Going back to do a Maths Degree

DesmondBrother

Posted in College a few days ago but no reply so i thought this may be a more suitable place.

Thinking of doing a maths undergrad and was wondering what folk here could recommend in terms of colleges/uni's in dublin and also particular courses. Currently studying in a more comp sci related area and want to go back and really develop a broader range of maths skills in the hope of maybe directing my future studies.

What i'm looking for is a degree that will give me a great base in mathematics so that i can be flexible in my academic pursuits, as i'm not entirely sure where i'll end up but most likely will comp sci related. I have begun preparing myself as i've a year to brush up. In terms of types of courses, applied versus pure, i haven't ruled out either. As this knowledge is an additional skill set i.e not my primary i'm happy to be quite flexible. Pure always grabs my attention more but of course i have no illusions of becoming really great at it. It's more to do with learning the skill of that way of thinking and the creativity that goes with it that makes me tick. Any advice would be appreciated.

Des

Fremen

Is that part-time or full time you're thinking about?

If you're interested in ending up in computer science, you could do worse than the applicable maths course in DCU. There's some economics and finance thrown into the mix there, which may or may not be a good thing.

If you're looking for a proper hardcore maths degree in Dublin, TCD is probably the way to go. They have a good range of courses- there's lots of analysis but relatively little algebra. My gut feeling is that analysis is more useful in computer science anyway.

I did a maths and CS joint hons in UCD. It's not a bad idea to go there if you're not sure what you want to do, since even in a maths course you take a fair few other modules. They have a fairly strong algebra group as far as I can remember.

Not too sure about the other universities around Dublin, someone else will know.

equivariant

UCD and TCD both have good maths departments. The research interests in TCD are heavily skewed towards theoretical physics - much more so than at a typical university maths department - however that may not impact so much on their undergrad programme. UCD has a more typical spread of research interests in their maths department

Maynooth also have a strong undergrad programme and there are some excellent mathematicians working in the department there.

DesmondBrother

Thanks for the replies. I'm interested in full-time. Haven't looked at Maynooth yet equivariant so that's good to know.

I think my main concern is avoiding a course that is too specialised in one area. As i touched on in the OP i want a good base that i can just branch out from. I'm steering more and more towards pure. Things like Economics and Finance i personally have no interest in. That's my main worry if i decided to go with applied. It would be great to have a split between the two and perhaps steer the applied learning through module choices. I guess i'll have to have a good luck into specific course breakdowns for that. I can't see any drawbacks for pure if it gives me the critical thinking to do/understand applied anyway hmmm.

Fremen what kind of math topics did you study at UCD?

Fremen

I took the basic modules in first and second year, didn't have much choice at that point. In third and fourth, I took metric spaces, ring theory and galois theory, logic and foundations, graph theory, combinatorics, numerical analysis, more ring theory, financial mathematics and maybe some others, can't remember right now. I actually use very little of that stuff these days- I work more on the probability/analysis side of things.

That said, the program was getting restructured as I left, so it's quite possible you'll have more choice now.

The nice thing about a maths degree is it gives you a lot of freedom when (if) you go looking for graduate places. I don't know whether this is fair or not, but people often assume for example that it's easier for a mathematician to learn a load of biology than for a biologist to learn a load of mathematics. Take a look through the ads at findaphd.com and you'll see what I mean.

bnt

If you look at the UCD Science Omnibus degree, you can take a Computer Science track, but with the option of substituting more rigorous Maths courses instead. You'd normally do MATH10070, MATH10080 and MATH10090, but you can choose to do MATH10040, MATH10050 and MATH10060. (A list of links to the module details is here.)

DesmondBrother

Fremen wrote: »

In third and fourth, I took metric spaces, ring theory and galois theory, logic and foundations, graph theory, combinatorics, numerical analysis, more ring theory...

Drool :P This sounds more like it! Thanks for the breakdown. As far as PHD is concerned i would think that such a background would be more useful for getting a place simply due to the applications of the knowledge especially with the interdisciplinary nature of universities these days. I leaves far more choice and unique research angles.

