1. Useful Links Edit on GitHub

Online services

There are a number of online services that the university provides, each serving a number of different purposes:

• ^[1] Some courses may have a separate course webpage where you will find teaching material.
• ^[2] Creating a timetable for yourself on PATH does not finalize what your timetable will be – it simply allows you to come up with a rough idea for what you would like your schedule to look like. You must still meet with your personal tutor to officially enrol you on these courses.
• ^[3] Please make sure you’re looking at the DPT for the correct year! You can change the year in the URL, e.g. 20-21.

Library and study spaces

The library service in the upcoming year is likely to be restricted – check Library Services Update for more details. Library resources can also be accessed online via DiscoverEd.

Updates regarding study spaces in the library and around campus can be found here.

Year representatives

• Year 1: TBC
• Year 2: TBC
• Year 3: TBC
• Year 4/5: TBC
• School: TBC

Other useful links

• Semester dates
• Past papers

2. COVID Resources Edit on GitHub

• Scottish Government - Coronavirus in Scotland
  In general, make sure you are reading sources that are specific to Scotland rather than the UK in general, as sometimes there are different rules for the rest of the UK.
• Further advice for students is hosted on the SAAS website.
• University of Edinburgh - Coronavirus Updates
• Independent SAGE
  Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, constituted of experts from a variety of fields, providing detailed analysis and proposals on the UK COVID response. Accessible and comprehensible public briefings can be found at their YouTube channel, these are broadcast live on Friday lunchtimes, and their website can be referenced for scientific reports and more detailed analysis.

• The Atlantic COVID-19 coverage has been consistently excellent and is free to access.
• Visit Financial Times - Coronavirus tracked for visual data on the coronavirus pandemic, this is free to access.

3. Hybrid Learning Edit on GitHub

This year, the university experience is likely to be different to previous years. The Virtual Social Handbook will provide you with some useful information from students regarding this change. There’s also some guidance from the University.

• Tech & equipment needed for studying in the School of Mathematics – you can borrow a laptop directly from the School, or use the University Laptop Loan Service
• University VPN service
• Getting started with Teams and Zoom, how to participate in Zoom’s breakout rooms and how to manage them
• Virtual Classroom (Blackboard Collaborate)
• Virtual Social Events Cookbook: ideas & tips for hosting events online

4. Self Care Edit on GitHub

Mental health

• Edinburgh Crisis Centre - For mental health emergencies
• Edinburgh Samaritans - A hotline service if you need someone to talk to
• University of Edinburgh resources / services
  • EUSA Advice Place: ask about anything here
  • Nightline: confidential dial in service, 8pm-8am every term night (call, instant message) -- UPDATE Nightline seems to be closed to keep its volunteers safe during the pandemic
  • University Chaplaincy: safe and welcoming service for people of all faiths and none; their Listening Service is available for drop-in chats about hefty topics.
  • Student Counselling: offers 1-1 telephone and email counselling (in light of the pandemic); note that sometimes the waiting list can be quite long -- counselling self referral
  • Long-term mental health issues support: Mental Health Mentors, Student Disability Service

• NHS resources
  • Your GP is a great source of information, feel free to contact them / book an appointment.
  • NHS information on suicide - Information and help about suicidal thoughts

• Mental Health apps / online courses
  • Feeling Good App: app that helps calm the body and mind, and aids recovery from mental distress, via a series of audio tracks. All Edi Uni students have free access to this self-help programme
  • Togetherall: anonymous online community where members can support each other, available 24/7 and monitored by trained clinicians. Click "I'm from a university or college" and then use your university email address when signing up.
  • SilverCloud: free suite of online CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) programmes for anxiety, depression, stress, mindfulness and other mental health topics.

  All three of these apps are NHS-developed and properly regulated.

