Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Sciences

Sarah Murphy

I chose UL for this course, but also because I’d never met a UL student who didn’t seem to love their time here. Maths and applied maths were my favourite subjects in school and this course seemed liked the perfect way to pursue those interests. For the first two years, you will establish a strong base in mathematics and statistics before specialising in your area of choice. In third year, you start to focus on your chosen specialty and then everyone goes on co-op placement. In your final year, you have the chance to pick a final year project in a topic that interests you.

This course has allowed me to develop essential skills needed to be a mathematician while also giving me the chance to apply them in a working environment. I completed my co-op placement in Analog Devices in Limerick, one of the leading semi-conductor companies in the world. I worked as a part of the New Product Engineering team that specialised in data analytics. My job involved the statistical analysis of data from different stages of testing and gave me the opportunity to apply the skills I had learned in college to the real world. My communication skills, presentation skills and my ability to work effectively as part of a team were vastly improved during my co-op experience.

I think one of the great advantages of studying Mathematical Sciences at UL is that it opens up a broad range of career paths. The course doesn’t tie you down to one profession but instead gives you the essential mathematical skills that are in demand in every sector.

Colm Howlin

I really enjoyed Maths in school, so I decided to continue with it at University. I visited several campuses before my making my decision on which University to choose. UL had by far the most impressive campus which made the decision easy.

As Principal Researcher at Realizeit, I lead the analytics and research efforts. Realizeit is an adaptive learning company that has created a platform to deliver personalised learning online to students. The platform uses data to figure out what works best for individual students and uses that to personalise and adapt the delivery of learning material.

I work on the development and deployment of the algorithms that are used by the system to personalise the learning experience. This ranges from algorithms that estimate the difficulty of a question to algorithms that automatically detect when a student is bored. I also work with several Universities to help them understand the impact of adaptive learning on how their students learn. My role, as with most in the tech sector, predominately involves problem-solving. The course not only provided me with the foundations in the tools that I would rely on in my career but more importantly, helped me develop my problem-solving skills.

Any advice for school leavers?

Study what you think you will enjoy, and you’ll set yourself up to have a far more successful and happier career than forcing yourself to study something that is supposed to lead to a good job or career.