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What Jobs are Available for Math Majors?
Asmor asks: "I'm currently a CS major/math minor in college, who's strongly considering a role reversal. I like working with computers as a hobby, but I'm not so sure it's what I'd want to do for a living. On the other hand, I love math, especially in its pure and abstract forms. I would like to get a doctorate some day, but ideally I'd like to find a job as soon as I get my bachelor's. I've expressed this interest to important people in my life (like my parents and such) and the general consensus is that there aren't any jobs for math majors. I can't really disagree. Aside from teaching it, something I'm not sure I'd want to do, I can't think of any jobs for math majors. So, what options are out there for me if I did decide to switch? Would my future consist of high school math classes? Also, how much work is involved?"
I have a math major friend who is also a religion major... hope this gets some good responses cuz maybe he needs something to fall back on someday...
Having a math degree basically opens a lot of engineering jobs to you. Maybe a job as an engineer with NASA? Google? Any large tech firm you want? Since you will have a major/minor in Comp Sci, more doors will open for you.
But only if you're REALLY good at math. I'm told that the exam is a extremely difficult.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I took an Intermediate Calculus course this Spring as an elective, and I was the only non-Math major in the room (I'm Computer Science)... I asked around and I'd say 99% of the people in that class planned on getting a teaching certificate to become grade school math teachers.
I suppose the other 1% goes on to get a Masters and PhD in Math and stays at the University forever.
"Would you like fries with that? By the way, I'm just doing this job to pay the bills. I have a number of leads on professorships. Uh, the ketchup is behind you. Did I tell you I have a Ph.D.? Er, we're out of the red clown toys in the kid's meals. But I could calculate the approximate centroid region of one, if you want!"
Many I've seen lately seem to be going towards advanced programming (algorithm development, protocol development, etc) fields...
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1. McDonalds Fry Cook 2. Math Teacher 3. ???
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I was in the same boat as you, liking the things that dreams are made of rather than the things that jobs are made of. My choices were to either keep learning or start teaching, though yours may be different.
Quite a few people end up making a living doing something not directly related to their major. Some who get post-graduate degrees get them in something different than what they got a B.S. or B.A. in & then start a career which is yet again different. So, your options are open. Common choices other than academia are investment banking or some other field of applied mathematics.
If you eventually want a Ph.D., why not get it now? You're used to a low standard of living & may be paid a meager wage to get your degree & you won't be interrupting your career path.
If you don't really want a Ph.D., figure out what it is you like to do day-in and day-out & do that.
Don't laugh. Larry Niven's degree is in math with a psych minor. The way he tells it (and he should know) is that he spent two years taking required clases and whatever looked interesting then worked out a major that would fit.
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I'm a high school teacher, but there are plently of community colleges in the same fix (I do them part time on occasion as well). I know the community colleges around here allow their teachers to also work tech if they desire. This way, they can keep their skills sharp and up to date.
I'm starting college at the end of August as a Math/CS double major. I am planning on using the CS degree as my main money maker but the Math degree will make me much more marketable after I graduate and I will be more likely to get a higher starting salary. So Double Majoring is what I suggest, but that's not for everyone...
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
...at least, that's what my favorite math major does with all those 1337 calculus skillz.
faithful unto death
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symbolic mathmatics and computers.
There is a lot of demand for applied mathematician in the financial service field. Investment analysist, economist, and statisticians are just to name a few. I find it unfilling personally but there is a lot a money in it. I suggest you go career builder or some other job website and see for yourself. Physics and engineering majors are also welcomed.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
No seriously. The gaming industry (in particular gaming machine manufacturers, i.e. slot machines) requires people good with statistics skills to determine if a new game idea is valid (read: will make them money over time). It may not be the most glamorous work, but it's necessary.
Another job one of my math professors in college had was essentially data analysis for a mining company. They would place sensors in the ground and take some sort of reading, returning a huge amount of data that needed to be analyzed. The analysis was done through various mathematical models that I have only the vaguest understanding of.
My best suggestion if you're worried about this stuff: talk to your professors. I would guess that at least a few of them have held jobs outside academia and could give you an idea of where you could work. Hopefully this at least gives you a place to start looking.
Some quick googleing turned up this:
http://www.sbuniv.edu/~khopkins/mathdo.html
which, for those too lazy to read the link, lists actuaries, academic work, cryptologists, statisticians, operations research, and enegineering fields as among the top fields for math majors.
Search back issues of the Wall Street Journal. A few months back (March-to-May timeframe I think) there was a front-page article (might have been on the front page of section B or C) that mentioned a specific teacher, a specific statistical class, and the 6-figure incomes that graduates of this class got in Wall Street finance firms. Basic subject of the class was how to calculate the value of each part of a transaction and figure out the risk/reward for it as an investment. Derivitives and how to calculate them are big now, it is what Hedge Funds are doing.
I've found with my applied math masters that I had a lot of opportunities for data analysis. This includes all sorts of database applications, from economics to finance to integer programming etc...
My dad has a BA in math. When he graduated from college, he says he was offered a job figuring out flight paths of missiles. That's not what he ended up doing, but apparently that's something you could do with a degree in math. Although nowadays with computing power as available as it is and since the end of the Cold War, I suppose that those jobs are far less plentiful.
In my line of work -- military space -- we use Math PhDs to solve relatively hard problems in antenna calibration and orbital mechanics. Not that they're all that hard, but whose who wear ties like the certitude of the solutions coming from someone with a doctorate. I imagine there are similar opportunities in civillian space.
I would suggest asking some of your math/CS profs, or if your campus has an internship-finding type place, going there as well. People who have already graduated with these degrees are another resource. These types of people are ones who either have experience or exist in and around these fields, so they should be able to give you some pointers.
As for my advice to you, well I'm a CS major, so I've taken some math classes and I'm also looking for career ideas. I get the impression that one area math majors get jobs is pretty much anywhere in high tech. If you like computers, a math person could develop equations and stuff that model real-world phenomena and implement this into a program. For example, a math prof at another local school came to ours and gave a talk on what type of math is used in photo editing programs (Photoshop filters, etc). Similar types of work can be found in pretty much all the sciences, even things like economics or psychology. Poke around and find stuff that you might be interested in.
The other point I want to make is this: don't constrain yourself to "my major". There are many jobs in related and unrelated fields that you no doubt can do well in, as long as you have passion for them. I know a guy who majored in music performance but works as a programmer. Many writers were not English majors. Sure, you might not get hired if you're applying for some specific, technical position, but that doesn't mean you have to stick to what you studied in school.
Jeez how old are you?
Do the Math Major/Compu Sci minor. If you're good enough to get a Phd then the problem of getting a job after your BSc will be trivial. With a Math major no decent software company will care. Likewise most financial companies will snap you up.
Are all college kids this dumb in the US?
Here a few possibilties
1. Actuarial Science
Lots of probability and statistics if that's your thing. I've heard the qualification exams are pretty tough, and since you haven't really devoted study to it as an undergrad, you'd have to get some graduate education before you could even hope for a job.
2. Biostatistics (and other things like this)
Again, this would require some more education, but there's a good chance of you getting a job. Biological research is only going to continue to grow, and there's always room for someone to do the important mathematics.
3. Computer Science
I'm sure other people will point this kind of thing out, but places like Google, etc. definitely don't mind having mathematicians with CS background for things like algorithm development and the like.
4. Mathematics
Stick with it and get your PhD in pure (or applied) mathematics. Get a post-doc, and then a professorship, and enjoy a rewarding (intellectually) life in academia. If you really love it, this is a great way to go.
I think the main theme of this post is probably that the best way to ensure that you get a job (that does not involve teaching minors) is to keep going in your education. That is not to say that you can't get a job with a BS, but I think you'll find there's a lot more open to you in today's world with at least an MS.
...it might not be very useful in itself, but it can fruitfully combined with almost anything. So a combination of maths and something applied is a very good idea. So lots of mathematics with some computer science is a very good idea - probably better than the other way around, from a advanced jobhunting point of view. The specifics of various algorithms and development environments are easy to pick up later, while the a proper mathematical background had better be there from the start.
If you have time over, try to throw in some other random sciences as well - a bit of physics? Some neuroscience? A short course in geology? Broadening your view is always useful.
That you don't want to work with computers is a problem, as that is what you will end up doing in virtually any science or engineering position. So get over it.
Further, I agree with above poster that if you're thinking about getting a PhD you should not wait too long. Getting used to having a proper salary is a major demotivator. So take maximum a year out of university.
First, my credentials: I did a dual major in Math and CS. I went to school planning on getting the CS degree, but, like you, I enjoyed the math so much that I ended up with two majors. Actually, I ended up with all of a CS major and 1.5 times as many math credits as I needed for that major. I also seriously thought about going on for an MS and PhD in math, but decided I wanted to take a break for a while and get a job.
Well, I got the job, and a wife, and kids, and while I don't regret any of how my life has gone, and wouldn't change it a bit, I'll tell you that if you're really serious about getting the post graduate degrees, do it now, don't wait. If you wait, odds are very good that you'll never get the other degrees. My math professors told me that back then, and I didn't believe them, but I now know just how right they were. You can even get married while still going to school, if you want, and I even know people who've finished their doctorate with a couple of kids, but they were smart enough not to stop going to school.
As for what kinds of jobs you can get with a math degree, there are lots, actually. A BS in math won't get you a "math job" (except as a schoolteacher), but it can certainly help you get lots of jobs that have an element of math in them. For example, if hiring a programmer, I'd generally hire a math major with a CS background over a CS major. In general, people look at a resume that mentions a math degree and automatically assume that you must be a bit smarter than the other resumes in the pile. So if you enjoy the math, you might as well do it, because it's never going to hurt you.
If you want a job where mathematics is the primary focus of your job, though, you really have to go on and get at least a master's degree. With that in hand, there are lots of engineering and research organizations that need someone with serious math skills. The best area of mathematics to pursue to for employability is almost certainly statistics. With a little additional effort you can become a certified actuary, for example.
A Ph.D. will get you into a lot of the same positions as an M.S., plus it's pretty much a requirement if you want to teach math at a university. Be warned, though... those math faculty positions can be hard to get. A good friend of mine is the chair of the math department at a local state university and every position they advertise nets them 200-300 resumes, many of them from very competent people. From what I hear, if you don't have anything seriously wrong with you that makes you unhirable, you will be able to get a job teaching math, but it might take a couple of years, and you'll have to be willing to live wherever the job is.
