Welcome

You are invited to two student welcome meetings run by the Department:

• The Departmental Welcome Meeting (Part 1) for BSc Mathematics students takes place on Monday 23 September at 9am in PAN.G.01 (Pankhurst House). In this meeting you will find out lots of important information about the degree and the department.
• If you miss the first meeting, you can attend the Departmental Welcome Meeting (Part 2) for all new undergraduate mathematics students which takes place on Thursday 26 September at 10am in Wolfson Theatre (CKK).

These sessions are compulsory as they contain important information about your degree programme, studying at LSE and lots of other useful information.

If for some reason you can't make some of the meetings above, let us know! Please email maths.info@lse.ac.uk

You can also spend time at the LSE Students' Union Freshers' Fair: www.lsesu.com

The Schoolwide Welcome Presentation will take place online this year. Find out more here.

You can find full details about everything taking place in Welcome 2024 here.

During Welcome Week there are plenty of things to do, but you must do the following if you are on campus:

• If you are a BSc Mathematics with Data Science student, you must register as a student on Tuesday 24 September 2024 between 2.30-2.45pm on the Ground Floor of the Marshall Building (see campus map).

For more information about enrolment and what to bring, please see here. 

If you are going to enrol on campus later in the year, please see this link.

We will host an in-person Welcome Reception on Wednesday 25 September 2024, from 4.30-6pm in the Shaw Library (6th Floor of Old Building) (see campus map). This is a great opportunity to meet your fellow students, lecturers and your Academic Mentors. More information will be communicated via email and on Moodle.

LSE are also organising a treasure hunt around London for students who are on campus, where you will be split into teams within the Department. The current days available for our undergraduates are TBC. We will share more details on this fun event closer to the date!

At the start of term all students will be assigned an Academic Mentor. Your Academic Mentor will:

• Provide you with academic guidance and feedback on your progress and performance.
• Discuss any academic problems you may be experiencing.
• Provide pastoral support on non-academic issues and refer you, as necessary, to sources of support within the School.
• Meet with you regularly and maintain regular contact with you outside of meetings.
• Likely be one of the people that will write reference letters for you in future, so it is important that they get to know you well.

You will be introduced to your mentor during Welcome Week. Your first meeting with your mentor will be scheduled during Welcome Week or Week 1 when teaching starts, and these may take place online. 

All appointment times will be posted online/emailed to your LSE email, so please check regularly.

First year students in the Mathematics and Economics, Mathematics with Economics, Mathematics with Data Science and Financial Mathematics & Statistics degrees are required to follow the following courses in their first year:

• EC1A3 Microeconomics I Moodle
• EC1B3 Macroeconomics I Moodle
• MA100 Mathematical Methods Moodle
• MA103 Introduction to Abstract Mathematics Moodle
• ST102 Elementary Statistical Theory Moodle

Mathematics courses taught by the Department are taught by means of lectures, seminars and classes. For each course there are usually two lectures per week during the two main teaching terms (most half-unit courses run for one term/11 weeks of teaching). You will be assigned to a class/seminar once a week for each course. Classes normally start in Week 2 of term and attendance is compulsory. Seminars, like classes, are compulsory and attendance records are held. Teaching arrangements on courses run by other departments may be different, so check the course guide for more information.

You will also take part in LSE100, which gives you the opportunity to explore transformative global challenges in collaboration with peers and leading academics from across the LSE.

There is an option to do a language course, counting as part of your degree, during your time at the LSE. Information regarding this will be circulated at the start of term. You can also follow a programme in your own time to learn an extra language or to improve your English. More information can be found on the website of the LSE Language Centre.  

You should familiarise yourself with the following document: MA100 - Background You Should Know and Exercises. You should also check out the Advanced Maths Support Programme website for information on supporting the transition to university.

Students often also ask about preparatory reading. The advice we usually give is that students should consider buying 'Mathematics for Economics and Finance' by Martin Anthony and Norman Biggs, (Cambridge University Press, 1996), as pre-reading for the mathematics courses. Although this is not a set text for any of the first-year courses, it is a good introduction to the ways in which mathematics and economics work together. 

Much of university level mathematics is concerned with formal proofs and rigorous mathematical argument, and this is necessary for some of the advanced mathematics required in finance, economics, and other fields of application. For an introduction, we recommend: 

• L Alcock, How to Study for a Mathematics Degree (Oxford University Press, 2013)
• R Allenby, Numbers and Proofs (Butterworth-Heinemann, 1997)
• A Dilnot, The Tiger That Isn't: Seeing Through a World of Numbers (Profile books, 2007)
• P Eccles, An Introduction to Mathematical Reasoning (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
• D Hand, Statistics: a very short introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008)

We recommend that you do not buy books for your courses in advance. Many courses will not require books, and multiple copies of important books will be available in the LSE Library. Also, courses are not finalised until close to the start of the year, and you may end up buying expensive books that go unused.

If you have any questions regarding the orientation process, you can contact the Mathematics Department Office by email at maths.info@lse.ac.uk 

There is a lot of helpful information available on the LSE website for new students. Two good places to start are the Offer Holders page (for information relevant to you before leaving home to come to LSE) and the LSE Welcome site page, for those first few days after you arrive at LSE.

Some pages you should also be sure to look at are:

• The checklist and the information on documents you need to bring.
• Information about the Student Services Centre (SSC)

You are also encouraged to browse the substantial amount of information that you can find on the LSE website and the Department of Mathematics website.