Math majors

I haven't opened a math textbook in about 4 years. What does a typical math major cover in their undergrad degree?

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>Meme booklet for a meme threadlet from a meme brainlet.

Very fitting.

you know you can google university's websites and look up the curriculum right?

For any hard science major: differentiation, integration, differential equations, advanced/applied integration

If engineering, the above but also linear algebra

For anything else not a hard science but still mathematically involved (economics, accounting, pre-med, etc) only differentiation and integration.

For anything completely non-STEM, just baby math like pre-calc or lower.

there's always so many options, and i'm med school (in britain, that's no maths at all) so it's all gibberish to me

>Med school in the UK.
You fucking retard, medicine in the UK is for poor cunts who want be an NHS bitch. Go to the US with your degree and earn much better bucks.

nah i'm not that bothered about the pay, i'm from a well-to-do family and the average pay for a doctor in britain is good enough.

i'm more bothered about the fact that i just prefer living in this country, probably because i grew up here more than anything

Me too, I'm impoverished aristocracy, thanks to the flagrant spending of a Victorian ancestor. I suppose that's why I'm in it for the 'beaucoup dolla'?

>that's no maths at all

Boy one year ago I would be extolling your system for being far less frustrating and stressful. Thank God I've matured enough to inform you that maths are actually pretty important in medicine but in a very indirect way.

Math builds your problem solving skills, it grows your ability to think in abstract and creative ways. As doctors we will use math in very unexpected ways to model the solutions to real world problems.

Without subjects like math and physics, a doctor is basically just a glorified biologist, which is actually true in many countries.

I really recommend you follow 's advice or just self-study math in your free time. It will help you in surprising ways, but don't stress yourself too much over it.

To answer your question, a math undergrad commonly begins with a precalc sequence (algebra and trigonometry) and then ascends to calculus 1, calculus 2, calculus 3, real analysis, linear algebra and possibly abstract algebra as well.

>Math builds your problem solving skills, it grows your ability to think in abstract and creative ways.
Yea, that's why I'm recently quite interested, just browsing Veeky Forums for a bit got me that idea

also, abstract algebra has some direct applications to certain areas of medicine, right? Symmetries of carbon atom bonding and group theory, or something like that

We cover how to memorize the entire problem set in a test so that after turning it in we can desperately type everything into wolfram alpha to see if our solutions are correct.

It's a nice skill.

>also, abstract algebra has some direct applications to certain areas of medicine, right?

Actually yes, particularly in imaging and crystallography. It's very helpful in the modelling of enzymes and genomes for example.

What level of math would you say you're at? It's never too late to get back on the road

I'll admit I lied a bit in the original post, when I said I hadn't opened a math textbook in 4 years, I meant I hadn't taken any kind of math courses

I've done some reading in my own time on analysis and algebra (purely because they naturally built upon a baby "intro to abstract maths" book I started with), but I still haven't actually gotten my hands dirty and immersed myself with actual problems and exercises (which as I understand it, is extremely important for math).

I see a lot of linear algebra whenever I ask about or google this sort of thing, I take it I should look into that?

I should also note that my medicine material (at a Scottish university) is extremely far from any kind of math course; it's all just memorisation etc. Just reading through a small chunk of math, less than a page even, like, a proof or something, requires more concentration for me than pretty much everything I do/have done. I just find math in general to be pretty rough and hard-going to work through, so I doubt I'll get too far.

I was pretty good at math during school though, but then again the scottish higher maths syllabus wasn't exactly taxing

The fact that you're reading about maths outside of class puts you above most people that will be in your math courses already. Believe it or not the majority of students don't even study any of the future material until it's thrown into their lap at the beginning of their next course.

Yes linear algebra will be helpful, use that and calc as your stepping stones to the upper division. Take it easy and read some more intro books, math can seem rough but honestly half of it is just self-confidence. By self-confidence I mean assuring yourself that you will find a solution to the problems, you will instill the logic in yourself one way or another. I found math to be impossibly difficult back when I was stuck in the mindset that math is "too hard, too arcane etc."

You'll be fine I think, if you're already moving towards a career in medicine then you've definitely got the brains for the kind of math we'll be studying as doctors.

...

hey thanks, that's reassuring. I'm still going to be in study for quite a few years yet, so I'll definitely look into getting myself a bit more fluent when it comes to maths

I've also been considering transferring to courses in natural science lately, and it'll certainly be very useful for that too

Neat. I take it that's for a degree in maths with physics?

That's so different from what I'm used to seeing from British universities; is the Humanities and Social Science material mandatory for everyone?

Oh no problem at all, to be frank with you we're sitting in the same boat. However, my college has a very rigorous math curriculum so I'm applying much more diligence to my study of math. In that sense you're lucky as for you it's more of an option than a requirement.
On the bright side, math is one of those things where the more you progress, the more you're equipped for future challenges. We'll make it, rest assured.

>I've also been considering transferring to courses in natural science lately, and it'll certainly be very useful for that too

Absolutely, calculus in particular is basically essential for a nuanced and practical understanding of natural sciences.

you have to have a lab science at most unis. either PHYS, BIO, chem. PHYS is more mathish so i imagine more math majors take that over bio or chem

>there's always so many options
too many choices. hurt. brain.

amazon.com/gp/product/1461462703/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

thats a pretty good read if you have had calc 2

and yeah the humanities is mandatory for my uni

Calculus sequence, set theory, linear algebra, real analysis, probability (up to stochastic processes), statistics, complex analysis and Fourier analysis, group theory and abstract algebra in general, topology, differential equations, a course in programming, differential geometry, possibly measure theory, algebraic topology, functional analysis, representation theory of finite groups and a bunch of electives (think game theory, numerical analysis, applied mathematics courses, courses outside of the math dept)