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Current Students Doing Straight Maths At Warwick, Imperial, Ucl, Durham! Help!

Hi. I have an offer from all those uni's. Currently, Imperial is my top choice because...well, it's Imperial. YOu know it's got that sort of rep. But, Warwick is 3rd in pure maths, UCL has good global rep and Durham (St. Chad) is good too. Could anyone please sort of outline what they think about their course, teachers, accomodation, just the entire experience that theyre having at the uni theyre at?

Stuff like, how intimate is teaching, how many lectures, how many 'sessions'...one on ones, social life...i want to be able to go out and not be compeltely overworked...just everything :smile: I'm pretty intersted in Dance, music and drama as well so it'd be cool if you have any info on that....

And even if people are interested in voicing their opinion about where I should go, it'd be much appreciated :P


(i have done much research on all the uni's but hearing from you guys would be perhaps more accurate cos I can hear from your own experiences :smile: )
I'm currently at Southampton which won't help you (specifically) much, but here's what I have to say.

You can expect to have around 16-20 hours of lectures a week along with a tutorial for each module. Usually in the first couple of years there won't be one-to-one 'sessions' as such except maybe once a month with your 'personal tutor' (usually the course co-ordinator).
Reply 2
marcusmerehay
I'm currently at Southampton which won't help you (specifically) much, but here's what I have to say.

You can expect to have around 16-20 hours of lectures a week along with a tutorial for each module. Usually in the first couple of years there won't be one-to-one 'sessions' as such except maybe once a month with your 'personal tutor' (usually the course co-ordinator).



thanks :smile: but out of those four, which would you pick :P
Kinkei
thanks :smile: but out of those four, which would you pick :P


Personally I only had Imperial on my list because I didn't want to go very far 'oop North from me. I'm afraid I can't help you on the front. :p:
Kinkei
Hi. I have an offer from all those uni's. Currently, Imperial is my top choice because...well, it's Imperial. YOu know it's got that sort of rep. But, Warwick is 3rd in pure maths, UCL has good global rep and Durham (St. Chad) is good too. Could anyone please sort of outline what they think about their course, teachers, accomodation, just the entire experience that theyre having at the uni theyre at?

Stuff like, how intimate is teaching, how many lectures, how many 'sessions'...one on ones, social life...i want to be able to go out and not be compeltely overworked...just everything :smile: I'm pretty intersted in Dance, music and drama as well so it'd be cool if you have any info on that....

And even if people are interested in voicing their opinion about where I should go, it'd be much appreciated :P


(i have done much research on all the uni's but hearing from you guys would be perhaps more accurate cos I can hear from your own experiences :smile: )


I think it depends on what you would like to do career wise- Imperial would be the best by far if you want to go into a more sciency field. For a job in the city, warwick and ucl would have the edge- personally I would go for UCL cos of its reputation and uni experience.
Imperial is very intense. You are tested constantly apparently. If it were my decision, I would go for Warwick.
Reply 6
(Current Warwick student)

Having had offers for both Imperial and Warwick I was in a similar situation to you - the reputations of both are great and so for me it came down to course structure, cost and social.

Course structure: Looking at Imperial's course it seems to be slightly more focused on the applied side of mathematics (numerical methods required mechanics etc) which in hindsight may have suited me more but I was very keen on Warwick's core of pure mathematics and then being able to add modules from any other department. (Note: You get several tutorials/supervisions in small groups (~5 people) with academics and postgraduates which I'm not sure is standard for most unis, but equally may well be.)

Cost: London is always going to be expensive and I'm saving at least £50 a week studying here then I would be in London.

Social: Coventry against London... there can only be one winner, the Warwick campus is a great place to study and there is a tonne of stuff to get involved with if you want to but its never going to be able to compare to the experience of living in London and you can feel a bit isolated by comparison. However, Leamington and Coventry do fine and the trains to Birmingham and Oxford are quite cheap if you fancy a change of scene.

