Chris - Maths
Name: Chris Blake
Subject: Mathematics
Year: 1st
A-levels taken: Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry
What does your working week entail?
Maths has a fairly rigid timetable of organised contact time: there are
lectures from 10am to 12pm every day, and a large part of your work each
week will be reading over notes and making sure you understand everything
as you go through the course. On top of this I typically have two
supervisions each week, and for each I have to complete (or do as much as
possible of) and example sheet. Supervision work probably entails about 16
hours work a week, which isn't as a bad as it sounds as you can just do a
bit every day.
How easy was the transition from A-level to the first year of your degree?
Firstly Maths at university is very different to at school - there is a lot
more pure work, and for some people this can be a bit of a shock to the
system. But after not very long I actually found this to make the subject
far more interesting in its own right, and ended up really enjoying the
courses. The other big change, at least for me, is that at Cambridge I
suddenly had to start working very hard to do the maths - something which
never really happened at A-level. However all the supervisors were great
and made the learning curve a lot smoother than it could have been.
How easily can you fit social activities into your working week?
To be honest this really hasn't been a problem for me. I tend to have done
most of my work for the day by about 5pm (with plenty of breaks) and am
free most evenings, enabling me to socialise most nights. Football matches
take place on weekend afternoons so that hasn't been a problem and since
lectures don't start to early I can be out pretty much any night of the
week.
What sort of things did you talk about in your interview?
My interviews were very maths focused - there was hardly any talking about
my personal statement or any extra curricular activities. We just worked
through a few maths problems, mostly pure but with a bit of mechanics.