British universities and calculus/math?

Naff8000 said:
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.
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A lecturer once joked to me that the 'black box' aka the math, they leave to Bristol uni and UWE just studies the results
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And that is the prime reason for the lowering of standards of UK higher education. that is exactly what I was referring to in my earlier post. I find it incredible that a universities policy is to cut out the core foundation of a subject and treat it as a black box. That is the exact issue that leads to incompetent graduates in the end because they have no real idea why or how things are as they are, they just have to memorize solutions and snippets of information instead of working things out from first principles.

I am not trying to mock you or insult you, it is not really your fault that some universities are just not up to scratch.
 
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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You're struggling with THAT kind of low level maths and you are doing a MASTER in ECONOMICS?? :eek:

Wow,I have to say I'm surprised,I never realised maths in Britain was THAT rubbish... sorry to be so blunt. I wish you best of luck with your Masters and I hope you can catch up!
 
Naff8000 said:
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.
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It is very painful sometimes to understand the underlying maths but the value it gives is incredible.

The reputation of Computer Science has been irreparably damaged due to these issues. Students learn black box solutions but jhave no idea why that solution works, why it is optimal, what are the limits, why the alternatives may be better/worse. They just learn that to solve problem A you use method X but they have no idea how and why X works and whether method Y would actually be better in this situation. And if a problem comes along that looks like A but is a little different they will still try to apply solution X even although the small difference is sufficient to require a different method or even deserves the creation of a new method.
 
Can you show as a few example questions so we can see what level of calculus you are talking about here?
 
Will21st said:
You're struggling with THAT kind of low level maths and you are doing a MASTER in ECONOMICS?? :eek:

Wow,I have to say I'm surprised,I never realised maths in Britain was THAT rubbish... sorry to be so blunt. I wish you best of luck with your Masters and I hope you can catch up!
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I knew about derivatives, quadratic equations and some other stuff. I'd never encountered limits. My general problem is playing with equations. They're obviously very complex at this level and I struggle with far less complex ones. Because I've just never HAD to play with them.
 
desires said:
Can you show as a few example questions so we can see what level of calculus you are talking about here?
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A latest problem set involves using the Lagrangian, say (this is one of the simple problems mind you. Exam questions I've seen are harder.)

minimize f(x,y,z) = (x-4)^2 + (y-4)^2 + (z - 1/2)^2

s.t x^2 + y^2 = z

Need to find stationary points etc
 
Yeaa it's terrible, because it also devalues the entire subject across the board. Econ and Comp Sci are excellent examples of subjects which have incredibly good, interesting and well taught courses at some universities, but others....well, they just bring down the expectation of a student having that degree. "Garrr former polytechnics" and all that jazz :p

Naff8000 said:
I knew about derivatives, quadratic equations and some other stuff. I'd never encountered limits. My general problem is playing with equations. They're obviously very complex at this level and I struggle with far less complex ones. Because I've just never HAD to play with them.
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Hmm. Well to some extent you dug your own grave by not doing Maths to any real standard before university, and taking an economics course which didnt require it. In retrospect that should cause heavy alarm bells to start ringing, but I can certainly see how you might not have seen that at the time.

But it's really not the end of the world.

Naff8000 said:
...They're obviously very complex at this level and I struggle with far less complex ones. Because I've just never HAD to play with them.
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To be honest equations arent generally a big issue, most troubles I find people have stem from just not being entirely comfortable with the notation and panicking.

As always though, there are some decent folk on this forum with mathematical(-ish for some :p) backgrounds who I'm sure will be happy to go through anything you have any issues with :)
 
UWE seems 45th or something in the guardian rankings for Eco, so not a great place to do it...

I'm doing an Eco degree, with friends also doing it.

Calculus was taught to us in our first year.... We'd done it throughout A Level as well (with almost all universities I applied to making maths at a level a pre-requisite for Eco, and those that didn't, had two separate maths modules in their first year, one of which was for non a level, and one for a level, with the one for non a level giving a lot of teaching in calc)

Covered it a bit more last year, and it's presumed we can just do it this year (final year now of three year course). I've never really had an issue with doing calculus tbh, but yeah... Not had an issue with not enough maths. I chose not to do the maths module that we can do in our second or third year, due to it having a high failure rate... But, yeah quite a few people managed to do ok in it....

From friends looking at British Masters, most of them have a requirement of a certain number of credits in your degree being heavily maths based. Most masters require a large amount of maths in them for Eco.

I know as well, that compared to friends doing Eco degrees at other universities their degrees require more maths... Maths is generally seen as the 'harder' part of the Eco degree alongside some of micro and macro. It's why a lot of the 'higher end' Eco degrees are more maths based.

We've got cousins in Germany though at a major bank, who say that the problem they have with degree students from anyone who has done Eco anywhere, don't tend to know enough maths, and they much prefer someone to have an Eco and maths joint degree...

kd
 
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Naff8000 said:
I knew about derivatives, quadratic equations and some other stuff. I'd never encountered limits. My general problem is playing with equations. They're obviously very complex at this level and I struggle with far less complex ones. Because I've just never HAD to play with them.
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well I really hope you can catch up.It's a shame the Uni didn't properly prepare you for this. All the best! :)
 
Alex74 said:
To be honest equations arent generally a big issue, most troubles I find people have stem from just not being entirely comfortable with the notation and panicking.

