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Unremarkable ventures III

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At least the supervisions are better than you expected? The problems are nice, seem kind of like Olympiad problems.
:frown: Hopefully it looks up soon.
Original post by SilentSolitaire
At least the supervisions are better than you expected? The problems are nice, seem kind of like Olympiad problems.
:frown: Hopefully it looks up soon.

They're not really olympiad-y. They're definitely less guided than A-level, but I wouldn't say they require much creativity.
Original post by Lemur14
Aww, that's rubbish :frown: I find it amazing it has such a great reputation despite all this! And yeah, 3 years somewhere you're not feeling fulfilled would definitely be a downer :console:
Ours seem to vary much more than yours do...we have about 12 per tutorial, but some tutors split you into 3s and you do questions together, some make you do them individually, some do them at the front etc. It's pretty different from school (and for me the classes are smaller since I had such large ones at A level!) We get told most learning happens in tutorials too, but it does kind of make sense I suppose, whereas I would think it would be supervisions for you.

I feel like I may be unfairly portraying warwick just because I'm unhappy with it. It's probably great for some people, but I'm not really happy with it because my heart was set on elsewhere and it's a bit sad that there's a sizeable disparity between the two in the first year. The high first rate is bizarre though. It drops off in later years.

We get split up too. But I generally prefer working by myself on problems. The format was generally we worked on a question in groups then went through the questions one by one with people going up. People struggled with one at the end that I was going to volunteer for, (that ∣P(S)∣=2∣S∣|\mathcal P(S)| = 2^{|S|} for a set SS, which is quite straightforward) but we ran out of time. Supervisions are meant to ease you in to independent work, whereas I really just want to get into it already lmao.
Original post by _gcx
I feel like I may be unfairly portraying warwick just because I'm unhappy with it. It's probably great for some people, but I'm not really happy with it because my heart was set on elsewhere and it's a bit sad that there's a sizeable disparity between the two in the first year. The high first rate is bizarre though. It drops off in later years.

We get split up too. But I generally prefer working by myself on problems. The format was generally we worked on a question in groups then went through the questions one by one with people going up. People struggled with one at the end that I was going to volunteer for, (that ∣P(S)∣=2∣S∣|\mathcal P(S)| = 2^{|S|} for a set SS, which is quite straightforward) but we ran out of time. Supervisions are meant to ease you in to independent work, whereas I really just want to get into it already lmao.

Yeah as with anything, it will really suit some people and I can understand it not suiting you given how you've been working for the past few years!
Seems like the learning style really doesn't suit you :frown: :hugs:
Original post by Lemur14
Yeah as with anything, it will really suit some people and I can understand it not suiting you given how you've been working for the past few years!
Seems like the learning style really doesn't suit you :frown: :hugs:

It's my fault for not doing enough research, nothing I can really do about it now. Hopefully this is "fixed" when I come to applying for a masters and I go somewhere I'm happy with.
Original post by _gcx
It's my fault for not doing enough research, nothing I can really do about it now. Hopefully this is "fixed" when I come to applying for a masters and I go somewhere I'm happy with.

Really hope so :yep :hugs: Here if you ever want a rant :cube:
Original post by Lemur14
Really hope so :yep :hugs: Here if you ever want a rant :cube:

Thanks.

Dunno if I should edit my previous posts - worried that I've portrayed myself to be a bit of a **** and unfairly portrayed warwick just because I don't like studying here. Wouldn't want to put anyone off who'd like it here.
Original post by _gcx
Thanks.

Dunno if I should edit my previous posts - worried that I've portrayed myself to be a bit of a **** and unfairly portrayed warwick just because I don't like studying here. Wouldn't want to put anyone off who'd like it here.

Totally up to you :yep: It's your blog, your experience, if anyone was basing their opinion of a uni off one blog I'd tell them to look again! I certainly wouldn't remove the negatives entirely, it's good for people to see it's not for everyone despite being a highly ranked uni. But if you want to remove some of it then feel free :smile:
Tag me in to your posts pls!
Original post by FuryBall
Tag me in to your posts pls!

yeah sure
Original post by Lemur14
Totally up to you :yep: It's your blog, your experience, if anyone was basing their opinion of a uni off one blog I'd tell them to look again! I certainly wouldn't remove the negatives entirely, it's good for people to see it's not for everyone despite being a highly ranked uni. But if you want to remove some of it then feel free :smile:

don't think i will - remember someone messaged me earlier to say they felt exactly the same as me in the first year, so I guess I should keep stuff around for anyone that feels the same in later years.
Original post by _gcx
They're not really olympiad-y. They're definitely less guided than A-level, but I wouldn't say they require much creativity.

