News
Mailed on 3 February 2017.
Newsletter Applied Mathematics, Volume 3, Issue 2.
Preface
The academic year is progressing fast and thus the second quartile has come to an end today. In my opinion all went well and I hope that the students feel the same way. For the rst years students the second module has been a tough and busy one. The second years students have been working endlessly on their project for the past weeks. The third years students can nally join together as one again now that the minor period has ended.
A consequence of the fast progress of the year is that now I'm talking about the ending of the second quartile. What about the rst one?
Steven Horstink, officer Educational Affairs W.S.G. Abacus
Introduction
In this newsletter, we look back on the past semester: Modules 1 and 5 and the Master courses. Apologies for the late appearance of the newsletter. Indeed, we are already approaching the end of the second quartile and the third is quickly approaching. This, however, gives me the opportunity to draw your attention to the National Student Survey (NSE, Nationale Studenten Enqu^ete), for which you should have received an invitation recently. It is important that you let the outside world know how you feel about your study programme. Please be critical and at the same time be aware that the NSS is not an internal evaluation. The results of the NSS are important for prospective students, but they also provide valuable feedback to us and we will certainly use them to further improve our curriculum and the organisation. Here is the link to the NSS: https://www.studiekeuze123.nl/take-the-national-student-survey, just in the case that you lost the invitation or you didn't receive one. Last but not least, at the end of the newsletter we included a short comment on what to do if your minor contains parts of the Math Line.
Jan Willem Polderman
Module 1: Structures and Models.
Of course, the most prominent di erence in the programme of this year's Module 1 with the rst three years of TEM were the workshops Intercultural Communicator. Most students seem to be interested in the topics of these workshops, but the homework of Intercultural Communicator appeared to take too much time. A possible improvement could be to include the homework in the schedule, so that time to be spend is con ned and moreover students can ask for help. This will be considered in the evaluation of the workshops. Most students were content with the time table. They had, however, a small remark: Math A had the most tutorials, but it was de nitely not the most dicult course. For next year, I will try to make this more in balance. And they were not happy with room 500B in Horst Tower (too small) and with room CR 3B (too dark). Unfortunately, I don't have much in uence on the scheduling of the lecture rooms, but I promise to send an email to the persons in charge and ask them to take notice of these problems. The project in module 1 was to recreate one of the earliest video games: Pong. Students liked the project. There was one problem: the project involves a lot of programming and it was dicult to split the program work in parts so that every group member can pull his weight. The module team are looking for a project that has clear links with Linear Structures or Math 1. So, we have the challenge to formulate a new project that involves linear algebra and/or di erential equations and about which students are even more excited as about the pong project.
Brigit Geveling
Module 5: Mathematical Statistics and Analysis.
According to last year's evaluation, students were satis ed about Module 5 (and so were the involved instructors). One grievance was about the newly introduced textbook for Statistics in that year. This year we wanted to reconsider the textbook. However, the instructor for Statistics left the university and we came to know about the replacement instructor at a very late stage. As a result, we went with a safe choice of an existing lecture-notes ("dictaat"), supplemented by some loose handouts about the materials that were lacking.
Other than this there was not much change in this module compared to the last year. The module went ne and according to the plan. Also, the students agree that the distribution of workload was evenly spread out over the module (we had worked on it the year before). There is some dissatisfaction around the Statistics part of the module, both in terms of the study-material and the lectures. We are going to work on both of these aspects to improve the module next year.
Pranab Mandal
Master's evaluation.
A few months ago Abacus organised a discussion meeting on the courses in the Master. Although not many students turned up, we got some valuable feedback. As a result, next year we will schedule Measure & probability so that it will be available to SACS students as well as OR students. Also we added some additional information to the Master's website and will take a closer look at some of the course contents. In addition to the Abacus and Mastermath evaluations, you will receive an invitation for the EEMCS-wide Master's evaluation in February. We would like to ask all of you to ll it out and let us know what you thought of the past semester.
Marloes van Grinsven
Minor with redundant mathematics
If your minor contains part of the Math Line, then the following procedure applies. The first option is to contact the coordinator of the organising programme to see if there is an appropriate part of one of their other modules or master's programme that ts in the minor. The second possibility is to contact the programme director of ATLAS to discuss the possibility to follow part of their programme. The latter requires that you formulate your own learning goals before you discuss with the ATLAS management whether this can be realised within ATLAS. Of course, you can always contact Stefanie about issues like this.
Stefanie Kraanen