British universities and calculus/math?

Naff8000

Naff8000

Naff8000

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I did an Economics bachelor at UWE and got 66%. I'm now doing a Economics masters at Oslo and I'm in big trouble. I'm doing 3 modules: Micro, Macro and Math and they are all heavily math orientated. Every economic theory we study is explained by calculus and I haven't got the slightest clue. Although my bachelor involved some calculus we generally steered clear of it and my final year involved none of it.

Everyone on the course, especially the Americans have a decent background in calculus. Some are flying through, some are struggling but everyone I have spoken to knows a lot more than I do. I have employed a personal tutor and have started from scratch to catch up but this has become a nightmare since I'm not able to participate with friends in study groups since they end up being 'help the British guy' sessions. Also I obviously can't participate nearly enough in lectures and seminars. I'm working 11 hour days to catch up but since the course continues I don't know if I have enough time.

I'm really annoyed about this. Is this a British problem or is it UWE? Have any of you encountered similar problems? The prerequisites for this course are just an Economics bachelor, does that not include England? I will be phoning UWE and giving them a piece of my mind, their Economics department is supposed to be highly rated.
 
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Naff8000 said:
I did an Economics bachelor at UWE and got 66%. I'm now doing a Masters at Oslo and I'm in big trouble. I'm doing 3 modules: Micro, Macro and Math and they are all heavily math orientated. Every economic theory we study is explained by calculus and I haven't got the slightest clue. Although my bachelor involved some calculus we generally steered clear of it and my final year involved none of it.

Everyone on the course, especially the Americans have a decent background in calculus. Some are flying through, some are struggling but everyone I have spoken to knows a lot more than I do. I have employed a personal tutor and have started from scratch to catch up but this has become a nightmare since I'm not able to participate with friends in study groups since they end up being 'help the British guy' sessions. Also I obviously can't participate nearly enough in lectures and seminars. I'm working 11 hour days to catch up but since the course continues I don't know if I have enough time.

I'm really annoyed about this. Is this a British problem or is it UWE? Have any of you encountered similar problems? The prerequisites for this course are just an Economics bachelor, does that not include England? I will be phoning UWE and giving them a piece of my mind, their Economics department is supposed to be highly rated.
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I
My opinion may not help you but I think this is a very British problem.... got a friend who studied maths in Germany.At some point he met an exchange student from the UK, saw her final exam and just started laughing.It was what he would call normal course work,but in Britain it was a final exam.Go figure...
 
Probably varies depending on your course. Also Europeans seem to spend forever at uni - when I studied in Germany most of my housemates were a good few years older. There isn't the time pressure to graduate with minimal fees.

Finally: MATHS!
 
Will21st said:
I
My opinion may not help you but I think this is a very British problem.... got a friend who studied maths in Germany.At some point he met an exchange student from the UK, saw her final exam and just started laughing.It was what he would call normal course work,but in Britain it was a final exam.Go figure...
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I know a 19 year old American who's bachelor is nothing to do with math and she knows quite a lot about calculus, knows about looking for solutions as the limit of x goes to zero etc. The three problems I showed her she had an idea how to solve them.
 
Sorry to burst the break the news ......

But education , is all about league tables and sod odd to with with actual teaching
 
Naff8000 said:
I know a 19 year old American who's bachelor is nothing to do with math and she knows quite a lot about calculus, knows about looking for solutions as the limit of x goes to zero etc. The three problems I showed her she had an idea how to solve them.
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Sounds like Further Maths A Level...
 
May be it was your course content at UWE. I did Electronic Engineering at Bath and there was loads of Maths with calculus being a large part of it.

Also, if you did A level Maths then you should have covered quite a lot of calculus.
 
Did your course have a maths A level requirement?
If not, then I would say that could be why.
Maths education in the UK is pretty poor though, I think A levels don't have enough teaching time in my opinion.
 
British maths is severely lacking compared to many other countires and I am also a sufferer of this system. I'm in my 2nd year of an Economics degree at the university of Manchester and have a compulsory 'Further Mathematics' module. The work that we are studying is pretty basic integration and linear programming but it is something that I have never encountered during high school or further education. For most foreign students however, it is really simple stuff that they have done many times before and they find our lack of maths knowledge hilarious.
 
