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monologues of a mathematician: third year

hello!!
well, turns out you can't get rid of me for very long. i'm back for the 6th year running, lol

sorry, who are you?
uh so yeah i'm niamh, i’m 20 and i'm from yorkshire. most of you probably know me as protostar. but i wanted a change :tongue:

you're a mathematician?
by definition, i guess i am. i'm a third year maths student at newcastle university, but this isn't my final year as i'm doing 4 :headfire:. i'm also the publicity officer for our maths society for 2020/21!

what are your grades like?
not as high as i'd like, hence me trying to grow em. because i know people care, my academic history looks like this
a levels: abc
first year: 70.9 overall

by module


second year: 69.7 overall

by module



what are you studying this year?
we chose our modules in august. because of covid-19 they paired up 10 credit modules to create 20 credit modules of which we had to choose 6. january exams have been cancelled and we'll be sitting exams on all of the year's content next june, which is terrifying. the modules i've chosen are:

mas3710 group theory, graphs and symmetry (required to specialise in pure maths in 4th year)
mas3711 linear analysis and topology (also required for a pure specialism)
mas3712 matrix analysis and representation theory

mas3810 methods for differential equations and partial differential equations (required to specialise in applied maths in 4th year)
mas3811 quantum mechanics and classical fields (also required for an applied specialism)
mas3812 advanced fluid dynamics and computational modelling (also required for an applied specialism)

so my year will be 50% pure and 50% applied maths, as i'm currently so undecided on what i want to specialise in in my 4th year :colondollar: leaning more towards applied atm but i wonder how that'll change this year...

what are your goals and aims for 3rd year?
honestly with covid and everything my main aim is to just complete the year lol. but beyond that i'd really like to push myself back up to a first, not getting one for second year really stung despite all the disruptions

what's this blog all about then?
i'm gonna try and grow my grades essentially. i'll be talking about how i find my modules, all the work i do for each of them and anything extra i do. will also be for how uni is going as a whole, basically documenting yet another year of my life lol. i do love reading these back i can't lie

so join me through this year, or don't, i accept i'll probably be talking to myself a lot in here so i'm okay with that. but yeah if you wanna be tagged just lemme know

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(edited 3 years ago)

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tag me please! good luck for this year :rave:
Reply 2
please place me on the quote list.
thanks
Your OP is so aesthetic :love: Tag tag tag pls!
Original post by niamhdoesmaths
hello!!
well, turns out you can't get rid of me for very long. i'm back for the 6th year running, lol

sorry, who are you?
uh so yeah i'm niamh, i’m 20 and i'm from yorkshire. most of you probably know me as protostar. but i wanted a change :tongue:

you're a mathematician?
by definition, i guess i am. i'm a third year maths student at newcastle university, but this isn't my final year as i'm doing 4 :headfire:. i'm also the publicity officer for our maths society for 2020/21!

what are your grades like?
not as high as i'd like, hence me trying to grow em. because i know people care, my academic history looks like this
a levels: abc
first year: 70.9 overall

by module


second year: 69.7 overall

by module



what are you studying this year?
we chose our modules in august. because of covid-19 they paired up 10 credit modules to create 20 credit modules of which we had to choose 6. january exams have been cancelled and we'll be sitting exams on all of the year's content next june, which is terrifying. the modules i've chosen are:

mas3710 group theory, graphs and symmetry (required to specialise in pure maths in 4th year)
mas3711 linear analysis and topology (also required for a pure specialism)
mas3712 matrix analysis and representation theory

mas3810 methods for differential equations and partial differential equations (required to specialise in applied maths in 4th year)
mas3811 quantum mechanics and classical fields (also required for an applied specialism)
mas3812 advanced fluid dynamics and computational modelling (also required for an applied specialism)

so my year will be 50% pure and 50% applied maths, as i'm currently so undecided on what i want to specialise in in my 4th year :colondollar: leaning more towards applied atm but i wonder how that'll change this year...

what are your goals and aims for 3rd year?
honestly with covid and everything my main aim is to just complete the year lol. but beyond that i'd really like to push myself back up to a first, not getting one for second year really stung despite all the disruptions

what's this blog all about then?
i'm gonna try and grow my grades essentially. i'll be talking about how i find my modules, all the work i do for each of them and anything extra i do. will also be for how uni is going as a whole, basically documenting yet another year of my life lol. i do love reading these back i can't lie

so join me through this year, or don't, i accept i'll probably be talking to myself a lot in here so i'm okay with that. but yeah if you wanna be tagged just lemme know

old tags



new tags



hey at least your a levels show how to start the alphabet!

