DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
2007-2008
THE DEPARTMENT / 2THE PURPOSE, OBJECTIVES AND RELEVANCE OF THE UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE PROGRAMME / 2
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES / 3
MATHEMATICS PROGRAMME – SUMMARY / 6
COURSE LIST / 7
FIRST YEAR / 7
SECOND YEAR / 8
THIRD YEAR / 9
FOURTH YEAR / 12
EXAMINATIONS – MATHEMATICS / 14
HONOURS MARKS AND DEGREE WEIGHTING / 15
PROGRESSION FR0M YEAR TO YEAR / 16
DEGREE CODING COURSE REQUIREMENTS / 16
SPECIFIC PROFESSIONAL ACCREDITATION/EXEMPTIONS / 17
POSTGRADUATE COURSES AND RESEARCH / 18
DEPARTMENTAL ACADEMIC STAFF / 18
ADVANCED COURSES (MSc) / 18
METRIC / 19
LIBRARY / 19
DEPARTMENTAL ADMINISTRATION / 20
MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH INSTITUTE / 20
APPENDIX I: MATHEMATICS WITH MANAGEMENT / 21
APPENDIX II: MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE / 23
APPENDIX III: MATHEMATICS WITH A YEAR IN EUROPE / 32
Dr Frank Berkshire
Director of Undergraduate Studies
September 2007
[The information given is that current at this date and may be subject to alteration]
THE DEPARTMENT
The principal aims of the Department are to train professional mathematicians, to pursue the study of scientific and technological problems by mathematical methods, to provide mathematical skills that will be useful to those who wish to take up scientific and other jobs, and to undertake research in the various branches of the subject. A further important function of the Department is to provide a large body of instruction in mathematics for those students who require it as ancillary to some other course of study in the various other departments in the College. The Department is large, with about 750 undergraduates, about 100 postgraduates and over 60 academic staff. The range of courses available is both wide and deep.
The Department is in the Faculty of Natural Sciences in the College.
THE PURPOSE, OBJECTIVES AND RELEVANCE OF THE UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE PROGRAMME
The overall objectives of the degree course programme are:
(i) To present a wide range of mathematical ideas, to encourage enthusiasm for the subject as a discipline that is of value in its own right and, at the same time, to develop students' critical and intellectual abilities.
(ii) To provide a good knowledge of basic mathematics, as the language of many branches of science and technology, and a more advanced knowledge of selected parts of the subject for those students who wish to pursue mathematics, or other scientific or engineering disciplines, to research level.
(iii) To provide mathematical and communication skills that will be useful to those who wish to take up scientific or other jobs.
The compulsory parts of the degree programme aim to give an appropriate balance between 'Mathematics for its own sake' and 'Mathematics for applications'. There are assessed courseworks, computational assignments, formal written examinations, together with individual and group projects in which written and oral presentation are assessed.
The proportion of 'class contact' time decreases somewhat naturally as students progress to later years of their course and take control over and responsibility for their learning pattern, both through their choice of options aimed at later academic studies and through their intended career patterns.
Mathematics is directly relevant to many career paths and graduates from Mathematics programmes have a very wide range of possibilities open to them.
The skills developed as part of Mathematics degrees are extremely relevant to the needs of society and these, together with communication skills and computational experience make graduates eminently well-suited to successful technical, managerial and other careers.
The Undergraduate teaching in the Department was deemed to be ‘excellent’ in a Quality Assurance Review by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). The College has extensive Qualitative Assurance procedures of its own concerning the content, delivery and assessment of programmes including regular invited External Review. Programme Specifications for the BSc/MSci degree courses detailed here have been constructed in accord with the QAA Subject Benchmarking for Mathematics, Statistics and Operational Research. These Specifications may be seen in the Departmental Library and should soon be accessible on the Mathematics website.
UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
There are currently thirteen honours degree courses:
BSc (3yr) / BSc (4yr) / MSci (4yr)Mathematics / G100 / - / G103
Mathematics with Mathematical Computation / G102 / - / -
Mathematics with Applied Mathematics/Mathematical Physics / G1F3 / - / -
Mathematics with Statistics / G1G3 / - / -
Mathematics (Pure Mathematics) / G125 / - / -
Mathematics, Optimisation and Statistics / GG31 / - / -
Mathematics with Statistics for Finance / G1GH / - / -
Mathematics with Management (Joint with Imperial College Tanaka Business School) SEE COMMENT ON PAGE 4 / G1N2 / - / -
Mathematics and Computer Science (Joint with Imperial College Dept. of Computing) – JMC / GG14 / - / GG41
Mathematics with a Year in Europe (Joint with various European Institutions) / - / G101 / G104
The overall objectives within the various degree programmes are to give excellence in chosen areas of study, to impart basic knowledge of other areas, to give basic competence in certain marketable skills and to instil and maintain enthusiasm.
The undergraduate courses lead to the Associateship of the Royal College of Science (ARCS) and the BSc or MSci degree (as appropriate) of Imperial College London [from July 2007; previously the University of London],, subject to the current degree regulations. There is a course unit system and no more than the equivalent of four NEW course units may be offered for examination in each academic year. Students taking Mathematics as their principal subject are required to have obtained passes in the equivalent of at least nine course units for three-year courses for the award of the BSc degree, modified to eleven course units for the four-year BSc course G101. For the enhanced MSci four-year courses at least thirteen course unit passes, or their equivalent, are normally required, of which at least two units must be passed in the final year. [Further conditions relating to degree codings G1N2, GG14, GG41, G101, G104, are given below and in the Appendices I,II,III].
Examined work in each course is given an Honours mark as well as a Pass/Fail rating. When a student has attained at least a pass in a particular course unit assessment, no further attempt may be registered to improve the Honours mark. Students who have satisfied the overall unit requirements for their degree coding may be awarded Honours degrees classified as follows: First Class, Second Class (Upper and Lower Divisions), Third Class. For BSc courses there is also a Pass category, but NOT for MSci.
FOR BSc/MSci DEGREE COURSES WHICH CORRESPOND DIRECTLY, THE ENHANCED MSci VERSION IS FOR STUDENTS WHO DEMONSTRATE VERY GOOD ABILITY AND PROGRESS DURING THE FIRST TWO YEARS AT, AT LEAST, ABOUT THE UPPER SECOND CLASS LEVEL, WHICH IS THEN MAINTAINED INTO THE FINAL TWO YEARS OF THE PROGRAMME.
THESE UNDERGRADUATE MASTERS DEGREES HAVE A FINAL YEAR AT THE LEVEL OF A TAUGHT POSTGRADUATE MSc COURSE.
Since the first two years of corresponding BSc/MSci courses are essentially the same, there is some opportunity for transfer between these codings (and for that matter into other codings) on academic grounds subject, of course, to the current funding rules for fees and grants.
All the degree courses are subject to the College Academic Regulations.
All examinations in each year are taken for both College and (where appropriate) University purposes. Each year counts towards the final degree class awarded on graduation (see below).
Exemption from some examinations of certain professional bodies, including e.g. some of the Institute of Actuaries, may be given on a suitable level of attainment in certain courses in Mathematics at Imperial College [see page 17].
The Joint Mathematics and Computer Science degrees have been through a process of accreditation by the Institute of Electrical Engineers and by the British Computer Society. The MSci degree normally leads to full Chartered Engineer accreditation and the BSc degree has partial such accreditation [see page 17]
The teaching of courses within the Mathematics Department is carried out by a combination of lectures, tutorials, study groups, project work and problem classes in pure and applied mathematics, mathematical physics, numerical analysis, computational methods and statistics. In the study groups and problem classes tutors are available to students for discussion and advice. In the classes in computation students use Departmental workstations. Details about timetabling of lectures, lecturer ‘office hours’, tutorial support, study groups/classes, coursework, projects are contained in separate documentation. Details about course content are contained in the separate year documents (see below). [Accessible at Imperial College on the Departmental Website].
