Maths at Sea

[nomadic_geordie]

Hey Everyone,

I have been accepted onto the PD Deck course at the College of Glasgow starting this September and I can't wait to begin my career at sea! In preparation for starting the course I have been doing a lot of research on what to expect and what will be expected of myself when I arrive, at this website has been an invaluable source. One thing that was mentioned in my interview with CMT was the high level of maths in the course which initially worried me as I have not done any form of academic maths since 2006. One source that was mentioned was a course called Maths at Sea which would be helpful at refreshing my knowledge of maths, and as it is specifically aimed at cadets about to start the careers at sea would be ideal.
I am now about two thirds of the way though the course and although I have found it to be very useful I am slightly worried that it will not be enough, and that when I start college I will already be behind in terms of maths. So what I am hoping to find out is to see if anyone has used this course in the past, and to find out how effective it was in preparing them for the mathematical element of the course. Thank you in advance for any replies.

[EH75]

I have not used that course but recently completed the PD deck course at Glasgow so can give you a rough idea of that maths involved. Basically you have to be able to interpolate stuff and re-arrange equations. You will be doing a lot of that. The level of maths is nothing more complicated than high school level tbh. It wasn't that bad. What sort of maths qualifications do you have? If you have higher/a level then you should be fine. I reckon you could get by on standard grade or GCSE level provided you study and do all the tutorials to keep on top of things. The biggest problem most people had was the workload which gets ridiculous at times, especially towards the end of phase one. A lot of people hadn't kept up with the tutorials which then resulted in them struggling when it came to the exams. Doing a wee bit of studying every night makes things much easier. Although the fact that you are studying before you have even started the course would lead me to believe that you probably won't fall into that trap.

[Lewis]

I'm on the PD at Glasgow as EH75 says I wouldn't worry to much. If you show up to all the classes, listen and do what ever homework your given you will pass, if you don't you'll struggle. Almost all the formulas you need will be given in exams; you just need to be able to put in numbers and get an answer. Good idea to get a calculator before you start and get used to using it. They give you a maths test on the first day to stress you out. Then you never hear about it again so don't worry about it to much.

[CharlieDelta]

As above, the colleges tend to have things covered quite well on the maths side. The course you're talking about is done by the Marine Society who are a great charity, and I think it's reasonably cheap. On the other hand, a lot of it is available online - what they've done is group all the "maritime-related" maths together.