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Mathematics Institute

Introduction

UG Course Specifications

This part of the handbook contains:

  • more detail about the regulations governing your degree; what criteria you have to meet to progress from year to year on your degree programme and then attain your degree and graduate;
  • details of which optional modules you can pick from;
  • important instructions about how to register for modules;
  • important advice about making decisions about which modules to take.
  • how examination boards and assessment works in the maths department
  • how to submit mitigating circumstances if you feel circumstances in your life are affecting your academic performance, and about reasonable adjustments. Reasonable adjustments are modifications or accommodations made to ensure that you have equal access to education and an inclusive learning environment

For more general information about the department, how our teaching works, what support is available to you, and useful information to help you get the most out of your degree, be sure to check out General Information part of this handbook.

University specifications and departmental specifications

The full regulations for your degree programme are the combination of

  1. University regulations for your type of programme (e.g. BSc or Integrated Masters (MMath) programmes)
  2. the departmental regulations governing requirements which are specific your programme (i.e. any of the degree programmes listed in this handbook, with codes such as G100, G103, GL12).

It is important to note that these regulations have changed over time and so can vary depending on which academic year you began your programme of study in. When choosing your options you must pay careful attention the correct, full set of regulations that are applicable to your degree programme and make sure that you comply with them. You will find details of all these regulations in this part of the handbook.

The construction of your degree programme is based on modules, each of which is worth a number of CATS. This acronym comes from Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme. You can find detailed information about this and CATS in the University's Credit and Module FrameworkLink opens in a new window but here is a quick summary and some details of how CATS work in the maths department. Note that you will occasionally hear CATS referred to as credits both at Warwick and in other universities that use similar systems.


How your workload is described terms of CATS

Any module you take for credit is worth a number of CATS. You should use CATS as a guide in planning your options.

A typical module of 30 lectures is normally worth 10 or 15 CATS and the normal (i.e. minimum) load in each year is 120 CATS.

Each CATS point nominally corresponds to 10 hours of work (including lectures, supervisions, private study and discussions). For example, a 10 CATS, 30 lecture module requires around 100 hours of work. These are made up of 3 hours of lectures and 4 further hours of study per week over a 10 week term, giving 70 hours of work, plus 30 hours of work for exam preparation. The normal load of 120 CATS corresponds to 40 hours of work per week for 30 weeks.

Do not take more than 120 CATS unless you can devote the additional time to your studies.

Conversely, you cannot take fewer than 120 CATS in each academic year (University regulations require at least 360 CATS to be completed over three years for the award of a BSc. degree, and 480 CATS over four years for an MMath).

Please note that available modules are subject to some small amount of change each year; the modules published in this handbook will be correct for the year of publication.


Over-Catting

Taking more than 120 CATS of modules in an academic year is known as over-catting. Students who take over 120 CATS have their end of year average mark calculated according to University regulations:

"With the normal load for a year's study being 120 CATS (or such larger figure as is specified by course regulations) and the maximum permitted load being 150 CATS then, for each year of study, a candidate's mean mark is the arithmetic mean of the subset of whole modules, weighted according to their credit (CATS) weighting, which satisfies the course regulations and results in the highest mark."

Mathematically, we take the power set of your module selection, and calculate the averages (weighted by CATS) on each selection of modules that would be allowed under course regulations (i.e. as a minimum at least 120 CATS and contains all core modules) and take the highest average. Note that the best calculation is not always the most obvious one!

This essentially means that if you 'over-cat' and do not perform well (compared to your others) in those extra optional modules then they will not be included in the end of year average calculation.

Note: even if not included in the calculation of your end of year average, ALL modules still appear on your academic transcript your Higher Education Achievement Report, HEAR.


Core Modules, Optional Core Modules, Listed Modules, Unusual Options

On the pages in this section of the handbook you will see each module described as being one of:

  • a Core Module
  • an Optional Core Module
  • a Listed Module
  • an Unusual Option

Core Modules are those that you must register to take. Some Core Modules are, additionally, Required Core Modules and this means you must pass them to progress to the next year of study.

Optional Core Modules are groups of modules from which you must register to take a specified number, or specified minimum number.

Listed Modules are those modules which you can register to take as optional modules which are not considered to be Unusual Options, see below. These appear in lists with names like "G103 Year 2 Option List A", "G100 Year 1 Option List B" on the specifications by programmes and year pages. Listed modules are generally those provided by the maths department or those with a high level of maths content provided by other departments.

Unusual Options are those modules which fall into none of the above categories for which there are special procedures to register for. You will find more information about this on the Unusual Options page of this handbook.


Module FHEQ Levels

In this part of the handbook you will see references to the so-called Frameworks for Higher Education (FHEQ) level of a module. This comes from nationally-recognised volumes of credit for qualifications at all levels of the Quality Assurance Agency's QAA’s Frameworks for Higher Education Qualifications (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).

University and departmental regulations often specify the FHEQ level of the some of the modules you must choose and the number of CATS you must pass at a given level.

With very rare exceptions, the FHEQ level of the module is reflected in its module code as follows

  • A module with code of the form XX1XX is almost always at FHEQ Level 4, for example MA124 is at FHEQ Level 4.
  • A module with code of the form XX2XX is almost always at FHEQ Level 5, for example MA252 is at FHEQ Level 5.
  • A module with code of the form XX3XX is almost always at FHEQ Level 6, for example MA352 is at FHEQ Level 6.
  • A module with code of the form XX1XX is almost always at FHEQ Level 4, for example MA424 is at FHEQ Level 7.

So, almost always a module with code of form XXnXX is almost always at FHEQ Level n + 3 and a module at FHEQ Level m will have code XX(m-3)XX.

The ONLY EXCEPTIONS to this are the interdisciplinary modules provided by the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL).These modules are coded as ILnXX. An IATL module with code of the form IL0XX is at FHEQ Level 5 and an IATL module with code of the form IL1xx is at FHEQ Level 6.