[Question] Is it accurate to say that studying MORSE would be better than Maths+Stats for having an impactful career? (assuming equal interest and ability)

[Transient Altruist]

(MORSE is a course at Warwick focused on the applications of maths, involving Maths, Operational Research, Statistics (quite a lot), and Economics

Edit after some more research: They are very similar courses and you can cover essentially all of the same topics with either by choosing optional modules, except at Oxford you cannot do the economics stuff because the department is separate. The other difference is compulsory modules. MORSE has a lot of stats, whereas in Oxford Maths+Stats there’s stuff like Geometry, Dynamics, and Complex Analysis.

I would be capable at and interested in either one, so it comes down to which sets me up better to do good (I’m interested in a wide range of things so keeping options open is important for me)

It seems to me that its greater and broader focus on application, with less pure maths, gives you more skills for impactful paths without much trade-off, but I’m not very confident that I’m accurate in this judgement since I have very little understanding of the world of employment.

If it is better, I’m also wondering how the benefits would trade off with the higher prestige of doing Maths+Stats at Oxford, but I don’t have any idea how big/​small the benefits of either side are. What do you think?

Thanks so much for your help!

[NunoSempere]

My sense is that:

• You are right that more practical object-level skills would probably be more valuable

• And yet, the prestige at Oxford would be more important, because it would allow you to acquire more influence more easily.

Not very sure here, though. Best of luck in your studies.

[Transient Altruist]

Thanks!

[Linch]

Depending on how social you are, peer group might matter a lot here, so it might be worthwhile chatting with students/​recent alumni in both programs to see which ones you’d get along more with and/​or would learn more from.

[Transient Altruist]

Oh I had assumed that was more of a secondary consideration because of being hard to predict well. I’ll make sure to talk to some more people.

[Quadratic Reciprocity]

Are there particular modules you think are really useful you’d only be able to take on MORSE that you wouldn’t if you were doing maths&stats at oxford?

[Transient Altruist]

The only modules you can’t do at Oxford are the Economics ones. I hear it’s relatively easy to switch into Economics from Maths, but maybe it would be good to be able to try it out earlier?

[Quadratic Reciprocity]

I took economics courses during my degree and I don’t think they were particularly helpful for pursuing impactful paths (not that they were unhelpful, it’s just that if I really needed to know the content for some reason, I could have picked it up elsewhere). This is true for all my courses in general.

Unless I am missing something, the main reason to insist on taking more econ classes would be if you want to pursue a further degree such as a master’s degree in something econ related. Or if you know you are going to learn econ anyway and doing a course in it instead of something else less directly relevant and learning econ on the side would save time. If you don’t feel pretty motivated to learn econ anyway, I don’t think the econ thing should be a strong consideration in favour of MORSE.

[Transient Altruist]

Well I’m currently taking Economics A-level and I do find it really interesting so I can see myself pursuing economics in the future, but I don’t plan on it specifically. That’s why I thought it might be good to be able to do a bit of it to know whether to do it at masters? Maybe the A-level is enough though