Rayquaza17's Life after Uni Blog

Hey, been a long time since I posted in here! I finally feel like it's time to update this.

First of all, I managed to graduate with a 1st! I said in my previous post I thought it would be pretty close, and I was right - I got 70.4%. I'm glad I put in so much effort in second year because that really saved my grade.

Graduation was great, even if it was on the hottest day of the year!

Since then, I really haven't been up to much! I work a couple of days a week at my part time job, and the rest of the time tbh I'm playing video games. But this is my gap year and I want to have the year off education and full time work to relax and recover from all those years of hard studying!

I am 90% sure I am applying for teacher training. Since maths is an in-demand subject, I have a personal adviser, a teacher with years of experience, who I will speak to next week to help guide me through the process. I am also going to a local-ish high school on Thursday to do some observations. I have struggled a bit trying to get some experience as people keep ignoring my emails and not following up on my phone calls. So if anyone is interested in teaching, I would recommend the Schools Education Programme as it does help you get a few days in schools.

I am hoping to do teacher training at Newcastle University, hopefully I get to do the PGCE. I think that is better suited to me than schools direct as PGCE means I get experience in two different schools and would spend more time with peers on the course. Since I haven't got any relevant experience at all tbh, I think schools direct would be a bit too much 'in the deep end' for me.

I was considering doing teacher training where my boyfriend lives (West Sussex), but we both decided it would be better for us financially if he moves up here and live with me. He was supposed to move up in January when he finished his job, but it's looking more like February/March time.

I'll update in a few weeks time when I properly start writing my application.

Wow! This is actually interesting! What put you off in university to not go for a PhD in Mathematics?

Thank you.

I was really keen to do one in second year and I organised to do a research project with one of my lecturers over the summer (between 2nd and 3rd years) just to get me some experience in research. I didn't enjoy it at all and I found it to be really difficulty, and it totally wrecked my confidence and interest in doing harder maths. This really showed in my third year because my averages dropped quite a lot compared to second year.

Ohh ok. Would you consider to do a MMath? You ended up with a first class which was much better than you thought.

I was originally on the MMath course but I decided to switch to the BSc and graduate a year earlier than planned. My reason was that if I graduated in third year, then my second year average would pull me up (as second year = 1/3 and third = 2/3). However doing a MMath would mean that second year only counts for 1/6, third = 2/6 and fourth = 3/6 so I would probably not graduate with a first class. I thought it would be better to graduate with a first with BSc than a 2:1 with MMath.

I can't do a MMath now as that is an undergraduate masters and I have now got an undergraduate degree. I do always have the option to go back to university and get a masters though, but I can't see that happening any time soon if at all.

Wait wait. I thought after a BSc you can do a MMath? I thought you could do a Masters after Bachelor's?

Yes you can do a Masters after a Bachelors, but a masters is a postgrad degree. A MMath is an integrated masters. So people with an MMath will just have that qualification, but people with a masters will have a BSc and a Masters qualification.

It's quite confusing!

Ohh thanks for clarifying! Did you have to complete STEP?

No, I only applied to Newcastle university and they don't require it.

Ohh. If you don't mind me asking where else did you apply? At GCSE level in really excited to do A-Level Maths next year and FM.

Literally just Newcastle. I didn't want to move far from home, and the only other localish uni is Durham but that would have been too far to travel to. I remember many years ago when I was doing my GCSEs I spent ages looking through the A Level Maths and FM past papers because I was excited about doing them, but I didn't have any clue about any of the questions haha.

Haha oh my god that's what I do!

Haha I still did it at uni level, and it got to the stage where I didn't even recognise the symbols or notation.

Btw I've just recognised your avatar is the guy from Prison Break. I'm currently watching that at the moment, I'm on the last series. It's not as good as the first.