I'm speaking as someone who hopes to do a Phd at some stage. Some people think i'm mad because i'm currently a masters student who is thinking of going back to do another undergrad when i finish. I really don't see the issue. I don't personally look at education as a simple linear progression towards a career in the most efficient way possible. Mine path will look more like a sine wave :P

Bnt thanks so much for that information. I think i could build my dream course form those module choices! Are you speaking as someone from the omnibus degree?

L1m1tless

You have more options at maynooth. you could also take Maths studies there which is much easier than pure maths but still give you good foundations in different areas in maths i.e. cryptography, coding theory, groups etc. I did the pure maths course there, Its a lot of work.

I also did 1 year of it in trinity,

Maynooth was much better. The staff are much mroe helpful and the classes for pure maths are small. Some of my final year modules had only 4-5 people in them. Plus the maths support center is there for you to drop in every day and get some free "Grinds"

equivariant

It is worth noting that the CLaude Shannon institute is primarily based in UCD. This is a research institute that focuses on discrete maths/information theory which may be of interest to someone with a CS background.

DesmondBrother

CowboyDreams wrote: »

You have more options at maynooth. you could also take Maths studies there which is much easier than pure maths but still give you good foundations in different areas in maths i.e. cryptography, coding theory, groups etc. I did the pure maths course there, Its a lot of work.

I checked it out. The fact that the pure maths degree is only three years is very attractive. What did you do after do you mind me asking? In terms of the workload, (which i'm sure is relative to your aptitude for the subject) is it feasible to work part time at the same time? I would have to work as well for the duration of the course. What were your contact time/hours of study like?

Cheers for the heads up equivariant. That is an important observation alright. Glad i'm getting some solid information to work off. Was quite lost before this thread!

Fremen

DesmondBrother wrote: »

I checked it out. The fact that the pure maths degree is only three years is very attractive. What did you do after do you mind me asking? In terms of the workload, (which i'm sure is relative to your aptitude for the subject) is it feasible to work part time at the same time? I would have to work as well for the duration of the course. What were your contact time/hours of study like?

Cheers for the heads up equivariant. That is an important observation alright. Glad i'm getting some solid information to work off. Was quite lost before this thread!

I actually started doing theoretical physics, but changed to maths/CS because I was better at it.

You could certainly hold down a part-time job, yes. I doubt you could hold down a job AND do well in college AND go boozing at the weekends AND play a lot of sports though. More like pick any 2-3 from the above.
20-30 contact hours in the first couple of years, dropping to 10 or so in fourth year at UCD. I had Fridays off and afternoon lectures only (!) but this might not still be the case.

There's a guy in my department who did a CS degree then decided to go back and do a maths degree afterwards. He's one of the older students here, but people are a range of ages for various reasons anyway.

I did some maths in maynooth and would very much recommend it. Classes are small enough and the lecturers are extremely helpful, they also have open office hours you can wander in and chat about the maths. I think that's the best thing to look for.

DesmondBrother

That's great that you can adapt your course after testing the waters of subject areas so to speak. UCD looks very appealing in that sense.

All feedback regarding Maynooth so far seems very positive too. Just wondering how the workload/contact hours for the pure maths degree would compare to say UCD?

Yeah sacrifices will have to be made but let's hope the boozing escapes the cut!

:P

L1m1tless

14-16 hours a week in nuim pure maths degree, and no lectures on fridays mostly

ray giraffe

Fremen wrote: »

If you're looking for a proper hardcore maths degree in Dublin, TCD is probably the way to go. They have a good range of courses- there's lots of analysis but relatively little algebra.

Agree totally - this is how I would answer the OP. TCD has an international reputation for a reason. Note that reputations are earned over decades of consistently high standards.

And trinity always comes first in the league tables.

Fremen wrote: »

I did a maths and CS joint hons in UCD. It's not a bad idea to go there if you're not sure what you want to do, since even in a maths course you take a fair few other modules. They have a fairly strong algebra group.

