Changing from engineering to maths

Hello, i am approching the end of my first year doing engineering at exeter, and it hasnt been what i expected. i havnt realy taken to the course and the only part i enjoy is the maths side.

so im looking at possibly changing to maths, hopefully starting frsh on a Bsc Mathematics. has anyone done this before? how different is 1st year maths compared to first year engineering maths?

will it help that at my uni, maths and engineering are also part of the same 'school'?

how difficult in general have people found it to change courses?
do universitys put current students ahead of new entrys, or vise-versa?

any help would be great, meeting my tutor about it tommorow, just wondered what other peoples experiances are! cheers!

Reply 1

shiny

12

engineering maths is very different from maths maths

Reply 2

kenaldo

OP

In what way is it different? ive heard and read that there are alot more proofs involved, but in terms of the topics covered, what is different?

its realy hard to tell wether or not i would be able to cope, but with any luck i would be able to go in to next year backed pu with Maths A-level, Further Maths AS, and having done 1st year engineering maths, gotta help a bit!

Reply 3

shiny

12

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=2183007#post2183007

Reply 4

iapetos

1

I have a 4 years degree in mathematics for a greek uni and I am going to do finance as post studies.I dont believe that you will have any problem.In fact many modules as mechanics are considered as mathematical subjects from most uni.Later the theoretic maths are far far far more difficult than everything that you have done but we started tought them at the 2-3 year of our course.At uk uni the first year is usually a revise and an introduction to the terms and the hardcore maths are been taught much later as post studies.

I can not understand why someone would change from engineering to maths but if you do it good luck.It will be easy for you

Reply 5

Dam

2

kenaldo

In what way is it different? ive heard and read that there are alot more proofs involved, but in terms of the topics covered, what is different?

its realy hard to tell wether or not i would be able to cope, but with any luck i would be able to go in to next year backed pu with Maths A-level, Further Maths AS, and having done 1st year engineering maths, gotta help a bit!

I am sure that you will be able to cope, if you really want to do maths instead. I am a second year engineering student also at exeter, and I had planned to do maths initially but i was put off because I thought it would be too difficult or too boring, but it can't be so bad because thousands of people get maths degrees every year.

I now wish that I had done maths instead, not because engineering is that bad, but because I want to do maths, but i've realised this a bit too late. Oops!

PS can we get your two versions of this topic stuck together? Thanks

Reply 6

Light

engineering maths is very different from maths maths

Kenaldo are you considering transferring to study 'Pure Maths' or 'Applied Maths'? If you go for straight maths you might find yourself proving such things as '1' being greater than '0'. I don't know about the Exeter Engineering course specifics but does it allow specialization later on? If it does, then you could take the more maths based (say Linear Algebra) modules? If the Engineering course at Exeter is anything like the Cambridge course, the first year might well be very general and your are bound to have preffered some topics over others.

Engineering is defined as "the application of science to the needs of humanity" so perhaps if that idea doesn't intrigue you then Engineering is not the right thing for you. Some people really get off on doing Maths for Maths sake even though direct applications (eg. random example -> separating speech signals) are not entirely obvious.

Reply 7

sarz777

hi.... i am facing a similar problem...i am about to start my first year of university and have chosen electrical eng. but i relly want to do maths.....see there is no universit here( UAE) that offers a bachelors in maths and although i can go abroad...i am not quite sure what i will do if i get a degree in maths unless i complete a phd ( which would be so cool) I figured i would do a minor in maths if i didn't get to do the whole thing..... any ideas......

Changing from engineering to maths

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