Welcome to the School
of Mathematical Sciences at
the University of Southampton.
I’m the head of school,
Professor Marika Taylor.
So the School of Mathematical
Sciences at Southampton
studies a wide range
of modern mathematics.
We have a pure mathematics group
that explores subjects
such as geometry,
topology, group theory
and number theory.
We also study applications
of mathematics for medicine,
science and engineering.
We work in statistics
and data science.
We have a high-profile group
that works in mathematical
physics studying phenomena
such as the beginning
of the universe
and gravitational waves,
and we also have
a world-renowned group working
on operational research.
Operational research is a field
in which you use mathematics
and mathematical modelling
in order to inform management
and operational decisions.
Operational research is
at the heart
of government decisions and of
decisions made by industry.
The School of Mathematical
Sciences at Southampton
offers two types
of undergraduate programmes.
The three-year programmes end
with a BSc degree.
The most popular
of these programmes is the
straight mathematics programme
in which you will study a very
broad range of mathematics
and have the opportunity
either to specialise
in a particular branch
that you enjoy,
or to keep a range
of options right
through into your final year.
Some students, however,
have in mind specialising right
from the very start,
and for these students we have
mathematics with programmes
where approximately a quarter of
your programme is specialising
in a particular way.
So one class
of programmes is for those
who are particularly interested
in working using
their mathematics to work
in business and finance,
in data science.
So programmes such as Maths
with Actuarial Science,
Maths with Finance,
Maths with Operational Research,
Statistics and Economics
give you very strong
foundations in mathematics,
but also allow you to explore
areas in economics and finance
that actually launch you
into a business career.
Some of you may enjoy
alongside your mathematics other
science subjects at A-level
and want to carry on
with those subjects.
So Mathematics
with Computer Science
and Mathematical Physics
allow you to mix
your mathematics with study
of another discipline.
Mathematical Sciences is
a very broad degree.
As I’ll explain in a moment,
you can take a quarter
of your modules,
do a quarter
of your study in subjects
which are outside maths,
so you can do possible minors in
things like languages or music.
In all of our bachelors
programmes you can do
a year in employment,
so this is essentially
a placement year,
and then you graduate
with a degree that says
with a year in employment.
So you would spend one year out
in industry working
on a placement
and then come back in
and do your final year.
Another possibility is Maths
with Modern Foreign Languages.
This is a four-year programme
where you spend one year
studying abroad in a country
where the language
that you’re studying is spoken
as a native language.
So the modern foreign languages
that we support are French,
German and Spanish.
The other option
for undergraduate programmes
is so-called integrated
Masters programmes.
So these are four-year
programmes in which you do
the fourth year is
Masters level study
and you are able
to really go into depth
into your mathematics.
You do an independent
research project.
You really get
cutting-edge skills
which can take you
into very highly mathematical,
very highly skilled jobs.
So these are a possibility
both in Mathematics,
in Mathematical Physics,
and in the Morse areas
of operational research,
statistics and economics.
One of the key messages is
the flexibility to transfer
between programmes.
So if you choose a programme
such as Mathematics
with Finance or Mathematics
with Computer Science and decide
that you don’t enjoy very
much the minor part of that,
you’d really like to concentrate
on the mathematics,
then you will have
a possibility to transfer back.
It’s quite common
for our students to get
to the end of three years
of study and say
that they would actually
quite like to do
an integrated Masters.
They’d like to do
a fourth year to get
that enhanced qualification,
and then they
can transfer across
from our three-year programmes
onto the four-year programmes.
So there’s a very wide range
of options available
within our programmes.
As I’ve mentioned,
we allow you to take modules
from other disciplines.
So all our programmes
allow you to take modules
from outside mathematics
in the third year,
and in particular in the
Mathematical Sciences programme
you can do this
throughout your study.
So you can do a quarter
of your study right
through the three years
in other disciplines
other than mathematics.
Popular choices include music,
politics, psychology, languages.
So this is a really
good choice for somebody
who’s enjoying psychology
or languages at A-level,
wants to keep up with it,
and really go deeper into that.
It’s good if you
want to do a language
but you don’t want to spend
the full year abroad,
but you want to either take
a new language from scratch,
such as perhaps
Mandarin or Japanese
that you haven’t had
the opportunity to study before,
or you want to build
on your A-level studies
in a language such as French
or German and Spanish.
Other options which are nice
within our programmes are
the possibility to spend
a year in employment,
which I briefly mentioned before
and I’ll come back to later,
and the possibility
to spend a semester abroad.
So this would be
a semester studying
with one of our partner
institutions in Europe,
North America, South America,
Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
So it's a great opportunity
to experience a new culture,
experience a very different way
of living and lifestyle.
So Southampton Mathematics
has a broad community
of around 600 undergraduates.
We have about
140 postgraduate students.
