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High Paying Jobs in Math and Science?
An anonymous reader asks: "Where are the high paying jobs for those who are good in math and science? I've heard about math and science shortages for almost two decades now, and I was wondering what high salary/high demand jobs have resulted from these shortages. Most science majors I know actually make less than teachers (in Texas teachers make $38-40K to start for nine months of work). In terms of money, what career would you pursue coming out of college right now with a math or science degree?"
... Actuary (insurance, etc)
The one you're most interested in. Seriously, if all you care about is money, go be an investment banker or a money whore somewhere else. Our field is littered with people like you who get a job hoping for big bucks but end up circling the drain for a few years while producing horrible work.
However, software engineers at the various consultancies pay fairly well. Perhaps the R&D arm of a pharmaceutical company as well.
Any related to economics. So, things like an actuary or something related to the stock market (e.g. analysis/prediction) would give high pay. Degrees in Physics and Math could get you there.
:)
There is also several consulting firms that *love* Physics Ph.D.'s. Not sure about Math people on that one though. This one would require *a lot* of travel though.
Hope that helps
I'm a scientist working for a government subcontractor in Albuquerque (mostly for Sanida Labs and AFRL). Fresh out of school with a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Physics I started making $50K a year plus fringe benefits. To contrast, starting teachers salaries with a Master's degree are ~$30K a year.
Best paid job for those good with science and math is hedge fund manager. Top earners make $2,000,000,000 or more annually. As a bonus, you don't have to pay regular income tax on your pay. Good luck in your new career!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._E._Shaw_&_Co.
Financial analysis is a tough job for the big investment firms. They all use hardcore math now
that math and physics can prepare you for. A great job for physics majors, at least until the market tanks.
You'd make good money as a chemical engineer or petroleum engineer. This claims $55-$100k depending on experience. Petroleum engineers also make good money.
One nice thing about the job is you get to work with huge cool dangerous equipment. If you work for the right company in the right capacity you might even contribute to solving some important problems, like petroleum dependency.
Man, you really need that seminar!
There is no shortage of math and science majors. I'm nearing completion of a PhD in science, and if I could go back 6 years, I would go to law school instead. Yes, there is a shortage of brilliant scientists and mathematicians because hey, our economy depends on innovation that comes from the elite few. Science and math jobs? Maybe you can call engineering jobs related to science and math and of course corporations don't want there to be demand of engineering students because that would drive up salaries.
The ones that can't do real science go into management in a large well funded research project. Nothing worse than a physicist in management.
With some solid math and research skills you may be able to make a good living day trading on the stock market.
Anytime I see American corporations complaining about the need to outsource labor due to a "shortage of qualified American workers" it makes me laugh to myself. It is absolutely hilarious how the same corporations who ceaselessly discuss the virtues of an open market suddenly revert when it comes to the issue of paying high enough salaries to attract qualified candidates.
The talent is always going to go where the money is. If the serious money was in math and science (instead of finance and business) then the brightest young Americans would be pursuing careers in math and science.
What I have seen is a bucnch of companies wanting more math/science people in order to make it easier for them to justify not giving a decent wage. The truth is that there is no lack of these workers, the companies just don't want to pay them for thier skills.
Does business or law count? It seems to be the universal money spinner. Math and Science don't appear to get you much unless you manage to create The Next Big Thing (TM)
I'm not a teacher, but I don't think you should use teachers as an example of someone who should be paid less than someone in math and science. Frankly, I wouldn't put up with today's disrespectful teenagers even for a substantial raise.
Sure, there are some crappy teachers out there that give them a bad reputation, but you can say that about any profession.
Worked for me. Oh wait. You said "paying"...
Math credentials worked for the last guy up to a point....
Investment banking etc. is a usual choice. But I would not recommend it. How about computer science jobs?
Try Asia or Europe. In the US, a high income (and status) as a scientist or mathematician requires starting at low income, dedicating 20 - 30 years to climbing to the top, and leaving human wreckage behind you. Is this what you want? Go where you're valued.
