three options which I am studying this term; Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations, Financial Modelling and Analysis and Actuarial Mathematics.

I have completed the coursework for both Numerical Methods and Actuarial Mathematics. I have one final piece of coursework to complete which is the Financial Modelling and Analysis as well as my final year project report. The Financial Modelling coursework is going well and is due to be submitted next Thursday. In my opinion, the golden rule to being successful in any subject, but especially Mathematics is to practice regularly. The best way to do this is answer the tutorial questions and have a go at the past exam papers (answer all the questions).

To complete the coursework successfully, always read and reread the lecture material thoroughly, make additional notes in the margins during lecture time, whilst the lecturer is speaking. If any difficulties arise during the lecture, then write down the question quickly in the margin, so you can ask the lecturer later during the tutorial or student/staff office hours. Personally, I find in this university the maths lecturers are pretty thorough in the way they go about explaining the notes.

My friends and I help each other, especially during the tutorials. We do the questions separately and then group together to discuss our answers and compare the solutions. If we get different solutions (which has happened on more than one occasion, all three of us obtained completely different solutions), then we try and justify why we believe that our solutions are correct. If we still remain unconvinced, then we ask for guidance from our lecturer who points out what mistakes we have made. We then try and redo the same question again and hopefully obtain the correct answer. Although the correct answers and full solutions are posted on the student intranet about two or three weeks after the tutorial took place. The lecturers do this to give us students the opportunity to try all the tutorial questions by ourselves, not just during the tutorial hour but also at home in our own time.

Overall, I am really happy with the modules I took. Of course I do have some difficulties with mathematics sometimes, but if I give it a few days or even a week or so, eventually things to click into place.