If math is what you really enjoy, though, I'd focus less on the job prospects and more on doing what you like. You'll be happier, even if you don't make as much money.
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I was rather like you when I was in undergrad (in the late 90's). I started out as a Math major (Operations Research) which required certain CS classes. As I learned more about CS, I found that there is a very rich mathematical basis for Computer Science -- from the theories of computation to graphics to algorithm analysis. Almost any serious PhD in CS involves a heavy dose of mathematics in one form or another. Think of it as applied mathematics, in a geeky twisted way :)
:)
Part of what I'm saying is that you can do CS and not end up as a programmer, per se.
The other half of the equation is that there *are* significant (well-paying) jobs for mathematicians. Now, I doubt that you'd want to (or could) seriously pursue any of them with just a BS, but a PhD need not be a requirement. My S/O's employer has several math/statistics majors on staff who perform marketing analysis, trending, etc... some of it rather high-powered stuff. If you look into the Actuarial or Operations Research fields (if that floats your boat), there are awesome opportunities.
Whatever direction you choose, I strongly encourage you to go past a BS -- at least stay in school through an MS program. For one thing, it opens more doors down the road (I've gotten at least two jobs partially because I have an MS/CS). More importantly though, IMHO, it makes you a better professional; you learn a heck of a lot more in grad school than in undergrad -- at least that was my experience. You study your subject in far more depth and with far more rigor than in undergrad and you're treated more like a colleague than a student. It's an awesome experience, particularly if your're more of the geeky theoretical type
Whatever you do, make sure you enjoy it. Of course, you can always go back and get a second degree in underwater basket weaving or Anthropology, but it's a heck of a lot easier to get it right the first time. The sooner you identify a career path (at least vaguely), the better choices you can make in courses, internships, research focus, etc.
Good luck to you!
Go to Wall Street, make money, then do whatever you want.
Of the best people we had on our DARPA Grand Challenge team, one is runnning a hedge fund in Santa Fe, and one is working on derivatives for a Wall Street firm.
I have a background in science and was awarded a teaching fellowship for science and math professionals that wanted to make a mid-life switch to teaching. School systems (especially in disadvantaged areas) are in desperate for math and science teachers. I am sure you could easily find a program that would allow you to quickly get certified while you taught.
That being said, teaching was the hardest job I have ever tried to do. Maybe if I hadn't been in a completely under-funded urban district or hadn't been teaching 5 different types of science classes it would have been different. As it was, to prevent the students from rioting you had to keep them engaged in something meaningful at all times. Since the district I was in had no resources, I was inventing my lessons as I went. For example, their were not enough text books for the students to each have one in a single class, much less take home to do homework out of. I didn't have teachers manuals. If I didn't create worksheets my students couldn't do homework. I got up at 5am and didn't make it back home till 7pm most nights. I would stay up till midnight creating my lesson plans for the next day while my husband helped me grade papers. I was so busy that I forgot to eat. I lost almost 15 pounds in the first 2 months.
I eventually quit because I had no home life and my husband couldn't really handle my zombie-like state all the time.
Don't get involved in teaching lightly, especially not in a program that places teachers in high needs areas. It is not an easy job.
If you're so concerned about making the wrong decision, why not do both and double major Math/CS? If you decide to go to grad school, you will need to choose at some point, unless you plan on spending your whole life in school. But a number of interesting research areas are just as commonly approached from math as from CS. The rule of thumb is that it is a lot easier to teach programming to a mathematician than it is to teach math to a computer scientist. Math/CS double major will open a lot of doors. And a PhD doesn't necessarily commit you to academia. Industry labs (Intel,IBM,Google,MS), government labs (Sandia,Livermore,Argonne)... there are a lot of opportunities out there for someone with abstract thinking abilities, strong analytical skills, and practical engineering and programming experience.
...cartoonist. No, seriously. Bill Amend of Foxtrot fame is a Physics major and is the only strip to have real, working equations and code.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
I would advise you to switch to a double major of math and CS. Then, when you graduate you will be more attractive a candidate than someone with just a CS background. You will probably be able to get a relatively good entry level CS job.
Then, work that for a few years. Say three. The pay will be pretty good. Save like a mad fiend. Stay focused.
Then go back to school and get into a math Ph.D program.
You will be a better scholar for your professional experience, and you will likely be able to avoid going in to scads of debt.
Hedge funds aren't the only financial asset that requires math
would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries.
Seriously, though, you should look into grad school and seek work as an economist.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
The NSA is the largest single employer of mathematicians in the world. ... Or you could do finance.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Sounds a lot like network engineering (think international ISP, not small office IT).
Of course, the network operators around the world just cringed.
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I took an Intermediate Calculus course this Spring as an elective, and I was the only non-Math major in the room . . .
Where were the physics/chem majors? In my undergraduate days we outnumbered the math majors in any calc course.
And the people after teaching certificates were why such courses always finished with about a third of the students they started with. They changed majors to English or Media studies, eventually got their certificates and went on the teach primary and secondary math anyways.
Remember the modern paradigm; you don't have to know the subject to teach it, because your specialty is teaching; and in any case people who know better than you do prepare all of the materials anyway.
Just follow the curriculum.
KFG
I work at a consulting firm specializing in structural dynamics. We have designed and built parts that are on the Hubble telescope, have isolated payloads in the Space Shuttle, and are in the Airborne Laser, to name a few. Most of our engineers have advanced degrees in mechanical and/or aerospace engineering. We have one engineer with a PhD in Theoretical Mathematics. It took him a while to come up to speed in engineering, but he is a definite asset to the company. Getting a PhD in mathematics will give you the tools to branch into many well-paying technical jobs. Good luck.
"I'm currently a CS major/math minor in college, who's strongly considering a role reversal."
Make sure you are prepared for it. A lot of people I know who did well in calculus and differential equations (and other appliable engineering classes) weren't really prepared for the theoretical nature of high-level math classes. Try taking a low-level number theory class or something similar with a lot of proofs to determine if you are up for taking the high-level analysis classes.
I personally think a math major is somewhat useless if you want to be an engineer. The most it will do for you is teach you how to think in a more analytical way, but you won't learn as much as you may think. My school offered an applied math major which I think is a lot more useful and interesting.
Obesity, obesity with hypogonadism. Also, morbid obesity. Nodular leprosy with leonine facies. The acromegalic and hypokeratsistic. The enuretic, this year of all years. The spasmodically torticollic. Those with saddle-noses. Those with atrophic limbs. And yes, chemists and pure math majors, also those with atrophic necks. Scleredema adultorum. Them that seep, the serodermatic. Come one, come all, this circular says. The hydrocephalic. The tabescent and cachectic and anorexic. The Bragg's Diseased, in their heavy, red rinds of flesh. The dermally wine-stained or carbuncular or steatocryptotic or, God forbid, all three. Marin-Amat Syndrome, you say? Come on down. The psoriatic, the eczematically shunned and the scrofulodermic. Bell shaped steatopygiacs, in your special slacks. Afflictees of Pityriasis Rosea. It says here, Come all ye hateful. Blessed are the poor in body, for they.
The leukodermatic, the xanthodantic, the maxillofacially swollen, those with distorted orbits of all kinds. Get out from under the sun's cove lighting, is what this says, Come in out of the spectral rain. The basilisk-breathed and pyorrheic. All ye peronic or teratoidal. The phrenologically malformed. The suppuratively lesioned. The endocrinologically malodorous, of whatever ilk. Run! Don't walk on down. The acervulus nosed. The radically -ectomied. The morbidly diaphoretic, with a hankie in every pocket. The chronically granulomatous. The ones, it says here, The ones the cruel call Two Baggers - one bag for your head, one bag for the observer's head in case your bag falls off. The hated and dateless and shunned, who keep to the shadows. Those who only undress in front of their pets. The quote 'aesthetically challenged'. Leave your lazarettes and oubliettes, I'm reading this, right here, your closets and cellars and TP Tableaux, find Nurturing and Support and the Inner Resources to face your own unblinking sight, is what this goes on to say, a bit overheatedly, maybe. It is not ours to say. It says here Hugs, not Ughs. It says Come don the veil of the type and token. Come learn to love what's hidden inside. To hold and cherish. The almost unbelievably thick ankled. The kyphotic and lordotic. The irredeemably cellulitic. It says Progress, not Perfection. It says Never Perfection. The fatally pulchritudinous: Welcome. The Actæonizing, side by side with the Medusoid. The papuled, the macular, the albinic. Medusas and Odalisques both: come find common ground. All meeting rooms windowless. That's in ital: all meeting rooms windowless.
Nor are exluded the utterly noseless, nor the hideously wall- and cross- eyed, nor either the ergotic of St. Antony, the leprous, the varicelliformally eruptive or the sarcoma'd of Kaposi.
The multiple amputee. The prosthetically malmatched. The snaggle toothed, wattled, weak-chinned and walrus-cheeked. The palate clefted. The really large pored. The excessively, but not necessarily lycanthropically hirsute. The pin headed. The convulsively Tourettic. The Parkinsonally tremulous. The stunted and gnarled. The teratoid of overall visage. The twisted and hunched and humped and halitotic. The in any way asymmetrical. The rodential and saurian and equine looking.
The tri-nostrilled. The invaginate of mouth and eye. Those with dark, loose bags under their eyes that hang halfway down their faces. Those with Cushing's Disease. Those who look like they have Down's Syndrome, even though they don't have Down's Syndrome. You decide. You be the judge. It says You are welcome, regardless of severity. Severity is in the eye of the sufferer, it says. Pain is Pain. Crow's feet. Birthmark. Rhinoplasty that didn't take. Mole. Overbite. A bad hair year.
I was a math/history double major, and am now doing neuroscience... but that's besides the point.
With a pure math BA you can basically go to any engineering, physics, biology, neuroscience, finance, econ, cs, etc masters or PhD program and do just fine. The important part about a math degree, is that it gives you the background and experience required to learn specific applications really quickly. There's a huge demand out there for people who are talented at math, although most of this demand isn't 'pure' math per se, there are a lot of interesting applied problems you can work on that do have theoretical interest to a mathematician.
You should really have no problem finding a job or getting into grad school in almost any tech/science type field that you're interested in coming out college with a BA in Math. The great thing about a math major, against a more specific applied major, is that you learn how to think about many of the applied problems in a deeper way, and since you're aquainted with the underlying theory, you can much more easily link various ideas that are only taught at a plug and play level in the applied fields (for example, most IOE curriculum is just rather narrow subset of graph theory & combinatorics).