"...what career would you pursue coming out of college right now with a math or science degree?"
If it is not a graduate degree, you better be prepared to flip burgers.
Get an MBA, then do something in the financial industry, which has a stranglehold on everything else to the extent of destroying progress. American corporations and government no longer care for education or REAL progress, unless it can make a buck, and even then aren't willing to reward the people who actually create that progress.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Microprocessor Architect.
Con: Get to spend an extra 5-7 years avoiding real life after college whilst getting your Ph.D.
Pro: Six Figure Income.
Con: Every time microprocessors come up on Slashdot, and you make a small post correcting people's misguided ideas about how they actually work, your posts will be rated low -- while the loud drivel by clueless people will be rated highly.
Pro: It's kinda hilarious when it happens.
Most US corporate R&D centers (Bell Labs, IBM, RCA Sarnoff, Xerox PARC, etc.) are either long gone or a mere shadow of their former selves. (And no, that doesn't bode well for the future of the USA). If you want an R&D position related to science and math in the US - your options are academia or government. These don't pay as well as corporate used to. Also, government R&D is subject to funding cuts, cancellations, etc. (I've been told that NASA is having serious morale problems at it's R&D centers). Academia might be your best bet. The pay may not be great, but (if you get tenure) your position is very secure.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Analyst positions are in high demand, even the CIA is hiring new analysts currently. Analysts can cover pension analysis, benefits analysis, life-time analysis (life insurance), casualty insurance. Most of these are actuarial analyst positions, but every industry has different needs for data analysts and pay is typically fairly good (50k+). You've gotta be able to handle large datasets, and basic programming skills come in handy (I do VBA, C#, and SQL scripting fairly frequently)
I've got an econ + math degree and have actually gone into the actuarial field. One year of experience and 2 exams in and I'm over 50k (just 1 year out of college, I'm still 22) It requires some serious math background, and further learning, but is a very high paying field with lots of opportunity.
For science...I wouldn't know, I'm a math person.
What about working as an engineer for a defense contractor? There seems to be no shortage of work there, provided you can get a security clearance.
Applied math is a good bet. Operations Research ("OR"), as Wikipedia defines it, is "an interdisciplinary science which uses scientific methods like mathematical modeling, statistics, and algorithms to decision making in complex real-world problems which are concerned with coordination and execution of the operations within an organization." It's a mixture of math, stats, CS, and engineering.
There's OR applications in areas such as health-care, environmental management, forestry management, transportation, and much more. Environmental management, in particular, is something that operations research is going to play a huge role as government and industry focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
And because there's such a practical role towards it, there's plenty of support from government and industry, not just in terms of jobs at the end but also scholarships, fellowships, etc. Ask around a math, CS, or engineering department! I'm sure it won't be hard to find someone who can point you in the right direction.
If you are a math person, go into digital signal processing. Communications is still a growing field.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Texas teachers make $38-40K to start for nine months of work
I love this fallacy. If you're a teacher, and you actually only work 9 months out of the year, you're clearly not doing anything at all in the school. Add grading papers, dealing with parents, after-school activities, and all the other crap that gets shoveled onto teachers lately and the actual time worked mounts pretty quickly. A typical teacher's workday is not 8 hours, but more like 10 or 11. If you had to work 11 hour days for 9 months out of year, wouldn't you be begging for a vacation?
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
as dreary and terrible as it may sound, if you have a BS (good) or MS/PHD (much better), and then go to law school, you can write your own ticket in IP law. i have trouble seeing myself doin this as it would feel like working for the enemy, and am pursuing a worthless job in environmental advocacy.
I would work 11 hour days for 9 months to get 3 months off. Especially time off when the season is nice?
Seconded! I'm an adjunct professor, but K-12 and college teaching pay is similar. Both salaries/wages factor in the work you're doing outside the classroom. Remember how they used to tell you that you should study for 1-2 hours for every hour of class you have? Well, teachers/professors end up doing the same thing.
