Undergraduate to Postgraduate

What a big difference there is between undergraduate and postgraduate studies, from my mathematical point of view. It has been three years since I have finished my first degree and since then I have added to it an Honours and Masters (not official yet). Next year I will be starting with a PhD in, you guessed it, Mathematics. Let's consider the pre- and post-degree worlds.

When you're an undergraduate you have classes most of the day, assignments, tests, there are a lot of people in your class (10 in third year maths counts as a lot) some of whom you have known for a while and you speak the same language (math). You have textbooks explaining the work, you have the lecturers explaining the work, then there are the tutorials sessions where you practice and the lecturers once again explain the work. All in all it is not too difficult to pass and obtain your degree.

Then a handful of us step into the postgraduate world. Suddenly the lectures are fewer, the tests not as regular, but the ones you do write, they count a lot. The lecturers are not as explanatory as before, you have a lot more reading to do on your own and some concepts you just have to figure out for yourself. This is Honours.

Then before you know it you start your Masters. In my case I had both course work and research (dissertation) as requirement for the degree. The courses were still represented by a lecturer, weekly in most cases, but one were required to do even more of one's own thinking and not all of the work were explained or even available in a textbook. In one course we had to explain the problems to the lecturers, which of course no student likes to do under the scrutinising eyes of an expert in the field, but it sure did help us to understand the work a whole lot better. Moving on to the research, which I must say seemed slightly daunting at first but turned out to be a lot of fun. Now I had to figure out almost everything by myself and I learned a lot about articles and how to read them and also how to look for information. All in all my dissertation turned out alright and the oral exam.... Well that is coming soon...

In conclusion, postgraduate is much better than undergraduate since you can do what you love and learn how to do things yourself and also can do research in your own time (except with a deadline approaching). I look forward to PhD studies and will keep you all posted on my experience.

Happy forward thinking!