Agreed. UCD would be my second choice.

equivariant wrote: »

UCD and TCD both have good maths departments. The research interests in TCD are heavily skewed towards theoretical physics - much more so than at a typical university maths department - however that may not impact so much on their undergrad programme. UCD has a more typical spread of research interests in their maths department

Agreed.

equivariant wrote: »

Maynooth also have a strong undergrad programme

This contradicts the fact that almost nobody attends this programme. There is no comparison between the standards in TCD and Maynooth.

Don't take my word for it, check the league tables. Or simply compare their reputations.

equivariant wrote: »

and there are some excellent mathematicians working in the department there.

Agreed.

ray giraffe

DesmondBrother wrote: »

(Maynooth) I checked it out. The fact that the pure maths degree is only three years is very attractive.

There is a reason that maths is 4 years in TCD and UCD.

In Maynooth you have (at best) three quarters of a proper maths degree - some topics are missing and other topics are covered at a lower standard.

DesmondBrother wrote: »

In terms of the workload, (which i'm sure is relative to your aptitude for the subject) is it feasible to work part time at the same time? I would have to work as well for the duration of the course.

There is a reason that these maths courses are called "Full Time". They are designed for people who don't have to work. Working at the same time will pull down your grades, no matter what your aptitude.

You have options - work during summers, look into getting grants or a student loan.

henbane

ray giraffe wrote: »

Agree totally - this is how I would answer the OP. TCD has an international reputation for a reason. Note that reputations are earned over decades of consistently high standards.

And trinity always comes first in the league tables.

Are there league tables for undergraduate maths degrees?

Mary-Ellen

Have a look into ULs course too.
It may have changed now but the first 2 years are pretty broad and students pick from pure maths, computers, stats or financial maths for 3rd and 4th year.
There's some programming in the first 2 years, good to get a basis in it early on.

equivariant

ray giraffe wrote: »

Agree totally - this is how I would answer the OP. TCD has an international reputation for a reason. Note that reputations are earned over decades of consistently high standards.

And trinity always comes first in the league tables.

To be honest, I don't think that trinity has a particulary great international reputation as a centre of mathematical excellence. In fact I don't think that any unversity in Ireland has such a reputation in mathematics. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that TCD is bad - they have a very good degree, but I wouldn't confuse the historical prestige of TCD as a university with its reputation strictly in mathematics. The fact of the matter is that there are very few mathematicians working in the maths department of trinity, many of the faculty there are mathematical physicists rather than pure mathematicians. I would see no reason to say that trinity has a much stronger maths department than any other university in the country.

I don't want to get into a whole debate about league tables, but I will say that in my opinion these tables are not necessarily a good way to choose a university in which to study mathematics in ireland.

This contradicts the fact that almost nobody attends this programme. There is no comparison between the standards in TCD and Maynooth.

Maynooth is a much smaller university that TCD

I think that your comment regarding standards is not true. I have worked with graduates from both departments and in my experience at least, that is not true.

Fremen

equivariant wrote: »

I don't want to get into a whole debate about league tables, but I will say that in my opinion these tables are not necessarily a good way to choose a university in which to study mathematics in ireland.

I would agree with that. You should be motivated by the range of courses on offer, the flexibility you have to change if you don't like what you're doing, and the depth you'll be studying topics to.

Having said that, I doubt a three year degree is enough to get you to the level where you can do serious research in pure or applied maths.

equivariant

Fremen wrote: »

Having said that, I doubt a three year degree is enough to get you to the level where you can do serious research in pure or applied maths.

I agree, but I also believe that neither is a 4 year undergrad degree (certainly one from any Irish university) sufficient prep for research in many areas of pure mathematics especially. I would be very reluctant to recommend that any student go straight from undergrad (3 or 4 years) to PhD in pure maths. I think that you need to take some postgraduate level courses first. However, that does not seem to be a popular viewpoint these days either with students or with university administrators.