Fair point, just thought they seemed a little like some early BMO1 questions or something. :smile:
Just wondering, do you know of any good resources for learning real analysis? Thanks!
Original post by SilentSolitaire
Fair point, just thought they seemed a little like some early BMO1 questions or something. :smile:
Just wondering, do you know of any good resources for learning real analysis? Thanks!

cambridge notes https://dec41.user.srcf.net/notes/IA_L/analysis_i.pdf

warwick notes https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/maths/people/staff/oleg_zaboronski/analysisi/notes-ma131_ch1.pdf (old because I can't access the MA131 moodle page)

Though I haven't used them myself I hear Burkill A First Course in Mathematical Analysis and Tao Analysis are quite good. Though Tao probably tends to be quite heavy. He is very concerned with small details which is perhaps not a useful approach for beginners.

paul's online math notes has stuff for calculus I-III which cover analysis stuff.
I felt I should explain the situation with mathstat and transferring.

I originally applied to maths and stats with no intention of staying on the course. I was worried about A-levels going badly and being rejected from both cambridge and warwick straight maths, so AAA + 2 seemed cushiony. Got A*A*A* so it turned out to just be over-worrying but I'm on the course still. Currently I don't really know if I want to go into straight maths or stay on maths and stats. Reason being I'm basically selecting my specialism for masters with that. While you can balance stats and maths on mathstat I can already see it'd be quite hard. You only have 150 CATs (10 courses) to play with, of which about half is stats in the third year. This means that my transcript might look weak for masters applications (eg. Part III/OMMS) because I, as a result of trying to balance like that, might not have the proper background for either a masters in stats or maths. So it'd be much simpler to just go 100% one way or the other. It only becomes an issue in the third year, because the number of stats modules available like quintuples.

I was also slightly misled as to how easy it would be to transfer - I was told they "try to say yes to someone with firsts" and they think about it with someone with 2.1 marks, but I've got the impression the bar is fairly higher. If I get the marks I want/need for Part III, I'll definitely meet this bar, but if I turn out not to be that good I'll possibly be in trouble. I'm not sure if I've said this explicitly on this thread - but, grades permitting, I'll be trying to apply externally after third year to eg. Part III, OMMS, american unis, etc. At the moment, I have no intention of staying here.
(edited 4 years ago)
Another negative update, sorry. I anticipate (IV) being mainly stressing out about getting the right average for masters applications, (in the first year this is absorbed into getting the right average to transfer) and (V) moping about the said masters applications being unsuccessful, so this is probably preferable to that.

•

Mathematical Analysis - Very slow. Glad I'm not going to these lectures to learn the content. How slow the lecturer is going makes the whole "2.5x+ the contact hours over cambridge but still manages to cover less" thing make more sense. Assignment sheets are far too easy. The vast majority of the exercises are standard results and none require any sort of creativity. I like the lecturer - and I'm sure he's only going slowly because that's how the course is.

•

Sets and Numbers - Really like the lecturer, probably my favourite that I've had. Very energetic and charismatic and goes at a pretty good pace. Would love to get him again. Unfortunately other people think he's going far too fast and said he was bad, lol. That said he's doing complex numbers stuff now, which is just A-level revision with nothing added. Apparently it'll be like this for the next few lectures. Flatmates are skipping so I will too. (feel I can't otherwise)

•

Mathematical Techniques - Painfully slow. And I mean painful. There has hardly been anything new in the last few lectures - she tends to spend whole lectures doing particular examples. Speaking to a few people this seems to be the common feeling. Though when she releases the results of the student evaluation a few people said she was going too fast?? I was flabbergasted lol. She did say that she was surprised how good people were at proof writing, so it's possible she just underestimated the level of here and has pitched the course at too low a level. From the challenge questions she's set for tutorials, it's clear she can present challenging examples during lectures.

•

Differential Equations - Skipped the last few lectures (they're all early in the morning so I end up sleeping through them. for this purpose, 12pm classifies as early) but skimming through the lecture capture they're still on Second Order ODEs and so haven't really got to any new stuff. Assignments have been straightforward so far though less standard than the analysis ones.

•

Introduction to Geometry - Didn't know it'd just be the last week on spherical geometry lol, got the impression there was more. But yeah this has been an alright module. We start Introduction to Abstract Algebra next week, the lecturer for which is legendary (https://homepages.warwick.ac.uk/staff/S.Siksek/teaching/aa/aanotes.pdf) so that should be entertaining.