So in short its up to you I made my decision based on those above deciding that the more fun I might have had in London wasn't worth the extra strain financially. You may have completely different criteria - if I was making the choice again I would still choose Warwick, but it would be a closer run thing. I didn't talk about UCL and Durham because I don't know much about them, they are both excellent universities but don't quite carry the same strength mathematics departments as Imperial and Warwick - however they certainly have as strong a name recognition (at least as Warwick) which may be much more valuable as employers are unlikely to check the RAE before hiring a graduate.

tl;dr: Warwick or Imperial - it really depends on you.
Reply 7
Hypermodern
(Current Warwick student)

Having had offers for both Imperial and Warwick I was in a similar situation to you - the reputations of both are great and so for me it came down to course structure, cost and social.

Course structure: Looking at Imperial's course it seems to be slightly more focused on the applied side of mathematics (numerical methods required mechanics etc) which in hindsight may have suited me more but I was very keen on Warwick's core of pure mathematics and then being able to add modules from any other department. (Note: You get several tutorials/supervisions in small groups (~5 people) with academics and postgraduates which I'm not sure is standard for most unis, but equally may well be.)

Cost: London is always going to be expensive and I'm saving at least £50 a week studying here then I would be in London.

Social: Coventry against London... there can only be one winner, the Warwick campus is a great place to study and there is a tonne of stuff to get involved with if you want to but its never going to be able to compare to the experience of living in London and you can feel a bit isolated by comparison. However, Leamington and Coventry do fine and the trains to Birmingham and Oxford are quite cheap if you fancy a change of scene.

So in short its up to you I made my decision based on those above deciding that the more fun I might have had in London wasn't worth the extra strain financially. You may have completely different criteria - if I was making the choice again I would still choose Warwick, but it would be a closer run thing. I didn't talk about UCL and Durham because I don't know much about them, they are both excellent universities but don't quite carry the same strength mathematics departments as Imperial and Warwick - however they certainly have as strong a name recognition (at least as Warwick) which may be much more valuable as employers are unlikely to check the RAE before hiring a graduate.

tl;dr: Warwick or Imperial - it really depends on you.



Incredibly useful, thanks so much. I'm far more interested in Pure as well so this is making me rethink things a little..
Reply 8
Robbie10538
Imperial is very intense.


Not any more than the others...
Kinkei
Hi. I have an offer from all those uni's. Currently, Imperial is my top choice because...well, it's Imperial. YOu know it's got that sort of rep. But, Warwick is 3rd in pure maths, UCL has good global rep and Durham (St. Chad) is good too. Could anyone please sort of outline what they think about their course, teachers, accomodation, just the entire experience that theyre having at the uni theyre at?

Stuff like, how intimate is teaching, how many lectures, how many 'sessions'...one on ones, social life...i want to be able to go out and not be compeltely overworked...just everything :smile: I'm pretty intersted in Dance, music and drama as well so it'd be cool if you have any info on that....

And even if people are interested in voicing their opinion about where I should go, it'd be much appreciated :P


(i have done much research on all the uni's but hearing from you guys would be perhaps more accurate cos I can hear from your own experiences :smile: )


I'll tell you my experiences of Warwick.

Course: Awesome. Lots of choice I guess is the biggest feature, there is a huge variety of courses within maths, plus loads of people do some physics/ business/ language/ whatever courses too. There are so really interesting modules I've got to take which are vaguely atypical, like one on Secondary School teaching and 3rd Year Essay where I get to write about what ever I want (which is great as I can dabble with unusual stuff that isn't lectured and skip over all the bits I don't like and don't understand). They are pretty flexible with you changing your mind a lot, I typically sign up for twice as many modules as I'll actually take and drop many after a few lectures if they are boring or inconveniently timed. I've ended up very pure which surprised me, most not-that-smart people end up taking soft options. Pure certainly isn't the easiest but they people around me are very good at it and they seem to enjoy teaching me.

Teachers: Pretty good, but their main capacity is as researchers not lecturers so be prepared for some awful ones with a monotone voice. As well as lecturers you'll have a professor who is your tutor, I love mine, he's really great at solving all my problems. You'll see him once a week or something like that in first year (this is much better than some of the arts subjects, who'd only get to see theirs once a term!) plus have a 4th year/PhD student as your supervisor who will mark your assignments and help you with maths.