DesmondBrother

Thanks Ray Giraffe for the breakdown as you see it. Although i do place some value on university prestige, rankings etc. to an extent; i'm more interested in the courses themselves and the quality of the teaching staff. I would have no problem going to say Maynooth over Trinity if i thought the course was better and the teaching staff to be more helpful. Just look at the likes of Terence Tao who went to a little known Australian university for his undergraduate and then on to princeton etc. He still speaks very favourably about where he studied his undergrad. (I am aware he is a freak of nature and could have went anywhere and done well. :P)

In terms of teaching/course standards are you basing these conclusions on anything other than rankings/reputation?

As far as funding no more loans for me. I have to work no question (part-time). But i'm not afraid of hard work

As far as the degree to Phd thing goes; I am under no illusion that i could go from a degree in pure maths to a phd in pure maths. I'm looking to progress to a phd that would relate to my previous areas of study. But hey it's very far in the future to set that in stone. I may very well wish to progress to the masters in pure if i thought it would be useful to me and that i was able for it based on how i performed in the undergrad!

ray giraffe

DesmondBrother wrote: »

Thanks Ray Giraffe for the breakdown as you see it. Although i do place some value on university prestige, rankings etc. to an extent; i'm more interested in the courses themselves and the quality of the teaching staff. I would have no problem going to say Maynooth over Trinity if i thought the course was better and the teaching staff to be more helpful. Just look at the likes of Terence Tao who went to a little known Australian university for his undergraduate and then on to princeton etc. He still speaks very favourably about where he studied his undergrad. (I am aware he is a freak of nature and could have went anywhere and done well. :P)

In terms of teaching/course standards are you basing these conclusions on anything other than rankings/reputation?

Don't forget that employers place significant weight on your university's reputation and rankings, even if you don't.

I remember hearing that for high end jobs in London your CV will be binned if you don't have an Oxbridge or Ivy League education. Why do this? Because universities are not created equal.

If Ireland had university fees based on a free market as in the US then I expect you would pay the most to study at Trinity, and pay the least to study at Maynooth and DIT.

With the Irish system of government subsidy the cost is much the same to study at any university. (Imagine if Lidl and Marks and Spencer had the same prices - where would people want to shop?)

Not surprisingly, people figure they get more bang for their buck in Trinity and often put it first on their CAO. This demand is reflected in points figures for courses.

By now you may think that I am a trinity snob. In fact I have not studied there, only at Maynooth and UCD. Back in school I used to think that if universities offered degrees with the same title, then the degrees must be approximately the same.

My number is in the "3rd level maths grinds" thread, give me a call and I'll be glad to tell you my experiences.

[Note that I am not advocating higher (free market) university fees in Ireland - I have not formed an opinion on that. I am saying that if this were present then market signals would naturally show the monetary value of each university's education]

equivariant

ray giraffe wrote: »

Don't forget that employers place significant weight on your university's reputation and rankings, even if you don't.

I agree.

I suppose I just wanted to point out that despite the universities' respective reputations and rankings there is not much difference in the standard of mathematics either in research or in undergrad teaching. However, it is undoubtedly true that in the non academic world, people perceive a degree from TCD to be more valuable than one from Maynooth/UCC/NUIG/etc...

Fremen

DesmondBrother wrote: »

As far as the degree to Phd thing goes; I am under no illusion that i could go from a degree in pure maths to a phd in pure maths. I'm looking to progress to a phd that would relate to my previous areas of study.

I would suggest picking a course which allows you to do a load of analysis then. Probability, functional analysis, fourier analysis, ODEs, PDEs, convex optimization (or linear programming) and measure theory would all be useful.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

ray giraffe

equivariant wrote: »

I suppose I just wanted to point out that despite the universities' respective reputations and rankings there is not much difference in the standard of mathematics in undergrad teaching.

I disagree. I will make a list of modules/topics studied in Trinity undergrad maths (by year) that were completely missing from my 3 year "Double Honours" Maynooth degree some years ago.

1st Year
ST1251 Introduction to Statistics I
ST1252 Introduction to Statistics II
Programming in C
MA1212 Linear algebra II

2nd Year
MA2321 Analysis in several real variables
ST2351 Probability and Theoretical Statistics I
MA2322 Calculus on manifolds
MA2342 Advanced classical mechanics II
ST2352 Probability and Theoretical Statistics II

3nd Year and 4th Year
I cannot see anything that is covered in 3rd and 4th year in Trinity which was covered by me in Maynooth. This shocks me.

