Recommendations for incoming students
Revision from A-level
The most important thing is to be confident with the mathematics that you have studied already. We recommend that you top up on your understanding of
- Proof (e.g., proof by induction)
- Ordinary Differential Equations (ODEs) (e.g., solution of linear ODEs)
- Integration methods (e.g., integration by parts and substitution)
- Complex numbers
- Matrices
There’s lots of online material on all of these topics. Some of these topics are from A-level Further Mathematics and will be covered again when you come to Bath.
Example lecture
Here is an example lecture by Kit Yates, one of our lecturing staff, on mathematical proof, consisting of
with notes and a work sheet that you can try out.
Recommended books
Study Skills
Learning at university is a very different experience to college. Here’s a few books that help you develop good study skills for a mathematics degree.
-
Letters To A Young Mathematician (Ian Stewart)
-
How To Study For A Maths Degree (Lara Alcock)
-
How To Solve It (Polya)
-
How To Think Like A Mathematician (Kevin Houston)
-
Towards Higher Mathematics: A Companion (Richard Earl)
Course books
- Introductory Mathematics: Algebra And Analysis (Geoff Smith). This book covers a lot of material in the first-year pure-mathematics units and was written by a University of Bath academic.