Contents and Welcome

Welcome to the Graduate Impact edition of the MSOR newsletter. I hope that you find the articles both informative and thought provoking. There is no doubt that the student voice will become stronger as we move forward and the Network Student Engagement Day reported here will hopefully be a starting point for exploring what this might mean for the MSOR community. We are delighted to be able to publish the winning essays from our recent student competition “when studying mathematics my biggest surprise was...” I am sure you will agree that both John Power and Annabelle Harris deserve their prizes of £300 and £100 respectively and I would like to thank them and the other students who submitted entries. I was very taken by the covering email accompanying one entry which said “I actually enjoyed writing it!” In the previous edition of Connections I outlined how the changes in the Higher Education Academy will impact on the MSOR Network. We have since heard that the Network has been successful in obtaining further transition funding which will allow us to deliver limited activities beyond 31 July 2011. These include two more editions of Connections (October and December). These are expected to focus, but not exclusively, on the work of Mathematical Sciences HE Innovation Project hosted by the Network and outcomes from the September CETL-MSOR Conference ‘Preparing for Student Led Education’. As always, other submissions for inclusion in these editions will be welcomed. Dagmar Waller Assistant Director