Amber's degree helped her achieve her dream job as a Graduate Engineer in data science and software development
The part of my degree that I enjoyed the most was being inspired by my lecturers daily. Their passions are so contagious, and I could not help but be incredibly inspired.
I wanted to study BSc Mathematics with Statistics because I love the feeling of solving problems - especially problems that look terrifying at first and require a lot of time, coffee and patience to solve. The problem solving and computer programming skills that I gained on my course are what helped me to secure my dream job in the early part of third year: Graduate Engineer – Data Scientist and Software Developer.
Before I started my course I had no idea how maths related to computer science. But I am so glad this is such a big part of Maths at Portsmouth because it really does reflect the skills that are needed in industry today. Our lecturers showed us how to use the problem solving skills and logical minds we had already developed through written maths work in order to learn a variety of programs, which helped me to get my dream job.
I did my dissertation in collaboration with the NHS Blood and Transplant team. I carried out survival analysis on real life liver transplant data, in order to help with the research used to develop the new transplant benefit score, which assigns an available liver to the patient on the waiting list that will benefit the most from it.
It enabled me to meet statisticians in the NHS and see the incredible work they are doing and how medical statistics has a massive impact on people's lives.
Our lecturers showed us how to use the problem solving skills and logical minds we'd already developed through written maths work to learn a variety of programs, which helped me to get my dream job.
I was able to do this because I expressed an interest in medical statistics to my lecturer, Dr Graham Elliott, and he contacted many academics in order to find me an exciting data set. He even drove me to the NHS Blood and Transplant Offices in Bristol to meet them.
At Portsmouth, the lecturers genuinely care about your progress. There are so many opportunities for support like the Maths Café, one to one maths tutoring and one to one computer program support. I felt like I could email any of my lecturers needing help and they would invite you to sit down in your office and go through it patiently.
Furthermore, the Apps Anywhere programs allowed me to learn lots of programs such as Matlab or Simul8, which without university I could not have afforded as an individual learner.
The part of my degree that I enjoyed the most was being inspired by my lecturers daily. Their passions are so contagious, and I could not help but be incredibly inspired, especially when they would talk about their areas of research and their faces would light up. Not only that but when I would ask questions about further study, they really made me believe that I could do it too one day - something I never believed before starting university.