Accommodation: Rent seems to increase dramatically each year, I don't know how it compares with other universities but this is something you should check out. I lived in some halls called Westwood, which were deeply unpopular (but my first choice, cheap and 3x5m rooms!) due to the fact they are the furthest out, an oh-so-shocking 7min from my hall to the maths building, another 7 probably to the union. After that you live off campus, either Leamington (beautiful but a bus journey away), Kenilworth (a less common choice) or Coventry (bus/cycle/walk depending on distance. If you're really determined not to live very far away there are houses literally just off campus, 10 min walk to maths). It's funny how people say Warwick campus and Coventry is ugly (yes, I agree, just don't look) as though that settles it, I spend most of my time on campus inside a building, not gazing at the outside of it, and I very very rarely go to the centre of Coventry. Much more often is Leamington which is really pretty with impressivly posh olde buildings and nice parks, and just outside campus is fields upon fields and winding lanes which are really nice for running along. And whenever my parents visit we go to some olde pub in Kenilworth which is (in the old part) really beautiful and far older than Coventry/Leamington.

Intimacy of teaching varies dramatically - lectures are not in the slightest in first year, it's you plus 300-odd others (it's a big course. About 10% of undergrads are doing maths. You'll run into them everywhere which is nice for making friends in halls on your first day) in a lecture theatre watching some guy at the front write on a blackboard and talk a lot. It's not the time for interaction. They get more so in later years, 3rd year Fractal Geometry lectures have about 25 people. Tutorials and supervisions are where you really get to talk. The supervisors especially are great, my 1st and 2nd year ones both are PhD's who did their undergrad at Warwick which was perfect for giving me advice on module choices and helping me with basically everything. I've remained good friends with both of them. Also (most) professors are happy to chat to students by themselves, I didn't realise until 3rd year but they really love their subject and like to be asked questions about it. One really good thing is the casual flexible "just send me an email and we'll have a chat" attitude loads of the staff have, there is never any need to struggle along.

How many lectures: varies, I currently have 15 per week although there were much more in the 1st year. There are also 4 support classes per week which are optional (but then, everything is optional really. You don't *have* to go to lectures), I don't go as I work with my friends.

Social Life: Far too much to do and not enough time to do it. I started off going out clubbing all the time but valued sleep too much to keep that up so I do a lot of daytime activities these days. There are a ton of sports clubs and societies, seriously loads, look them up. I got into climbing big time, check out the stuff about the climbing wall, it's pretty damn impressive for a university and is hugely discounted.

In conclusion, Warwick rocks. Also job prospects for maths graduates seem pretty decent, even in the current depressive recession. Out of my friends graduating who are organised enough to actually start applying, one got a job as an Accountant (yawn!) starting on £30k and the other as a Trader starting on £60k. There are probably statistics online that are more useful than me, two examples doesn't prove anything!
Reply 10
Well i'll tell you a little bit about imperial. We have 12 hours of lectures a week - 3 for each course, and each course has a supplementary problems class once a week if you need some help or to discuss something with a phd/lecturer. There's also a tutorial every week in the 1st year which is groups of up to 5 meeting your pastoral tutor, to discuss whatever you want really - life, strife, work and difficult questions etc. And if that's not enough all the lecturers have office hours where you can go and get 1 on 1 help if you so need.

I haven't had any problems here as yet, but i imagine that as a student if you need help or support in any way, the framework is right there and you'll get all your needs looked after.

On the social side - it's really what you make of it. There are over 10000 students here and ICL never miss an opportunity to say that they've got the largest amount of student societies of any uni in britain. We really do - there's plenty of choice in clubs to join, of anything you can think of really, and of course there are so many people that you can't not find at least one person that you like enough to make friends with.

Hmm one thing i will tell you though is that the work here isn't easy. I'm in the first year and am struggling to keep up with the workload, of which there is plenty, all of it far more difficult than anything you've ever done at school. It's mainly my own fault though, I have the pleasure of living in a really sociable halls with pleeeenty of people i get on with, so there's no shortage of distractions from the hum drum of multivariable calculus... It's all about getting the balance right - but i just assume that the first year is the one where they expect you to go crazy. I'll admit that socially imperial is likely to be less amazing than an institution with more of a variety of students. Warwick for example has loads of humanities students, and thus a fair amount of girls (wink wink) and these students tend imo to be more outgoing people than scientists. ICL has a 2:1 ratio of lads to ladies, a lot of us are science nerds, and you might be shocked by how many chinese people there are, who without generalising too much, tend to stick together and isolate themselves with their own language. But that aside it's certainly no barier to someone who wants to have fun, from having it, and after coming here expecting the worst i was even more shocked at how normal the vast majority of people are. I've been going out several times a week for the past 6 months and up to all sorts in between. If you make an effort you can and will love it here, but only if you make an effort.

