University of Sheffield - Maths and Philosophy Student - Ask Me Anything!

Hi Lizzie, I am currently in year 13 and I plan to study maths and philosophy at the University of Sheffield too! There haven't been many posts about this particular course, especially at Sheffield, so it was very nice to come across yours. I would love to ask some questions

1) If I understand correctly, Sheffield offers a year abroad and a year in industry. Do you know if this applies to this course? I would definitely like to do one of the two.
2) What is the teaching and support like?
3) Is there much of an intersection between the two subjects, for example the philosophy of maths, logic etc., or are they taught more separately?
2) Is there anything in particular you would have liked to have known, or been aware of, before starting the course?
5) Why did you choose this course and what are your favourite and least favourite aspects of it so far?

Thank you

Hi,
1) Yes the year abroad and year in industry do apply to this course so if you wanted you could do one.
2) The teaching is good, typically maths modules have more contact hours than the philosophy ones. The lecturers have office hours each week which is a time that you can drop in and ask any questions you may have or ask them to repeat anything that you might have missed. This are really helpful and I would definitely recommend them. You will get a personal tutor in both philosophy and maths, which I think is a great because it means they know how the department runs and you don't have a maths professor trying to advice on philosophy modules they don't really know anything about or vice versa.
3) There isn't much of an intersection between the two (although at other unis there is more of one, at least that's what I found when looking). The philosophy modules you do are all done within the philosophy department and with single honours philosophy students and the maths ones within the maths department with maths students. There is the option to do logic in philosophy and it is also part of the maths course so you could do the same thing twice if you wanted to. I actually found that to be quite hard because I had learnt logic from a mathematical sense and understood it but then when it was taught as a philosophical thing, I got confused so didn't do the logic module in philosophy, but you could if you wanted.
4) One thing I would say to be aware of is because you are doing two subjects in a way, you are only doing half as much of each. So there might be a module you want to do but can't because of needing to split the credits between the two. Also, the maths modules in second and third year have prerequisites that meant I didn't get to choose my first or second year maths modules. The maths modules you will do will be mainly the core maths topics and so more pure maths than applied or stats. I didn't mind this but if you are someone how really likes stats, lets say, you wont do much, if any, of it during the course. It is also a very small course. I think there were about 7 on the course in my year, and similar numbers for the years above and below me, possibly a little more but definitely below 20.
5) I choose this course because I really like maths and knew that that is what I wanted to do at uni for a very long time. But when I was doing my a levels, I realised I didn't want to do just maths and so thought about what other things I liked and in one of my a levels there was a philosophy part and I really enjoyed it. So I decided to do both and luckily there was a course that does both. I have really enjoyed it so far and would recommend it. Two of my favourite things on the course are that when you are doing your modules, no one really knows or cares that you do a dual honours degree, you just fit in. So there's no separation from the others in the module, you do the same assignments as them and have the same tutorials as them which means you meet twice as many people and you don't feel like an outsider just sitting in on the modules it much more like you are meant to be there. The other great thing about a dual honours course is that you can take a break from one of the subjects by doing the other. So if you are bored of maths you can stop doing maths but still be productive by doing philosophy which only really works because they are so different. Some things I don't like are that because it is two different departments there are sometimes different policies and so you just need to check with each department because it might not be the same, all the policies are on the website and can be easily found it is just something to remember. The other thing to know is that you are more likely to have clashes on your timetable because you cover two departments, so the maths department will try and make sure there modules don't clash and so will the philosophy department but the two departments may clash with each other. This can be very frustrating as it means you may have to change your modules but normally it just means you have to ask to switch tutorial groups in the first few weeks of the semester.
Hope this answers those questions, let me know if I missed anything.
Is there anything else you would like to ask?
Lizzie

Hi Lizzie, sorry I never responded to your reply. Thank you for this brilliant answer! In the end I firmed Sheffield and I am now waiting for results 😁.

Hi,
Glad to hear my answer helped. Do you have any more questions about the course, university or the transition?
Hope you get the results you want,
Lizzie (BSc Mathematics and Philosophy - University of Sheffield)

Hi Lizzie,
I’m in the same boat with regards to planning on studying maths and philosophy in September, I was wondering about how many hours/days you are in university per week? Is it more than a single honour student or pretty similar because we do less of each course? Also what do you use to take notes on - paper and pen, iPad, laptop etc.?
Any advice would be appreciated,
Thankyou!