On the other hand here are the modules that were covered by me in Maynooth but not done in Trinity:

3rd Year
Galois Theory
Perhaps some of "Algebraic Curves"

So there you have it. My 3 year Maynooth undergrad was equivalent to about 2 years of the 4 year Trinity undergrad in maths.

Half of my undergraduate degree was with the maths department in Maynooth and half with the mathematical physics department.

The mathematical physics department was a joke. In many modules complete solutions were handed out of the exact exam questions in the weeks leading up to exams. I am not kidding.

As for the maths department, I will give some examples. Basic pointset topology was not covered until my final term in Maynooth. The Jacobian matrix was never once mentioned in my 3 year degree - multivariable analysis never got beyond Thomas' Calculus (without proofs). No probability or statistics was covered in the degree.

No Fourier analysis (except examples of calculating fourier series from mathematical physics dept), quadratic reciprocity, bilinear and quadratic forms, Cayley–Hamilton theorem, Lebesgue integral, functional analysis (normed vector spaces? given definition of a norm, examples of norms, definition of inner product, that's about it - no mention of a continuous linear map or an isometry).

No theory of differential equations - only solutions of specific equations from mathematical physics department. No numerical analysis - except implementation of euler method in mathematical physics module.

sponsoredwalk

ray giraffe wrote: »

multivariable analysis never got beyond Thomas' Calculus.

You mean this book? :eek:

Fremen

There's nothing wrong with Thomas' calculus, it's a great book. I don't really know what there is to learn in multivariable calculus beyond what's in there. To get further than that, you need to branch out into functional analysis, Riemannian geometry and measure theory.

sponsoredwalk

Fremen wrote: »

There's nothing wrong with Thomas' calculus, it's a great book. I don't really know what there is to learn in multivariable calculus beyond what's in there. To get further than that, you need to branch out into functional analysis, Riemannian geometry and measure theory.

I beg to differ, having had to go to other sources for every single
important section of that book except for the mean value theorem/Rolle's
theorem I have learned the hard way that the book is pretty terrible.
Yeah it gives you ε - δ limits, badly motivated, but a lot of the proof's are
out of nowhere, I found amazingly simple ones in Serge Lang's book &
online that explained what the authors of Thomas were trying to convey &
giving that oh-so rare thing called motivation for why he's doing what
he's doing. I don't doubt the book has all of the material there but the
"why" is not within much of that text & I really do think that that is the
most important thing a student needs to grasp in order to move
forward. I certainly do & I'm willing to bet my life that this is the main
reason why math test scores are so low...
Let's put it this way, Taylor's formula wasn't given as definition to Taylor or
whomever discovered & proved it.

I went over the book twice (not doing the multivariable section) and
even the second time, knowing what everything meant, I was left asking
the authors questions...

I found an old book called Swokowski's calculus from the 80's that explains
every single section of Thomas better as well & the book is not
e50/100 it's 20cent... :pac: I really did compare because I felt cheated tbh

After watching all of the videos at www.khanacademy.org back then &
then getting this book to clear up the loose threads from those videos I
felt I was back reading a boring school book sans motivation/clarity &
had I got this book before those videos I surely would have stopped
teaching myself math, that's no joke & read the amazon reviews to see
plenty of students cheated by bad pedagogy :mad:

There are a lot of normal sections but still, I have a lot of pent-up anger
for this book in front of me :pac: Sorry :P

I see you don't agree with me and that's fine but I can't change the rocky
past this book gave me & the fact that other books had the answers to
the simple things I felt Thomas' book didn't teach me. I think you're lucky
if you were able to see all of the things on a first read that I missed.