So overall, i can only say i absolutely love it here. It was a choice between warwick imperial and ucl for me, and impeial took it in the end. I can't say i regret it at all.
Original post by Hypermodern
(Current Warwick student)

Having had offers for both Imperial and Warwick I was in a similar situation to you - the reputations of both are great and so for me it came down to course structure, cost and social.

Course structure: Looking at Imperial's course it seems to be slightly more focused on the applied side of mathematics (numerical methods required mechanics etc) which in hindsight may have suited me more but I was very keen on Warwick's core of pure mathematics and then being able to add modules from any other department. (Note: You get several tutorials/supervisions in small groups (~5 people) with academics and postgraduates which I'm not sure is standard for most unis, but equally may well be.)

Cost: London is always going to be expensive and I'm saving at least £50 a week studying here then I would be in London.

Social: Coventry against London... there can only be one winner, the Warwick campus is a great place to study and there is a tonne of stuff to get involved with if you want to but its never going to be able to compare to the experience of living in London and you can feel a bit isolated by comparison. However, Leamington and Coventry do fine and the trains to Birmingham and Oxford are quite cheap if you fancy a change of scene.

So in short its up to you I made my decision based on those above deciding that the more fun I might have had in London wasn't worth the extra strain financially. You may have completely different criteria - if I was making the choice again I would still choose Warwick, but it would be a closer run thing. I didn't talk about UCL and Durham because I don't know much about them, they are both excellent universities but don't quite carry the same strength mathematics departments as Imperial and Warwick - however they certainly have as strong a name recognition (at least as Warwick) which may be much more valuable as employers are unlikely to check the RAE before hiring a graduate.

tl;dr: Warwick or Imperial - it really depends on you.


I'm not surprised if Imperial's maths course focuses a lot on applied, especially given their strength in engineering but their pure maths department is also strong, with both departments getting a 5* for research.

What I do find strange is you chose Warwick for it's pure maths.

I'm not saying Warwick's pure isn't good, just thought as an A-Level student at the time you applied, you knew something about uni pure maths!

Did you do your research or knew someone already doing a maths degree?

Those wishing to study maths at uni should read up about pure - it's not what it is at school!

In response to the OP, here's what Imperial's got to offer:

You have the following (numbers in minutes walking):

Harrods (10)
Sloane Square / King's Road shopping (20)
Knightsbridge shopping (10)
High Street Kensington shopping (15)
Oxford Street Shopping (30)
Hyde Park / Kensington Gardens (5)
V & A Museum (< 5)
Science Museum (< 1)
National History Museum (< 5)
Geological Museum (< 5)
West End Bars and Restaurants (30)
West End Cinemas and Theatres (30)
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 12
Imperial specialises in fluid dynamics. We're also very strong in pure mathematics, including a field medalist.
Reply 13
Just to let you know, the OP posted this in 2010 so it's probably a bit late now to make a decision.
Original post by ttoby
Just to let you know, the OP posted this in 2010 so it's probably a bit late now to make a decision.


Thanks for the hint!

Hope it's not been a COMPLETE waste of time.
Original post by Kinkei
Hi. I have an offer from all those uni's. Currently, Imperial is my top choice because...well, it's Imperial. YOu know it's got that sort of rep. But, Warwick is 3rd in pure maths, UCL has good global rep and Durham (St. Chad) is good too. Could anyone please sort of outline what they think about their course, teachers, accomodation, just the entire experience that theyre having at the uni theyre at?

Stuff like, how intimate is teaching, how many lectures, how many 'sessions'...one on ones, social life...i want to be able to go out and not be compeltely overworked...just everything :smile: I'm pretty intersted in Dance, music and drama as well so it'd be cool if you have any info on that....

And even if people are interested in voicing their opinion about where I should go, it'd be much appreciated :P



(i have done much research on all the uni's but hearing from you guys would be perhaps more accurate cos I can hear from your own experiences :smile: )


OP put of interest, where are you at now? Warwick I'm guessing.:colone:

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