MORSE personal statement

Anonymous59

...

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 1

TheTallOne

18

Original post by Heroesorghosts

I'm looking to apply for the MORSE course, however my other choices are all for pure mathematics at Oxford, Imperial and Durham. Is it necessary that I write about my interests in the other areas that the MORSE course covers as my current P.S. is geared directly towards pure maths. Also in relation to the pure maths course offered at Warwick, how would the MORSE course be regarded? Is it a "softer" option than straight maths, or would employers favour it due to its application to many useful areas? How much of the MORSE course directly correlates with the pure maths course as well? Any help would be great!

You don't really need to tailor your PS as the department understands that it's quite a unique course that very few universities offer. One way might be to talk about statistics in the PS - you will have the option to do Stats modules at all the places you are applying to so there's no detrimental impact if you mention stats.

Career wise I'd say there's negligible difference between MORSE/Maths - both seem to be popular for Investment Banking. MORSE probably edges the Maths course for Actuary though.

Explore the MORSE and and Maths course regulations there. The course is quite similar in the first year to the Maths course, although in certain aspects MORSE/Maths Stats students don't get as intensive help in the Maths side compared to the Maths students in year 1. They're both at flexible as each other - in effect a MORSE student taking a load of Maths modules can end up doing very similar modules to a Maths student taking a load of Stats and Econ modules.

The only gripe Maths students have against MORSE students is that they don't have to do Maths beyond term 1, year 2 :p:

That can be useful though as it's a way out into other streams rather than being forced to do 50% minimum Maths each year. Understandably many people find the Maths course different to what they expected it to be.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 2

Wraggy

8

Original post by Heroesorghosts

I'm looking to apply for the MORSE course, however my other choices are all for pure mathematics at Oxford, Imperial and Durham. Is it necessary that I write about my interests in the other areas that the MORSE course covers as my current P.S. is geared directly towards pure maths. Also in relation to the pure maths course offered at Warwick, how would the MORSE course be regarded? Is it a "softer" option than straight maths, or would employers favour it due to its application to many useful areas? How much of the MORSE course directly correlates with the pure maths course as well? Any help would be great!

I would like to ditto TheTallOne: the department doesn't expect statements to be exactly tailored to MORSE because there are few comparable courses. However statistics is quite a dominant element, and pure maths less so, so mentioning that might be favourable.

Just to slightly correct TheTallOne, MORSE students can entirely avoid maths modules after first year! And many do. My last maths module was Analysis III in second year, which was an option. However you can choose to do more maths, if you look at the course regs linked in the previous post you can work out how many maths modules you can take. In the 3rd year of the MORSE course you can take plenty of maths, in the previous years you will be limited because of the core stats, OR and econ modules. There are a few common modules with straight maths in first year, and also some watered down versions of maths modules (for example Maths Methods a second year stats modules is a basis introduction to metric spaces and more complicated calculus, for stats students). If you ask a maths student, they will say MORSE is "softer", but a MORSE student will probably tell you that their modules are more useful outside the academic world.

I don't think I can particularly compare how maths and MORSE are regarded by employers, but if you are interested in going into IB, actuarial work, economics, consultancy etc. MORSE is very well positioned for any of those careers.

Reply 3

Nomolos

12

Original post by Wraggy

I would like to ditto TheTallOne: the department doesn't expect statements to be exactly tailored to MORSE because there are few comparable courses. However statistics is quite a dominant element, and pure maths less so, so mentioning that might be favourable.

Just to slightly correct TheTallOne, MORSE students can entirely avoid maths modules after first year! And many do. My last maths module was Analysis III in second year, which was an option. However you can choose to do more maths, if you look at the course regs linked in the previous post you can work out how many maths modules you can take. In the 3rd year of the MORSE course you can take plenty of maths, in the previous years you will be limited because of the core stats, OR and econ modules. There are a few common modules with straight maths in first year, and also some watered down versions of maths modules (for example Maths Methods a second year stats modules is a basis introduction to metric spaces and more complicated calculus, for stats students). If you ask a maths student, they will say MORSE is "softer", but a MORSE student will probably tell you that their modules are more useful outside the academic world.

