Overview

The most formal teaching sessions are lectures, and the vast majority of them will be in person.

The lecturer is not just a teacher but is someone with considerable professional experience of the subject. They will teach you a substantial part of the material you need to know, and the rate of progress is much faster than in A-level teaching. The key thing to remember with lectures is simple; don’t miss them! Even if you copy the notes from a friend or get them from the web, the effect on your learning and understanding is not the same as experiencing it in person.

If you really can't go to a lecture (for example because you are ill or something serious and unavoidable comes up) then try to catch up as soon as you can, on the day of the lecture if possible. The next lecture is likely to build on material from the one you missed.

Lecturers usually distribute example sheets and assignments to help you learn. Some assignments may be for credit, or there may be in-class tests.

Some modules are not taught by lectures: there are reading modules (you learn directly from a book or similar), as well as modules where the teaching is delivered in laboratories, seminars, or through essays and projects.

Being prepared as a first year student

There are many different A level (or equivalent) syllabuses, with variations from one exam board to another, and over the units offered by schools/colleges. Thus, some students may have missed out on some material which is needed for degree work, or may only have covered some topics partially or with not a lot of practice.

For the success of your career at Warwick, it is important that you know school/college topics really well, and are able to work with them fluently, confidently, and rapidly, even in the new and sometimes unexpected contexts of university maths. In the middle of a complicated argument, a lecturer may well use ideas from school/college mathematics without much comment. Before you arrive you should have attempted the Refresher Mathematics module, MA1K2, to make sure that you are up to date and proficient in the material that you need to know. This module will appear on your registrations, but does not count for any credit towards your degree.

Lecture list

Mathematics lectures for 2024/25 - accurate as of 29 July 2024.

Module Evaluation

Evaluation forms are available online twice a term in every module. The first form is released near the start of the module for instant feedback to the lecturer about what problems there may be, while a second, more in-depth form will come out near the end of the module. Lecturers will see the results of these evaluation forms, as will the Head of Department and Director of Undergraduate Studies, and although the final forms will not affect that module, they are invaluable for improving future lectures, so please do take the time to fill them in.

Lecture Notes

Many modules will produce lecture notes for you, most commonly as PDFs, but these notes are not an alternative to going to lectures. Many lecturers will go through additional material or leave gaps in these notes for you to fill in - or at the very least give additional insight into the material.

However, it’s worth remembering that they are called lecture notes because they are the notes that the lecturer lectures from. Don't be surprised if most of what is written on the boards, or covered in lectures, comes from these notes (but also don't assume that everything they write does either).

Try the lectures, taste the module

When it comes to choosing an optional module, check out the Course Handbook entry, look up any books mentioned there, go to the first few lectures and then raise any queries with the lecturer to help you in deciding whether to take it.

For Mathematics modules, the process of choosing is quite informal: you may have had to pre-register, but you can change at any time until the end of week 2 in term 2. If you decide not to take a module from another department for which you have pre-registered, you must notify the lecturer in charge, especially if there are tutorials or supervisions or lab sessions involved.

There are so-called unusual options: there is nothing mysterious about these except that you need to fill in a form and get the agreement of your tutor and the module organiser, which will then be signed off by the Director Of Undergraduate Studies subject to certain conditions. Please be aware that timetable clashes may occur when you take List B options or unusual options. We try very hard to minimise them, but eliminating them altogether could only be done by cutting substantial sections from our very popular flexible system.

Lecture theatre locations

Many lecture room numbers are of the form letter(s) + digits, e.g. OC1.05. The letter indicates the building and the digit before the decimal point the floor, with 0 standing for the ground floor, so that OC1.05 is on the first floor of The Oculus (which is 3 on the map).

Note that many buildings have several "wings", for example the Zeeman building has A, B, C and D wings. This means that some room numbers may not be unique and you need to make sure you go to the correct building (in the Zeeman building typically A1.01, B1.01 and the three lecture theatres on the third floor are advertised without the MS in front of them). On Tabula timetables there is usually a pin icon which links to the correct map location.

GLT 1, GLT 2, GLT 3 are at Gibbet Hill with the entrance to GLT 1 on the second level via the atrium.

See also:

• The interactive map:

• • lets you see inside buildings
  • you can ask it to create directions for routes between locations
  • also includes a menu to help find things like toilets, parking, bars

• You can do a virtual tour of campus here:https://warwick.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/virtualtour/
• You can view photos and facilities of many teaching rooms here: Centrally Timetabled Room Information (warwick.ac.uk)