While we're on the subject of teaching, math and science teachers are in demand. Sure, the starting salary may be a bit low but if you're good at what you do and you accumulate some grad credits while you're teaching (many schools/school systems will pay your tuition) you'll move up on the pay scale.
My dad was on the Board of Ed while I was in high school (in NJ) so I have some idea of what the pay scales look like. A BA might start at maybe 30k, but a BA plus 15 masters credits will start higher and a full MA will start higher than that. There were teachers at my school at the top of the pay scale making about 100k a year. If you want more than that, why did you go into math/science in the first place?
I'm finishing my PhD in computational mathematics in about a month, so I've been doing a huge job search right now.
.. thats with a PhD though) and there is nothing quite like the freedom you get from an academic job.
Some of the best non-academic jobs out there for math/science are government or government contractors. Obviously, the NSA is a huge one. There are many other national labs and research institutes. Sanida, LLNL, NSWC, etc. Pay is good (not actuary good, but good) and benefits are very good. The added plus is you work a 40 hr week. With a masters, I think you can start between 50-60K. That beats starting at 70-80K in finance and working twice as much... but that's just my feeling.
On the other side, there are government contractors. Metron, SAIC are two big ones. There are numerous smaller ones. These will have slightly higher pay, and some retirement plans at them are really fantastic. The downside is that some smaller ones rely heavily on one specific type of research.
The other thing I've noticed in my job search is that, not to insult engineers, but many companies feel that if you know the math/science, you can learn the engineering quickly. If you have some basic experience in, say, math application in petroleum engineering, then Exxon would love to talk with you.
That being said, I'm staying in academia and doing a post-doc next year. Pay is okay (55K
Good luck to any of you who decide to go into math/science. The US REALLY needs good scientists!
Yeah sure. I'll give you that the first year a teacher has a class there is extra work getting everything setup but after that things get easier. If you take a look at our local elementary school parking lot after 3 you know they aren't staying late. When I drop my son off in the morning I see them coming in so I know they aren't there early. I don't buy it.
I've also heard the "we have to take classes in the summer". I know teachers and maybe once every 5 years do they take a class.
Don't get me wrong, I value what teachers do immensely but hearing this crap all the time doesn't help the teachers cause. If teachers would ditch the unions and tenure they might start being considered professionals along with doctors/lawywers/engineers. This might allow the good teachers to actually be compensated above the average and get people into the profession.
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
I have a degree in physics and don't work in physics because I wanted to make money. The fact is, to get paid well someone bigger than you has got to want what you do bad enough to pay up. There are 1.3 billion people in China, 1 billion in India, and 300 million in the U.S. Do you offer something so unique that people want to pay you more? Or are you easily replaced?
My fellow physics graduates that wanted to stay in physics wanted to do research. First, the physics that man understands is far beyond what we have been able to utilize, so we don't necessarily need new ground breaking research as much as uses for what we already know. Second, what you do eventually has to be monetized. If your employer can't make money off you, he doesn't need you.
Lastly, define "high paying". The average income in the U.S. is somewhere in the $35,000 range. Then there are the financial wizards, namely CEOs and money managers. All of the top 100 hedge fund managers/ traders made at least $150 million last year, with the top 5 or so making around $800,000,000 (traderdaily.com for info). Basically, if you think making $60,000 or $80,000 or even $100,000 is a lot of money, you aren't even close to getting rich. If you want to be a scientist, you have to want to do the science regardless of the pay. That wasn't me.
...then you are overpriced for the market.
Here's the test: can you go out and form your own company and make more than you are being offered? If you cannot, then you've just discovered why somebody else doesn't want to hire you for that kind of money. Stop thinking about it as how much you are "worth" because of your educational expenditures, and start looking at the income you can reliably, continuously produce for your company. Once you have that number, divide it by three* and that's what your salary should be.
*okay, maybe two in a really large organization with low overhead, or if you fall at the very low or high ends of the payscale. But you're unlikely to be in either of the high/low paid cases.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Researcher jobs as civilian employees of the DoD (ARL, ONR, NUWC, etc.).