I'm sure you'll smash it! Good luck babe!
Would like to keep being tagged :smile:
Reply 6
niamh "capital letters are for losers" does maths :ahee:

yes I'd like to be tagged
Reply 7
Please tag me! Looking forward to see maths study stuff, I'm a mathematical physics student !
Didn't recognise you first of all! Welcome back and yes I'd like to be tagged.
I would like to be kept tagged to :h:
Ooo - this looks interesting - do you have to specialise in pure or applied or can you keep a mixture?
update #1, sunday 11th october 2020
coronavirus wave 2, electric boogaloo

hey guys, long time no update :colondollar: i mean literally nothing has happened but still lol

timetable stuff
so last week we unofficially got our timetables for everything happening live/on campus. it all looked great and i was super excited to get back into a lecture theatre after 7 months but the uni later raised the covid alert thing to tier 3 so only essential stuff can happen on campus and nothing for maths is essential. so everything is online and i'm sad :frown:

but my timetable is pretty nice. annoyingly i told work about it before it changed so i wont be able to attend the thing i have every other tuesday but i'll get caught up the same evening so it shouldn't be an issue. it's basically on a 2 week schedule

so one week it's:

monday:
9:30-10:30 linear analysis
17:00-18:00 quantum mechanics
tuesday:
12:00-13:00 advanced fluid dynamics
wednesday:
10:00-11:00 group theory
12:00-13:00 methods for differential equations
thursday:
10:00-11:00 matrix analysis

and the next it's:

monday:
09:30-10:30 group theory
10:30-11:30 methods for differential equations
12:30-13:30 matrix analysis
14:00-15:00 advanced fluid dynamics
thursday:
10:00-11:00 linear analysis
12:00-13:00 quantum mechanics

and then we'll also have pre-recorded lectures to do in our own time, as well as problem sheets and the odd assignment lol. so it's gonna be full on but i'm kinda ready for it. i think

work stuff
not much to say here really lol. still working at the supermarket and still somewhat enjoying it. we get to dress up for halloween which will be funny

mathsoc stuff
on tuesday we held a freshers induction quiz for all the new first years to get to know each other as most of them are isolating. it was actually pretty successful for an online quiz ngl, we were dead happy with how it went! my team came joint first so i was very proud of them :u:

this week we have our first official social which is virtual bingo, last year's committee did one of these during lockdown and it was great so we're hoping to have similar levels of success :biggrin: and we're already planning next weeks', we're on it lads

induction stuff
tomorrow induction week starts for 3rd year but it's a really chilled week. have an introductory zoom meeting at 11 which should be alright but that's it for tomorrow. there's a computing refresher session on tuesday but i'm at work and also i dont think i need one anyway so i'm all good. and that's all they've put on for third year so yay. i mean we're meant to have a meeting with our personal tutors this week over zoom too but i genuinely haven't heard from mine since january 2019 so i'm not really sure what to do lol. i'd quite like to speak to him actually as i do have quite a pressing issue i wanna discuss but no meeting has been set up :erm:

other stuff lol
it's my friend's birthday on wednesday so we're having a boozy night on friday to celebrate and i cant waitttttt :biggrin: i'm also doing a rag social on wednesday which i'm excited for, it's like a scavenger hunt type thing, not sure what to expect but i'm excited anyway :tongue: i've managed to avoid catching corona so far and so have my housemates so we haven't had to isolate, so that's nice, but newcastle is really not doing well atm lol

but yeah i think that's about all i've got to say, i reckon this will be the start of weekly updates so yay for that. see you next week! :wavey:

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Original post by Muttley79
Ooo - this looks interesting - do you have to specialise in pure or applied or can you keep a mixture?


have to specialise in one in 4th year, very daunting!! i'm deffo leaning more towards applied but i want to keep my options open in case i realise i love pure or something haha
Hellooo!!!

Nice to see you back!

Hope you’re keeping safe in Newcastle, York has rising cases but I heard your area is insane.

Pure and Mechanics is the way to go (I’ve chosen them two for this year as well), I’ve always been bad at probability. Ever since S1, statistics and I I’ve never been friends lol. I’d love to see how you find Topology as I’m planning to do that module for third year.

I admire people doing the MMath honestly...
:party:
Hope you have a fab week! :lovehug:
Original post by niamhdoesmaths
have to specialise in one in 4th year, very daunting!! i'm deffo leaning more towards applied but i want to keep my options open in case i realise i love pure or something haha

Applied all the way!
(No bias here!)

Personally I walked into my course preferring Pure but after I realised how abstract it gets I just lost interest. Instead I found interest in Applied side where I can pin down and study a physical phenomenon using mathematics that I enjoyed. Although (somewhat ironically) I might end up running some tutorials for real analysis as a new doctoral researcher in Applied.
Only just realised this thread exists! Am so sorry :getmecoat:

Posting to subscribe. Please add me to the tag list :h:
Oohh! Tag please :puppyeyes:
Please could I also have a tag? Thanks!
Ahhh good to see you back (I haven't logged onto TSR in months so looks like I have perfect timing :gah:) Please tag me!! :biggrin:
Group theory, graphs and symmetry sounds like a heaven module to me :love: Then again I am veeery biased considering I've been staying away from all things applied for a while now :tongue: Though I'm doing complex analysis this semester so I guess that's kinda applied :lol:
All the best for this year!! :jumphug:

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