CDC Steele
colin.steele@manchester.ac.uk
University of Manchester
Abstract
Many universities in UK operate a Foundation Year for some of their disciplines. Students who, for whatever reason, cannot start in year 1 directly but who show sufficient potential, carry out a year learning various pre-requisite topics and progress to year 1 of their disciplines subject to achieving various criteria.
Reasons for taking the Foundation Year include:
• Coming from an education system which stops short of what is required to reach year 1 directly.
• Undergoing a change of subject emphasis before embarking on a university degree.
• Narrowly failing to achieve the grades necessary to start in year 1 but showing the potential to succeed.
As many Foundation Years admit to several potentially disparate disciplines, it tends to be the more general pre-requisite subjects that are taught e.g. Mathematics or Phystics rather than more specialist destination subjects such as the various engineering disciplines. This talk will review engineering mathematics within the Foundation Year with particular emphasis on the Foundation Year at Manchester.
Keywords
Engineering Mathematics Foundation Diverse