• Looking after your friends / worried about a friend’s mental health - tips

Physical health

• Gyms
  • Pleasance Sports Centre: 6am to 10pm weekdays, 9am to 8pm weekends
  • PureGym Quartermile: 24 hours

• Beginner’s Fitness
  • SL 5x5: Simple, effective strength routine
  • C25K: Couch to 5K: train for a 5K from nothing in 10 weeks
  • Runkeeper: Track your outdoor runs, plus audio training

• Beginner’s Nutrition / Weight Loss
  • /r/loseit wiki: A good intro to safe, healthy weight loss
  • /r/gainit wiki: A good intro to gaining muscle mass
  • MyFitnessPal: Easily track calories, macros, and exercise

Student life tips

• International Students
  • UKCISA: a great website for ALL aspects of International Student issues, e.g. culture shock, travel, UK traditions, opening a bank account, understanding Students Unions etc.

• Cooking and Food
  • 20 tips for eating well cheaply from the NHS
  • BudgetBytes: Ditch Deliveroo, save money by cooking yourself
  • Brain Food: What to eat when revising
  • The Student Food Project: quick, cheap and easy student recipes
  • 55 ways to save money on food
  • Edinburgh food shopping guide

• Transport
  • 18-25 Railcard: Save 1/3 fare on train tickets for £30/year (for everyone aged 16-25 and mature students in full-time study)
  • Lothian Buses student guide includes important Covid-19 public transport information

• Student Discounts
  • Unidays: Student discounts on just about everything

• A selection of helpful apps for university students

5. Virtual Social Handbook Edit on GitHub

• Technologies and Best Practice
• Societies Information
• Personal Experiences
• Work Life Balance
• Reaching out
• Practice empathy towards your peers
• Complete handbook PDF download
• Virtual Social Events Cookbook PDF download (not in the handbook)

6. Technical Edit on GitHub

\(\LaTeX\)

\(\LaTeX\) is a mathematical typesetting language that is commonly used for producing documents containing mathematical elements (formulae, diagrams, matrices etc.). It will be an invaluable tool, especially later on in your degree when you write things like dissertations or reports, so it’s best if you start learning it early!

• Editors:
  • Overleaf (online editor): through the university you get a professional account which allows you to share documents and work together on documents with other people
  • MacTeX (macOS)
  • MikTeX (Windows)
  • TeX Live (Linux)
• LaTeX for Beginners
• The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX: LaTeX in 139 minutes

R

R is a perhaps the most well-known statistical programming language. It offers many features and packages that allow you to carry out detailed statistical analyses and produce high-quality reports and visualizations. It is used in most of the practical statistics courses offered by the school.

To get started with R, you will need to download two things:

• R, the progamming language itself – you can download this from the R Project website.
• RStudio, an integrated development environment (IDE) where you will write and execute your R programs. You can download this from the RStudio website.

Make sure that the versions of R and RStudio that you install are compatible with each other!

Git / GitHub

Git is a system that allows you to keep better track of different versions of your code. It is not necessary for most mathematics courses, but is a useful way of backing up your code. Through GitHub, you can also showcase any interesting projects to potential employers!

Git and GitHub are extra useful when you are working on large group projects with people collaborating on different parts of code.

To get started, read this introduction blog post by HubSpot.

Also, Better Mathematics runs on a service offered by GitHub, called GitHub Pages. While you don’t need to know much about Git and GitHub to contribute to the website, knowledge of these tools will help if you want to add any cool features.

7. Jobs Edit on GitHub

• MyCareerHub

8. Site Information Edit on GitHub

• This platform drew inspiration from Better Informatics and greatly relied on its source code. It is a project aiming to achieve the same goals, but within the School of Informatics. Without the maintainers and contributors of Better Informatics, none of this would be possible, so we would like to give them a big thanks. The initial development of Better Mathematics was also kindly sponsored as part of the ASID project in the School of Mathematics.
• This site is student authored and maintained, volunteer student contributors are what brings it value.
• Guidelines for contributing to Better Mathematics can be found on the GitHub repository.
• An simple outline of the site and its structure be downloaded.
• A word document containing suggestions of what the site might later contain can be downloaded.