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Seeking University Jobs in Mathematics?
NegativeK asks: "I'm currently a high school student, soaking up all of the math I can. Via a state program, the education department pays for my enrollment in a semi-local university, which is allowing me to take four mathematics courses at a time. My question is this: am I chasing a white-elephant? How much does it take to get a job in theoretical mathematics? What does it require to get a stable job in a university to do math research? This also applies to other theoretical positions; how competitive is the workplace in a research university?"
Well I am a junior math major at a not so pristegious university and I would say that I am in the same boat. I posted a topic similar to this on the alt.math newsgroup and I got about 50/50 = "go for it" / "Stick w/ computers and keep math as a hobby"
If I were you I would take a few more classes until I make a lifelong commitment. Math is one of those subjects where the upper division work differs greatly from most of what you see in ugrad/hs.If that hasn't scared you enough then try the AMS Job Search just to see what type of positions seem to be open in your state.
Also (although you seem quite gung ho about theoretical research) keep your mind open about other subjects for your graduate degree. Bioinformatics departments seem to want mathematicians at least here at UCLA. Not to mention if you read in last months issue of AMS's "Notices" (would link but unless you are behind a a school's firewall you can't view it) they have an article about the shortage of Phd's in Math Ed. (which is more cognitive science than math). So, I know where you are comming from. Pure Mathematics is quite a leap of faith but it's one that I am {smart|stupid} enough to take.You said yourself you're trying to soak it all up. So why are you asking about how you can limit yourself?
Archimedes prophetically predicted the fall of the roman empire because they only funded practical mathematics research. The Romans, lacking any theoretical mathematics to base new ideas on, did in fact decline. Their technology had hit a wall, much the same way that we have with unification. The mathematical underpinnings of chaos theory languished as an oddity 50 years after being discovered in a dead mathematician's mother's attic, before being used.
If you think about it, the romans had everything they needed to build steam locomotives. They had advanced road building, knowledge of steam dynamics, the ability to forge pressure vessels and an unrivaled industrial base. What they lacked was vision and the will to do anything that might seem impractical.
Hats off to you and godspeed.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
However, the statistics are a bit pessimistic. About 50% of the applications are pretty wildly unqualified (the extreme example being MS holders applying for a Ph.D. position). If the search is looking for particular expertise and you have it, another 50% of the survivors will get tossed out. Obviously, it's still tough, but not impossible -- especially if (a) you're good at what you do and (b) you persevere.
You can also do research outside universities. In fact, if you don't have a desire to teach, it can be better to avoid academia. Some industrial research labs want mathematicians. There are also pure industry spots: for example, I think Wall Street is quite fond of math right now (though a lot of it might not be research, depending on how you define "research").
A lot of the above applies to other "paper and pencil" disciplines, such as CS theory.
An upcoming bright spot is biology. After centuries of trying to get a handle on a complex topic, the bio folks have finally started to develop models that are tractable with the help of computers. If you develop an interest in that particular sort of math, you might discover that there is huge demand by the time you graduate. The field is hot enough that we've added a new bio/math major.
Above all, though, my advice to all people seeking a career is the same: follow your heart. You're going to be doing it for 40 years or so, and that's a lot easier if you're having fun. Also, getting from high school to a math Ph.D. is going to take around 8 years, maybe more (I took 13, not counting time spent working, but I'm in a time-consuming field). Who knows what the job situation is goinig to look like 8 years from now? Maybe Enron Jr. will be hiring all the mathematicians it can get its hands on to develop models of how to scam the energy market. :-)
I think CS could have been great, but the cheaters completely destroyed it for me.
Most universities expanded dramatically in the 60s... that faculty is retiring over the next five years. Many mathematics departments are losing 40% of their faculty within a five year window.
Jobs are going to be available.
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I have a beautiful proof but it will not fit in this comment.
John Carmack fan, browsing at +5 since 1999.
