What do you mean?

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 489.

So you were offered place and started the college.

Did you have to do exams?

So, it was easy for you to choose a university, wasn't it?

Emily, how did you choose to take the course of maths?

When it came to choosing A Levels I wasn't quite sure which route I wanted to take. I knew I definitely wanted to do maths, just because it was a subject I was good at, and it interested me more than most subjects. My teacher was very good at encouraging me to go beyond the scope of the syllabus and we went to lectures in London and at the University of Cambridge. So I knew I only got a very small glimpse of what maths was about at school. It changes dramatically when you get to university.

Well, as I had high grades, I was advised to consider Oxford or Cambridge. But I had lived in Cambridge all my life, so I wanted a change and I didn't want my parents checking up on me every five seconds! That's why I considered various universities, but in the end I set my sights on Oxford, choosing to apply to St John's College.

Yes, I needed to achieve three A grades out of four, two of which had to be in maths and further maths. I also went for an interview at the college.

Yeap, I found my first term at university something of a shock to the system.

A level maths was the sort of maths I could do; it didn't take too much hard work. And some lecture courses start where A level left off. But you do what took you two weeks at A level in one lecture maybe, or even less. Suddenly I had to come to terms with the concept of lectures and structuring my own work schedule and doing my tutorial! The first time I was thinking: 'I haven't done everything right. I don't know what to do, the tutor's going to kill me!' But they're there to help you through it. There are some people who can just look at a problem sheet and do it. I am not one of those people! But with enough work, it generally makes sense.