Some of these are studying
for Masters degrees
and some of them are studying
for research degrees
which would end in a doctorate.
We have about 66 academic staff
who are involved in teaching,
so they would be teaching you
in lectures and problem classes,
supervising your projects.
And then we have in addition to
that about 14 research fellows
who concentrate mostly on
research rather than teaching,
but they’re also there
to supervise advanced projects
for our students.
So, Academic Life.
I’ve already used
the word semester and module.
We split the year into two,
so two semesters,
and in each semester
you study four modules.
The typical week
for a maths student
in the first year consists
of three lectures
and a problem class
for every module they study,
as well as a couple
of timetable hours
in a mathematics workshop.
The days can start at nine
and finish at six,
so we lecture from nine to six.
But on Wednesdays
everyone has a half day,
finishing by 1PM at the latest,
and I’ll come back
to that a little bit later.
That’s an opportunity to do
sports and music
and other activities.
In your classes you
will be assigned work to do
that you complete.
This may be things
like problem sheets.
They may be things
like midterm tests.
They might be group projects.
They might be
individual coursework.
And then most of our modules
finish with a final exam
which is typically worth about
80% of the mark for the module.
The pictures that you
see here on the slide are
the Mathematics Student Centre.
So this is
a dedicated study space
for our mathematics students
and it’s a space that we use
for our mathematics workshops,
so these are a chance to get
informal support from staff
and from more advanced students.
So you can see
people here studying,
working on their assignments,
and people standing there
and giving them help
with their assignments.
In the second picture
you can see a group
of people working together
on a group project,
so there are dedicated study
spaces within the student centre
for people meeting as groups
and working together.
So, the programme structure.
We have a common first year
with increased specialisation,
so that’s the main message
to take from this slide.
So the first two columns come
from the first year modules,
the middle two are
the second year,
and the last two
are the third year,
and what you can take
from this is that there
are just increasing choices.
The colour coding
is yellow for core
that everyone takes,
and then green,
red and blue are different
branches of mathematics,
pure mathematics,
applied mathematics and so on.
The idea is
that all of our students take
the same six core modules
in the first year in calculus,
algebra, statistics
and programming,
and then they take
optional modules, depending
which programme they choose,
and that shared core means
that they can do flexible
transfer between programmes.
And then later on
as you go through your degree,
you increasingly have
a chance to specialise.
So if you enjoy pure
mathematics the most,
you can increasingly just
take most of your modules
from pure mathematics.
If, however, you’d like
to continue to take a mixture
of modules right across pure
and applied mathematics,
statistics, financial maths,
that’s also an option.
So a typical timetable
for a first-year student
is shown here.
The purple blocks
indicate lectures,
so these are more formal classes
where you’re basically
learning new material.
The pale blue blocks indicate
problem classes and workshops.
These are where you
are working on assignments,
working on problems,
you’re asking informal
questions, basically
engaging and interacting
with staff members.
You can see that your classes
are spread out through the day,
so many of our students
in between classes will go
and work in the student centre.
And then there’s this free time
on Wednesday afternoon.
You can use that either for
catching up on assignments,
or you can use it for engaging
in sports and music
and other activities.
So coming to university is
not just about studying,
it’s obviously also about
socialising and engaging
with other students.
Within maths itself we have
a number of activities.
So we have
Undergraduate Maths Seminars,
talks of general maths interest.
We have regular screening
of maths-related films
with free pizza,
so both staff and students
come along to that.
And then we’ve got
a wide range of other events
which get organised
through the career by
the two maths societies,
SUMS and SUAS.
So that’s the Southampton
University Maths Society,
a really good acronym, SUMS,
and the Southampton University
Actuarial Society, SUAS.
So these could be things
from career fairs
through to pub crawls,
so a wide variety
of activities and hopefully
something for everyone.
So these are some quotes
from our current students.
So this is Ria
who’s really enjoyed being very
much a part of a community.
And this is Sadie
who really likes the fact
that there’s a very
broad range of subjects
that you can study,
so you have the option
between specialising
or just keeping
a broad range of subjects.
So pastoral support is something
that’s really important
when people come to university.
For many people
it’s the first time
they’ve lived away from home,
so you’re coping both
with new academic studies
and a change
in your living conditions,
meeting new people,
so there’s a lot of support
that’s put into place
to help you with this.
So from the academic side
you’ll be assigned
a Personal Academic Tutor
who’s basically there for you
right throughout your studies.
So they’re there to guide you
on which modules you
would like to take.
They’re there to guide you about
possible internships, careers.
They will write letters for you
when you graduate
when you’re applying for jobs.
We also put in place
informal support.
So there are some questions
that you might not want to ask
an academic staff member
when you first start,
such as how to cook spaghetti
or where the best nightclub is.