I got a PhD in (Pure) Maths at Brown in 1997 and I got a tenured position (in Europe, though) 2 years ago, so I suppose I'm qualified to say something: if you like the idea, definitevely go for it!
The market is really, really, really cyclic: there are years when Harvard graduates with decent teaching experience cannot get a job (like the end of the 90's) and there are years when it's difficult to find decent candidates.
Here in Europe it's easier since the cycles are different in each country, so people move around.
If you want to stay in the US (which I didn't, BTW), I'd advise you to get a MSc in Computer Science while working towards your PhD: at least at Brown (but I suppose this is common), you may do that for free. In this way, if the job market is really bad, you can always find a decent (and so much better paid) job: a good part of my colleagues did so, and many ended up getting a job in the real world.
Feel free to write me if you want to ask some more.
If you can show a breadth of research in your field, you'll boost your chances. I saw the review process when we hired faculty. Most applicants had one research idea, which had been fed to them by their advisor. The best applicants had several viable (fundable) research ideas to pursue.
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High School: Very high GPA, Very high SATs, Very good letters of recommendation, so that you can...
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Get into a college/university with an excellent undergraduate math program. Then, get very high GPA, Very high GREs, and three letters of recommendation from faculty with PhDs, so that you can...
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Get into a university with an excellent graduate math program. Ignore the university's overall reputation; go solely with the department's reputation. Math isn't my area, so I can't give a recommendation. However, some departments in the really prestigious schools suck. Some departments in somewhat obscure state schools trounce the Ivies. Get solid advice. Then, get publications. The more pubs the better. Do an outstanding dissertation in a reasonable amount of time. Get excellent letters. Then...
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Get a job. I like to tell our recent PhDs that once they get a job, all they have to do to keep it is to do 2 dissertations per year plus bring in money plus teach! There will be several hundred applicants for each job. Post doc experience can help. Then publish, publish, publish, get grants, get grants, get grants. Teaching is secondary. In many places, reverse the order: grants count more than pubs. Some places are even specifying how much in grant money you must bring in.
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Get tenure. Tenure is all or none: if you get it, life is good and it is why people put up with all the crap above and the below-industry salary and the outdated infrastructure and the administration. If you don't get it, you are a failure and will find it hard to get any other job in academia.
If you like doing your own research, you cannot beat a tenured faculty position. If you don't mind someone else telling you the general research area, then go into industry.Our experience is that getting jobs with a math degree is not that difficult (if you look hard).
Each of the 20-30 Ph.D. graduates from our department (http://www.math.twsu.edu) has received a job; about half were in industry and half received tenure-track positions. Although our university is not as well known as many others, our Ph.D.s have tenure-track (or tenured) positions at Georgetown University, the University of Arizona, Middle Tennessee State University, Georgia Southern University (?), etc. One of our (1996) Ph.D.s is a vice president at a private company ($20 billion(?) annual revenue) based here. Other of our Ph.D.s work in industry in Boston, Alabama, etc.
Our Masters and BA/BS students also are doing well, working at universities, for insurance or reinsurance companies, the aviation industry, software companies, etc. One of my undergraduate students attended a NSF R.E.U. at Cornell, wrote papers with faculty at Cornell and with me; he graduated last May, got a job in KC, "reinvented" the job so he can do math and programming, and may make a substantial contribution to his employer. His long term plans may include earning a Ph.D. in math.
The reputation of the university is important, but a student's effort and ability is much more important. I think the future is bright if you work hard, have ability, learn as much as possible about computers/software, look for opportunities (e.g. REUs, postDoc positions at Cal Tech, Stanford, Brown, etc.), considering earning an additional degree (e.g. EE) while completing your Ph.D. in math, etc.
PS A lot of university math faculty will retire in the "near" future. We are trying to fill three junior/senior positions right now. (I hope the state does not run out of money.)
is get a job as a mathematician. I speak from experience. I graduated Magna Cum Laude with distinction in 2000 from Boston University with a degree in mathematics (I also received the College Prize in mathematics.) Further, I was awarded a full scholarship to Brown University to study mathematics as a Phd student.