Pros:
Cons:
The challenge is that the current generation of college students and recent graduates has been led to believe that they are entitled to a life filled with stuff and with little self-sacrifice required.
If *everyone* would learn to adjust their expectations about what constitutes a minimal acceptable standard of living so that they can live without debt within or - gasp - below their means - our culture would be wealthier, stronger, and better equipped to face challenges.
My next door neighbors are first generation immigrants from El Salvador. They have a three bedroom house which the two parents, three kids, his dad, her mom, share the house with two renters who live in the basement. 9 people in a 1700 square foot house! This is in one of the wealthiest counties in the States. The mom and dad have two jobs. The grandmother has a job, and the dad has occasional work on a third job. These are people who have little education and very poor English skills. They are thrilled to have the opportunity to live in this country, and they are making it happen. It's tough going, but a better deal than in Central America, and they consider it a privilege to have American citizenship. Perhaps we should, too.
Most of these college kids could live at home, have a part time job, enroll in community college for core credits, before transferring to a 4 year college, drastically cutting their tuition. They could refuse to allow themselves to spend more on their credit card than they can pay in a given month. They could live off-campus with several roommates to minimize housing costs. They could forego cable, cell phones and cars to reduce their expenses until their income increases.
Instead, our culture of consumption tells people that they should "buy it now." People actually think that they cannot expect to pay off a car or a house within their lifetime. Ridiculous!
We're generally narcissistic and convinced that stuff, power, or sex will satisfy us. This leads to frustration, deeper debt, and hopelessness.
It's not that life is hard and these kids are victims! It's that mostly they think that they have to obtain a standard of living that is higher than their income, and they become indentured servants at 20%/year interest.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
(or in another words - applied math)
I have been working in agricultural market research company. We were receiving data from studies all over the world and had to do some data mining on them. Some quite advanced statistical methods were used so at one point we had to start organizing seminars for our clients. That was very rewarding for a math guy - I could do some math work and teach with decent salary.
Some of the closing comments from various neuroscientists, roboticists, cognitive scientists, and AI researchers from the very recent "Decade of the Mind" symposium at George Mason University indicated that academic research funding in those areas is flat or in decline. My advisor lays the blame at the feet of the ongoing Iraq debacle, which is vacuuming huge amounts of monies away from all other aspects of government-based research funding.
MAC | A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The great teachers put in the extra time. Most of the teachers don't do any more time during the school year than your typical "40 hour" salaried employee. And, for the record, I think they technically 10 month employees, since they are often required to be in school the week before and (sometimes after) the academic year.
/. time, of course - it's my watercooler) - when I'm not under a real crunch, though I find that trying to get in more the 60 hours is pretty wasted time. I used to be a company guy, and I've done some side teaching (not much, and not k-12). I don't do well with other people's schedules, so I work for myself. I couldn't deal with 30 adolescents every day, and I don't know a k-12 teacher who can design a seismic moment resisting frame.
Most teachers, esp. those whohave never done anything else, don't realize that most salaried workers work more than 40 hours for their paychecks, and often see about 15-20 days of total leave.
Most non-teachers don't understand that for most of the day, a teacher is "on" and teaching requires more "quality" work time during those 4.5-6 hours than your typical cube drone in the same span of time.
Me? I don't work for the Man, I am the Man. When I don't come in to work, I don't get paid. If I take vacation, I don't get paid. If I don't do my job completely, I don't get paid. I don't get health insurance, retirement benefits, disability, or any other perk unless I pay for it. I have to pay for my annual training twice - once for the training, and again in the time that I'm not able to bill clients. I work about 50 hours a week (plus
Teachers actually get paid similarly what someone in industry with similar "ability" would get paid, on an annual basis, but they do have a lot more free time. If they choose to spend that free time on their classes and their career, that's their choice for the most part. Every discipline has people who like what they do, and part of that time is rightfully considered "hobby", not paid service. The trick is finding that person to work for you, or be your teacher, or provide you with their service.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You aren't doing medicine, but are researching methods to improve existing technologies such as MRI, X-ray, ultrasound, etc. Even med phys lab techs earn good money. You also have the chance to do clinical work, depending on the type of place you work at.
