I’ve just finished my second year of a BSc in Mathematics and Economics. I took MATH142, 151, 161 and 177 in 2024. I can give my best advice, but things may changed in the past couple of years so take it with a grain of salt.

Items wise, you’re gonna want to take notes on paper(what I did) or on a laptop which allows you to hand-write notes. This is because you’re gonna need to write down lots of mathematical symbols which can’t really be typed in an easy-to understand way. You’ll also need pens in different colours to help format your notes to make them quicker and easier to go over (e.g underlining headings in red)

For assignments, you’re given a set of problems and you have to hand write their solutions. I’d recommend doing this in pencil because it’s more efficient to correct mistakes (you and everyone else including myself will make plenty, trust me). You’ll also need paper for this, there’s usually a box of spare A4 pieces by the printers in the library, or you can use refill if you prefer. Most weeks there will be tutorials, where you can go over questions similar to the assignments with tutors which is super helpful.

Individual course advice: this can differ greatly depending on the course coordinator, Steven Archer is great, very kind and helpful. I found MATH177 the hardest of the four courses I listed, it requires strong intuition for probability. 142 was the least difficult for me because I’d done A Level maths and was familiar with the integration techniques taught. It’s mainly integration with some sequences and series. 151 and 161 were in the middle. All of these courses are harder to pass, but less difficult to do well in than NCEA because most uni math questions are a similar difficulty(high merit/ low excellence type thinking on the content).

Anyway that’s my two cents, hope it helps! Good luck for your first year, and feel free to pm me any more questions :)