I attended Brown for a semester, and had to leave.
(I had grown weary of certain distasteful aspects of the field, and subsequently could not commit to the level of effort required of a grad student. It's a shame really, because I understood most of the material and it was truly beautiful.)
Mathematics is an intensely rigorous, very narrow-minded and extraordinarily challenging field. It is also extremely isolating, and highly distancing. At the same time is in incredibly fascinating and richly (intellectually) rewarding.
However the job outlook for mathematicians is not good last I looked. Old faculty have been "about to retire" for the better part of a decade and only in very recent years has there been anything like a good year for academic hiring. Both BU and Brown (which are both considered Tier 1 Private Universities for mathematics by the AMS last time I checked) had several extremely talented grad students who were on repeated post docs because they couldn't find positions at other universities.
I won't go into my personal philosophical differences with how mathematical research is done today, as that would be more biased than the above diatribe, but I will tell you what is right with the field. First off, given the above, the field generally rewards extremely talented and diligent members of its community. If you work very hard and are incredibly brilliant then the job market (more than likely) won't matter. (this is of course, assuming you can avoid getting embroiled in the math.) In my personal experience talent can even get you past the politics. (I've seen professors express loathing for certain other faculty but at the same time give them respect for the quality of their work.)
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you truly love the field and if the people around you (your teachers and mentors) think you have what it takes then go for it. The worst case scenario is that you end up with an undergrad degree in mathematics and have to go get a job. Math students are very highly prized in the technical job market as they have excellent thinking, reasoning and analytical skills. They also tend to be ruthlessly efficient. (okay, that last bit was blatant self-promotion, shoot me.)
But you're just a high-school student. I don't mean to belittle you with that, but to devote your career to academics at this point is a bit early. Certainly, get your degree in math if that's what you love. Go to grad school in math and then you'll start to get the flavor of what life is like in academics. You'll also (hopefully) learn about the job market there.
Yes, you probably can stay in academics all your life. You might not like it, though. You might have to do research in areas you aren't interested in; for part of your career you might have very little time to do anything but teach (while at the same time you really also have to be publishing!). You'll almost certainly be looking at moving around a lot, first to grad school, then to a series of postdocs at different institutions, then start moving up the ranks towards tenure (which often involves moving sideways to other institutions, too.) If you love travel and not settling down, it's great. If you're looking for stability, it may not be for you.
You'll also be able to go into many industries or branch out into some other area. Mathematicians are in demand in a number of different areas (some of which you may not enjoy, though.)
Don't box yourself in at this point. In fact, it's hard to box yourself in until grad school. So do what you enjoy, discover new things, have fun!
I figured I'd chime in with my two cents worth since not too long ago I found myself in exactly the same spot as you. I loved mathematics but was very skeptical about being able to make a living doing pure math. Heres what I did:
;) ). I enjoyed TCS so much, in fact, that I ended up doing my Ph.D. in computer science and not mathematics.
;) ).
As an undergraduate I double-majored in pure math and computer science. I took every theoretical computer science course I could get my hands on and by my 3rd/4th year of undergrad I was pretty much doing exclusively math. Yes, 2nd year specifically involved suffering through many 'coding' courses, but in the long run this isn't such a bad thing. A computer is a wonderful tool for a mathematician and knowing how to program one well is actually a very desirable skill (note, I still hated the programming classes
Don't let anyone fool you... theoretical computer science *is* math; and to be honest, its math that I found more interesting than any of my 'pure math' courses. As far as courses, on the math side I took as many abstract algebra courses as I could and on the CS side I focused on automata theory and formal languages (with a good helping of recursive function theory and semantics).
There were a number of posters above who mentioned mathematical biology and bioinformatics. For me, anyway, this was bang on the target. There is a huge need for competent mathematicians who are willing to learn a little bit about biology. We are at the point where biology is beginning the transition from a qualitative to a quantative science and we *need* good models.