Personally, I was interested in a lot of things as an undergrad, and decided to major in math since it basically kept all my options open on a grad/job level, and I certainly haven't regretted that decision.
... of all! -- National Security Agency, or NSA (for short) -- really, the largest employer of mathematicians of all...
Paul B.
"Quite a few people end up making a living doing something not directly related to their major. Some who get post-graduate degrees get them in something different than what they got a B.S. or B.A. in & then start a career which is yet again different. So, your options are open. Common choices other than academia are investment banking or some other field of applied mathematics."
Ummm, aren't those the ones people get all bitchy and whiney when they come into their particular profession, and complain about them "not doing it for the love" or something?
In the same boat as you, actually I was a CS major and was about to shift to a EE major - but unlike High School, all the math is finally clicking (in my head) with me. Perhaps I'm a late bloomer, but now I find the math much more enjoyable than hacking code*, as hacking code seems to be just that so far, usually a bunch of hacks that barely stay together to make a program (in my experience so far). Math, otoh, seems much more elegant and solid. Anyway, enough philosophizing, I just wanted to say I am returning to school to become an EE major with a math minor, or the other way around. Anybody think one or the other is any better?
BTW, according to my Math professors who teach parttime (and work at "real" jobs the other part), they are pretty much in demand. Because pharmaceuticals are in my area and all three are hired by them, my perspective may be skewed. But they also say it is hard right now for schools (at all levels) to get and retain math teachers/professors (people with math degrees).
*The language I find programming elegant is a lisp. But that may be because it was designed by a mathematician. I never looked at a C/Algol derive as particulary elegant even if C is my first language.
A good statistics background can get you a good job in any major corporation. It's not easy to properly understand probability and statistics and the value-added to the firm is enormous. A mistaken assumption or misunderstanding can cost a firm it's very existence, so they'll pay to keep good mathematicians on staff. And the problems are interesting and you're given time and quiet to solve them.
I think you'll find the bioinformatics field to be broad enough to meet just about any interest that you may have - work ranges from programming pattern recognition/alignment software (for protein or DNA work) to mathematical modeling of protein networks. Don't worry if biology isn't your greatest strength as you'll be working as a programmer/mathematician solving a biological problem, not as a biologist working with computers (in fact, graduate level programs in bioinformatics tend to recruit computer science majors as the biology/biochem/etc majors don't have the required background).
Some links for further information:
International Society for Computational Biology
National Institute of Health
UCSD
Stanford
IBM
How about becoming an actuary?
Retail - Analysis of purchasing habits. You don't need to have a marketing background to understand what people like or don't like. You'll find it out more accurately through analysis of purchasing data.
Fast food - model what areas the company should expand into.
Science - help design statistically meaningful experiments
Industry - Help create failure models
Financial - Actuary
etc.
Pretty much the running theme is that as a mathematician you will be expected to analyze data and create models. Most often in a support role helping those with first hand knowledge of how the industry works.
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If you don't think there are any jobs for math majors, check out this article from businessweek.com:
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http://businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/06
Here's a quote:
"The world is moving into a new age of numbers. Partnerships between mathematicians and computer scientists are bulling into whole new domains of business and imposing the efficiencies of math. This has happened before. In past decades, the marriage of higher math and computer modeling transformed science and engineering. Quants turned finance upside down a generation ago. And data miners plucked useful nuggets from vast consumer and business databases. But just look at where the mathematicians are now. They're helping to map out advertising campaigns, they're changing the nature of research in newsrooms and in biology labs, and they're enabling marketers to forge new one-on-one relationships with customers. As this occurs, more of the economy falls into the realm of numbers. Says James R. Schatz, chief of the mathematics research group at the National Security Agency: "There has never been a better time to be a mathematician."
Amen
B.S. in Biology from my state's flagship institution, just as qualified to substitue as a kid with 60+ hours of college credit in any subjects in my state's farked up educational system. If I actually want a full-time job teaching I have to go back, take enough garbage credits for a BA in education (useful 12 hour semester as a student teacher not included). That's why I'm a sysadmin and not teaching.
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It's a good job for social retards like me, who are good at hard sciences and want to help others, but find much of the actual hands-on "people" side of medicine to be draining and unpleasant. I don't have flesh-and-blood patients telling me every detail of their fifteen kinds of laxative pills, I just look at their shadows on film!
When I applied to medical school, the three majors with the best odds for getting in were engineering, math and physics. Over 70% of these people got accepted.
What you want to do is keep your eyes on the specialties where your math skills will be most useful. This includes very high paying but competitive specialties like Diagnostic Radiology, Therapeutic Radiology, and Ophthalmology, as well as some rather low paying but desperately necessary fields such as public health and epidemiology.
Realistically, your math skills will not be drawn upon very much in daily practice, but it will be an edge that helps you land the primo residency position that will put you on the road to success. I do a lot of nuclear medicine and have to be comfortable with half-lives and exponential curves, but my skills in calculus and higher math have withered. If you stay in academic medicine and know math inside and out you will be a smokin' hot property in the research lab, but those jobs tend to pay for shit unless you get a high position with a private company (cough*stock options*cough).
It takes about eight to ten years after your college degree, but believe me it's worth it. I graduated with $150,000 in debt but it's all been paid off in eight years and I am in Fat City right now. Intellectually stimulating, socially useful, and very financially rewarding, my job has it all. All that, and it's relatively impervious to economic cycles. Give it some serious thought.
I did well in high school math, up to basic calculus. Then I went to a science/engineering college and became road-kill to the freshmen mathematics steam roller. I never recovered, and has always felt behind my peers in math. Still, I do enjoy the occasional math problems that comes my way, and at least still have a vague recollection of the right principals.
I've met many computer science/physics/math majors go into the financial industry and after a few years of "dues pay", become junior directors and ultimately directors making trememndous amounts of money. They liked the math and analysis, and they liked the money.
Heck, if I could do it all over again, I would pay more attention to the classes that would have let me ultimately become a quant!
I don't want to discourage you from pursuing your interests because I once felt similarly. My family would not pay for a math major at a prime school so I tried to switch from my Comp Sci major at a private research university for a math major at a mediocre state school that was well positioned between a ghetto/hood, possibly abandoned industrial waste-lands and a mediocre metropolitan. And I am glad it did not work out. I like math, but it is much easier to get around with a comp sci diploma in your pocket than a math teaching license. Assuming you do not plan to inherit a few million bucks in a near future, here are the reasons why you should keep your current major:
1. It is a lot easier to reach your goals/dreams once you have a nice financial foundation. It is easier to convince people with money (businessmen) that you are worth holding on to. Show them how good you are at abstract algebra or curved space geometry and they will see no use for you, given that they do not fall asleep first. Show them that you can make computers run on steroids, help bridge together salesmen and IT and possibly impress with your sharp knowledge in economics and you've got yourself a nice paycheck twice a month plus a super medical+dental to keep your natural or implanted teeth shining. This does not mean that you have to give up your dreams or so-to-speak "sell-out".
2. Give yourself some slack or room to fall. No matter how smart you are or how smart you think you are, and even if you are a member of the MESA (genius), you have limits too. Do not count on everything working out perfectly, it is really hard to get into serious academia. Know your limits, give yourself slack.
3. Working for NASA is not really all it is purported to be. Among other things, the longer you work there, the more seriously it limits your career options/paths. So if things do not work out you may have a harder time fitting in elsewhere.
The last advice I would give you is this. Get an internship or a co-op and see what it is like. That will help give shape to your idea of what your future prospects are. Try to apply as both a math major and comp sci major in different instances and see for yourself what works out better for you.
You can pick CS Major, but keep Math anyway. For practical porposes expirience is more important then CS theory (though of cause CS useful too). And you can pick whatever CS knowledge you need by yourself if need arise. To learn really serious math by yourself is a lot more difficalt. And moder cutting edge computing become more and more math hungry. Computer Vision/signal/speech/image processing, serious 3D graphics, search alogorithms, AI all require strong math background.
There's a reason this is the new paradigm - it works better. If you think about it, you really don't want every single teacher writing their own curriculum - that's the rough equivalent of expecting every programmer to write their own compiler before starting to code. Sure, you end up with a few great new ideas, but mostly you just get a lot of bad knockoffs of the popular stuff. Let the specialists do the heavy lifting for the big bucks.
And you also can't expect too much out of the standard classroom teacher - when you need 2.8 million people for a job, you're not gonna get top quality (nor could you afford to pay for top quality if you wanted it).
Most good math majors would have already gotten their calculus out of way in high school, so the math majors you took calc with were probably mainly the slow ones.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
As someone with a graduate degree in math, I hope my advice is worthwhile. First, a Bachelor's degree doesn't give you anything beyond basic skills. You can not take a degree (any degree) and walk right into a job, unless that job is mundane (and everybody starts there). What you are getting is a general education with possibly some exposure to specialized concepts or techniques. That's not a criticism, it's reality. Whatever career path you take will build on those skills, and you are just starting out. So I hope I have disillusioned you from depressingly common notion that university degree = job. There is no job waiting for you. If you wanted training for a job, you should have gone to a technical school.
Thankfully, what you did get (or are getting) is in many ways better than a job. An education in any subject is worthwhile, but this is especially true for hard subjects, like math and science. They teach you to think, and people who think are valuable in any field. You need to find a field that you're interested in, or look for a place that needs someone like you. You need to be ambitious, you need to be flexible, and you need to work hard. Then you will be successful.
My advice is to look for companies which do interesting things and apply. They will look at you and decide if you could be useful. You will have to do this a lot. Don't be afraid to jump at something you are unfamiliar with. For the most part you don't know anything (and when you're young EVERYBODY knows this), so you need to try a lot of things. Don't be afraid of trying anything. If you have some good ideas and a bit of cash, you might try starting a business. In that case, read all of Paul Graham's essays (I don't know much).
As for your education, the honest truth is it doesn't matter. Even if you go to graduate school it doesn't matter. So do whatever is easiest to fulfill the requirements, and take every course that you think could be interesting. Your goal is to learn something. In the real world, that counts, but not in the way that school has lead you to believe.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
but call it Computer Science."
That's some old advice a professor gave to a friend of mine in a similar circumstance. The rationale was allegedly something about where the funding is.