Enkidu

The increasingly bloated first year calculus book is an ever worsening fact of third level mathematics.
In my opinion G.H. Hardy's "A first course in pure mathematics" is still the pinnacle of pedagogy in that regard.
It leads nicely from calculus into analysis. Pity it would be judged as too hard today.

equivariant

ray giraffe wrote: »

I disagree. I will make a list of modules/topics studied in Trinity undergrad maths (by year) that were completely missing from my 3 year "Double Honours" Maynooth degree some years ago.

1st Year
ST1251 Introduction to Statistics I
ST1252 Introduction to Statistics II
Programming in C
MA1212 Linear algebra II

2nd Year
MA2321 Analysis in several real variables
ST2351 Probability and Theoretical Statistics I
MA2322 Calculus on manifolds
MA2342 Advanced classical mechanics II
ST2352 Probability and Theoretical Statistics II

3nd Year and 4th Year
I cannot see anything that is covered in 3rd and 4th year in Trinity which was covered by me in Maynooth. This shocks me.

On the other hand here are the modules that were covered by me in Maynooth but not done in Trinity:

3rd Year
Galois Theory
Perhaps some of "Algebraic Curves"

So there you have it. My 3 year Maynooth undergrad was equivalent to about 2 years of the 4 year Trinity undergrad in maths.

Half of my undergraduate degree was with the maths department in Maynooth and half with the mathematical physics department.

The mathematical physics department was a joke. In many modules complete solutions were handed out of the exact exam questions in the weeks leading up to exams. I am not kidding.

As for the maths department, I will give some examples. Basic pointset topology was not covered until my final term in Maynooth. The Jacobian matrix was never once mentioned in my 3 year degree - multivariable analysis never got beyond Thomas' Calculus (without proofs). No probability or statistics was covered in the degree.

No Fourier analysis (except examples of calculating fourier series from mathematical physics dept), quadratic reciprocity, bilinear and quadratic forms, Cayley–Hamilton theorem, Lebesgue integral, functional analysis (normed vector spaces? given definition of a norm, examples of norms, definition of inner product, that's about it - no mention of a continuous linear map or an isometry).

No theory of differential equations - only solutions of specific equations from mathematical physics department. No numerical analysis - except implementation of euler method in mathematical physics module.

Well, in fairness a 3 year double honours degree is not going to be comparable to a 4 year single honours degree interms of depth of cooverage of mathematics. However, from their website it appears that Maynooth offers a 4 year single honours degree in mathematics with courses in many (perhaps all?) of the areas that you mentioned such as Galois theory, differential geometry etc. (http://www.maths.nuim.ie/undergrad/ugprogramdescriptions.shtml#Science) I would guess that this single honours degree is probably the one to compare with the 4 year degree at TCD.

I did not study there, so I can't comment too much on the quality of the lecturing apart from saying that I would be surprised if it was inferior to Trinity at least when it comes to pure mathematics subjects at advanced level (I base this conclusion on having seen various faculty members of both institutions giving research talks). That would be my biggest obejection to TCD when it comes to mathematics. Most of the faculty are more physicists than mathematicians and while that will surely make no difference at 1st and 2nd year level, it is something that is bound to make a difference in the teaching of more advanced topics such as differential geometry/topology/Galois theory.

ray giraffe

equivariant wrote: »

Well, in fairness a 3 year double honours degree is not going to be comparable to a 4 year single honours degree interms of depth of cooverage of mathematics. However, from their website it appears that Maynooth offers a 4 year single honours degree in mathematics with courses in many (perhaps all?) of the areas that you mentioned such as Galois theory, differential geometry etc. (http://www.maths.nuim.ie/undergrad/ugprogramdescriptions.shtml#Science) I would guess that this single honours degree is probably the one to compare with the 4 year degree at TCD.

Let's compare it.

Alas there are only 30 credits of extra maths courses in the 4 year single honours course in Maynooth compared to the 3 year double honours course (in the final year of each).

Of course in choosing your single honours maths you have also lost 30 credits of final year mathematical physics. Let's assume from now on that the loss of mathematical physics doesn't matter.

30 credits is half a year's workload, so at the very most the 4 year Maynooth degree is worth 2.5 Trinity maths years.

However, at least 15 of those 30 extra credits must be taken in applied statistics modules, which is not much use if you want pure maths.

