I was approached by my supervisor at the end of 2007 who told me there were more mathematics courses to teach than mathematics lecturers to teach them and so they were looking for postgraduate students willing to take on some part time lecturing. My first degree was in mathematics and so I went along to find out what courses they were trying to fill. When I got there I was told that all the "interesting" courses had been filled and all that was left was Foundation Mathematics and Scientific Mathematics. I am familiar with Foundation courses from a previous job at the University of Nottingham. Students take a Foundation degree, which is roughly A-Level equivalent material and designed to feed into an undergraduate degree course (at Nottingham often in some form of Engineering). Scientific Mathematics was pitched between GCSE and A-Level and I was told the students would be those who have not taken an A-Level in mathematics or who had one from perhaps 10 years ago and needed the refresher.
I was asked if I minded teaching the more basic level Scientific Mathematics. I was told that the remaining course would probably have to be assigned to an academic and that person would be more upset by this if the course they were made to teach was Scientific Mathematics. A bit ominous, but I said I didn't mind. I was given a copy of the course materials and asked to think about it. That night I read through the course. It seemed basic but okay. I was said I was happy to teach this.
A few days later I was talking to another lecturer. I told him I was going to be teaching Scientific Mathematics and he gasped and made the sign of the cross. This didn't bode well!