Have done disappointingly little further reading. I really have no excuse for that either - have an abundance of free time. Compared to how eager I was in y12, I'm comparatively demotivated and I hope it'll recover soon. Have given myself set stuff to do by the end of the Christmas holidays and that should kick everything off again. Personal stuff getting better and social life really is no issue. The issues with here are exclusively on the academic side. Which I view as separate to the social side - so the social side can't really mitigate it at all...

Spoiler

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Avatar for Sinnoh
Sinnoh
22
Do you have a course representative who can bring up the problems with the lecturers? At least the academic problems are temporary in the sense that the pace has to increase at some point but I understand
ngl I've done ****-all extra reading so far
Original post by _gcx
Another negative update, sorry. I anticipate (IV) being mainly stressing out about getting the right average for masters applications, (in the first year this is absorbed into getting the right average to transfer) and (V) moping about the said masters applications being unsuccessful, so this is probably preferable to that.

•

Mathematical Analysis - Very slow. Glad I'm not going to these lectures to learn the content. How slow the lecturer is going makes the whole "2.5x+ the contact hours over cambridge but still manages to cover less" thing make more sense. Assignment sheets are far too easy. The vast majority of the exercises are standard results and none require any sort of creativity. I like the lecturer - and I'm sure he's only going slowly because that's how the course is.

•

Sets and Numbers - Really like the lecturer, probably my favourite that I've had. Very energetic and charismatic and goes at a pretty good pace. Would love to get him again. Unfortunately other people think he's going far too fast and said he was bad, lol. That said he's doing complex numbers stuff now, which is just A-level revision with nothing added. Apparently it'll be like this for the next few lectures. Flatmates are skipping so I will too. (feel I can't otherwise)

•

Mathematical Techniques - Painfully slow. And I mean painful. There has hardly been anything new in the last few lectures - she tends to spend whole lectures doing particular examples. Speaking to a few people this seems to be the common feeling. Though when she releases the results of the student evaluation a few people said she was going too fast?? I was flabbergasted lol. She did say that she was surprised how good people were at proof writing, so it's possible she just underestimated the level of here and has pitched the course at too low a level. From the challenge questions she's set for tutorials, it's clear she can present challenging examples during lectures.

•

Differential Equations - Skipped the last few lectures (they're all early in the morning so I end up sleeping through them. for this purpose, 12pm classifies as early) but skimming through the lecture capture they're still on Second Order ODEs and so haven't really got to any new stuff. Assignments have been straightforward so far though less standard than the analysis ones.

•

Introduction to Geometry - Didn't know it'd just be the last week on spherical geometry lol, got the impression there was more. But yeah this has been an alright module. We start Introduction to Abstract Algebra next week, the lecturer for which is legendary (https://homepages.warwick.ac.uk/staff/S.Siksek/teaching/aa/aanotes.pdf) so that should be entertaining.

Have done disappointingly little further reading. I really have no excuse for that either - have an abundance of free time. Compared to how eager I was in y12, I'm comparatively demotivated and I hope it'll recover soon. Have given myself set stuff to do by the end of the Christmas holidays and that should kick everything off again. Personal stuff getting better and social life really is no issue. The issues with here are exclusively on the academic side. Which I view as separate to the social side - so the social side can't really mitigate it at all...

Spoiler




Original post by Sinnoh
Do you have a course representative who can bring up the problems with the lecturers? At least the academic problems are temporary in the sense that the pace has to increase at some point but I understand
ngl I've done ****-all extra reading so far

Whats extra-reading again :colondollar: :rofl: I've just about done essential readind lel
Original post by Sinnoh
Do you have a course representative who can bring up the problems with the lecturers? At least the academic problems are temporary in the sense that the pace has to increase at some point but I understand
ngl I've done ****-all extra reading so far

Doesn't for the first year. I'm not using the lectures to learn the content, so I wouldn't go through the hassle of bringing up the issues. I'll leave that to people affected by them.
Original post by I AM GROOT 1
Whats extra-reading again :colondollar: :rofl: I've just about done essential readind lel

Yeah further reading is completely optional. For maths you can get away with just going with the flow, reading the notes and handing in the assignments, but I've always wanted to do more than that because I like the subject.
Original post by _gcx
Yeah further reading is completely optional. For maths you can get away with just going with the flow, reading the notes and handing in the assignments, but I've always wanted to do more than that because I like the subject.

Yeah i thought that was the case but when seminar tutors are like have a look at them I'm like so we do need to read them?
with law u kinda need to look at them for like the cases and stuff.... yay :rofl:

I know wat u mean same here :five:

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