Degree in Maths/Mathstats

This thread is aimed at anyone who has a degree in Mathematics or Mathematical Statistics or are busy with one.

I am a South African university student and would just like to compare our standards. Would like to know what you did in first, second and third year in your first degree, just broadly.

I am currently third year.

Thanks.

Anyone from any country can reply.

 

AFAIK, it kind of depends on your second level system; in Ireland, Leaving Certificate maths doesn't cover all the topics covered in A Level Maths in the UK (Irish students take more Leaving Cet subjects than UK students take A Levels, so they're not as detailed), so maths degrees are 4 years. I did my degree in Ireland; in first year, we did things like calculus, discrete maths, algebra, data analysis, C++. In 2nd year,we did more advanced calculus/vector analysis, mechanics, object-oriented programming, probability theory, operations research, differential equations, numerical analysis. In 3rd and 4th year, there was more of a choice-you could choose the modules that interested you. I did stochastic calculus, financial economics, time series, advanced data analysis and statistical inference, as well as some modelling, fluid mechanics, and applied maths. In my experience, employers dont really differentiate a whole lot between different maths degrees.
Hope this helps

 

My degree went something like this:
1st/2nd Year : Largely; Linear and Abstract Algebra, Calculus, Analysis + other non-maths subjects (in my case Physics and Computing).

3rd Year: Complex Analysis, Cryptography and Number Theory, ODE’s, PDE’s, Discrete Maths, Group and Module Theory, Topology and Analysis, Probability/Stats, Introduction to Groups Rings and Fields, Mechanics.

4th Year: Ring Theory, Galois Theory, Nonlinear Waves, Algebraic Number Theory, Analytic Number Theory, Geometry, Dynamical Systems, Numerical Analysis, Written Research Project.

 

I would be careful to compare standards by only comparing subjects.

Standards across the same subjects can differ, as well as examination standards (i.e. one lecturer may only examine the easy stuff of a difficult subject, whereas another may examine the difficult stuff of an easy subject).

The only person who can truly compare is one who attended both.

 

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