I'm having trouble with this.
Usually I just write the thing. This time I have a problem; I've loved this course [M208 Pure Maths] but I'm going to get my worst mark ever. How should I slant it? [The review].
Just tell the truth? I learnt a long time ago that the truth isn't the truth. However hard I try I won't be able to tell the truth, ever, about anything.
So I'm going to do the review over a few nights, and I'm going to post the drafts. Democratic.
No. Just open, I'd pretend that anyhoo...so daraft #1
what’s involved here?
This is a sixty-point course, a wee bit more than my usual. I found it hard, really hard. I found it hard because of the workload, because of the content and because of me. Don’t let that put you off.
A sixty-pointer is always going to be harder, the ante is seriously upped compared to a thirty-pointer. We did seven, yes seven, TMAs and some of the material requires [at the very least] a second look. At times I felt that all life was a hellish series of TMA deadlines. This course requires a serious commitment; of your time, of your mind and of your mental stability. This course is something that you should think hard about.
Still, horrors aside, there are hearty morsels on offer here. More than enough to make skirting with failure and exhaustion more than worthwhile for the brave student. This was the first course where I really began to see what maths, pure maths, has to offer the mind. [Of which more later]
what’s involved?
This is a fairly stable course—things don’t change much. So you can be fairly confident that what follows will be much the same as what you will face.
There are six blocks, but four really. The introductory block doesn’t really count [except in the exam] it’s mostly a re-hash, the two Group theory blocks are co-joined [although not seemlessly], the Linear Algebra stands alone and the analysis blocks go together [again not seemlessly].
Hereis where we begin to realize that maths is all of a piece .
That’s what I really took from this course—I’m beginning to get why, “that curve” has something to say about prime numbers. I know now that I’ll never know why, but that isn’t the point. Next year I do topology, my shoddy understanding of Eigenspaces will come back to haunt me, I'm not sure how—but I’m certain that it will.
It wont be this way when I post it
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Hope you put a good (eigen)value on all of these modules.New comment
Hi Neil,
I will be looking at either M208 or MST209 when I come back in a year or so, and I guess its always easier looking back on a course, than looking at new material, because you can see it as a whole...the idea of a 60 pointer in maths seems by far the biggest challenge yet. If I could offer some criticism to your draft, most students that will be considering M208, will probably have done MST121 and/or MS221, so they want to know a) was it much of a transition, i.e. is it a massive leap? and b) what is the pace of the course when you get into it? c) what is the guts of the course, i.e. what do you really learn from studying this course, and finally c) what will you take away from the course?Or how does it benefit you from a mathematical point of view, other than adding 60 points that is?
regds,
Patrick
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@Patrick
Thanks, that's the spur that I needed!
neil