Again, don't be fooled into thinking you have to do applied math. Sure, coming up with a model is 'applied' in some sense, but once you have the model you get to investigate it and try to prove properties that you think it has (e.g. recent work involved showing that the gene-descrambling process in hyptochious ciliates is computationally universal. Proving that is fun mathematics).
And of course, once you get a job and a grant, theres nothing preventing you from also researching other topics too (my 'academic hobby' is foundations of mathematics... but you don't get too many grants for that
Job prospects in Computer Science (academically speaking) are good right now; though its certainly tougher as a theoretician than, say, a software engineer. But, if you can market yourself correctly, I think its easier than pure math.
I hope that stream-of-conciousness rambling was of some value to you.
He ended up working for the NSA.
I hear from friends of friends that he hates it.
So what is the moral of this story? The great thing about college is that you get to explore a variety of subjects. Since you will obviously already have college credit going in that will give you that much more freedom to explore. Take classes in CS, engineering, art, dance, whatever. Take CS theory classes rather than programming courses. You might find that you really like it.
As far as what school to go to (it is probably too late for this if you are a senior) I would suggest being an average sized fish in a big pond rather than the big fish in a little pond. The great thing about going to a prestigious university isn't that you get a diploma from such and such U. The great thing is the people that will surround you. I learned more from my peers than from my professors. Living in the dorms was amazing, both my wife and I wish we could go back in many ways. I would not have had the same experience going to the local commuter school, regardless of how good it is.
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This is nonsense. The steam engine is a classic example of a major technology advance made by people being practical, not people doing theoretical research. The Romans could have developed steam locamotives, but they never got past an open steam engine which is little more than a toy.
As for the "collapse" of the Roman Empire, that's Western conceit. For various reasons the core of the RE moved from Rome to Constantinople/Istanbul (think of the relative importance of New York and Los Angeles in 1900 and 2000 - now multiply that a thousandfold since the US doesn't have an emperor) and the RE made an economic decision to reduce troop strength in the western provinces. At the same time, it was extremely difficult to see any difference between the "Romans" and the "barbarians" in the border areas. By the time Rome was sacked, IIRC the Western and Eastern Roman Empires were essentially separate entities.
The Eastern Roman Empire became the Byzantine Empire, which lasted until the 15th Century, and some people see a continuous track until the 19th Century.
The Western Roman Empire "collapsed," but it would have made little difference to most people living at the time. I have some friends who argue that the subsequent dark ages were due to the spread of Christianity and its hostility to pagan ideas (including all of the culture of Greece and Rome), not the collapse of the WRE.
Closing the loop, Europe escaped the dark ages after some people were accepted at Islamic universities (in Spain, IIRC). By this time, the Byzantine Empire/Eastern Roman Empire would have converted from Christianity to Islam.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If you really love mathematics, then go ahead and study it.
But take a few other courses (eg, CS, engineering).
In my experience, it's insufficient to be in the top 1% of mathematical ability to succeed in pure mathematics as a career. As a high school student, I was in that group.
But to succeed, the requirements are more like being in the top 0.01% of ability (finishing the Putnam with a rank described on one hand).
Of course, you run a higher than average risk of being too eccentric to adapt to conventional society. As I remember, my math profs tended to be out on the edge of the Gaussian in more ways than one.
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I've worked with a lot of other people's code over the years, and I've noticed the people without solid math backgrounds (e.g., self-taught hackers, and grads of CS programs without a strong math component) tend to write code that is less organized, harder to debug, and less reusable than the code written by those with strong math backgrounds. You don't have to know a lot of math to write code that works (in most applications) but having what academic mathematicians call "mathematical maturity" will almost certainly make you a better and more elegant coder.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I've heard that a certain government agency is always hiring math freaks. I've also heard that they are the largest employer of math freaks in the world.
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Even the strongest students there had trouble getting jobs in academia. Those that did were all excellent teachers and got jobs at liberal arts colleges.