The whole undergraduate course programme has been under continual review during more than fifteen years. New degree codings have been introduced progressively [G1G3, G102, G1F3 from October 1988; G1N2 from October 1989; G125 from October 1990; GG14, G101 from October 1992; GG31, G103, G104, GG41 from October 1994; G1GH from October 2003]. The first year course of study is common to nearly all the degree codings with the major exception of GG14, GG41 and with minor changes for G101, G104. Some commonality continues into the beginning of second year studies but the overall course design is such that the courses in Mathematics from which individual choices are expected to be made in the later second, third (and possibly fourth) years of study mainly fall into the various subject groups: Pure Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Numerical Analysis, Statistics, Mathematical Methods. Students may choose freely from the overall set of courses available to them, but subject to Departmental approval, and there is considerable flexibility, so that individual students may remain broad in their interest or become more specialised.
The requirement for the award of the BSc degree in a chosen specialism G1G3, G102, G1F3 or G1GH is passes in at least the equivalent of three course units in the corresponding specialism and for G125 passes in at least nine course units in the specialisms in addition to satisfying the overall requirements (see above). Coding GG31 is aimed at students who will not normally offer options in classical Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics in second/third year. A student who does not satisfy the special requirement for the degree in one of these specialisms, but who does satisfy the overall requirements, will be awarded a BSc degree in Mathematics. A final choice of degree registration among G100, G1G3, G102, G1F3, G125, GG31, G1GH is not necessary until the commencement of final year studies.
Students registered for the joint honours degree course G1N2 Mathematics with Management have followed the Mathematics Department structure and course for two years and then transfer to the Tanaka Business School for their final year. The numbers permitted to register for this course have been very limited and students have been expected to register for it at entry to the College; in particular, transfer to this degree coding is normally allowable at a later stage of study only with the approval of both Departments and only then if there is a vacancy. Some details of the course structure followed in Business School are given in Appendix I. THE DEPARTMENT HAS SUSPENDED RECRUITMENT TO G1N2 COURSE WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT, SO THAT THERE WILL BE NO INCOMING STUDENTS REGISTERED ON THIS CODING IN OCTOBER 2007. STUDENTS ALREADY REGISTERED WITHIN THE DEPRTMENT ARE UNAFFECTED.
Students may register for one of two joint honours degree courses GG14, GG41 Mathematics and Computer Science, leading to the BSc, MSci degrees. These degrees have much greater emphasis on Computer Science than G102, including programming, databases, logic and simulation. Details of the course structure for these degrees are given in Appendix II.
Students may register for one of two joint honours degree courses G101, G104 Mathematics with a Year in Europe. These are four-year courses, leading to BSc, MSci with students spending three years at Imperial College and the other year (year 3) studying mathematics courses/project material at another European institution, thus gaining a wider and deeper mathematical and cultural perspective. Some details of the course structure for these degrees are given in Appendix III.
Transfer into and out of the various joint course codings may be allowable on academic grounds and subject to the current funding rules.
For the BSc courses the weighting for Honours of course half units first taken in the first, second, final year within the Department is currently 1:4:4. Overall Honours for the course G1N2 Mathematics with Management is decided on a 3:2 weighting between the Mathematics: Management course content. For the course GG14 the year weighting is 1:3:4. The weighting of the years for the enhanced MSci courses is G103, G104 - 1:4:4:4, GG41 - 1:2:3:4. A part of the change in the pattern of study from October 1994 has been in the way that students receive instruction in computational skills. The system is interactive using Departmental Workstations, mainly in HB215, HB212, HB409, HB410 and HB411 (adjacent to the Mathematics Library). An engine of computation is a symbolic computational package [currently Maple], This is now supplemented by introduction of a more advanced numerical/computational package – Matlab. This includes those students on codings GG14, GG41, for whom much wider experience with a range of high level programming languages is provided. Further changes in hardware and in software will be considered as part of the rolling reform of the undergraduate programme - in particular more advanced option material in computation is now available to all students in third/fourth year.
Except for some of the joint degree codings, mathematics courses first taken at second, third and fourth year level are currently normally weighted equally in each year of study for the determination of Honours.
The undergraduate programme remains under continuous consideration with respect to overall structure, individual course content and teaching methods. Changes are discussed within the Department, particularly via the Teaching Strategy Committee and the Undergraduate Course Committee, before formal proposals are made to the College Science Studies Committee for approval.
Those who wish to see documentation of the progress of the rolling reform are referred to various SILVER documents [usually dated 15 March (the IDES) each year since 1996], normally available for perusal in the Departmental Library [the specific date each year is not entirely coincidental].