math studies or not?

[shinu123]

I recently moved down to math studies from math SL. lots of my teacher said i wont be getting into even a decent university, unless Im looking at music,fashion or arts etc.. Im thinking mostly i want to go into business,economics or a combination of business and law.

I already tried my best with math SL, I was able to solve all teh questions but when it comes to the examination,i never did good!

please do tell me if its possible to get into pretty good uni's with math studies for the above UG programmes. If, yes please do name a few of them.

and also, what are all the possible careers you can look into, if we do math studies?

this would be of great help.

thankyou

[Chuchu1224]

I am not sure if this is just a coincidence, but all the people who are really good at music (not talking about singing here, I mean reading notes and writing songs) at my school are in math HL and one is in math SL. The people in studies are applying to courses like fashion, journalism and literature.
You CANNOT get into a good economics course if you are in math studies- the best universities in England require a 7 in math HL for a pure economics course, so forget econ right away.

[Babydolleyes]

I urge you to check out the specific universities you want to apply to and find out the entry requirements (if you have to, just call the university, make sure you have the correct information).

During IB I was determined to apply for Law school, preferably in the UK but in my stubbornness I was equally determined to complete Math methods SL even though I had no intention of doing anything math based in the future. I had pre-IB where I had two semesters of math, then in IB1 I completed one semester of Math methods (I passed but the course was exhausting and scared the sh*t out of me). I decided (along with five friends) to drop down to Math studies for the remaining three semesters, especially seeing as I wanted to go to Law school anyway.

Also, seeing as I wasn't applying for university right away I could always take a supplementary course in Mathematics so it was all good in the hood.

Well, during my gap year I realized I didn't want to take a student loan, and I felt like it would be really stupid not take advantage of the free education available in Denmark. So I started looking at various bachelor degrees that were taught in English. Unfortunately law was only available in Danish, but I found Copenhagen Business School really interesting. I found two programmes there called International Business and International Business & Politics.

The cool thing about International Business & Politics is that you can get a master degree specialized in Law afterwards, so I found the perfect compromise.

Both of these programmes are like 60-70% Economics and they require Matematik B niveau in Denmark.

According to their entry requirements Math studies is not accepted but Math methods and Math HL is deemed equivalent to Matematik B niveau.

I on the other hand was quite lucky because I have 19 credits in Math (Icelandic system) and they only require 9-12 credits from the Icelandic system.

So because I had math in Pre-IB and took one semester of Math methods I have received confirmation that I fulfil the entry requirements to apply for their programmes without taking a supplementary course in mathematics.

Despite this, the school mentions that applicants should preferably be familiar with matrices, vectors and logarithms. I only did logarithms for one semester and know nothing about matrices or vectors so I applied for a 3 month supplementary course anyway (especially since uni doesn't start until August) that should fill any gaps in my knowledge. Well once the course started I immediately went through the syllabus. The course was really way too simple, introduction to functions, some polynomials nothing special. No trig, logs, matrices, vectors or anything else that I hadn't seem before.

What was even better is that the final exam was an hour long oral examination in Danish (a language I haven't studied math in since I was fourteen years old)... oral math exam, news to me! I completed the assigned problems for the first three weeks in the first two days and then dropped the course.. I wanted a challenge..

Wow I really went off topic there, sorry.

Anyway bottom line is, a bachelor in Business/Economics isn't unattainable just because you take math studies, but you can expect to have to take supplementary courses or have extra math credits from elsewhere. My experience only pertains to Denmark of course..

[Ayumi]

You could think of going into marketing? I know that most universities would still accept students who do math studies if it's for marketing (this is for UK btw e.g. Durham). You could also check out some Canadian universities + Australian universities as their usually slightly more lenient with their requirements compared to UK.

[Zarathustra]

Try to do Math SL. Mathematics is beautiful, and a reasonable amount of mathematical literacy should be expected from every individual, regardless of their career and interests.

[bluedino]

I can tell you about Australia (NSW more specifically) universities. In NSW most universities do not have required subjects that you must have done. Instead, they have something called "Assumed Knowledge." What this means is that, you could do businessor economics or Business/Law (if you managed to get the IB scores required - for the "good unis" it's 40+ though you could esasily get into business/economics courses at even decent unis with as low as 30) whilst doing Maths Studies. However, if you struggle at Maths SL this indicates that you'd also struggle with the university economics courses, and maybe also business if you chose to do Accounting/Finance rather than Management/Marketing.

Possible careers with Maths Studies in Australia (NSW) is basically everything: even things like medicine and engineering (provided you get a high overall IB score). Having said that though, if you struggle with Maths SL then careers like engineering and pure mathematics would naturally not be well suited for you. So, try to look for careers in your strengths/other interests. Other possible careers could be: Science or Arts and Social Studies.. both of these areas have a multitude of different degrees possible within them.

The main point I'm making here is that: in NSW if you get a high IB score you can practically go into any career you like. However, if you struggle with maths then there are some careers that would not really be appropriate, and you'd greatly struggle with it. Hope this helps If you aren't interested in overseas/Australian universities then sorry for the irrelevant info.

[khimberleigh]

To add on to what Bluedino said, in Victoria, Australia to get into economics, commerce, finance etc. at the top universities (Melbourne & Monash) you need to have completed maths SL but you only need a score of 4 as long as you've met the minimum overall grade. Another thing you could do, which should work in Australian universities but I'm not too sure about other countries, is apply for an arts (you could do your law) degree because you don't need to have done any maths for that. Then after your first year and even first semester you may be able to switch degrees.