Starting grad school in the early '90s, I was told that it was a good time to do so - although there weren't too many jobs at the time, there would be waves of faculty retiring around when I was finishing, opening up plenty of jobs.
There were two reasons those jobs didn't materialize. The first is that departments were cutting budgets and tenured positions, replacing them with lecturer jobs. The second was that there was a wave of highly trained mathematicians from the Former Soviet Union who were snapped up into many research positions at bargain rates.
I remember the graduating students in my department applying to hundreds of jobs, and open positions in turn receiving hundreds of applications. It was brutal.
Is there anyone in the math world now who knows how it compares now to 5 or 6 years ago?
You are absolutely right.
You may also accept that all of Rome's and the WRE's problems potentially had technological solutions.
Imagine steam locomotives. Troop strength ceases to be a problem because they could move all their troops where they were needed in timeframes that would stun the barbarians attacking them. The massive corruption of Rome would be mitigated by the plenty provided by improved logistics.
"Europe escaped the dark ages after some people were accepted at Islamic universities"
So, the Roman Empire did not collapse, but Arabic universities brought the people who would have been considered to be inside the borders of the Roman Empire out of the dark ages...
Lack of a theoretical mathematic foundation caused the people that inhabited the area considered to be the Roman Empire to experience a sharp drop in their standard of living, the dark ages, and were brought out of the dark ages by the re-introduction of theoretical math, and with it the technologies that improve standard of living.
Yes, you are absolutely right, but you have failed to look at it in any way other than by wrote. It may serve you well to introduce some "what if" variables into the history you have memorized to see if you can deduce the actual causality of historical events.
For instance, a baby deprived of mother's milk will surely die of starvation. You would say, the baby starved to death, and you would be right. I would say the baby died of neglect, and that even if fed, would die for lack of its mother's love. You are right but you have not addressed the causality of the situation.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Depending on how theoretical/practical you want to be there are A LOT of great paying jobs in the field of cryptanalysis/cryptography/etc. that take people with a bent towards mathematics and computers.
I know how to implement crypto systems, however I have leaned heavily on a co-worker that has a Ph. D. in mathematics to do the proving stuff that shows why you can't break the system, and to explain to me 3/4 years ago why WEP was bad...
Hrm, it's not like mathematics is developed in a vacuum. Much of it has in fact been developed as a solution to a problem in, say, physics. Newton, for example, developed much of the early theory of differential calculus to express his ideas in classical mechanics. Fourier developed fourier analysis to study problems in, iirc, heat conduction. Etc. etc. Of course, there are also plenty of examples where a field of pure mathematics thought of as little use in the real world suddenly finds some interresting applications. For example group theory and abstract algebra in quantum mechanics.
And about steam locomotives, as the previous poster claimed, no amount of theoretical mathematics is going to build you a locomotive. Steam locomotives were mainly developed with the simple knowledge that if you boil water you get pressurized steam. And a lot of good ol' engineering (i.e. trial and error, and using what worked previously). Add to this that the romans were unable to produce steel in sufficient quantity and quality (it takes a lot of steel to produce trains and a railroad network, you know!), they probably new little about lubrication of the mechanical parts (I think they used some kind of grease produced from animals to lubricate their wagons and other things. Clearly this is not enough for a locomotive). Etc. Even today, modeling something like a steam locomotive is a very non-trivial problem. Depending of course on what you want to know. Material properties? Check out solid state physics, definitely 20th century stuff. Steam dynamics? Navier-Stokes equations for fluid mechanics have been known for quite a while, but solving them for your locomotive entails solving a non-linear partial differential equation in a very complicated domain. If the previous statement doesn't raise the hairs on the back of your neck, attend some course entitled something like "advanced numerical methods for partial differential equations" to get some insight into the theory. And then get a supercomputer to actually solve the problem. In short: Waaay out of the league of the romans, theoretical mathematics of not.
Of course you might argue that mathematics has allowed us all these kinds of stuff. Well, yes, but as I said in the first paragraph, mathematics is not developed in a vacuum.