With a degree in Math/CS from San Jose State, I work as a senior test engineer in the semiconductor industry. I design test algorithms, design circuitry for the fixtures that interface to the devices under test, characterize the behavior of those devices, improve test throughput, and analyze a variety of problems with the goal of getting a given device into efficient routine production. My work involves lots of electronics, electromechanics, human engineering (on the production floor) and sometimes interesting math problems. I use a variety of DSP techniques as needed. I really enjoy the work and have done this sort of thing for over 25 years at a variety of companies. It is a single example of where you can land with a math degree, a special interest (electronics in my case) and a love of technical problem solving.
If you can convince the right people you're smart enough, exotic financial derivatives can be extremely lucrative and quite fun. A bachelors won't get you in though, you're going to need at least a Master's, and maybe an MBA or PhD. Otherwise there are plenty of jobs in finance related to forex, debt, credit or equity derivatives trading / structuring, financial analysis, economics etc. which require a thorough understanding of statistics, and mathematical concepts. And all of which pay very well. This might sound a bit materialistic, but the jobs can be a lot of fun, and you might as well pay off those student loans sooner rather than later.
j'ai découvert une démonstration vraiment admirable (de ce théorème général) que cette si
My mother had been teaching full time for ten years when they first started the whole certificate thing in my state. She had the highest rating in her district. In fact, her supervisor wrote in his last report that she was the finest teacher he had ever seen.
.oh, wait, we're talking about "education." Nevermind. Children have nothing to do with that.
One day they called her in and told her she had to get a Master of Education. She said, "Riiiiiiiiight!" They let her go.
Because she had a Bachelor of Fine Arts, ceramics, a specialty whose department she had created at her college; and thus wasn't qualified to show primary school children how to play with clay.
She became a photo journalist, travel. Had the time of her life and made more money with less grief. The only ones who really lost out were the children. Won't someone please think of. .
KFG
In the sciences, and this includes mathematics, the student gets paid to go to school. For example, we pay our students (biosciences) $2,600 per month (plus extra to cover tuition), which is about average across the top tier schools. Regarding debt, student loans are deferred for four years while pursuing a PhD.
As far as other jobs, I find that for long term employment most people are looking for a masters degree. As far as I can tell, the resume filter tend to spit out anything without and engineering of CS degree on it, unless there is also a masters degree. A MS even helps if you are a teacher, and will allow you make some extra money teaching community college.
You could even go over to the dark side and get a masters of education in educational assessment. Due to NCLB, huge amounts of money are being funneled to the test makers, and they cannot get enough people to make the tests. It is a mathematical and computer based situation no matter what subject is being assessed. Who knows how long the gravy train will last, but at least until 2008, when all the bought and paid for elected officials get booted out of office. It is not that testing does not have it's good points, but a lot of parents are pissed off that their kid isn't graduating just because they can't pass a single assessment. One thing that I learned about assessment, and in my science classes, is that a single measurement is merely a guess.
A smart person will find a way to make a living no matter what degree they have. Some of it just has to do with luck. If you do teach, there are programs that will give some extra benefits if you go through them.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
http://www.math.purdue.edu/jobs/careers/career
That's pretty much what happened here. When I took physics, during the first lab the instructor went around the room asking what our majors were. I told him "economics" with a smile. He said, "I've never had an economist before." I didn't have the heart to tell him (he's with the gamma-ray observatory team) that I could have taught the course in my sleep. Stupid fraggin' breadth requirements.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
I loved studying math, have never regretted it, and having done so is a huge advantage to me even today (20 years later). But I have never gottem paid purely on my ability to do math, and all the jobs I know that do that (like teaching) did not appeal to me.
Programming makes it far easier to use math but you need a third thing to be really valuable.
Finance and economics are your best bet as they are so universally in demand, but any carefully chosen engineering disipline will also do.
Be careful about getting a doctorate though. If you do, do it fast and don't tell anyone (much). Doctorates have an ever worsening reputation as being hopelessly theoretical and inflexible.
Amen to that. As a recent B.S. Chemistry graduate I had to take Calculus 1, 2, and Differential Equations just to qualify to take Physical Chemistry (basically calc. based physics of chemistry).
The physics, chemistry, and CS majors definitely outnumbered the math majors in those classes.
Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant. The population is growing.
I agree that your major doesn't matter that much. I finished a graduate degree in mathematics a year or so ago and I've already forgotten most of the proofs I had learned. If I had to pick it up again, I probably could, but I don't imagine needing to for work. As it turns out, there's not much call for the Fundamental Theorem of Finitely-Generated Modules over a Principal Ideal Domain out there in the work force.
Anyway, so I learned some programming and TCP/IP networking in my spare time over the past few years and I ended up getting an IT job through a family member. If I had majored in literature in school (which I almost did), I still probably could have gotten the job. So if you find yourself asking "What kind of jobs can I get with degree X?" you're obviously not the "I've always wanted to be a doctor" type. And that means you're asking the wrong question. Instead ask "Who do I know, and where do they work?" That's a better question because you're probably going to get your job through someone you know and you're going to take the best job offer you get, regardless of whether it's relevant to your major or not.
For now, enjoy the mathematics. It's beautiful stuff. If you're not satisfied after 4 years or want to know what a principal ideal domain is, get a master's. Beyond that, beware. Few people who start a Ph.D. ever finish. I think the figure is something like 1 in 3. And those 2 in 3 who don't finish are all smart, dedicated people just like you. If you have to ask whether you want a Ph.D., you probably ought to take some time off after you finish what you're working on now and see whether you can live without mathematics. If so, a Ph.D. ain't for you.
This summer I took Calculus II from a professor who is also a personal friend. Before he was a professor, he worked for the Department of Defense. He says that they hire more mathematicians than anyone else in the world. Anyways he had some very interesting stories from when he worked there on *top secret* projects and such. From what I understood, when you work for DoD, you are pretty much free to travel around and work on whatever project you want, but still keep your pay grade. It is definitely worth considering if you are going to major in math. Oh yea, and a perk of the job is that DoD will pay for your graduate school.
Try janitor in a world class University then impress one or two Math teachers by pretending to be just a kindergarten drop out and the professional world is wide open for you from NSA to Hollywood.
PS: if you speak and look like Matt Damon this will increase slightly your chances.
PS2: Walmart is also looking for high potential associates.
The group I work with do lots of mathematics as part of programming duties, however we don't hire CS/Maths grads. When it comes to modelling, image processing, and analysis of big hardware/software problems Engineers are a cut above the rest. If you are good at maths my recommendation is get out of CS and get into Engineering if you can. It's a big shift, and it will be hard but when a serious project (eg software/hardware for defence, space, aeronautics, roads, trains) needs people to do the maths they are going to grab engineers.
.plan file) used Laplace Transforms in the Quake 3 engine for some of his physics calculations. Want to know what a Laplace Transform is? ask en engineer. He/She will tell you it's a way of modelling a system that is timeslice independent so no matter what frame rate you run at you will always get the same answer. Now try and do that with the CS grads first choice of timesliced Newtonian Physics calculations - you can't..well you can if you interate of your physics calcs multiple times for each frame but it still wont give the right result, just a consistent one.
Motorolla set up shop here in South Australia for a while to develop wireless comms. The government increased the student numbers in a CS course at the university in anticipation of Moto taking them. How many of those students did Moto take? None. They took in engineers instead.
John Carmack (from memory of reading his
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
As someone who is currently writing his thesis in a reinsurance company (I'm a geography major), I can tell you that these companies hire a lot of mathematicians...
I love math, especially in its pure and abstract forms
Heh....Sure ya do... I suggest he take the following two courses:
If his desire for "pure and abstract" math is no less diminished, well then he is truly *unique*.
The demand for CS people with a heavier than normal background in mathematics is quite large. I just graduated with a BS in CS, minor in Math and worked my Senior year at JPL. The demand for people with my background in such fields (up to and including world class places like JPL) is larger than your unemployed ex-sysadmin friends at slashdot would like you to think. Bottom line...CS+Math = endless possibilities, and great money.
:).
Then again I'm leaving my job at JPL this summer to start my PhD in CS in the fall. Why? Money is much better with a PhD, I have a lick of cred if I'd like to start my own company, I will truly get challenged by the mathematical rigor in areas of Machine Learning and Vision, _and_ I'll be (hopefully) furthering the science.
So, CS + Math = great job outlook, endless possibilities for grad school, and really good money. You are in quite a good place
as other posters have pointed out becoming an actuary is one career choice - its quite a big committment in terms of working your way through the exams (lots of people are quite pleased to see the end of them when they finish university) ;) and in some specific cases extend from there a little bit. But its by no means hard abstract math - more applied specific math.
1 394203?v=glance
My experience is that the math in the exams will probably start at about what you could comfortably do at 18 (but may have forgotten since
The key requirement for the job (aside from passsing the exams) is IMHO enjoying working with numbers all day
if the exams put you off, consider "quant" work in the finance field
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/047
I think traditionally they've picked up people with PhD's in Math and Physics who didn't want to continue in those fields (or wanted to multiply their earnings subsatntially). Hedge funds, investment banks, etc are the potential employers.
Seriously, it is unusual for a mainstream comic to have accurate jokes about computer games, various sci fi, and physics / mathematics.
Any company with an intelligent recruitment policy knows that they will rarely (if ever) find an employee who already has all the skills and knowledge required to excel in a particular role. Training programmes, and learning on the job will always play a very big role. So when they look at someone with a Maths degree, they don't think "Functional Analysis? Well *that's* pretty useless for a financial planner", instead they think "Functional Analysis? That stuff is pretty hard - this guy will pick up financial planning in no time."
The bottom line is that there are lots of industries where you could succeed, including IT, Engineering, Finance. But what you really need it to find an employer that has the right attitude. Good luck!
I'm in a Ph.D. program in the humanities. I worked for two years between college and graduate school, and I'm very glad that I did.
When I was in my senior year of college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Here are some of the things I considered: doctoral study in any of several fields, law school, management consulting, high school teaching, the clergy, working in the non-profit world, working in government. I was in no position to commit to a seven year Ph.D. program that would prepare me for only one job--or to a three year law program that would leave me with a pile of debt.
So I found a job working for the government in Washington, D.C. and stayed there for two years. A year and a half out of college, it became clear to me that I really wanted to be in academia. Taking time away from school was necessary for me to make a mature decision. It also gave me the chance to see what the "real world" is like and to spend some time in a fun city. (Washington is a great place to be if you're right out of college.)
