Advanced Mathematics @ USYD (3 Viewers)

[Sremlahc]

the online self assessment from http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/PS/advanced.html,
is this a good indication of whether you can enrol
to Mathematics Advanced unit of study for first year?
is this reliable?

I have recently completed honours in pure maths and I can tell you, that this is a good indicator into doing mathematics at university. If you get a credit average in 1st year advanced maths, even though it is the minimum standard, it is not recommended to do advanced mathematics in 2nd year, especially in analysis and algebra, as conceptually it is quite different to anything that you have experienced.

Then you get to 3rd year, and thats just beautiful, but at this stage you pretty much have to eat, breathe and live maths. 1hr/wk/subject is not enough in my opinion, you must be fluent in every subject to continue. differential calculus and linear algebra lead into integral calculus and discrete is very nice and I encourage people to take this (unless you know that you are keen in statistics early). You can always take all 3.

In reference to jobs, there are heaps, just google "maths jobs" or "math employment".

 

[Sremlahc]

I am asking about the PERSONAL OPINIOIN now.

How did you find differential calculus, linear algebra and integral calculus and modelling?

what level of maths did you do at HSC?

I did Ext 2 - I found all of them fairly straightforward, and I'm actually tutoring them now. I think they try "shock tactics" in 1st semester by testing some topics which seemingly come out of nowhere (but they really don't). If you can tough out the 1st 6 weeks and keep on top of it, it's all good

 

[lou071]

I have recently completed honours in pure maths and I can tell you, that this is a good indicator into doing mathematics at university. If you get a credit average in 1st year advanced maths, even though it is the minimum standard, it is not recommended to do advanced mathematics in 2nd year, especially in analysis and algebra, as conceptually it is quite different to anything that you have experienced.

Then you get to 3rd year, and thats just beautiful, but at this stage you pretty much have to eat, breathe and live maths. 1hr/wk/subject is not enough in my opinion, you must be fluent in every subject to continue. differential calculus and linear algebra lead into integral calculus and discrete is very nice and I encourage people to take this (unless you know that you are keen in statistics early). You can always take all 3.

In reference to jobs, there are heaps, just google "maths jobs" or "math employment".

so you recommend people to continue adv maths if they get D or HD in first year?

 

[Sremlahc]

so you recommend people to continue adv maths if they get D or HD in first year?

You must be genuinely interested in the material as well, because the difficulty goes north from 1st year. If you've got a D average minimum in advanced you will find 2nd year tough, but you've alerady demonstrated that you have the capacity to learn new material. Are you doing MATH1904?

 

[roadrage75]

i disagree. you can take up advanced maths subjects in 2nd year if you get a credit in NORMAL maths.... which suggests a pass in advanced maths and you should be alright.

 

[rcr4fags]

so you recommend people to continue adv maths if they get D or HD in first year?

people who got FL's??
well what do u think?

 

[Sremlahc]

i disagree. you can take up advanced maths subjects in 2nd year if you get a credit in NORMAL maths.... which suggests a pass in advanced maths and you should be alright.

You can do this, but why would you want to just pass? I guarantee if you get a credit in normal, you will struggle in advanced and if you get a pass in advanced (not many of these are handed out due to scaling) you will be advised to drop down to normal or not do any mathematics at all.

If you are getting a D average in physics and chemistry and only a C average in mathematics, which one are you going to continue with?

We are not talking about scraping through here, we are talking about the ability complete the course with minimal understanding.

Also, if an employer sees that you have a C average in mathematics, that simply is not good enough for most jobs requiring mathematics. Why? Because there will be a lot of people in front of you.

 

[konkzz]

If I drop advanced mathematics and re-enrol in standard mathematics, will my whole timetable change or can they allocate classes where there are vacancies ?

 

[jtyler]

Your whole timetable will be reallocated. But it still might not change significantly, it depends how many different streams there are for your existing subjects. If you're sticking to all other advanced subjects (which have only 1 lecture stream), you might find it doesn't change a lot.

 

[konkzz]

Well, for MATH1901 there are 8 am lectures on Thursday and Friday. For MATH1902, there are lectures at 11am on Monday and Tuesday. If I drop these two and enrol in MATH1001 and MATH1002, I could have four 8 am lectures since I have vacancies in my 8am - 9am timeslots and since there are classes for these subjects that those times. Though this is not preferrable, I'm willing to take this option if I find that I can't cope with Advanced Mathematics and that, if I do drop it, the rest of my timetable shouldn't change.

Can I ask to be placed in a certain class as long as there are no classes ?

 

[ssglain]

If there are multiple streams of lectures (as there typically are for normal level subjects due to the enormous number of enrolments), then you can go to ANY of them regardless of what you're timetabled for. So even if you're timetabled for 8am MATH1001, you can still go to the 11am lecture if you want. The lecturer isn't going to do a roll-call to see who is or isn't supposed to be there.

It's slightly different for tutorials - usually there is a roll that you have to mark off and the maths quizzes can only be done in your timetabled tutorial (they say that otherwise it won't be marked). If you don't like your tutorial time and prefer a different timeslot, either change your timetable (you can do that online or in person) or you can just turn up to the first tutorial in you preferred time slot and ask the tutor for permission to add you to the roll.