On Wednesday morning, thirteen girls were set for the historic city of Oxford to participate in the University’s annual It All Adds Up conference. Designed to encourage female and non-binary students to explore maths in higher education, the day took place in Oxford’s Mathematical Institute, the Andrew Wiles building, just beside the renowned Radcliffe Observatory.

Packed with conundrums, plenaries, and inspiring insights into maths at degree-level, students were also presented the opportunity to ask questions to current Oxford Undergraduates in a panel Q&A. A variety of talks were given by distinguished lecturers, and we were immersed in the endless applications of mathematics, ranging from routing aeroplanes to predicting crime. Many students describe one of the highlights of their day as the Hands-on-Maths session, where challenging problems from Oxford’s Maths Admission Test (MAT) were presented to us to work at with guidance from undergraduates.

Taking a closer look at some opinions from the Gordon’s staff and students who went, Sarah describes the event as, “the most fun maths gets” whilst Suhana was left “completely inspired by the lecturers.”

Mr Eaden particularly admired the “huge whiteboards in the lecture theatres” and describes “seeing a solution to a maths problem that spans as many as 9 or 10 boards is almost a work of art!”

As a student who attended the conference, what stood out to me most was our closing plenary by Dr Nikoleta Kalaydzhieva. We discovered incredible female mathematicians pushing frontiers in a variety of fields. From modelling cancers in biomedicine to uncovering art fraud using wavelets, we were certainly enlightened on the breadth of mathematics throughout our day at Oxford.

Equally exciting was the workshop on Functions and graphs. It was a session very different from regular classroom lessons, and encouraged students to explore patterns, ask questions, and collaborate in groups in an interactive, hands-on manner.

Overall, It All Adds Up was certainly a memorable day of challenge, inspiration, and fun. We were left feeling more excited to explore maths at higher study, and perhaps even at the University of Oxford.

• Jasmine