I don't feel that two years away from school hampered my academic ability at all. Maybe things are different in math. I hear that mathematicians tend to produce their best work at a young age. If that's true, there's an advantage to being in graduate school early. (In my field, people tend to do their best work at least a bit later in life.) I also don't know how graduate admissions committees look at people who take time away from school. Clearly it's not seen as a problem in my department, but maybe the sciences are different. Some professional schools (law, business) prefer students who have work experience.
I know nobody who's regretted taking time to work before going to graduate school. I also know nobody who had concrete plans to go to graduate school, took time off to work, and never followed through on the educational plans. (To be fair, I also don't know anybody who was planning to go to math grad school, in particular.) I know lots of people--lawyers and law students, mostly--who regret going straight from college to a graduate or professional program.
I'm sure that for some people, going straight to graduate school is the right decision. For instance, it's probably a good idea if you know that you want the degree, but you hate school and want to get it over with. Or if you're planning to start a family as soon as possible, and you don't want to do that while you're still a student. But for a lot of people, taking time between college and graduate school is the way to go.
cryptology is just math, and they need you to break it.
I did the opposite: I have a degree in Math, with a Masters in Economics, and I am a partner in a IT support firm, doing support for small businesses. But if you can wrap your head around math, you can pretty much go any direction that you want.
After I got an MS in pure math, I've started on the math Ph.D. but I quit to work as a software engineer. And while working I've started an other Ph.D. where I mostly do theoretical economic modeling with some computer science sprinkled in. Doing a pure math Ph.D. is very difficult, and only recommended if you really dedicated. On the other hand, theoretical economics uses a lot of math, if you like you can be as theoretical as you want yet people will still think that you are doing something related to the real world. And these days everyone wants to combine economics and computers, so your CS background will be useful.
Alternatively, you can just stay in CS, CS research at higher level is really math, and even in practice, many software development task requires good mathematical analysis.
If you think about it, you really don't want every single teacher writing their own curriculum - that's the rough equivalent of expecting every programmer to write their own compiler before starting to code.
Euclid wrote my geometry text, so I don't have to.
My job is to aid in the understanding of Euclid. Not to invent geometry. It just might be an aid to aiding understanding if I had some understanding of it myself, no matter how well the people who wrote my teacher's aids understood it.
In fact, if I understand it, I don't need the teacher's aids.
The blind leading the blind with someone elses description of where they're going might be better than nothing, but it really don't compare to having someone sighted actually along for the trip.
KFG
Anyway, the combination of Math+CS seems to do the trick. Every time I was looking for a job I got two or three offers. Usually from two areas biomed research and engineering, with engineering offers consistently being significantly better ($$$). Right now I'm developing algorithms for tomography.
If you go for a Math degree I would suggest trying to get involved in projects in applied areas (biology, optics, engineering, physics). In my case, tomography was a side project when I was working on my dissertation. Also, try to learn statistics well.
Good luck.
Quantitative finance.
I'm have a science degree in statistics and computer science and I currently work for an investment bank looking at equity markets. Maths/Computer background is perfect for this kind of role, because you are analysing large data sets and obviously you're doing it on a computer, normally using custom software you have to write yourself. A large proportion of people in this industry have a maths, physics or actuarial background. Most are self taught code hackers, if you actually have a computer background you have a decent advantage.
If you want higher level maths, I would advise you to look in either the debt or derivatives areas or possibly hedge funds. You are unlikely to use doctorate level maths (then again, you won't use it lecturing either). The maths is very secondary to the practical application, which in this case is predicting market returns.
Be prepared to be data monkey for the first few years and if you want to really get anywhere it would help if you have at least some interest in the markets, but it's potentially very rewarding, financially and mentally. Every day is another experiment.
I just wanted to thank everyone for the advice (even the Starbucks/McDonalds crowd). You've all really opened my eyes to the opportunities available, and just after perusing your replies I've got an idea of where I'd be interested in going with my math degree, which is far more than I could ever say about computer sciences. Specifically, some of you mentioned that the NSA/DoD are both big on hiring mathematicians, and I've always thought that cryptography was very interesting.
I haven't made my decision, but I've got strong leanings towards taking the switch. I think that next semester I'm gonna go a lot heavier on the math classes and dip into some of the more advanced stuff to make sure it clicks. Thanks again!
Well this was Intermediate Calculus.... which was all about proofs mainly and was pretty tough. Keep in mind this course is MAT371 at ASU and you take it after you've taken Calc 1, Calc 2, Calc 3, Discrete Math, Linear Algebra, etc...
For a lot of the math majors in my class, this was the last course they needed to graduate, and they had been putting it off until the last minute. For others, they had already tried to take this class before, and were re-taking it, and this was the only class they were registered for that semester.
I also took time off after school. I got an SB in physics and a master's in electrical engineering, then spent about 4 years working. After that experience, decided I really wanted to go on in physics and am now a couple years in to my PhD.
It's not an easy thing to do, though. It's not easy to switch from 6 figures to a grad student stipent. It's very different being good at working to being good at grad school and it can be frustrating to feel like you've got more experience but are still junior. Plus, it's tricky to live a life and still be looking at 3 or 4 years of school when you'll be 30 next year. If you want a family and kids... well, you better think about whether you're willing to have them while you're still in school.
Anyway, it's not for everybody. The allure of an income is pretty strong. However, if your desire to go get a PhD is not strong enough to overcome that, it's not a real tragedy not to get one. It's not something everyone needs to do, and if you're doing well without one, no big loss.
The physics and chem guys were all taking math courses that had some applicability to their fields... Intermediate Calculus is all about proofs and theory... definitely only of interest to math majors.
It's the same reason I guess that the CIS majors don't ever take theoretical computer science classes, which is for CS/CSE.
One graduated in 95, started working for a document search company (think study of algorithms and performance optimization). He went to Inktomi and is now happily working for Yahoo.
The other graduated last year and is now working with me in a medical device company, being of great help with planning and analyzing results of our product validation studies, while getting involved with software development as well.
If you're looking at applying your knowledge in mathematics, all engineering fields are open to you.
After they put me out on a medical, I went back to the university and added economics with a focus on econometrics, international development, and international finance and investment with a heavy dose of business cycle theory and the history of economics and economic thought. I also had a strong minor in sociology. Again, the math background, especially the statistical background, was extremely useful here as well. Heck, with the software and database engineering the econ. faculty were having gunfights in the hallways over who would get me. I ended up studying under the top guy in international development as a result.
Over the years I have worked/consulted in fields as diverse as archeology (statistical analysis of indian burial grounds), medical research (experimental design, big call for this), epidemiology, sociometrics (analysis of capital punishment data), finance (especially time-series analysis), logistics (predictive analysis), and more modeling of systems than you can shake a stick at. The key here is not to get yourself bogged down in one little speciality unless that is what you want. Speaking for myself, once I've done it two or three times, I'm ready to move on to something new. If you are serious about your math and CS skills, a job on wall-street is definitely the gig for you, but it is there no matter where you go, so long as it isn't teaching. The people who create the computer models that they use for programmed trading are always in demand (and burn out real quick). In my case it was never about the money though it was there since my models were saving them millions every time I picked up a pencil.
Good luck!
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
Have a look at derivatives trading.
Most larger hedge funds, market makers, etc. will hire guys/girls (mainly guys tho for some reason) straight out of coledge (with a Bachelors or a doctorate) and train them up.
Lots of opportunities in that area, it you can stand the heat that is....
A friend of a friend of mine (yeah, I know...I've actually met the guy, though) loves math, and he managed to get a job doing high-level calculus and such for some company in New York City that deals with the stock market. He makes very good money, but has apparently grown somewhat disillusioned and is considering getting out. I'm sorry that I can't give you more details - I just don't know much about it. But it's something you could look into...
It must be hard to return to graduate school after you've been making six figures. The job I left was in government...'nuff said. Good luck with your program!
First, you are far less likely to return to school after leaving with your BS. Secondly, there is tons of math-heavy work in finance. applied math, of course, but then we all need a day job. some good pointers here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_mathematics
must... stay... awake...
Intermediate Calculus is all about proofs and theory... definitely only of interest to math majors.
Oh, yeah, I can see where Stokes'/Green's/Taylor's Theorems and being able to prove them wouldn't be of any use to a physicist.
Next thing you know I'll be expecting them to learn stuff with no applicability to the real world at all, like tensor algebra and the fundamental theorem of metric geometry. What was I thinking?
KFG
Pure math is limited although with a self study attitude and good general knowledge various companies may hire you. It would depends on the job, and possibly be research on methods and algorithms (so CS would be of much use as well). Other options include:
-Statistics: What I chose, decently easy and amazingly good opportunities it seems. Highly diverse as well so you can pretty much work in anything: finance, biology, insurance, accounting (of sorts), consulting (in various industries), data mining (ie: most companies) and so on.
-Finance/economics: Mostly self-explanatory, requires extra coursework or knowledge of finance and economics.
-CS: The math behind interesting things.
-Management science, any other such things: With a math education you'd probably be doing more research than application.
-Applied math: Modeling and so on. Government or corporate work I'd assume, performing research and analysis most likely.
My brother has a maths degree, after quitting several jobs, one of which was a secondary school (read: high school) maths teacher, he started playing poker online as his source of income. The logic and instinct for probability he gained from his course make him quite formidable. He doesn't play in flashy casinos or anything, just sat at home with a laptop, for a number of hours a day, whenever he wants.
.. just be prepared to sell your soul ;)
Sounds a little bit off topic, I know, but my point is that you don't have to restrict yourself to immediately relevant jobs. I'm doing a Bachelors in Physics myself, and most of the people from my course go through to the finance industry. Sound silly? Not really. It's a broad course, teaching a lot of different things, a lot of 'transferable skills' which look attractive on a job application (I find for a science it's a very social subject, strangely). Maths is even more flexible: it's pure logic, for crying out loud! You'd be VERY surprised what kind of fields you could get yourself involved in, as it's a quite respected kind of subject to be fluent in. And if you do need training, it might be less, or easier, than you anticipate.
This said, the finance industry is the most obvious choice. And pays handsomely. AND, can result in other benefits (ie: wise handling of your own money). Aim for the more statistics based options/modules/whatever if you can, very useful stuff.
I've got the spirit, lose the feeling.