A vacuum is exactly what Rome provided or at least that's what Archimedes said. Archimedes was one of the people who understood steam dynamics. I may be completely wrong, but I belive he was the first true mechanical engineer with a strong math foundation. Perhaps that honor should go to Imhotep.
:)
Please grant that without theoretical math, there are no technological advances. Grant that Archimedes had enough knowlegde to at least experiment with steam power. Grant that Rome had the industrial power to provide Paullinus with an army that sailed to briton with 10,000 soldiers, all equiped, at a minimum, with a three pound bronze drusus to defeat a rebelion of 80,000 rebellious Britons.
Bronze is certainly not the Ideal substance to build a locomotive with but it would not be impossible.
A chariot from about 1400 B.C. was found in the tomb of Yuaa and Thuiu, along with traces of the original lubricant, mineral oil, on the axle.
Tribology, the study of lubricants, is an ancient greek word.
The first locomotive rails were made of wood capped with copper, then later iron.
And if it takes a supercomputer to build a locomotive, Babbage must have gotten a lot farther than I had thought
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Seriously. The worst thing you can do at your age is say "I am only interested in X, all my life shall be X, and yea verily it is good." College is a time of experimentation (yes yes, wine women and song, but I mean specifically in terms of fields of study). Math is a great tool in tons of other fields, so you should at least dabble in a few other fields of study while you're an undergrad. You never know, you might end up developing a love for physics or the philosophy of formal logic. My math skills are nothing to brag about, but I'm really happy as a computational chemist[1] to have linear algebra, for example. (Actually that's what I was doing in academia, right now I'm "slumming" as a programmer.) My ex-roommate got a BSc math and just went to grad school in south africa taking a curricula in applied oceanography. You might even pull an Escher and become an artist. So when you're 17 or 18, don't be rigid about your path in life. Heck, when you're 30 don't be that way. Life is full of possibilities...
On an IMHO level: making a living as an academic is hard. The pure pursuit of knowledge is great, and vital in the long run, but sometimes it's hard to pay the bills, you know? So, again IMHO, you might be better off finding a career that uses a lot of math but in an applied setting (like as a scientific programmer in the pharmaceutical industry, lots of interesting code, fair bit of math, and you might indirectly be saving lives with every line of code you write).
[1] many jokes about "chemist math", the dirty secret of most chemists is that we all suck balls at anything more complex than a partial derivative. except for the physical chemists, but they all wear black and mope in the corner... ;-)
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Try it and see if you are good at math. At least here in Germany (and I think it's the same in other countries), if you have a university degree in mathematics, you can get a decent job in the industry pretty easily, no matter on what aspect of mathematics you have focused on at the university. This fallback option makes aiming at a career in theoretical mathematics less risky than it appears initially.
Sliced the other way, (i.e. what will make you happy?), here's my more detailed story. I got an Sc.B in Theoretical math in 1997. About 1995, (end of my sophomore year), I realized that, although I was quite smart, and at an Ivy, in the top 20 for math, essentially, I wasn't going to be able to make it in the math academia world. This was not obvious to me in high school, (and I did some reasonably heavy math in high school through the UMTYMP program in Minnesota) but was obvious after meeting a few ultra-smart classmates, and talking to some professors.
Listen to those people who are telling you that you need to be at least in the top .01% (That's .0001 of people) to really make it as a mathematical academician. You might be one of those people; if so, it will probably be really clear to you sometime in college. If not, don't worry. For myself, I realized some portion of my brain was motivated by, and interested in money.
So, I ended up starting a company. I'm much happier than I would be struggling to get a job at a liberal arts college doing a teaching position for a job that I'm only 80% good at.
I just wanted to say thanks to all that provided helpful information. =) Through the gathered knowledge, I believe that I'll continue with math in mind, take a few CS classes, and keep with my study of particle physics for the heck of it (all subject to change.) =D Again, thanks for your input.
This statement is false.