I don't think I can particularly compare how maths and MORSE are regarded by employers, but if you are interested in going into IB, actuarial work, economics, consultancy etc. MORSE is very well positioned for any of those careers.

It's good to find someone in the late stages of a MMORSE on TSR!
Is MMORSE a very competitive course? All the rumours have it that its a 2:1 applicant :tongue:

lace ratio, but for such an amazing looking course, it seems hard to believe when similar courses round the country reach 20:1!
Whats the average AS Level grades people have etc etc.. Do I have a good chance of gaining an offer? (sig)
Thanks in advance!

Reply 4

TheGrinningSkull

19

I thought this thread was gonna be about writing a personal statement in Morse code for a laugh XD.

And then you mentioned Morse code and I thought genius! Morse for morse :biggrin:

Then I don't know what this MORSE stands for but still, was pretty funny :smile:

EDIT: Another neg after 2 years? :P I still don't know this morse course thing, better call Saul.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 5

TheTallOne

18

Original post by joshgoldman

It's good to find someone in the late stages of a MMORSE on TSR!
Is MMORSE a very competitive course? All the rumours have it that its a 2:1 applicant :tongue:

lace ratio, but for such an amazing looking course, it seems hard to believe when similar courses round the country reach 20:1!
Whats the average AS Level grades people have etc etc.. Do I have a good chance of gaining an offer? (sig)
Thanks in advance!

Application statistics are 5 applicants per offer within the Stats department (that's all MORSE or MathsStats courses and variants), based on 2010 entry figures. Based on this I'd say they probably make an offer to at least half of applicants. Though I don't think it's going to be as high as 90% for the straight Maths course at Warwick.

Reply 6

TheTallOne

18

Original post by Heroesorghosts

Thanks to both of you for your replies! Just wondering if either of you can suggest a good stats book that I could read to incorporate into my PS? Like I said before I've mainly focused on pure maths so far, so I'm not quite sure what kind of books would be good to start out on! Thanks.

Perhaps there are other books out there (I didn't read a specific Statistics book) however I did read 'Maths a Very Short Introduction' by Gowers so perhaps the Statistical Counterpart will be useful. A quick look at it on Amazon suggests to me it has some thought provoking ideas within it that you can include in your PS and also give further insight into Stats.

Reply 7

Nomolos

12

Original post by Heroesorghosts

Thanks to both of you for your replies! Just wondering if either of you can suggest a good stats book that I could read to incorporate into my PS? Like I said before I've mainly focused on pure maths so far, so I'm not quite sure what kind of books would be good to start out on! Thanks.

I read 'Chance', by Amir Azcel - A book mainly on probability and other stats that I put in to my PS.

Reply 8

Narev

1

Probability and Statistics by Example is a nice book as well...

Reply 9

Narev

1

Original post by Wraggy

Just to slightly correct TheTallOne, MORSE students can entirely avoid maths modules after first year! And many do. My last maths module was Analysis III in second year, which was an option. However you can choose to do more maths, if you look at the course regs linked in the previous post you can work out how many maths modules you can take. In the 3rd year of the MORSE course you can take plenty of maths, in the previous years you will be limited because of the core stats, OR and econ modules. There are a few common modules with straight maths in first year, and also some watered down versions of maths modules (for example Maths Methods a second year stats modules is a basis introduction to metric spaces and more complicated calculus, for stats students). If you ask a maths student, they will say MORSE is "softer", but a MORSE student will probably tell you that their modules are more useful outside the academic world.

It is quite true that MORSE students can avoid the MA coded modules, but there are several Statistics modules which are compulsory, or have to be taken as an alternative of not taking any Math modules. To give some examples:

Second year module (Mathematics of Random Events - core) and third year module (Probability Theory - core for three streams) covers material similar to a third year math module (Measure Theory), and a bit beyond. (And to do well in these modules, it would be helpful to know metric spaces and Analysis III, coincidentally covered in Math methods).

Second year module (Mathematical Programming II - core), and third year optional core module (Mathematical Programming III) can be covered in Combinatorial Optimization.

Third year module (Applied Stochastic Processes) covers similar material to third year math module Markov Processes and Perccolation Theory.

So technically, MORSE students aren't avoiding that many math modules. They're just having it taught to them under a different module code.

MORSE personal statement

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