Typically when business leaders are asked what skills that they would like students to have, they always mention, in addition to good mathematical skills, the ability to work in teams and to communicate well.
In the second year module: Operational Research and Monte Carlo Methods, part of the assessment involves a group project on using a package called SIMUL8. The aim of the project was to study passengers trying to buy tickets at a railway station. There were various options, such as the number of cashiers and tickets machines, and the students were asked to investigate ways to minimize the queuing time to buy a ticket. The students worked together in groups of roughly 4.
Today all the different groups made short 15 minute presentations (including 5 minutes of questions) as part of the assessment for this part of the coursework.
The module lead for this course is Dr. Malgorzata Wojtys from the Center of Mathematical Sciences at Plymouth.
