Cambridge Maths Students and Applicants

I don't know who told them. There are 3 people in my year at Pembroke going on to do Part III. I was entirely pure and am going on to Probability/Analysis/Combinatorics, one was in the middle (I believe will be doing Statistics/Numerical stuff) and the other, who is a Physics guy, mentioned to me recently that he had to learn P&M over the summer for some quantum course.

Indeed, for maths, they very much do not care at all about your other non-maths subjects. A-Levels don't mean anything to them, not with STEP and interviews there in place to provide much more suitable choosing criterion for them. So, really, if you're not interested in your more-than-3-A-Levels, drop them, they won't hinder you one bit. Honestly, it'll probably increase your chances of meeting the STEP offer by giving you more time to prepare.

Like jneill said, it's all about the maths for Maths.

Any thoughts on which programming language(s) to look at over the Summer, results permitting? At the moment I'm barely competent at Python and not a great deal else; is it worth looking at Matlab etc.?

Nice . Which courses are you choosing? Combinatorics, Functional Analysis, Advanced Probability? Analysis of PDEs? Stochastic Calculus?

Hi all, I have been thinking a lot about my part II course choices and wanted to ask if it is a ridiculous proposition to take courses from two very distinct areas.

I love probability & statistics and could see myself going into something in mathematical finance with it ...

Do people get supervised on Complex methods AND Complex analysis if they want to. Anyone personally know of this happening, or if this option has been denied by their DoS to only choose one course

What is the point? I'm not sure you're allowed to take both courses to exam and given the large amount of crossover between the two there isn't much reason otherwise.

Because I have an interest in both pure and applied so I do not want to choose between them before even studying the courses, considering I dont feel at all strongly either way. Currently my interest is piqued in the applicable.

Choosing for exams is another matter. Besides there is no restriction to do both courses in the exam, though you'd only get one extra question. However exams are not my consideration whatsoever, purely learning the maths is.

So to answer my original question? (If you can not, please refrain from responding )

PDE's scare me but unfortunately they seem to be the focus in Part III Analysis outside of Functional so I'm very much a split between probability and combinatorics, which seems like a pretty good matching to have.

Do people get supervised on Complex methods AND Complex analysis if they want to. Anyone personally know of this happening, or if this option has been denied by their DoS to only choose one course

What is the point? I'm not sure you're allowed to take both courses to exam and given the large amount of crossover between the two there isn't much reason otherwise.

A nice set of courses. And those are the exact topics all your job interview questions would be on if you ever leave. Canny .

You're allowed; Leo got 4α οn those courses. In general with these things, if it were forbidden, you'd probably have heard about it.

Because I have an interest in both pure and applied so I do not want to choose between them before even studying the courses, considering I dont feel at all strongly either way. Currently my interest is piqued in the applicable.

Choosing for exams is another matter. Besides there is no restriction to do both courses in the exam, though you'd only get one extra question. However exams are not my consideration whatsoever, purely learning the maths is.

So to answer my original question? (If you can not, please refrain from responding )

Any thoughts on which programming language(s) to look at over the Summer, results permitting? At the moment I'm barely competent at Python and not a great deal else; is it worth looking at Matlab etc.?

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Not if you can avoid it, haha. Python is much better language to learn in general because it's nicer idiomatically, more generally applicable and vastly preferable to employers. I like it both generally and for maths, but I don't know much about other languages. It's certainly better than MATLAB for both.

I used MATLAB for some applied CATAM projects because of its better matrix handling and integrated graph and table facilities, which I learnt to use very quickly by ripping off the sample solution. I don't know how much effort it is figuring out the corresponding Python packages.

Anyway, I consider it a waste of time explicitly learning to use MATLAB for CATAM anyway, but particularly if you already know another language, even if you end up using MATLAB for CATAM itself.

My unlucky friend of poor Galois performance was given a searching stare at a job interview when he mentioned knowing MATLAB.

"You don't know anything else?"




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Is it true that the top two or three places in the year often tend to go to those who have studied predominantly pure courses?

Why do you think this is so, one theory is that Pure questions can be a lot quicker and this is a big advantage in Part II where there is no question limit.

Can anyone corroborate these claims

Is it true that the top two or three places in the year often tend to go to those who have studied predominantly pure courses?

Why do you think this is so, one theory is that Pure questions can be a lot quicker and this is a big advantage in Part II where there is no question limit.

Can anyone corroborate these claims

I have no stats to back this up but I am reasonably sure it's true - it certainly is in my year. I am fairly sure the reason is in part to do with course requirements.

Applied Courses are structured much more linearly in the sense that you progress in a subject from Part IB to Part II - Fluids, Quantum, Electro are all examples. You can't do these courses without having done the specific preceding Part IB courses, and these specific courses aren't the most popular.

There is an exception to the above - the statistics courses, generally reliant on Stats IB which is pretty popular. These are fairly popular with the wrangler types as well.

Pure courses are a lot less linear in some sense. There is a good number of Part II courses without strict Part IB requirements, and the requirements are more often than not some subset of Analysis II, Linear Algebra and GRM - the three of which are amongst the most popular "catch all" courses in IB.

The effects of this are that it's far easier to top up your courses from the Pure section. You see this in play - far more applied people attend Pure C courses (particularly Number Theory) than the other way round. I'm not sure if the same holds true for D courses but as long as Leader is lecturing Graph Theory I reckon it might be.

At the top level, these course requirements come into play an entirely different way. The senior wrangler contenders are effectively learning almost a year ahead of everyone else in order to get more courses done, and it's much easier to self-teach a pure course with no formal prerequisites. At least in my experience you'll find that these people have done the pure in advance and do the applied in real time if they're doing it - this is what my friend who came 3rd in the year did, doing pure early and then statistics during his 3rd year lecture time.

That's quite a peculiar point of view, which does make a lot of sense. I'd not looked at it from that angle before. Out of interest, what would you say the makeup of the top 10 in your year is among pure/applicable/applied if you have any reasonable idea?

I presume those who learn the courses early do the example sheets early too. In your experience, are they supervised for these early (e.g. your friend who came 3rd)