As always though, there are some decent folk on this forum with mathematical(-ish for some :p) backgrounds who I'm sure will be happy to go through anything you have any issues with :)
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Yes it's good and I have other forums and use Wolfram Alpha but really I need this tutor since I have 100 questions an hour at the moment.
 
King Damager said:
UWE seems 45th or something in the guardian rankings for Eco, so not a great place to do it...

I'm doing an Eco degree, with friends also doing it.

Calculus was taught to us in our first year.... We'd done it throughout A Level as well (with almost all universities I applied to making maths at a level a pre-requisite for Eco....)

Covered it a bit more last year, and it's presumed we can just do it this year (final year now of three year course). I've never really had an issue with doing calculus tbh, but yeah... Not had an issue with not enough maths. I chose not to do the maths module that we can do in our second or third year, due to it having a high failure rate... But, yeah quite a few people managed to do ok in it....

From friends looking at British Masters, most of them have a requirement of a certain number of credits in your degree being heavily maths based. Most masters require a large amount of maths in them for Eco.

I know as well, that compared to friends doing Eco degrees at other universities their degrees require more maths... Maths is generally seen as the 'harder' part of the Eco degree alongside some of micro and macro. It's why a lot of the 'higher end' Eco degrees are more maths based.

We've got cousins in Germany though at a major bank, who say that the problem they have with degree students from anyone who has done Eco anywhere, don't tend to know enough maths, and they much prefer someone to have an Eco and maths joint degree...

kd
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Macro at UWE was a joke, if I can find some lecture slides I'll show you. For one exam I'd missed many lectures and spent the night before revising for it and got 100%. Why would they intentionally skip maths? It's beyond stupid. My degree should be renamed Economics Lite lol.
 
Naff8000 said:
Macro at UWE was a joke, if I can find some lecture slides I'll show you. For one exam I'd missed many lectures and spent the night before revising for it and got 100%. Why would they intentionally skip maths? It's beyond stupid. My degree should be renamed Economics Lite lol.
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Haha, yeah, I mean we're told that macro and micro in 2nd year will be the hardest modules we take. Micro in particular is heavily maths weighted.

kd
 
Presumably this is why the finance companies like physics/maths/engineering graduates, as these all involve a decent/large amount of calculus or higher-level maths. I think I'd echo the "time" thing here - the PhD students we have here who are German for example have spent 4-5 years as an undergrad and then 2 years as a diploma student before starting a PhD here. I did a 4 year undergrad then straight into PhD; I knew people back at Sheffield who went straight into a PhD after a 3 year undergrad course!
 
The problem is that you did economics at UWE.

Oslo shouldn't have accepted you without the appropriate Maths modules either.

Economics is a widely taught subject in the UK with very varying standards.

Any good university should spend most of the first year teaching you Maths and Stats. Students looking to go onto research or higher level economics should be piling on the Maths/Econometrics options as well.

http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/calendar/programmeRegulations/undergraduate/BScEconomics.htm

I wonder how you did econometrics or microeconomics with no calculus or linear algebra. Don't think it's possible.

Postgraduate Economics is all Maths. Real Analysis is very useful as well.

Naff8000 said:
Macro at UWE was a joke, if I can find some lecture slides I'll show you. For one exam I'd missed many lectures and spent the night before revising for it and got 100%. Why would they intentionally skip maths? It's beyond stupid. My degree should be renamed Economics Lite lol.
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They have to cater for the people who attend.
 
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muon said:
The problem is that you did economics at UWE.

Oslo shouldn't have accepted you without the appropriate Maths modules either.

Economics is a widely taught subject in the UK with very varying standards.

Any good university should spend most of the first year teaching you Maths and Stats.

http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/calendar/programmeRegulations/undergraduate/BScEconomics.htm

I wonder how you did econometrics or microeconomics with no calculus or linear algebra. Don't think it's possible.
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EXACTLY!

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Has anyone here actually bothered to look at the uni world rankings for mathmatics. the U.K. is reasonably well represented moreso than Germany.

is it me or does there always seem to be a grass is greener attitude with Germany on these forums?

EDIt: our economics performance is also top drawer and seemingly way above Germany who don't seem to get much of a look in on most rankings, general or by subject.
 
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Any economics course which doesn't require at least A-Level maths is a complete joke, it has nothing to do with British universities but everything to do with attending one of the crappy economics courses available in the UK.
 
lukeharvest said:
Any economics course which doesn't require at least A-Level maths is a complete joke, it has nothing to do with British universities but everything to do with attending one of the crappy economics courses available in the UK.
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indeed.

The simple, and frankly obvious, truth is that the OP has been let down.

He was let down by UWE

He was let down by Oslo University whom probably, like the rest of the world, want bums on seats.

Most of all though, he let himself down by not examining example coursework from previous years. I could never go on a course without doing that.

Sorry OP - no offense intended - and I genuinely hope you catch up. You should have been prepared better :)
 
So many UWE students we're foreigners coming to get a 'British education' paying 8 grand a year. The place is a joke and anyone reading this stay well away. I assumed a degree in Economics was fairly universal, at least more so than this. I'll catch up though since I'm working 4 times harder than anyone else plus have a personal tutor.
 
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