Question

To people doing maths at university:

Does it involve alot (if any ) computer programming.

I am currently in 2nd year of electrical engineering and I absolutely hate programming, definately think I made the wrong choice when it came to degrees.

I am currently doing engineering/commerce and am thinking about changing the engineering to applied maths but I am wondering if it has alot of programming ( I dont really want to get out of one thing to be faced with tons of it later down the track )

Answer 1

I have heard of "mathematical programming" , but I researched that , and its supposely a fancy word for optimisation.

Answer 2

Also, I looked at the course outline and it says I have to do a subject called "mathematical computing" , does this involve actual coding , or is it just learning how to use maple and other calculators

Answer 3

I will ask the uni specifically, but just wondering if anyone on here is doing maths (specifically applied maths ) if I could any sort of indicating as to what "mathematical computing " is

Answer 4

I am not. What I have heard (until someone actually gives you an answer) is that usually you do have to program, but it is something along the lines of MAPLE, Mathmatica, or maybe BASIC-like stuff. Nothing too complex.

Answer 5

I'm a second year actuarial science student. Depends what field of maths you want to major in. But the programming we do is not of the same nature as computerscience majors. I personally do very little programming in my degree but at the moment it's the same amount as applied math majors at my university do. At the end of the day the extent to which you program depends on your focus in the applied maths domain. A major in stats and research would involve alot of progrogramming in SAS or similar software. If you do any analysis of data programming is a must but definately not of the nature of computer science. We're more intrested in how programs work with maths theory to give meaningful results, computers are a tool but not the focus. In the early acturial career we spend like 8 hours a day infront of the PC, but later on we use them much less as the focus of the career shifts from number crunching to analytical communication and decision making within the firm.

Answer 6

but basically if you're not going into a stats realted major there'll be hardly any programming, but I can only speak on a undergrad level, I can't speak about postgrad.