Alex Holmes

MMath, 2017; MSc Mathematics of Real World Systems 2019; PhD Mathematical Epidemiology 2021

Three words to describe your time at Warwick

Not (a) spectator sport.

Career aspirations

I'm enjoying my role, so I see myself staying in similar roles for the long term, but I want to ensure I keep learning. You're always learning new things in the course, and this gives you a mindset that prepares you well for a career post-Warwick.

Quantitative Associate, NatWest Markets

To what extent did you plan your career?

I spent quite a lot of time preparing for my future career. I attended a few careers fairs and had a CV review with the Maths Careers Advisor. This led to me getting a tax advisory internship in my third year. However, it then got a lot more unpredictable.

After this I decided that I didn't want to do accounting and wanted to do a PhD instead. I was convinced I would want to stay in academia until about six months before I submitted my thesis, and decided to switch into quantitative finance, which is what I work in now. So, while I'm not working where I thought I would (and can be hard to predict), the work I put in during my degree with regards to thinking about my career definitely helped me get to where I am now.

How do you use your maths degree in your job?

My job is probably slightly more unusual in that there are some modules that are quite directly relevant to my job (e.g. stochastic processes and statistics modules). Again, the flexibility of the Maths course at Warwick means I could take modules from other departments, so I had quite a lot of programming experience prior to starting my job (in addition to the programming already directly embedded into the maths course). Beyond this, the problem solving I mentioned before has been very helpful.

Why did you choose to study Maths at Warwick?

There are three main reasons I chose to study maths at Warwick:

a) I didn't get into Cambridge.

b) Warwick had (and still has) one of the top-ranking maths courses in the UK by various metrics.

c) The flexibility of the course. I liked that the course was challenging and rigorous, but still allowed me to try out lots of different topics (including from other departments). For example, I took modules from Maths, Computer Science, Statistics, and Warwick Business School over the course of my degree.

Which modules did you particularly enjoy/find useful?

The two modules I enjoyed most/ found most enjoyable were Analysis 1 (a first-year maths module), and Population Dynamics (a third/fourth year module)

Analysis 1 was the first look at rigorous maths I had, and I enjoyed the change from the maths I had been used to up until that point. It also acts as a foundation for all mathematical analysis modules I went on to do throughout my degree.

Population Dynamics was a module I did in my third year and was the first time I had been exposed to maths with real world applications. I really enjoyed seeing how techniques I had been using in a real situation. I enjoyed this module enough that I would go on to do a PhD in this topic!

What core skills do you think you developed during your time at Warwick?

It's difficult to pick just one core skill that I developed throughout this course, but the one that I would say I developed most would be problem solving (perhaps unsurprisingly). But it isn't just solving maths problem, it has changed the way I think about problems in everyday life as well.