Transitions to (and from) university

 Chris Brignell, Deputy Director 

Last week I attended the CETL (Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning) conference for HE maths and stats.  Rotating around England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, it was the turn of the University of Limerick to host this year. The end of the conference posed an interesting maths challenge: if there are four bus companies each running coaches from Limerick to Dublin airport, departing from two different bus stops on schedules which bear no resemblance to the published timetable, at what time should one arrive at either bus stop to ensure a high probability of making the flight home?  Factoring in Friday evening rush hour and crowds flocking to a Coldplay concert and the answer, if you are interested, is allow 4.5 hours rather than the advertised 2.5 hours. 

Still, getting home from a university is still less stressful than getting to university in the first place. One of the reoccurring themes of the conference was the difficulty many students experience of making the transition from school to university mathematics. The Observatory’s Holly Gilbert presented the results of our survey of 289 first year maths students from 7 different universities in England. 

For why they chose to study maths, they were evenly split between those who study it to get a good job and career, and those who study it just because they like it and are good at it. Enjoying something you are good at, that also opens doors to many careers is not a bad place to be! 

However, six months into a degree and the students reported that their liking of mathematics has dipped, and they are finding things much harder than A level. So much harder, in fact, that more are resorting to memorising mathematics whereas at A level they were striving to understand it. Around 58% of students described the transition from A level to university maths as a ‘big jump’ (with 20% neutral and 22% disagreeing).   

Their study habits have also changed – at A level their teacher was their first port-of-call if they didn’t understand something, followed by friends, textbooks and YouTube. At university, they consult their friends and revision notes in preference to their teacher. It seems many interpret the need to be ‘independent learners’ at university as ‘learning on my own’ rather than ‘taking responsibility for my learning’. 

This was a theme also drawn out in research presented by University of Birmingham’s Niamh Brereton who has interviewed maths academics about their view of transition. Staff across universities are consistently reporting that students don’t make good use of opportunities to interact with staff or manage their time well with all the potential distractions settling into university can bring. While many departments issue guidance and set expectations, it seems more need to provide specific training on how to be a student. 

This week, UCAS have sent an email to all UG maths students starting university this month. If recipients click the link, they can take part in a new study as we explore their expectations and experiences of starting a maths degree in 2024. If you received this, or know someone who has, please take part – there is even a small financial reward for doing so.   

My experience was sailing through GCSE and A level, finding maths far easier and more enjoyable than anything else, before arriving at university to discover the maths had become weirdly abstract and my confidence dropped as I was no longer top-of-the-class. It wasn’t until third year that I rediscovered my maths mojo. A generation on, and maybe the story hasn’t changed. As one of our student responses put it, “If we were warned more that university was not a walk-in-the-park…”  I can testify that it is certainly not. But there is an enjoyable walk by the River Shannon on the University of Limerick’s campus when you need a break from the maths… or to kill time waiting for an airport coach running hours behind schedule. 

Author information

Chris is the Deputy Director of the Observatory and an Associate Professor of Statistics in the School of Mathematical Sciences.

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