What is mathematical sciences? Mathematics is the study of measurements, forms, patterns, variability and change. It has evolved from human efforts to understand the natural world. Its roots go far back in prehistory, but an unbroken chain of development has continued for more than two thousand years since the Greek civilization at the time of Euclid . The end of this chain, modern mathematical sciences, is in its own right a supreme creation of the human intellect; it is also critical for economic competitiveness, and is a basis for investigations in many fields. Over the course of time, mathematical sciences have developed a rich and intrinsic culture that feeds back into the natural sciences and technology. The discipline now reaches far beyond the physical sciences and engineering; it reaches into medicine, commerce, industry, the life sciences, the social sciences, and every other application that needs quantitative analysis. Its influence has been vastly enlarged by modern computers. Computer use in problem solving, simulation and decision making relies on powerful computational algorithms derived from new mathematical developments. |
Students may opt to concentrate on one of the following six areas: 1. Computational Mathematics 2. Financial Mathematics 3. Operational Research 4. Optics 5. Statistics 6. Pure Mathematics |
At the workplace, mathematical sciences graduates are employed as educationists, computer professionals, managers/consultants, finance professionals, statisticians and administrators. The mathematical skills considered important by employers are computational mathematics, mathematical modeling, optimization, statistics and analysis. |