I used to work at an international bank that had a room full of serious math heads who used various heavy duty software packages and insane Excel sheets to perform complex analysis and prediciton on share prices. This, along with the last 5 years' prices for the various stocks were fed in to the bank's modelling systems running on a Cray to predict their exposure on the markets in real-time to ensure they didn't close the day with balance ratios that broke the banking regulations. They earned insane money but IMHO they deserved it. I sat in on a presentation they did that was supposed to be a high level overview but frankly I was lost after the 'Good morning ladies and gentleman' bit.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Yeah... well, to be completely honest, I hadn't quite made it to six figs, but I would have had I stayed out my last year (left half way through the year). I was lucky and walked into high-paying jobs after my master's, but like so many people fortunate enough to come into relatively easy money, I was a lot less frugal than I wish I'd been. My standard of living has not declined nearly as much as my income, which is a good indicator that I wasn't very wise. I was at least smart enough to come out with a positive net worth, though, so I guess I managed better than some. However, it kills me when I think that I could have put away a lot more of that income than I did...
:-) Good luck with your program as well!
Oh well, all things considered, I'm pretty lucky to get to learn this lesson this way. Hopefully it'll serve me well should I ever get my income back up to that level.
I'm tired of this phrase. If I went blind, one of the first things I would do (once I got tired of being depressed) would be to get help from blind people. How many seeing people know anything about using brltty?
http://outcampaign.org/
Oh, I don't know. If I went blind one of the first things I would do would be to get help from a sighted dog.
And I don't even like dogs.
KFG
I work at home, so my Vim usage takes priority over crossing streets. ;-P
http://outcampaign.org/
Just your typical smart-alec AC, here.
If you are interested in "abstract" mathematics, rather than applied mathematics you might as well continue on to grad school. Once you get a job it is hard to continue on to a masters and doctorate.
You will find you don't have time. In my opinion most jobs available to a 4 year degree person majoring in mathematics would be fairly low level mathematics - at least one with no experience. I doubt that the "actuary" carreer path mentioned in previous posts uses much math beyond calculus and simple statistics. Again, in my opinion, most theoretical math work is done at universities or government sponsored labs and they would require a degree beyond a four year degree.
The field of Ops Research (OR) started in WWII to find shipping routes that minimized encounters with U-boats. While it is typically considered a more applied field, it relies heavily on theoretical mathematics for its basis and many of the good OR companies employ a lot of theoretical math phd's. some companies to check out:
SPA: http://www.spa.com/
ILOG: http://www.ilog.com/
Metron: http://www.metsci.com/
DA: http://www.decisive-analytics.com/
MITRE: http://www.mitre.org/
LMI: http://www.lmi.org/
There are plenty of others. these are just a few off the top of my head.
-1: flamebait should really be -1: inciteful
We hire a lot of math majors for digital signal processing algorithm design. Somebody like me does the low level stuff - getting the data from the hardware into the system. Then a math type does the actual design of the algorithms, and works with somebody like me to realize them.
Moreover, if you spend a bit of time getting a background in programming and EE, you can take over the bulk of the work, and then watch out - you are SERIOUSLY valuable to a company.
Hell, I wish I'd been able to spend one more semester as a full time undergrad - in order to get a BSEE you are within just a few credit hours of a BA Math - and vise versa. MOST of a BSEE is math - DiffEQ, Calc 1,2,3, LinEq. What isn't pure math is applied math - EM field theory, circuits, control systems, modulation theory - all just applied math courses.
My suggestion: Look for a company doing signal processing ( and you'd be surprised at where DSP shows up). Start working on a BSEE in the evenings - start out with control systems theory, modulation theory, and intro DSP. Learn C. If you can take 6 hours a semester you should be able to have a BSEE in just a couple of years.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I did the PhD right out of undergrad, but had spent over a year as a Co-op at a major chemical company. In the sciences, at least, it seems that my colleagues who'd been in industry (myself included) had the hardest time adjusting to being grad students. It wasn't just the paycheck (though I did think that I should have had a profit-sharing plan from the univeristy like my company did, given what they charged), but also the sense of purpose, and frequently the facilities. It was hard to get used to having instrumentation (touted as state of the art, world class in brochures), that my company would have dumpstered, and hard to go back to sitting in class, taking exams, etc. It's better once you get back in the lab and they leave you alone, but two years of classes, preliminaries, cumes, etc., is an aggravating process to go through. The other issue was, of course, the financial one. People with families tend to have an issue with being paid grad-student stipends, and working 12 to 14 hour days (because, sometimes you use the instrument when it's both available and running correctly, not when you feel like it).
Grad school is kind of like the military; it's best to join when you're too young to know better.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
Oh I'm sorry. We're you looking for the engineering department in the basic calc class room? Down the hall. Differential Equations!!!!!!!
Certain calculus and other math classes are designed for those who are teaching. I really wanted to take this math theory class, which was a 300 level class. It sounded cool. But then my elem. ed. major friend was in it, and she said it was learning how to teach fractions and decimals to third graders. And then I was like, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat... Sign me up for discrete I guess." Some colleges just happen to have math tracks for people who aren't math majors.
As for jobs you can get with a math degree, go for actuarial science. I have a friend who has not graduated yet, and he makes over $80,000 a year doing actuarial science for this company during the summer ($80,000 in 3 months?... sign me up!). Nevermind the fact that he's brilliant and probably will be the most famous mathematician of our century... Still, the pay is good.
BS in chem here. We were only required to take Calculus through Multivariable - no diff eqs for me. It's my loss, that's one of the courses I should've taken.
Most of my chem classes up to, but not including, P-Chem were filled with pre-Med Bio majors. All they could do was memorize (something I am not good at, hence the C in Orgo - both of them). I did well in P-CHEM. The crazy thing is, in order to get a minor in Chem, one would have to take P-CHEM 1 WITHOUT THE LAB. Only 5% of the pre-Med bio majors went that far. As for Multivariable, it was mostly Chem and Physics majors. There were only a handful of math majors at the time.
A lot of people underestimate the usefullness of higher-level math. At my current job (IT PM/Business Analyst at a large financial institution in Boston [not Fidelity]), I see a lot of areas where I could apply higher-level math to model everyday things. Maybe I'll take diff eqs at Harvard Extension in the fall...
--Mike
or merely carelessness on your part, but you implied that the things you emphasized were all requirements for those jobs:
Applicants must meet one of the following requirements in addition to the Basic Education Requirement:
Applicants must meet one of the following requirements in addition to the Basic Education Requirement:
a. One year of appropriate professional experience at least equivalent to the GS-5 grade level; or
b. One full academic year of graduate level education in an appropriate field, or any equivalent combination of experience and graduate study; or
c. Completion of all requirements for a bachelor's degree which meets one of the following SUPERIOR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS:
1. Standing in the upper third of college class or major subdivision at time of application; or
2. Grade point average of 2.9 of a possible of 4.0 or its equivalent for all courses completed at time of application or during last two years of undergraduate curriculum
[emphasis mine] I think that gives a good idea that you don't, in fact, need to have prior experience or a graduate education.
I'm glad things worked out well for your mother, and it's too bad the school administration couldn't be flexible. But that's the way things are going at the moment: with "No Child Left Behind" and whatnot, teachers are supposed to be "highly qualified", with documentation, and even taking classes/workshops on an ongoing basis...
Since she is an experienced teacher with extremely good recommendations, I wonder if it would have been possible to get a master's degree very quickly by turning in a portfolio? Obviously there still would have been a few hoops to jump through and maybe some fees (I dunno), but presumably it would have taken very little time (compared to years and years of grad school). Just a thought.
Its probably been said a couple of times in this thread...
I work for a large financial company on wall street... I would never have thought that MIT is one of the most popular places for our recruiters to look for candidates. On my company Vball team there were 3 MIT grads out of 8 players. What degree you ask... Math. Not even a master's, just a regular BA/BS.
Think funds for a second. There are a group of funds that operate completely by computer. Alot of trends have to be analyzed before a choice can be made on what to buy/sell. Those funds are actually out performing most human managed funds...
More specifically, you could check out financial jobs. A lot of banks etc. are desperate for more math people, whether or not they've done ec/finance before. These positions tend to pay very well compared to other entry-level positions.
It won't be hard to find a job, I guarantee it.
The largest math industry in the US is insurance. He would need to take the actuary test, but if he's going to do graduate work, I doubt the actuary test will offer him much of a challenge. Anything industry that relies heavily on reductive analysis will have jobs for math people too (polling groups, the census bureau, the intelligence industry).
Hey! We're starting at the Congressional level this year! And if that works,we may not have to wait until 2008...
That is all.
I'll be honest, I haven't read the other comments. But I'm shocked that you think there aren't jobs for math majors. I'd say of any major you can get a math major probably provides one of the best combinations of marketability with flexibility.
= /20060726/BUSINESS02/607260395/-1/ZONES01 and here's another about how hard it is to fill math/science jobs: http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID =/20060725/INSCHOOL/607250328. I can't find the article that I was really looking for (something my boss handed me a while ago) but it had to do with the way that math was becoming increasingly important in areas not traditionally thought of as math-related (like marketing, management, etc.)
First of all, I was a dual comp sci / philosophy major until my junior year. I ditched philosophy altogether, switched comp sci to a minor, and declared a math major. I graduated in 2005 and had three serious job offers in my area before I graduated. I'm now working at one of those places while they pay for my continuing education (working on an M.E. in systems engineering - I think I'll go for a PhD eventually). My wife was also a math major, although she did a dual math/comp sci program (she's a lot smarter than me). She also had numerous job offers before she graduated, but it's hard to tell which offers were for the comp sci major, which for the math, and which for both.
There have even been several articles in the last couple of months about the rising importance of math skills in a variety of different job markets. Here's one: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID
So there are plenty of straight-up math jobs. Look for a job that includes the word "analyst". Or think about becoming an actuary. Teaching can be a good idea if you enjoy it since you can frequently find schools that will help pay for higher education.
My main advice would be this, however, get work experience as soon as you can. This lets you get your foot into the door of other types of careers that aren't based strictly on math. Any genuine work experience you can get (outside of student jobs like working in the library or whatever) when combined with a math major will help you get a better shot at jobs that aren't specifically for math-majors.
I say go for the math if that's what you like. You can enter more careers from a math major than almost any other major you could choose.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
There's always the black mesa....
