Question: what grades are required for a good career in maths? Thanks!

Andrew Harrison answered on 11 Jan 2020:

I got straight As at O level and A level in Maths but struggled in my degree and scraped by with a 2:2 – I failed the course that has ended up being the foundation of my career for the last 29 years and the thing that I love: optimisation.

Good grades help but it’s more about passion and perseverance. It’s about looking at a problem as a puzzle that you want to solve then being really, really excited when after hours, days, weeks, months of trying you final solve it.

When I was 12 my Dad came home from work with a puzzle and challenged me to solve it. I tried for weeks but I couldn’t solve it. 15 years later, in my PhD, I was introduced to graph theory and the proof that my Dad’s puzzle couldn’t be solved – he’d got it wrong. That was such a cool moment and the proof was so simple!