Mathematical Computation @ UCL

Hey guys,

I'll be entering UCL's MEng Mathematical Computation this year, and would love to know more about the programme and stuff, anyone who is studying this course or maybe CS would be willing to share more about this course (can PM)?

Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

Necro2411

8

Hi,

I am not yet a student (Firmed Math Comp though), but the computer science department has a very detailed rundown of all the topics within each module that we will study, click course structure, select 2017-18, year you want to examine and when you click at the module you get a list of all content, tests and recommended textbooks. Beware that some yr 2/3/4 modules are still being updated so might not be available to view.

http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/degrees/meng_mathematical_computation/

Reply 2

Complex-machines

13

Original post by uberuber

Hey guys,

I'll be entering UCL's MEng Mathematical Computation this year, and would love to know more about the programme and stuff, anyone who is studying this course or maybe CS would be willing to share more about this course (can PM)?

Thanks :smile:

Hey
I am a future applicant considering this course. I think it is very similar to the mathematics and computer science joint honors courses in other universities. what do you think? also which other universities did you apply and what course?
Thank u in advance

Reply 3

KZoom

3

Hi guys! Excited there is finally an independent thread on MathComp. I'm a current student at UCL studying Mathematical Computation. It's quite good. You get the essentials of computer science and the fundamentals of mathematics.

The modules you do aren’t tailored to the degree. So essentially you get a few modules from a straight maths degree, and a few from a straight computer science degree. The math modules you do though cover the discrete maths module that straight CS people do and more. The computer science modules that you miss out on aren’t that great, and many people have complained about it anyway, so you actually come out way better doing MathComp rather than straight CS.

The CS modules you miss out on are IEP and DAPS, (in first year) which don’t really teach you anything new, but you are put in teams to solve problems. Whereas this might sound great, in first year, this is basically just powerpoint skills, writing emails and writing reports. Second year is better from what I’ve heard (more coding incorporated into the module), and the computer science department has been altering the modules so they’re more useful. But the aims of these modules are that they’re supposed to give you a feel of what it’s like working professionally. So even if they feel useless, it is a pragmatic module.

The math modules are pretty nice, but the lecturers prefer writing on a whiteboard rather than having online notes, so you kind of have to attend class or catch up. But there are loads of resources on Google drive available for past years notes and past papers. The computer science modules use PowerPoint presentations a lot more and have loads of online notes. So if you can’t attend a lecture despite your best efforts, you can always read the notes, or watch the recordings of the lectures online. The math department tend not to record their lectures though, but they write almost everything they say down in their notes anyway, so as long as you have the notes, you’re not missing much.

The MathComp degree is useful for people who want to go into AI, Machine Learning or go into research, as it allows you to have a better understanding of the mathematical principles behind some of the complex programming concepts.

Reply 4

KZoom

3

Original post by wqaf

Hey I applied for MathComp and I had a few questions if you dont mind answering.

Do you only learn discreet maths or do you learn calculus/proofs aswell?
How is london like compared to somewhere small like durham? Do you feel like everyone is distanced from each other as in most people dont know each other?
Do you ever feel that you dont have enough money?
Did you take any internships/ take part in any hackathons?

Hi! In the first year you get to do Algebra 1 & 2 and Methods 1 for you math modules. Methods 1 is calculus and they essentially teach you all of further maths plus a bit more. Algebra 1 & 2 are is pure algebra, which isn't like any of the maths you might have done before. It's basically just proofs, and memorizing the content rather than trying to solve a problem (like in Methods 1). In the second year you get to choose an elective, so you can choose modules like Analysis 1 (which is what first-year maths students take, and from what they've said, is the hardest math module they took that year), I think it has proofs for why differentiation works and integration and more stuff (I never took it). The UCL CS website has the modules you'll take, http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/prospective_students/meng_computer_science/

Well I've never had a campus university experience for university, but during term time, I go back home to a small City and I've visited friends in other universities. Sometimes I do feel like people don't know each other, but I think the best way to get around that is to join societies. Since you'd be doing MathComp, you should join Techsoc, it's really good and they've got a nice atmosphere and everyone's very friendly. So if you make the effort to talk to them, they'll be more than happy to talk to you and help you out. (It's also never too late, so if you don't join until half way through uni, you'll still have a great time). It's a big city, and you'll definitely see people every day that you'll have never seen before, but during the joint courseworks, the societies, and living in halls, it's pretty great. I think recently I've also seen an increase in mental health awareness around UCL. So if you do ever feel like things aren't going right and you want to see someone, there is help available :smile:

London is definitely more expensive then other places. You'll run out of money way before you run out of things to do :P But it is an experience like no other, all the banks, tech companies, and companies in general tend to have offices in London. So there are loads of opportunities and they regularly come into UCL to give talks and there are loads of recruitment fairs. So there are pros and cons, you don't really get the same kind of opportunities from universities not based in London, but yeah, London is definitely more expensive (but there are also so many things to do!) There are quite a few internship opportunities. Many people from CS go to banks, some go to tech companies, some to startups. The university doesn't push you though to get an internship, so you do have to be proactive and do it yourself. But aslong as you apply early and to enough companies, you tend to get one in the area of your choice. Hackathons are also quite fun, I've been to a few, (UCL TechSoc hold they're own, and it's awesome!). You get free food, free swag, and you can add it to your CV (atleast whilst you're in uni, it shows you are interested in programming and have something to talk about in interviews). There are quite a few uni's that have them, fortunately, banks also have them. The best food I've ever had is probably in the JP Morgan hackathon, it was delicious. You also meet really cool people at hackathons from various different departments and various different uni's. So it tends to be quite nice and fun.

Sorry it took so long to respond, but hopefully you'll be joining soon and will have a great time! :smile:

Reply 5

MattJWhyte

1

Hi!I’m a student currently in my last year of A-levels in South Africa and I am also interested in applying for Math comp. at UCL.As a student who got into the university, would you mind sharing your A-level/other results? I know that currently the requirement is A*A*A. Is that the realistic entry standard or do you have to obtain better marks for entry into the degree?I realise that this may be a bit difficult to answer but I would really appreciate hearing about the experiences of someone who has been through the process.Thanks in advance😌

Reply 6

codingb

3

Original post by MattJWhyte

Hi!I’m a student currently in my last year of A-levels in South Africa and I am also interested in applying for Math comp. at UCL.As a student who got into the university, would you mind sharing your A-level/other results? I know that currently the requirement is A*A*A. Is that the realistic entry standard or do you have to obtain better marks for entry into the degree?I realise that this may be a bit difficult to answer but I would really appreciate hearing about the experiences of someone who has been through the process.Thanks in advance😌

Hello! I am a Math Comp student. I got 43 for my IB which is equivalent to 3 A*s I believe. I think UCL is realistic on entry standards given reasonable personal statement and reference letter. The increased requirement is due to the unexpected increased number of students enrolling last year.

I applied to Oxford and Imperial, and they had tests/interviews and additional documents as additional filters. UCL primarily uses grades to filter students. None of the Math Comp student from my year was asked to do an interview. UCL is more lenient with students without much CS background I believe (I did not do CS in IB), but MOST of my coursemates have done computing in A-level or have had programming background, so you know what you should do in your PS if you are not doing CS at A-level :smile:

Offers SHOULD be the same (A*A*A) as the entry requirement (I had an offer of 39, 19+ for HLs, which was the standard back then).

Out of my 5 UCAS choices, UCL was the latest to reply, and it took place at around May or April I believe.

Also this could be irrelevant to the application process, but I believe it is worth a thought before you finalize your application choice :smile:

1. Math Comp/ CS/ Math
There are many doubts and regrets (but mostly appreciation) for us Math Comp students on our choice of programme. And let's break it down for you to get a better picture:

-If you genuinely love to code and to build amazing softwares/codes, you should do straight CS as Math Comp lacks the "technical"/"applied" element. We spend up to 50% of our time with the Math department, and most of the rest doing the theoretical side of CS. Definitely not the best path leading to a software engineer career.

-If you only want to do the theoretical side of CS, do Maths (haha). First off, the teaching quality differs A LOT between the two dept (guess which one is better :smile:

) You can easily pick up CS concepts if you are well-trained under the math-dept (that is why many researchers did a math bachelor). Plus you actually do decent programming in the maths programme.

-Math Comp is somewhere between the two. They have restructured the programme this year and it looks much better. At upper years, we have a lot of flexibility to do the "applied" or the "theory" or just dig insanely deep into a specific field. Go Math Comp if you want a solid training under both aspects (rather than fields as they overlap a lot).

Good luck with your applications (and good luck to others who could potentially be reading this)

Reply 7

penball

4

Original post by codingb

Hello! I am a Math Comp student. I got 43 for my IB which is equivalent to 3 A*s I believe. I think UCL is realistic on entry standards given reasonable personal statement and reference letter. The increased requirement is due to the unexpected increased number of students enrolling last year.

I applied to Oxford and Imperial, and they had tests/interviews and additional documents as additional filters. UCL primarily uses grades to filter students. None of the Math Comp student from my year was asked to do an interview. UCL is more lenient with students without much CS background I believe (I did not do CS in IB), but MOST of my coursemates have done computing in A-level or have had programming background, so you know what you should do in your PS if you are not doing CS at A-level :smile:

Offers SHOULD be the same (A*A*A) as the entry requirement (I had an offer of 39, 19+ for HLs, which was the standard back then).

Out of my 5 UCAS choices, UCL was the latest to reply, and it took place at around May or April I believe.