Bear said:
May be it was your course content at UWE. I did Electronic Engineering at Bath and there was loads of Maths with calculus being a large part of it.

Also, if you did A level Maths then you should have covered quite a lot of calculus.
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Yes I didn't do a math a-level. A lecturer once joked to me that the 'black box' aka the math, they leave to Bristol uni and UWE just studies the results so it could be them. It baffles me the stupidity of that, or he may not have been serious. Seems he may be right though.
 
Naff8000 said:
No I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have done that but they study many subjects at high school, I'm under the impression they're generally taught this stuff. Are you an American?
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No, what I meant was that the question you were describing was no more difficult than the stuff I learned in my further maths A-Level.

My wife studied in the US and basically they still do normal school up until age 18 (i.e. 13 different subjects). I really wouldn't say there is much difference. In fact, anyone who did further maths (and got a good grade) should be above the US standard as there is more time devoted with A-Levels than with the US system. What they do tend to have is better provisions to push intelligent students though.

Also it's hard for me to tell - are you comparing yourself against straight A students? What did you get in Maths at A-Level? What did they get for Maths in Norway/America? Might just be a case that the Norwegian Uni only takes people with good Maths grades.
 
How theoretical a degree varies by university unfortunately, and is partly why it is important t attend appropriately ranked universities. I have noticed that in the UK many courses at many universities are minimizing and simplifying the underlying theoretical work and mathematical proofs making a more vocational degree that what it should be.

This is especially observable in computer science. Some universities and students have seemed to completely forgotten that Computer Science is the scientific understanding of computation, theoretical computing systems and information theory, and is really a field of concrete mathematics. Without the core theoretical understand it is impossible to be a computer scientists. There is a need for a vocational based degree in software development, but don't call that computer science please! Even in the US there is a problem at lower leagued universities. Our company interviews any intelligent and capable candidate, if they have a CS degree form Stanford/MIT/Harvard etc then we know they have a true CS degree, if their degree is from some state universities (some state universities are very good indeed so this isn't a blanket rule) we are far more likely to higher a physicist or math grad than computer science major.

It is kind of sad when a physicist is a better computer scientists than a computer science major!


I can see Economics being a classical example. Economics really is an extremely math heavy subject, I've attended seminars that were modelling economic games based on quantum mechanics theory and slide after slide was heavy math well beyond my understand (despite taking lot of math intensive courses up to PhD level).
Job positions for Quantitative analysts are far more likely to higher physics post grads than economics pot grads for example.




My advice, enjoy the challenge, work hard and try to improve your math skills as much as possible, they may well be the most valuable part of your degree even if the hardest and most frustrating. When you fully and deeply understand the theory behind something and understand the math in detail, then the true beauty of the science and the methods are revealed. I find it an enlightening moment and very enjoyable, but it does sometimes scare me when I first have to approach some heavy math.
 
Naff8000 said:
I know a 19 year old American who's bachelor is nothing to do with math and she knows quite a lot about calculus, knows about looking for solutions as the limit of x goes to zero etc. The three problems I showed her she had an idea how to solve them.
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In most countries in most science/engineering/economics degrees maths ends up a large chunk of the work, and even in many humanities degrees maths is a common module in the first years since it is common to have to acquire lots of credits form many different courses - you don't specialize to later. There are pros and cons to this but it does provide a more rounded education and requires abilities in a broader scope, as well as facilitating flexibility in degree.
 
yes D.P. Frankly at UWE we would read journals and ignore the calculus, which we're all over every paper. We we're advised to do that. It baffles me. I would tell people here that 'I know a lot of theory' which I do but if you don't have the calculus it won't get you far.
 
D.P. said:
In most countries in most science/engineering/economics degrees maths ends up a large chunk of the work, and even in many humanities degrees maths is a common module in the first years since it is common to have to acquire lots of credits form many different courses - you don't specialize to later. There are pros and cons to this but it does provide a more rounded education and requires abilities in a broader scope, as well as facilitating flexibility in degree.
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From my experience in British education Math/s was a subject people would say 'well what will you use that for'. Seems it's pretty important.
 
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