SMS MSc Student Handbook 2020/2021 (Jan 2021 Start)

Maths office

Your main point of contact for administrative matters is the Maths School Office, MB102, on the first floor of the Mathematical Sciences Building. There is a student notice board displaying key information. The Maths School Office opening hours during term time are 10:00am – 4:00pm (last admission 3:45pm) every weekday. More limited opening hours may apply during vacations. Notice boards are for official notices from members of staff and sometimes carry urgent information such as changes to examination rooms, so you should check them regularly.

MSc student facilities

The School provides a shared computer lab, room MB-302 on the third floor of the Mathematical Sciences Building, for MSc and final year MSci students, with computer facilities for project work, writing dissertations, online research and online access to the library catalogue, e-journals and e-books.

Electronic displays

There are electronic displays are located throughout the Mathematical Sciences Building and more prominent in the student social and study areas. There is an additional electronic display located in the main seating area in the Maths School Office, MB-102.  They show breaking news, events, short-term information such as details of forthcoming meetings and examinations, and topical information such as the "Theorem of the Day". 

Exercise Submission boxes

There are red locked boxes located along the wall in the UG Study Space (Mathematical Sciences Building, MB-103). They are used for submitting exercise worksheets and weekly homework. 

Websites and QMplus

The School of Mathematical Sciences website has a few pages relevant to current postgraduate students, but most information for current postgraduates is in QMplus, the Queen Mary online learning environment. Other key websites are the Queen Mary Student Information System, MySIS, and the Queen Mary student portal, MyQMUL. You will need to log into MySIS and (sometimes) QMplus, using your Queen Mary username and password, to access personal or confidential information: MySIS for the name of your academic adviser or your main examination results; QMplus for your personal timetable and other teaching information. Queen Mary uses QMplus to support all taught modules, which should be explained at the start of each module. We also use it to provide a lot of general information (including this handbook). The i² Student Support QMplus page provides information regarding student experience and welfare.

Online media

The School has an official Twitter feed and Facebook page which we use to provide the most up-to-date information regarding the School and mathematics generally.

Timetable

The teaching timetable provides information about the times and locations of lectures, exercise classes and computing labs. Your timetable will include lectures and support classes for all your modules. You have access to your own personal timetable by logging in to QMplus or you can access the complete Queen Mary Central Web Timetables.

Study programme and module details

You can find postgraduate study programme and module details, and past exam papers, on QMplus via links on the landing page. The postgraduate module list includes links to the individual QMplus module pages, which provide teaching materials such as lecture notes and exercises.

Computer facilities

There are a number of computer labs on campus that you can use, see the next chapter of this handbook, entitled "IT Services".

Student Service computer availability around the campus is shown online here.

If you prefer to use your own computer then, as a Queen Mary student, you can obtain free copies of the mathematical computing packages Maple, Mathematica, or Matlab to run on your own Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS or Linux / Unix computer.