Part 1

How to study

University Study
Pattern of work
Lectures
Tutorials
Cooperation
Books and libraries
Vacation work

University Maths
Introduction
Studying the theory
Problem solving
Writing mathematics

Applied Maths
Pure vs applied
Applied problems
Writing out solutions

 

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There are three main aspects of university study:

(1)

Lectures

(2)

Tutorials (or classes)

(3)

Private study (reading books, working through lecture notes, doing problems)

This ordering is arbitrary; it corresponds neither to importance nor to duration of these activities. Tutorials are the most important in terms of the ratio of potential benefit to duration, but they will occupy the least time, private study the most.

The total amount of time spent on study should be consistent with your status as a full-time student. This means that it should at least equal the amount of time that you would work in a full-time job, and the amount of time which you spent at school, including homework. There are 168 hours in the week, so this leaves plenty of time for other activities, even after allowing for eating, sleeping, etc. Provided that you organise your time well, you will be able to socialise and participate in sport, or arts, or whatever else you want to do, as well as study mathematics successfully.

Where university education differs from school, and from most employment, is that most of your working time is organised by yourself. In your first two terms, lectures will account for 10 hours a week, and tutorials for about 2 hours, at appointed hours. It is up to you to choose at what time to do your private study. You may like to work from 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, or you may prefer to work in the early hours of the morning and at weekends. It is not important when you choose to work, provided that you meet the following constraints:

(i)

you will have to perform certain tasks between lectures and before tutorials (see the sections on Lectures and Tutorials),

(ii)

unless you have exceptional stamina, it is probably not a good idea to work for very long periods without at least a short break (even if it is only to make yourself a cup of coffee),

(iii)

you should be alert (i.e., not half-asleep) for lectures and tutorials.

Although it is not important when you choose to work, it is vital that you should get into a regular and full pattern of work soon after your arrival in Oxford (before you commit yourself to too many other activities). You are recommended to write down a weekly timetable for yourself. The main purpose of this is to avoid the unhappy situation, into which too many students fall, where increasing involvement in other activities, and/or general frittering away of time, erodes your work without you really noticing it. It will take some experimentation to work your timetable out, but it should be possible for you to have a tentative timetable within your first week, which you can adjust as your pattern of activities settles down. It is not expected that you will stick slavishly to the same timetable week after week. Of course, there will be occasions when unexpected or irregular events cause you to miss a session when you intended to work, or when you are feeling under the weather so that working would be pointless. If you are conscious that you have slipped behind a planned schedule, you are much more likely to make time to catch up later. You should not be afraid to tell fellow-students who interrupt your work that you cannot join in social activities for the time being. You won't lose any friends by doing this-at any rate, not worthwhile friends!

It is also important that at an early stage you should find a place to work where you will not be greatly distracted. This is most likely to be your own room in college, but if you find that your attention drifts too often towards the non-mathematical pursuits available in the room, or if you are interrupted too often by friends eager to socialise, you may prefer to work in a library or elsewhere.

Your work is likely to get on better if you discuss mathematics with your peers (see the section on Cooperation). So, it will be beneficial to find one or two other mathematicians in your year with whom you get on sufficiently well that you can discuss any difficulties which you may have with lectures, exercises, etc.