Extra curricular activities for maths???

is there any extra curricular activities that help with university admissions??? for other subjects helpful experience seems obvious, but for maths it seems abit non existant.

i have alot of spare time and need to do somthing with it, and if there is anything i will do to do with maths that could help i would like to do it.

thanks

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Reply 1

KAISER_MOLE

......maybe do some Maths? Read some books, look into some interesting topics, polish up on some competition mathematics...I really didn't mention much when it came to extra cirricular activities.

However, I recommend scrabble! :p:

Reply 2

ssmoose

Contact local universities about Maths lectures for schools. I did these at Bristol. Do stuff like BMO papers and STEP papers. Maybe enter into STEP I at the end of year 12 (if you do maths A Level in a year).

Reply 3

Popa Dom

Look up the UKMT mentoring scheme, and get your teacher to enter you for it. You get a monthly sheet of questions and assigned a mentor (usually a cambridge undergrad ) to help when you get stuck. Ive been in it the last 2 years, but the first year I stopped doing them after the third one, and this year I only did one and a half :redface:

. Having said that they are very useful, two of the questions I got in my oxford interviews were very similar to ones I'd done on those sheets, and you learn nice techniques you dont get in A level, like the pidgeonhole principle (which was the basis of one of the questions I got at New college, and from speaking to other applicants a lot of peope struggled on that one).

Reply 4

Chumbaniya

Generally what universities like to see in maths students is that they've taken an interest in topics beyond the maths syllabus. In other subjects it's often easier to get involved in projects outside school, but since maths isn't a practical subject the best way to demonstrate your interest and ability is to research some more advanced topics and get into practice solving more difficult problems. It might sound a bit daunting at first, but if you use the right sources some of the complex topics can be more interesting than A level material without being inaccesible, and experience with tougher problems serves to both demonstrate an interest in maths, and help you if you need to tackle those kinds of problems in the future; in STEP papers, for example.

Reply 5

feanor

In my Junior College, we have an annual Maths Week. I volunteered to organize for 2005. Also taking part in competitions/olympiads wouldn't hurt.

Reply 6

The D

sarahjane48

Sudoku
Reading Plus magazine http://plus.maths.org/
British Maths Olympiad
Senior Maths Challenge
British Maths Olympiad Student Mentoring Scheme
Doing AEA.

Reply 7

Knogle

The D

Sudoku
Reading Plus magazine http://plus.maths.org/
British Maths Olympiad
Senior Maths Challenge
British Maths Olympiad Student Mentoring Scheme
Doing AEA.

Sudoku? You can't be serious...

Reply 8

The D

Knogle

Sudoku? You can't be serious...

It's good fun and there's a lot of maths behind it. Try making a Sudoku without using a computer program, you will see what I mean.

Reply 9

Who?

Knogle

Sudoku? You can't be serious...

The D loves Sudoku :rolleyes:

Reply 10

Knogle

The D

It's good fun and that's a lot of maths behind it. Try making a Sudoku without using a computer program, you will see what I mean.

Well the game involves a bit of logic, but not maths? Yes maths does involve logic but not the Sudoku kind of logic. Get my drift? :p:

Reply 11

Popa Dom

Knogle

Well the game involves a bit of logic, but not maths? Yes maths does involve logic but not the Sudoku kind of logic. Get my drift? :p:

You know when I first did a sudoku, all I could think was how much it reminded me of doing STEP questions (though obv. a lot easier). The way you have to find the right bit of the grid to look at, and see the logical consequences of it, reminded me of the way you can often get huge equations out, but it all hinges on looking at the logical consequences of one little bit of them.

Reply 12

Chewwy

prove unproved mathematical theorems. **** like that.

Reply 13

The D

chewwy

prove unproved mathematical theorems. **** like that.

eg. Riemann Hypothesis lol

Reply 14

The D

alexeynechaev

The D loves Sudoku :rolleyes:

Yeh. I came third in a Sudoku competition in my school (well, there were only 3 contestants...)

Reply 15

harr

The D

eg. Riemann Hypothesis lol

Don't worry, I have discovered a marvelous proof to this hypothesis, that this post is too small to contain.

Reply 16

The D

Knogle

Well the game involves a bit of logic, but not maths? Yes maths does involve logic but not the Sudoku kind of logic. Get my drift? :p:

No offence, mayb that's the difference between a economist and a mathmo. :wink:

Reply 17

AlphaNumeric

Sudoku doesn't really help you much. Sudoku is about working out a couple of good algorithms and then applying them again and again to solve the problem. Not a great deal of abstract thought is required. Sodoku's numbers change, it's method of solution is always the same.

My dad is a professor of fluid mechanics and he's crap at Sudoku. I was crap at it till I put in practice then it's just robotic.

Better off grabbing a textbook and working through the exercises in it.