Also this could be irrelevant to the application process, but I believe it is worth a thought before you finalize your application choice :smile:

1. Math Comp/ CS/ Math
There are many doubts and regrets (but mostly appreciation) for us Math Comp students on our choice of programme. And let's break it down for you to get a better picture:

-If you genuinely love to code and to build amazing softwares/codes, you should do straight CS as Math Comp lacks the "technical"/"applied" element. We spend up to 50% of our time with the Math department, and most of the rest doing the theoretical side of CS. Definitely not the best path leading to a software engineer career.

-If you only want to do the theoretical side of CS, do Maths (haha). First off, the teaching quality differs A LOT between the two dept (guess which one is better :smile:

) You can easily pick up CS concepts if you are well-trained under the math-dept (that is why many researchers did a math bachelor). Plus you actually do decent programming in the maths programme.

-Math Comp is somewhere between the two. They have restructured the programme this year and it looks much better. At upper years, we have a lot of flexibility to do the "applied" or the "theory" or just dig insanely deep into a specific field. Go Math Comp if you want a solid training under both aspects (rather than fields as they overlap a lot).

Good luck with your applications (and good luck to others who could potentially be reading this)

I don't think you're going to see this but I'm also a IB student who applied to mathematical computation at UCL. What was your predicted IB score? I currently have 42 predicted, so hopefully it should be enough, but who knows with the increasing competition for CS degrees. I think I have a pretty decent PS and recommendation, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Did you really get an offer in April/May? I thought they had to give offers by 29th of March.

Reply 8

codingb

3

Original post by penball

I don't think you're going to see this but I'm also a IB student who applied to mathematical computation at UCL. What was your predicted IB score? I currently have 42 predicted, so hopefully it should be enough, but who knows with the increasing competition for CS degrees. I think I have a pretty decent PS and recommendation, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Did you really get an offer in April/May? I thought they had to give offers by 29th of March.

Hello! I was probably exaggerating about the date :tongue:

I did not have access to my predicted grade, but I was pretty sure it was 44 or 45. However, I am from a pretty lesser-known overseas art-based school so I suppose the predicted grade would be less convincing. If you have 776 with 7 in math HL then you should be safe (but who knows about how fierce the competition would be :tongue:

)

Feel free to PM/reply here if any math comp applicants have further queries :smile:

Reply 9

penball

4

Original post by codingb

Hello! I was probably exaggerating about the date :tongue:

I did not have access to my predicted grade, but I was pretty sure it was 44 or 45. However, I am from a pretty lesser-known overseas art-based school so I suppose the predicted grade would be less convincing. If you have 776 with 7 in math HL then you should be safe (but who knows about how fierce the competition would be :tongue:

)

Feel free to PM/reply here if any math comp applicants have further queries :smile:

Thanks for replying! I have four 7s in HL math, phys, econ SL chem, two 6s in languages, and 2 in core, so hopefully they'll notice I have decent grades(pretty surprised I only got 2 in core, but I guess it's just a low prediction?) . Anyways, how are you finding the (first) year of math comp? How is the workload, and how much free time do you have?

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 10

codingb

3

Original post by penball

Thanks for replying! I have four 7s in HL math, phys, econ SL chem, two 6s in languages, and 2 in core, so hopefully they'll notice I have decent grades(pretty surprised I only got 2 in core, but I guess it's just a low prediction?) . Anyways, how are you finding the (first) year of math comp? How is the workload, and how much free time do you have?

The predicted grades look great and they will probably be enough to secure you a place despite the increasing competition. I would be really surprised if a predicted grade of 42 is insufficient. But yeah...I was surprised to get turned down by Imperial with predicted 44/45 without even having the chance to take the online test...so who knows what is in their mind :tongue:

You will be doing 3 maths modules in the first year. They will be well delivered and exceptionally elegant. For each module, you will be given a problem set (consisting of 3-5 mandatory questions), which would take me 1-2 hours to complete each set.

You will be doing 5 CS modules in the first year. They have changed the modules a bit (in a good way) so you will probably have a good time. If you do not have a decent background in coding, first year would not be easy at all. You have to develop a non-trivial application, a theorem prover, and a compiler which would take considerable amount of time. Also you would notice most of your A-level peers are equipped with A-level computing so they will do things much quickly.

Exams are quite pact, which I believe you guys will be taking 7 exams in the span of 4-6 weeks. The depth of the materials are quite a leap from IB.

First year in general tries to push students with a limited CS-background to pick up many materials quickly and to get used to the frustration of debugging huge projects. But bear in mind we become stronger by suffering :smile:

Time allocation works really differently for everyone and uni is the place you will discover how you do it. I would say first year is very forgiving in bad time management :tongue:

I hate to bring this up, but here is a bigger picture. UCL CS does not have an excellent teaching (silver award in the teaching framework, which is rare for a highly-ranked uni) and students satisfaction tend to be lower than other similarly-ranked uni. Facilities are kind of old and there are not enough teaching staffs, classrooms, you name it. You could do some research on it or you can PM me for more on that.

Best of luck!

Reply 11