So you have gained 15 credits of pure maths = one quarter of a year's maths, for an extra year's attendance.

It gets better: 5 of the precious 15 pure maths credits are for a course which is (apparently) taught through irish - which you certainly won't find at trinity :pac:
http://www.maths.nuim.ie/undergrad/ugmoduledescriptions.shtml#MT480C

Enkidu

I think Trinity easily takes this, have a look at some of their fourth year courses:
A course on Group representation theory.
Two courses on Functional Analysis.
Two courses on Algebraic Topology.
Measure theory.
Distribution Theory.

These courses are far more advanced than what is present in Maynooth's final year. Obviously though Trinity is skewed a bit toward analysis in the final year.

equivariant

Enkidu wrote: »

I think Trinity easily takes this, have a look at some of their fourth year courses:
Two courses on Group representation theory.
Two courses on Functional Analysis.
Two courses on Algebraic geometry.
Measure theory.
Distribution Theory.

These courses are far more advanced than what is present in Maynooth's final year. Obviously though Trinity is skewed a bit toward analysis in the final year.

Maybe I am looking at the wrong page (http://www.maths.tcd.ie/undergraduate/modules/index.php?file=ssmaths) but I don't see any courses in algebraic geometry listed (although there are two course in algebraic topology there), and only one course in group representation theory?

Enkidu

equivariant wrote: »

Maybe I am looking at the wrong page (http://www.maths.tcd.ie/undergraduate/modules/index.php?file=ssmaths) but I don't see any courses in algebraic geometry listed (although there are two course in algebraic topology there), and only one course in group representation theory?

Sorry, yes a typo in the original post that should be algebraic topology and only one course in group representation theory.
I will say Maynooth probably has a more traditional pure mathematicians syllabus.

equivariant

Enkidu wrote: »

Sorry, yes a typo in the original post that should be algebraic topology and only one course in group representation theory.
I will say Maynooth probably has a more traditional pure mathematicians syllabus.

Certainly TCD has more analysis, although for some reason they seem to have less complex analysis than Maynooth. Th only other omission I can see from the TCD module list is that Galois theory seems to be ignored. Of course, against that, they do cover some quite advanced algebraic topology which is probably not seen at undergraduate level anywhere else in Ireland.

Looking at the Maynooth list, the glaring omission from the traditional pure maths topics seems to be functional analysis, which is a biggie for sure.

antiselfdual

Nearly all the JS/SS pure maths courses in Trinity seem to be offered every second year, so complex analysis and Galois theory (as part of the abstract algebra course) were available last year and will (presumably) be again in 2011-12. Similarly the algebraic topology course wasn't available last year but was two years ago... It's a useful system I suppose.

David19

Yeah I was going to say the same as above. They alternate courses.

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/official/Courses09-10/index.php?file=ssmaths

DesmondBrother

Thanks Ray for the follow up. I of course understand the valuation of a degree based on where it has been studied. It is an important factor to consider, post considerations regarding the courses themselves i.e what is studied and to what standard. Glad to see the discussion is now gearing towards that end of things. Speaking comparatively of the courses themselves in this respect, i think will be the most constructive. On that point thanks to you, equivariant and others for the breakdown.

Fremen thanks for the point regarding specific area's of study re analysis. This kind of advice is much appreciated


So from what i've seen Maynooth seems to be missing more key area's than Trinity. How does UCD stack up against Trinity in this regard? From their module choices they seem to be pretty comprehensive.

Fad

Dont study maths, but someone mentioned doing CS/Maths in UCD, you cant do CS through Science anymore (it was closed off after this year), so that joint honours doesnt exist anymore!

*retreats back off to my la-la land of computer science and chemistry*

DesmondBrother

Fad wrote: »

Dont study maths, but someone mentioned doing CS/Maths in UCD, you cant do CS through Science anymore (it was closed off after this year), so that joint honours doesnt exist anymore!

*retreats back off to my la-la land of computer science and chemistry*

Lol. A fine niche you have for yourself! That's too bad about UCD.