Hi, my name is Reuben and I’m currently a first-year maths student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. I’ve always been primarily interested in maths so the choice of subject was quite natural for me, but I wasn’t so sure how to pick a college. Although I was initially worried about it, it doesn’t seem to matter where you go for – everyone is happy with their college choice and there’s not too much difference. Maybe look at how many mathmos (maths students) there will be and how central the college is.
The maths degree is split into two halves; pure and applied and this split is mirrored in the typical work I do each week. I have 2 lectures each day, so 12 a week (we do have to do lectures on a Saturday!) and these are split between two applied and two pure courses. For example “differential equations” is one of the applied courses in the first term and “numbers and sets” one of the pure. It’s important to understand these well since they cover the material needed for the main part of your work, example sheets. In a two week cycle I have supervisions on each course where another student and I go through these example sheets with an academic from the college to help us really understand all the concepts and we can clarify any problems we’ve had with lectures too. Overall, each sheet should take 10-15 hours and the problems are of quite a different style to ones at school, but they’re definitely a lot more interesting! Given how tricky some of the problems are I think talking to other maths students and trying to work them out together has been one of best parts of the course.
The interview experience was quite positive for me. I chose to stay overnight beforehand so I didn’t have to worry about travel, then the two interviews were in the early afternoon. In each interview there were two academics who would alternate asking a maths problem. I would then try to explain my thoughts as I solved it and write a couple of things down, to show them how I thought about maths. I think it’s important to be enthusiastic and to try to enjoy the interview, the problems were quite fun! It’s definitely also important to remember that you’re not expected to produce a perfect solution immediately and the way you think is more important, so if you get stuck or need a couple of hints, that isn’t a bad thing. It can even be an opportunity to show them how you can pick up new ideas they give you. One thing I wish I had known before the interview is that I wouldn’t be asked anything about my personal statement – they are just interested in the maths you can do! I think at a couple of other colleges, there’s a pre-interview test, to give you some questions to work on beforehand, so make sure to check how it will work at the college you apply to.
Overall I think maths is a really interesting degree and the style definitely changes for the better from the maths you will have encountered at school, less boring number crunching and more broad results. If you’re interested to learn lots of new things about how and why the maths you’ve seen before works and where you can go from there, then the maths course will be great for you.