Be warned, though... those math faculty positions can be hard to get. A good friend of mine is the chair of the math department at a local state university and every position they advertise nets them 200-300 resumes
Never get into this situation. Even if you are one of the best 2 or 3 candidates out of the 200-300. Reason is that eventually, the employer (university in this case) will figure out that it can pay peanuts and still hire outstanding people. So your salary will be peanuts.
I know, it hasn't happened yet. But you're planning for a 30-year career. Within that timespan, they will figure it out.
Its unfortunately true, but many economics majors are unable to pursue further study in econ because they don't have the math skills. Most econ departments want maths majors for their graduate program, figuring they can teach them the econ if necessary. Besides, the econ taught at most undergraduate programs is so simplified that its not a really useful platform for graduate economic work.
Getting a job working in a financial field is a great idea and if you want to pursue things further, consider graduate school in some field related to finance.
Also, econ isn't the only field that is business oriented, you could consider a PhD in business (no MBA required or even preferred), with a PhD in business you can become a business professor (teach MBA's and do fun and expensive consulting gigs!) or you could go off to Wall Street or some other firm with a nice job and salary.
With maths, you won't find many jobs that are pure maths related, but you will find a lot of jobs and fields that need it as a preequisite or where knowledge of maths is a considerable advantage.
I have a few regrets about my time in college, one is that I didn't take more maths classes, another is that I didn't take more English classes with a lot of cute women.
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Data Warehousing companies need people who can make statistical models for all of their data. Each customer usually wants something a little different. If you like statistics, you can make a lot of money.
If it's not too depressing for you, a lot of math majors become actuaries. For abstract pursuits, the only real option is graduate school. As far as teaching goes, it would depend on the college/university as to how much research/publishing time and how much teaching they'd want you to do. Still, there are plenty of jobs in the applied sciences -- physics, engineering, etc. Maybe a job at a think tank would allow for creativity.
You can get a job pretty easy, actually. The reason being: Most jobs give you a little training. They have to give you a crash course in the job you will be performing. They can teach you what to do at your job, but they can't teach you the math required.
I took a year off after graduating with a double in English and Math. I went back for a PhD in math and after only a year off it was hard. Grad school is a rude enough shock at first that you don't need to add rustinesss. It's great, but it is a clear rammping up. If you're worried about not having experience in pure/applied/whatever math when you get out, that's what conferences and workshops are all about. You can get your name out pretty effectively that way, plus in math, alot of that is paid for. There's a real need for applied math people, especially if you're a US citizen. The government et al need lots of math people who can clear security.
As a math major from 20 years back I would have to say that most of the postings seem to carry out the experience of myself and my friends. Math is a great basis for graduate degrees in math, or engineering, or Law, or computer science, or half a dozen other things. However a bare bachelor math degree, isn't much use when you don't want to teach.
Most of the real suggestions were in statistics rather then math. If you do the minor jump to a statistics major, or just become a math major with a heavy emphasis on statistics you have a decent chance at a job.
The research I've seen suggests that holders of bachelors degrees in math end up fairly successful financially. However most of that effect seems to stem from having the ability to successfully major in math, not from having the degree.
As a side note, don't assume that calculus, or even pre-calculus, is available at every high school. My high school offered algebra 1, geometry, and algebra 2. Our high school physics teacher gave us about a week of physics math which I later identified as basic calculus.
As another side note, the math professors I talk to feel that high school math is extremely variable in content. So don't assume that high school 'calculus' is equivalent to a real university-level calculus course.
On a final note I prefer to be known as an 'anonymous, lazy paranoid', rather then as 'anonymous coward'. I have a long career in IT during which I have never caught a virus either at home or at work, or had significant spam problems. One of the reasons is that I'm extremely reluctant to create online accounts.
Look into Operations Research... Supply Chain and Logistics are huge... everyone needs it and everyones trying to get ahead.
Noun
1. Someone who is too boring to be an Accountant
Yeah, at least at University of Kentucky, it is more than possible to pull off B.S. in Biology, B.S. Chemistry, a minor in Physics, minor in Math, and a B.A. in education in less than 160 hours
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
You've got some good answers and some stupid ones, but I haven't seen this one: Computational Science. You'll be suprised how much "pure math" gets applied to physical problems - that on top of your computer skills makes you an excellent candidate. Second, go to graduate school - it's free! In the sciences admission to graduate school generally includes a tuition waiver and a teaching/research stipend of some sort. Getting a Masters degree will make a huge difference in your lifetime earning potential (doctorate, not so much - it's something you have to really want to do). There are several "computational" programs around the country now - U Tenn Chattenooga and U Miss. spring to mind, but there are others.
According to the ASU math website at http://www.asu.edu/aad/catalogs/general/department -mathematics-statistics.html there are two degrees offered in math: a B.A. and a B.S. The Intermediate Calculus class is apparently an easier version of "Advanced Calculus I," which is a requirement for the B.S. degree. So the math majors in the class you were in were people getting B.A.'s, which, as you say, are mainly people studying to be teachers. The serious research mathematicians would have been in math 371, and it certainly wouldn't have been the last class they were taking. Also, math 370 is listed on that page as a requirement for math education majors, so I'd be willing to bet that there were a lot of them in the course.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
It's only natural for the most talented people with the widest array of knowledge to not know what they want to do - too much interests them.
For someone with a focused desire, what's their excuse for not pursuing it with a diploma?
Aside from which, in 95% of work, if a would-be employee tells you the job you're offering is just what they always wanted, it's just a line. If people were honest, 75%+ of resumes would start with:
Objective: Make as much money as I can, with as little time as I can.
Software Configuration Management, Release Engineering, and Quality Assurance all involve significant amounts of mathematics, and many in the working in such positions have math degrees.
Try companies that require algorithms and graph matching all that jazz. Ciao
Teach for three years. You'll only help others, and gain a great resume booster.
Please tell me more about this major, which sounds extremely interesting. How does it differ from the usual physics curriculum? Is it a masters- or Ph.D.-only program? What universities offer studies in computational physics (that you would recommend)?
Grad school - If you go for a PhD in math, you will get paid for it. You can think of this as a job. No school in the US will actually make you pay for the degree, you will be supported by fellowships, grants etc. Most places will give you a small amount of money on top of your scholorships. If you are single and like the college life, this is a great option and a nessesary steping stone if you want to work in academia. The downside is you will be in school for another 5 years, be poor and still have a ton of work to do to establish yourself in academia.
NSA - seriously, if you are a US citizen and interested in pure math check out the NSA. They employ more math majors than anyone else in the world and will help you along the way to getting your masters. The pay is decent, the work sounds like something you would enjoy. The NSA will also give you the opertunity to apply your CS skills if you want. The major downsides are that you might be doing something evil, you can't have forigen friends/family, the application process takes FOREVER. I would highly recomend applying at least a year in advance of your planned graduation date.
Consulting - Good money, these guys love math majors. Consulting firms hire people who can think quickly on their feet and are good problem solvers. The money straight out of college will be good. The major downside is that you probably wont be doing much real math, mostly number crunching and other types of problem solving. These jobs are really competitive which may or may not be a good thing for you.
Law/Med scool - These generally do not require a particular major and ensure good job prospects. The LSAT, the law school admissions test, is well designed for mathematicaly inclined people and chances are that you can get a good score and go to a good law school. Being a lawyer or doctor obviously pays well and is well respected. The major downside of course is that neither of these proffessions use much math.
As a freshly minted Math major I know all to well the feeling of being able to do nothing but teach math when you finish college. The best advice I can give you is to really feel out the job market. You might be suprised at how receptive companies are to you when they are hiring libral arts majors. When your compitition is english, history and psych majors, you will have a leg up. If you are really set on a job where you "do math" go to the NSA or grad school. Good luck!
Search me
The government still uses Ada heavily in missle and guidance systems, and it is a very natural for a math major. Also, Ada will be around for a good while, so you can be competetive for at least 6-10 more years.
A few months back (March-to-May timeframe I think) there was a front-page article...
A Math professor's students are in demand at banks
Business Intelligence. Basically spend your time coming up with various ways to use databases of information to come up with answers to questions needed to do business (lots of $$$ in this--especially for investment banks and such).
Huh? [devShell.org]
A smart person will find a way to make a living no matter what degree they have.
This statement also implies its logically-equivalent contrapositive: "If you're out of work, you're not smart." Do you really want to go around calling everyone who can't get a job a dumbass? They tend to have a lot of time on their hands for retribution...
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
A recent article in the times noted that non trivial number of men and women have dropped out of the job market. For cultural reasons we expect men to work, and assume that women can be kept. But in the age where a man or a women could do the same work, and for the most part get paid the same, and where net job growth and income growth has been pretty much flat for several years, we see men taking advantage of the non working option.
This in many cases is a rational decision, and does not reflect on the education ability. If there are no suitable jobs, and no overwhelming need for additional money, then why work. I have been in this situation. When one is young, and everything is new, and the health is nearly perfect, having one or two or three jobs is a great thing. But at some point, after many layoffs, the question of why work begins to appear. And perhaps a year off looks really good.
I would say that the inability to parse a simple statement, and having just enough logic to be dangerous, but not enough to create valid statements, is probably a better indicator of dumbassness that lack of a job.
Hi I recently graduated with a 3 year BS, Mathematics major/ Computer Science minor. Like everyone else is saying here, there are a lot of job opportunities. If you like Algebra, go for government high security cryptology positions. I presently am a consultant programmer/analyst and I am preparing for my first Actuary Examination, which I will be writing in 3 weeks. I've had a variety of job opportunities which I could pursue and I have Insurance related Company's wanting me to send them my resume because not too many people write the Actuary exams. There are jobs out there you just gotta know where to look! The software I am going to be working on is related to the insurance industry which goes hand-in-hand with the whole Actuary Business, I'm still a bit up in the air myself as to weather I like Computer Science more or Math more? But I guess only time will tell, and getting experience while figuring that out is the best way to do it! Definitely, write the Actuary exams if you have the skills to do so while the math is still recently embedded in your brain, it will open up more job opportunities for you. Cheers, Monique
Since she is an experienced teacher with extremely good recommendations, I wonder if it would have been possible to get a master's degree very quickly by turning in a portfolio?
As another child-of-a-teacher, I can answer that - with a simple "no".
Education departments don't quite work like most others. They form a very rigid little clique, and strongly discourage any marketable second majors or minors* (warning sign #1, IMO - they want to make damned sure you have no easy escape once you start). And while politics plays far too heavy of a role in getting any degree, Education basically amounts to "shut up, drink the kool-ade, and think what we tell you to".