So we have a Buddy Scheme
which helps freshers integrate
into university life,
so they’re basically
a peer group of support students
from older years
and they’ll help you
with questions you want to ask.
At the university level we
have a Student Services Centre,
so that’s where you go to ask
questions about accommodation,
about fees, finance, visas,
ID cards, library access,
all those kinds of things.
And within that complex
there is Enabling Services
which is really there
for students with all kinds
of issues and problems that
could affect their learning,
so it would be for students
with disabilities,
mental health issues,
specific learning difficulties.
Essentially anything which
could affect your learning,
they’re the first port of call.
So, the Year
in Employment Programme.
So this is done between
the second and final years.
It’s an option for all
of our programmes,
except the one with languages
where you’re in any case
spending a year abroad.
This is flexible.
You don’t have to declare
right from the beginning
that you want to do this.
You can actually go
onto this programme
during your second year.
You stay enrolled
with the university
during that year.
You pay a nominal fee,
and then we completely support
you in finding the placement
and guide you right
throughout the year.
We want to make sure that
those placements are valuable
and support your studies,
and typically the placements
that our students go on are
closely related to what they
study in their maths degrees.
So typical examples are
Lloyds and credit risk,
GlaxoSmithKline’s statistics
work in research
and development,
data science at Uniper,
actuarial work at Prudential.
So the idea of placements
is really to enhance
your prospects for getting
good careers and offers
after you graduate.
So in general maths is
a good career choice.
So this is just a snapshot
taken from a report
this year about careers,
and what’s been rated
here is not just salaries,
which are quoted
in American Dollars
which you can see
are pretty impressive,
but they’re also
looking at what’s
the work environment like,
what’s the stress level,
what’s the projected growth?
Is this something
which is going to be around
as a job in 20 years’ time?
And things that you
can do with maths
which are mentioned here,
data science, statistician,
mathematician working in
industry, government agencies,
operations research
analyst, actuary.
You can see that they all score
well in terms of environment,
in terms of stress,
in terms of
projected growth areas.
So I’ve mentioned
several times the possibility
of actuarial degrees.
So we’re one
of the leading Institute
and Faculty of Actuaries
accredited universities
for technical exam exemptions.
So if you study on any
of our maths degrees,
you will be eligible for these.
So what you do is
you take the modules and
if you achieve a certain mark
in those modules,
which is set by the Institute
and Faculty of Actuaries
with us each year,
then you obtain a certificate
of your exemption
from taking the IFA exam.
If you want to get
the complete set of exemptions,
you can obtain
that by being
on our actuarial programme
and then you can get
the full set of six exemptions
from Core Principles Subjects.
If you’re on one
of the other programmes
and you don’t take all
of the required modules,
you will get up to six
of those exemptions.
So where do our students go
after they’ve graduated?
It’s really a very wide range
and we’ve just put
a few snapshots
of our possibilities here.
So students will often go to,
they’ll graduate and they’ll go
work as accountants
and management consultants
in places like PWC,
Deloitte, the big four firms.
They’ll often go
work in banking,
finance, insurance,
places like Lloyds,
Zurich, AXA and Barclays.
They might work in scientific
technical areas such as DSTL.
We have a very large DSTL centre
close to Southampton.
We have very
strong relationships
with companies such as
British Airways and Ford.
We’ve got longstanding
relationships with them
and a number of our students
go and work there.
We’ll have students
going working as statisticians,
as analysts in government
agencies such as the Office
for National Statistics
and Public Health England.
And not shown here as a logo,
but every year we will have at
least some of our students going
and becoming maths teachers,
and I think we would all hope
that at least some maths
graduates go off into teaching
and inspire the next generation
of mathematicians.
So all of our offers
include an A grade
in A-level mathematics,
so the standard
offer is three As.
If you’re taking four subjects,
then the offer is AABB,
including an A in maths.
If you’re taking one
of the advanced papers
such as STEP, now MAT,
or the Test of Mathematics
for University Admission,
we make a discounted offer
if you reach a certain
requirement in those papers,
so then it goes down to AAB.
In the International
Baccalaureate we’re usually
looking at 37 points.
If you’re applying for the BSc
Mathematical Sciences programme,
the requirement is
a little bit lower, it’s
AAB.
And what we guarantee
to you is that
if you miss your grade for one
of the other programmes
by one point but you still get
the A grade in mathematics,
we will offer you a place on
the BSc Mathematical Sciences.
So that’s almost an automatic
insurance offer without you
putting it as a second
point on the form.
If you have any questions
about either admissions
or about admissions requirements
or about any other point,
please don’t hesitate
to contact us.
I’ve included
various contacts here.
So the admissions tutor
is Nick Wright and there’s
his email address.
And we’re also always happy
to pick up questions
on our maths Twitter feed.
So, thank you very much.
