Advice on Economics course

Hi guys, I've got an offer to study BA Politics and Economics at Nottingham (
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ugstudy/courses/politicsandinternationalrelations/politics-economics.aspx)

I'm excited to have a look around the Uni but my concern is that I didn't take A-Level Maths. While I've always been confident with the subject in the past, and the course doesn't require A-Level Maths, I worry that I'll struggle on the course unless the Maths modules are taught assuming only a very basic understanding. Unless I ask I won't know what to expect - so could someone please give me an idea of how advanced the Maths is from the beginning?

Thanks very much

hiya !

i'm in the exact same situation, haven't done a-level maths so i'm worried about struggling with the course too

thanks so much for the advice, I'll definitely have a look into it before I decide on choosing it

Hey there

I visited the University two weeks back and I managed to have good conversations with the heads of the Politics and Economics department. They really informed my final uni decison, but make sure you email them too! I might have been influenced more than you would be.

Ultimately I settled against Nottingham for the course because of its maths requirement. All four of the Year 1 Mathematical modules are taught with a mixture of Maths and non-Maths students, but they don't tailor it for the people without Maths. In fact, the head of Politics told me that there had been an oversight in the uni not requiring Maths for the joint honours course, and that for 2020 entry, they're going to start requiring it. He was telling me stories which actually kind of freaked me out - he was a German guy, very nice with a deadpan sense of humour. He said every year he'd taught the course he had got at least one student come to his office crying over Economics, and most of them had to drop out (!)
The Uni's got away with it because very few people on the course don't have Maths.

So yeah, I wouldn't personally recommend the place for you, but obviously, you should email or visit them. Also, Idk where else you have offers from, but don't worry if they require maths. There are good Unis (Newcastle, Sheffield, Birmingham, Sussex, Lancaster, East Anglia, Leeds, Glasgow, and Manchester) that do the joint honours course and stream their students so the ones without A-Level Maths are taught the same stuff at the pace they need.

Hope this helped

Current 2nd year student. We took a poll at the beginning of our first year in Microeconomics and these were the results
Didn't take Economics A-Level: ~13%
Didn't take Mathematics A-Level: ~15 people out of around 300 (Can't remember exact number)
However, Nottingham do have a Maths session during the freshers for people who didn't take the A-Level, and there are 3 different Maths courses so you wouldn't be doing the same level of Maths as everyone else.
Microeconomics and the Maths course (the one you will do is Quantitative Economics which is similar to what first year PPE students have to do anyway) are the only modules with significant maths content. As long as you keep up with the workload you should be fine. There's a reason they don't require Maths A-Level lol.

The level of Maths you need to know will of been taught at GCSE. They teach all relevant A-Level content during the lectures- unless you are going to do a Maths & Economics degree, you do NOT need Maths A-Level.

thanks for letting us know ! i have now firmed nottingham so this really reassured me lol