Most "good" old-school teachers can't deal with such complete BS, and either take early retirement (if available), move to private or university education, or change careers completely.
But have no fear, the next gen of children will have the best-indoctrinated socialized baby-sitters ever. And while they might graduate without knowing basic arithmetic, cheer up, they'll have great self-esteem that their senior project, completing "Coloring with Elmo and Me", received an "A".
* at my uni, you literally had to twist the rules to the breaking point to get a minor in education - They "officially" had one, but didn't let any non-ed-majors into the classes. In order to get the minor, you had to declare yourself an education major at the end of your Sophmore year, take 15+ Education credits that couldn't possibly apply in any way to your "real" major (which would thus technically satisfy the department-nonspecific conditions for a minor), then switch majors the next semester (oddly, the same technicality this exploited also required less than 30 credits in that subject) which, the way other majors tended to schedule classes, would all but preclude you graduating in under five years).
I would say that the inability to parse a simple statement, and having just enough logic to be dangerous, but not enough to create valid statements, is probably a better indicator of dumbassness that lack of a job
I was (implicitly) disagreeing with what the parent post was implying. The original quote was "A smart person will find a way to make a living no matter what degree they have." I personally disagree with this statement, as I know several smart people who can't find a job, and the OP was calling them dumb. I guess I should have used the sarcasm tag for that one, to avoid offending men who might be a little sensitive that their wife brings home the bacon because of the hubby's inability to hold down a job.
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Of course, it takes quite a few years and a lot of work to get a Ph.D, so take that into consideration -- make sure you like it.
Another option that a few people have mentioned is financial services. A lot of brokerage firms on Wall Street love to hire math majors with CS knowledge. The math is needed for financial modeling and the CS is needed in order to implement those models in actual trading programs. Out of all of my classmates who work at companies, about half have chosen this route. Contrary to what a lot of the comments here have stated, it is in fact quite possible to get a job in a trading firm with only a bachelors degree, but of course your salary will be lower than if you had a Ph.D.
It is definitely not true that math majors have no jobs. If your parents need convincing, look up the recent Business Week cover story from a few months ago about the exploding number of job opportunities for math majors in the current information driven economy. The myth that math majors only have teaching jobs is something that was maybe possibly true 20-30 years ago when computers were not a big deal and manufacturing was dominant, but it's not true anymore. Nowadays math majors are in higher demand than ever because tech skills are so complex that employers increasingly look for more foundational training such as a mathematics background as opposed to someone who has already specialized in some narrow subject area before even leaving school.
this is partially a reply to a gp post, but in my opinion:
1. I agree that _obscure_ degrees are great, and often great for getting jobs in or out of that obscure category. It both makes you memorable and increases the chances that you learned something hard.
2. "liberal" and particularly "artistic" degrees are generally worse, especially if they are from anything less than an extremely prestigious school. (Note that I said _degrees_ not _people_, _educations_ or _careers_)
The basic reason is essentially because the more artistic the topic is the harder it is to evaluate whether someone is really good at it - or at least there are fewer points where you can evaluate them in an absolute sense. This isn't primarily about whether the task is easy, it's primarily about whether the school can reliably tell when they should flunk you. (I further believe that many great artists would flunk out of art school in their own time - essentially because art is impossible to absolutely judge.)
I can put this another way: If your classmate couldn't flunk out of school despite being an idiot and not working, your degree itself can't be worth that much - even if YOU actually did a lot of work and learned a lot (a school's value at education and at evaluation often aren't highly correlated)
At an extremely prestigious (in whichever field) school they can overcome this to some degree by having uniformly world-class teachers evaluating you and by also setting a uniformly high standard for evaluation. In general this is not impossible, but it's certainly more rare.
If your goal is to maximize your degree, you want it to be provably difficult. In my opinion Japanese (and indeed most intensive foreign language programs) definitely qualifies. To get a certain film degree (might be only for a Masters) from the University of Chicago requires you to be at least bilingual and evaluate a number of films in their original language. That's a hardcore film degree, from a hardcore school.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Most good math majors would have already gotten their calculus out of way in high school
Are you crazy? The most you can generally do in high school is Calc 1 and Calc 2 (differential and integral calculus, respectively). Above and beyond that I've taken Multivariable Calculus, Differential Equations, and classes for Laplace Transforms, Fourier Series, and Partial Differential Equations. I will graduate with a minor in Mathematics. Among other things, if I satisified all the major requirements (I will have more math credits than math majors, but not the "right" classes), I would have to take Real Analysis I which is officially called "Advanced Calculus I." So that's basically 5 calculus classes above and beyond what you can do in high school. Rutgers' Math Department's requirements are pretty stringent.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Your local burgerdoodle always needs people that can count and make change..
So few of their current employees can.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Certain calculus and other math classes are designed for those who are teaching.
But not the one in question.
KFG
My roommate was going for his Masters in Statistics, when he decided to study Actuary on his own. He was able to pass the first 8 tests. When he started looking for actuary positions, he was turned down for all of them because he had passed "too many" tests. Most actuary firms are used to having new hires having one test passed, if they are lucky. He had to then start lieing about his passed test, and would mentioned he had only passed one. How fucked up is that?
Investment banks like Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs snap up maths majors like a fat kid snaps up Cheezy Poofs. Securities are becoming increasingly esoteric, and they are based on -- you guessed it -- advanced mathematics. As a guy working in Wall Street, you would be developing fancy new securities instruments and making shitloads of money for your labour.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
You'll find me doing integrals for change on the street corner. (I'm finishing my BS with a focus in pure math.)
insert interesting sig here
I think you're kind of proving his point.
He didn't say "major in math and you'll end up unemployed," he said basically that someone with a 4-year degree in math probably isn't going to get a job doing math after they graduate. Basically, they're going to be using that math degree as a proof that they have a few brain cells to rub together, in order to get access to the same pool of jobs that most grads with a 4-year B.S. degree are probably eligible for.
I agree with you that there are quite a few jobs that are open to basically anyone with a degree, if it's from the right place (i.e. probably not Podunk Com-Tech). Lots of introductory jobs in the corporate world are like this. But don't think for a moment that you'll really end up doing the same kind of stuff you were doing in school in most of these jobs; even if it's an aerospace/tech company, they're not hiring you for your degree, they're hiring you because they think your degree is evidence that you're not stupid and are probably trainable.
In my experience, it's really not until you've completed graduate school that people start to be interested in actually hiring you for your training.
The other big field I'd encourage someone who's recently graduated college and looking for a job to do, is consulting. Most companies aren't too picky as to what your major is as long as it's something perceived as useful (i.e. not Poetry or Turf Grass Management); what really matters is your GPA, social skills, and to a lesser extent, where your degree is from. They money is usually decent and you move from one "job" to the next every few months, which if you get good projects can mean a lot of exposure to different things and opportunities for networking. Think of it as the $40+k/year, white-collar version of temping.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
If you're inclined to teach yourself DiffEq - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471319988/002-03 87074-6940836?v=glance&n=283155 . You can find it cheaper used (even more so if you get the international edition in paperback).
A slightly different scenario in the county where I graduated from high school. High School teachers were 'strongly encouraged' (slim chance of getting hired without) to have at least a masters degree in their chosen specialities - my physics teacher, for example, had an MS Physics, my math teacher an MS Mathematics, and so on.
Remember: in the war against the human mind, the public school teacher is the grunt.
Re: Insurance
That reminds me - Reinsurance is a different world - often the more interesting studies are done at reinsurance companies.
You were a moderator with 5 points. You should have read the moderator guidelines before you did any moderating
There are plenty of great jobs for PhDs in applied math fields: meteorology, oceanography, astrophysics, particle physics, etc.. These are the most fun kinds of jobs to have.
Your advisors should be able to give a lot more information about jobs for math majors with a BS, or at least know where to find such information. Plus talk to your math instructors as well, they have experienced finding a job with a math degree, not all of them started out begin teachers, you can build contacts this way. I short use the natural resources available.
They call me....Tim??!
You can do anything with a math degree.
The beauty of the degree is that it trains you to THINK and SOLVE PROBLEMS and it is applicable to ANY FIELD.
I, for instance, got my undergrad degree in mathematics and then went to get an MD.
Wow, I am glad I saw this thread - I think I will save it for when I need to find a real job. I am in a similar position. In May I graduated with a BS in Math, and got married later the same month. Before I knew I was getting married, I didn't worry as much about money and a job, but once you hit that point it's time to think responsibly. My junior and senior years, I looked into the job market. Actuary is the big recomendation. Unfortunately there aren't any firms nearby, and I didn't want a 50 hour a week, two weeks of vacation a year type of job. The funny thing is that everyone is encouraging about how important math is, but when you are asking about jobs, you get a bunch of blank stares. I asked my professors and of course they didn't know. I even went to the career center, and that guy was kind of helpful. I looked for days online, and found some job ideas but no clues about how to get into them. I even found news articles saying that Math grads had the second highest starting incomes with a BS (right behind engineers). But where the hell are all of those jobs, and career fairs for math majors? I decided to go to graduate school, and while the funding isn't great it is, I suppose, enough - and I am grateful for the opportunity. Luckily my wife (who is a highschool teacher) makes more. So please, continue the suggestions. How easy is it to get an operations research job? People keep mentioning engineering firms, but can you really get a job there with only a math degree?
At a number of institutions (including mine) there are joint majors, education and some substantive area. In mine, math and physics both have programs with the education school. I believe you get a BA in math or physics and a masters in education, in 5 years. There may well be other fields as well -- I was investigating opportunities for a high school student who was interested in math and physics. I talked with a faculty member in math: the department considers it a serious program; graduates have as much math as a pure math major.
There seems to be a lot of FUD in this discussion. At least in New Jersey, at middle and secondary level, you can become "highly qualified" by * holding a BA * having been certified to teach with no requirements waived * meeting any of a whole list of qualifications, one of which is having an undergraduate major (or graduate degree) in the area you're teaching For veteran teachers there is an alternative approach, that involves getting points from various things, including college work in the subject area, good evaluations, serving on standards commiittees, and work with content area specialists. It does not require getting a masters, and it seems skewed to content rather than education theory. Furthermore, at least in NJ, the school is not permitted to fire people who haven't met the standards yet.
As if.