Professional Training: A Year in Industry
Two of our degree schemes, Mathematics and its Applications, and Mathematics, Operational Research and Statistics, provide a valuable opportunity to spend a year in salaried employment outside of the University working as a mathematician or statistician. These are popular schemes as they allow students to experience first hand the sort of work required of mathematical, statisitical, or computing specialists who apply their expertise directly to the business, commercial or industrial world.
Potential employers are attracted to graduates who have undertaken a year's professional training because of the relevant experience they have gained. Usually, each year some students are offered permanent employment by the company with which they have trained, after they have graduated.
The one year training period is undertaken at the end of the second year of the sandwich course. The University, through its training organisers, and subject to availability, will arrange the training place for you, taking into account your preferences regarding the location and type of training. You work under the direction of a supervisor who is a member of the organisation providing the tranining, and are visited regularly by your academic tutor to monitor progress. During this period you are paid the current salary for the job.
The companies with which we have links have been taking students from Cardiff for many years and provide work of a standard appropriate to their level of academic development. The work is carefully chosen to be of benefit both to you and the employer. You will be working with real life problems and using mathematics to produce results that, most important of all, somebody else actually needs.
If you are interested in the sandwich courses but do not wish to commit yourself at initial enrolment, it is possible to transfer between the three and four year courses in both Mathematics and its Applications and Mathematics, Operational Research & Statistics at the end of your first year at University.
