Mathematics for Finance and Management BSc (Hons), sandwich with work placement

Daniel Thomas: What excites me most about university education is that it is right at the interface between research and teaching. Newly acquired skills and knowledge get passed on to the next generation directly, to you.

The University of Portsmouth is providing mathematics staff and students just with the right space in the right environment to do exactly that.

Our research, as well as our teaching, are concentrated in this building in the Lion Gate Building.

We will now move on to our lecture theatre where Dr. Marianna Cerasuolo will tell us more about the facilities we have in this building.

Marianna Cerasuolo: In the first year, all of our students take compulsory modules in core subjects which are necessary to become very good mathematicians. In the second and third year, they have a wide variety of options they can choose.

In particular, they can decide either to stay on straight mathematics, so what we call the BSc Mathematics, or to take different, more specialised paths. For example, mathematics for finance and management or mathematics with statistics.

We have also other types of options like astrophysics or cosmology and general relativity, or they can decide to do operational research and logistics. Actually, we have a very strong research group who works on this particular subject.

So since the first year, our students learn that mathematics in its entirety has lots of real life applications. They also learn to work together as a team, and that makes them very valuable for companies once they finish their degree with us.

Daniel Thomas: The nice thing about our school is that the staff offices are right next to the lecture theatre and the computer lab. We have an open door policy because we want to support your learning the best we can. You can pop in our staff office any time during the day and ask our staff about the lectures or about the course material, any questions about mathematics that you may have.

We will now move on to our computer lab where Dr. James Burridge, reader in statistical physics, will tell you about the facilities we have.

James Burridge: In my research, I use tools of probability, physics, and machine learning to build models of language, and to understand what we can learn about people from the way they speak. My models use many different kinds of data, including detailed geographical information, large scale linguistic surveys and audio.

Using big data to model the real world, identifying patterns and making predictions are commercially valuable skills. Some people say they are driving a fourth industrial revolution. Here at Portsmouth, we will teach you the mathematics of modelling and prediction, which can be applied to problems in biology, health care and a whole range of commercial applications.

Using computer labs like this one, we will teach you state of the art machine learning techniques to solve real world problems. These can include recognising emotions from speech data, predicting and classifying images and modelling behaviour.

Daniel Thomas: The Technology Learning Centre at the ground floor of Lion Gate Building is a perfect space for students to study, to learn, to meet or just to hang out. We also use the space to offer our daily tutorials, the maths cafe, where our mathematics staff are providing tutorials to our mathematics students, where you can ask any questions about mathematics.

We look forward to welcoming you at the University of Portsmouth to discover the beauty of mathematics with us.