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acmilan

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Havent seen many 2nd year maths students around here. Rather than making a thread for each subject, thought i'd just make a general one. Which subjects do you do? Thoughts on the exam for it? Thoughts on subject?

This semester i took:

MATH2901 - Higher Theory of Statistics

Didnt find this subject all that hard, mainly because i covered the majority of the concepts in first year at usyd last year. Had i known this subject was basically a mirror of the usyd version i did i wouldve requested it be credited. Sort of glad i did it though, it went into more depth. I found the final exam to be decent, didnt really test much outside the standard questions. No random questions that werent obvious. Class average before the test was ~28/40.

MATH2111 - Higher Several Variable Calculus

Easily the hardest math subject ive done to date (higher linear might challenge that next semester). The applied part of the subject is my weak point. I love the pure part, especially the analysis. Going into the final on 68% average, but the math web portal reports my pre-exam mark as 75 (scaling?). Average pre-exam mark is 69.5 for class. Pretty disappointed with my marks in this so far, really dumb mistakes. This is my only remaining exam, and its next friday, so almost a week to try ace it.

MATH2240 - Introduction to Oceanography and Meteorology

Interesting subject to say the least. Assignments can get quite challenging (had to see the lecturer for both assignments for hints), but the final exam was extremely easy, really didnt require much knowledge of the subject at all, more just skills in using equations they give to solve problems. Lots of ODEs and approximations in this subject. This had a class average of about 31/40, which shows its not an overly hard subject. Only had 12 students though. Hope it doesnt scale down :(

Looking at doing next semester:
MATH2601 - Higher Linear Algebra
MATH2130 - Higher Mathematical Methods of Differential Equations
MATH1081 - Discrete Mathematics
 
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§eraphim

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acmilan said:
Havent seen many 2nd year maths students around here. Rather than making a thread for each subject, thought i'd just make a general one. Which subjects do you do? Thoughts on the exam for it? Thoughts on subject?

This semester i took:

MATH2901 - Higher Theory of Statistics

Didnt find this subject all that hard, mainly because i covered the majority of the concepts in first year at usyd last year. Had i known this subject was basically a mirror of the usyd version i did i wouldve requested it be credited. Sort of glad i did it though, it went into more depth. I found the final exam to be decent, didnt really test much outside the standard questions. No random questions that werent obvious. Class average before the test was ~28/40.

MATH2111 - Higher Several Variable Calculus

Easily the hardest math subject ive done to date (higher linear might challenge that next semester). The applied part of the subject is my weak point. I love the pure part, especially the analysis. Going into the final on 68% average, but the math web portal reports my pre-exam mark as 75 (scaling?). Average pre-exam mark is 69.5 for class. Pretty disappointed with my marks in this so far, really dumb mistakes. This is my only remaining exam, and its next friday, so almost a week to try ace it.

MATH2240 - Introduction to Oceanography and Meteorology

Interesting subject to say the least. Assignments can get quite challenging (had to see the lecturer for both assignments for hints), but the final exam was extremely easy, really didnt require much knowledge of the subject at all, more just skills in using equations they give to solve problems. Lots of ODEs and approximations in this subject. This had a class average of about 31/40, which shows its not an overly hard subject. Only had 12 students though. Hope it doesnt scale down :(

Looking at doing next semester:
MATH2601 - Higher Linear Algebra
MATH2130 - Higher Mathematical Methods of Differential Equations
MATH1081 - Discrete Mathematics
HIGHER Theory of Stats is a joke.

Calculus is easy but takes work to understand. It's just the new notation that takes getting used to, like Einstein's notation.

Higher Linear Algebra is a pretty good course as it covers both theory and application.

DEs is 6uoc of work. The material can get difficult and its takes ages to get out a question (the lecturer couldn't even finish 1 question in the whole lecture). Also, the final is hard too (damm orthogonal polynomials!)

Discrete is quite fun, esp the graph theory part. Should be easy for anyone who likes puzzles/comp/logic/etc.
 

acmilan

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mmm from looking at the 1081 exam, looks like ive covered a lot of it before.
 

acmilan

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bumpedy bump, anyone on here actually in these subjects?

Anyways:

MATH2601 - Hard, hard, hard. I'm really behind :( I just realised usyd didnt prepare me well for this subject, unsw students learn way more in first year (usyd didnt even touch on things like bases, spans etc.), and its assumed I know it, so I guess i need to get round to learning it at some stage

MATH2130 - Not really hard (yet), we've finished the ODE part of the subject

MATH1081 - The only subject ever where i've been ahead of the lectures
 

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im doing finance and maths - how important is it that i do math3121 (partial differential equations)?
 

§eraphim

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Caution: PDE theory is quite hard.

MATH3121 would be useful to understand the PDE approach to solving the Black-Scholes equation. However, most of the current finance theory takes a more probabilistic approach so it would be more useful to do MATH3901 Stochastic Processes.

MATH3311 Mathematical Computing for Finance is a must for Finance/Maths.
 

§eraphim

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acmilan said:
MATH2601 - Hard, hard, hard. I'm really behind :( I just realised usyd didnt prepare me well for this subject, unsw students learn way more in first year (usyd didnt even touch on things like bases, spans etc.), and its assumed I know it, so I guess i need to get round to learning it at some stage
Lol..wtf were you learning in 1st yr linear algebra?

Watch out for the stuff on tensors as it helps to have some kind of physics background/intuition.
 

acmilan

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§eraphim said:
Lol..wtf were you learning in 1st yr linear algebra?

Watch out for the stuff on tensors as it helps to have some kind of physics background/intuition.
As far as I can remember, other than learning the basic matrix/vector stuff, the only things we really did were eigenvalues/vectors. But you must remember usyd only does one 3uoc linear algebra subject in first semester of first year, then nothing else until 2nd year.
 

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Stats is useful for all disciplines. The non-physics kind of applied stuff, such as optimisation theory and numerical analysis, are also useful for finance. I suggest doing a bit of both.
 

§eraphim

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Do you do Maths at UNSW? If so, I would highly recommend studying the following:

- analysis and measure theory
- stochastic processes
- numerical analysis. eg for PDEs
- optimisation
- statistical computing
- time series
 

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Yes. Ive sorta guessed the course codes. Isn't time series post graduate studies? Cant find any statistical computing. I assume analysis and measure theory = complex analysis?
 

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MATH3821 - statistical computing
MATH3841 - has some time series

UNSW doesn't offer a postgrad time series course anymore, so you probably would have to do it at USyd through some cross-institutional study program thingy. Ask Maths about the details. (Time series can be learnt elsewhere too, eg. Actuarial, Finance, Econometrics)

No, complex analysis is analysis over the complex plane. It's more like:
(Topological) Analysis ---> Measure Theory
 

acmilan

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Hmm, not a lot of the 3rd year courses look that appealing to me. I need 30 uoc of courses for honours, right now the only one that I definitely want to do is MATH3411 Information, Codes and Ciphers
 

§eraphim

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Analysis is probably the most useful of all courses.

For computing, I guess it would be wise to do courses in:

- numerical analysis
- analysis of algorithms. eg probability, graph theory
- algebra
- statistics - data mining

etc
 
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acmilan

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Yes, I'm doing pure. I can't stand applied. Dont mind stats but it's not something im interested in.
 

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