Congratulations on gaining a place in the 2021-entry MORSE, MathStat, or Data Science course!

We look forward to welcoming you to our department in September. In the meantime, the resources provided here will help you to know what you should be doing before you arrive, and about some of what will happen during in your first week at Warwick.

The University's Welcome to Warwick pages provide a wealth of general information about your arrival and first few days here, while the information below is more specific to our department.

Induction meetings

Your first Welcome Week Departmental Session will be on Tuesday of Welcome Week. This will be a virtual session using Microsoft Teams.

Topics covered at this induction session will include: sources of information and support, an introduction to our team, a look at the library and the Careers Service, Wellbeing Support, and opportunities on campus.

There will be a second virtual induction session for first year students on Thursday of Welcome Week. The Welcome Week timetable will go live in September.

Course Guide

There are separate Course Guides for Data Science, for MORSE and for Mathematics & Statistics. The up-to-date version of your Course Guide is maintained online. You should aim to familiarise yourself with its contents, and to read at least the Introduction and First Year parts in detail, as soon as possible.

Meeting with Personal Tutors

During Welcome Week you will meet your Personal Tutor. The meeting will be timetabled for you and the department will notify you of this schedule. The role of your Personal Tutor is explained in the Course Guide. Your Personal Tutor will arrange to meet with you individually at some time during the first few days of term.

Start of lectures

For term 1 2021/22 it is not possible to hold in-person lectures due to room capacity under social distancing.
Your lectures will be delivered via live online Teams sessions or pre-recorded content videos that you can watch at any time. The department will run small group in-person tutorials.

By the start of week 1, you will need to make sure that you have visited the pages for each module and have found the information about the delivery structure.

You should ensure that attend any live sessions and, if the module contains pre-recorded material, you are expected to structure your time to watch the videos for each module on a regular weekly schedule.

Registering for Modules

There is no need to register for modules before the start of term, and it is in fact probably better to wait until after Welcome Week begins, and have met with your personal tutor before doing this.

Preparatory study and diagnostic test in Mathematics

Please spend time on these — as much time as you can! — before Welcome Week begins. All time that you spend on this preparation will be amply repaid during your first year here.

Preparatory study

The Pre-sessional Mathematics Refresher 2021 module (the course starts 6th September) provides revision and consolidation of important concepts from A-level mathematics, and give you a taste of what online learning would be like.

• Note that you will need to have registered with the University and set up your online account first to gain access to this material.

See also below regarding the Statistic Department's Diagnostic Test, which will help you pinpoint any areas of A-level mathematics that you may need to brush up on.

Additionally, the Offer Holder monthly puzzles and other resources remain available to you.

Many new students find that the mathematical parts of these degrees are surprisingly different from the sort of maths they have done previously at school. Reading through these books will help you make the transition to university level mathematics by gently (and humorously) introducing you to rigour and abstraction:

• Introductory Mathematics: Algebra and Analysis by Geoff Smith. A sample chapter can be found on Google Books.
• How to Think Like a Mathematician: A Companion to Undergraduate Mathematics by Kevin Houston, a former Warwick University Student. Check out the slide show 10 ways to think like a mathematician by the same author.
• How to Study for a Mathematics Degree by Lara Alcock. Sample chapters are available on Google Books (for the similar American version of the book).

You would also benefit from getting more practice in advanced mathematical problem solving. Tackle some pure or applied problems from one of the following resource pages.

• NRICH enriching mathematics is a comprehensive and inspiring collection of pure and applied maths problems and examples. Of particular interest for the transition to university are their Advanced Problem Solving Modules.
• You may have opted to concentrate on your A-levels and not to attempt a STEP paper, but solving STEP questions now can get you into a mathematical problem solving mind ready for your first year at university. Past papers and some solutions and links are available at the STEP preparation website.

If you are one of the offer holders who did not take Further Maths A-level (or only completed some of it), we recommend you consider resources that address this material. Our paragraph for applicants taking only Single Mathematics on the Offer Information page links to online resources.

Diagnostic test in Mathematics

You have all achieved good A-level results (or their equivalent) in Mathematics. That in itself does not necessarily mean you are equally confident about your abilities in each of the fundamental components of mathematics. We've mentioned above the Pre-sessional Mathematics Refresher 2021. Once you've been through that course, you might also like to try our department's diagnostic test. This test is designed to help identify any areas of your mathematical background that you will need to work on in order to do well in the first year of your degree course - hopefully there won't be any such areas once you've done the refresher module, of course, but you should feel free to take the test to check, should you so wish. If you'd like to try the test, please go to the following page, and follow all of the instructions carefully (including the preparation that's needed before you can usefully complete the online test):

• Maths diagnostic test (Note: you will need your Warwick student login name and password in order to be able to access the online test itself; but don't wait for that before doing the preparation!).

The diagnostic test is provided solely for your benefit; your test score does not count at all towards your degree but is a means to allow you to assess your background. If, after arriving at Warwick, you are still unsure about how best to remedy any problems identified by the diagnostic test, you should talk about that with your Personal Tutor during your first one-to-one meeting with them.

Contact

Statistics Undergraduate Support Officer stats dot ug dot support at warwick dot ac dot uk

Other information

Warwick Statistics Society

Vanderbilt University - Common mistakes that Undergraduates should avoid

Checklist for new students