Better get your PhD if you want to make some money with a math or science degree. If you are just getting a BS, chances are you will make squat unless you change fields.
If you do get a PhD, then apply for a job at a hedge fund company. You can make very respectable money at a company like that, although they generally have their pick of the litter.
Depends what teachers and where.
Primary school teachers ages (3 - 10 or thereabouts iirc) in the UK start at 8:30, finish at 3:30 and don't have to really mark homework because it's very often not handed out at that level. Some schools are even talking about cutting out lunch and breaks and just having the school day and hence the teacher working day last from 8am to 1pm. You might have to speak to parents now and again but not very often and after school activities are your choice, if you choose to do them you get paid more for it. Other than that they get 6 weeks off in the summer, 2 weeks at xmas, 2 weeks at easter, 3 weeks worth of half term so work less than 9 months including bank holidays yet still get a very decent wage to boot! Any primary school teacher that complains is lazy, simple as that.
The story changes at secondary school level though (11 - 16) and I have a whole lot more sympathy for these teachers, their job is infinitely more difficult, the hours they work are much harder and yet they aren't really paid that much more.
In reality, what the UK needs is to half the wages of primary school teachers to reflect the part time job that it actually is (or at least is becoming) and invest this money into the more than full time job that comes with shed loads of abuse from mouthy teenagers that is secondary school teaching!
Well lets do some calculations....
40k/(10.5 hours * 5 days * 4 weeks * 9 months) ~=~ $21/hours
40k/(8 hours * 5 day * 4 weeks * 12 months) ~=~ $21/hours
So in fairness teachers salarys are competitive with the market.
Some will say that is a lot of money for 9 months worth of work. Which we used you 10.5 hours average a day realize that they are getting the same per hours as someone making 40k for 12 months with 8 hour days.
But there are some devil in the details...
Most corperate people don't have the following....
Snow Days (it snows you should be there)
Every state holiday under the sun (we only take the big ones)
Long Thanksgiving break, Spring Break, Christmas Break (about 3-4 weeks off we get 2 weeks off).
So in total lets take an aditional month of work off the calculations...
So that bumps it up to about 24 an hour for a teacher
Lets assume the corp guy gets 3 weeks off too he gets about 22 an hour for work.
Now durring summer the teach has a chanse to do some summer work so lets assume they get a job at $10 an hour. For 2 months (giving some rest in between start and finish) so That is $3200 you can add to her yearly salary.
Then there is state health care, pensions, and a bunch of state benefits.
Teachers actually get a good deal, better then someone working corprate for the same salary.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you take a look at our local elementary school parking lot after 3 you know they aren't staying late. When I drop my son off in the morning I see them coming in so I know they aren't there early. I don't buy it.
Are you seriously concluding that if a teacher isn't in the schoolhouse then they're not doing any work?
You have absolutely no idea of the extra work public school teachers go through. My mother has taught public school for the past 20 years, and she has ALWAYS brought work home with her to do. There were consistent homeworks to grade, materials to prepare, and lessons to plan out. She would make things out of construction paper (and we'd help her), or spend alot of time with MS Word making handouts for the next day, etc.
Do you honestly think all those lessons that teachers teach all day long magically prepare themselves? While it does get easier after a few years, there's ALWAYS extra stuff to do. And with textbooks and curriculums changing, as well as moving teachers around, the lessons are never static from one year to the next.
I've also heard the "we have to take classes in the summer". I know teachers and maybe once every 5 years do they take a class.
Well, my mother did go through extra night classes for several years to earn her Masters in Education, but as you say not all teachers do that.
If teachers would ditch the unions and tenure they might start being considered professionals along with doctors/lawywers/engineers. This might allow the good teachers to actually be compensated above the average and get people into the profession.
Unions and tenure are the things keeping the teachers from being exploited as just cheap labor, why do you want the teachers to get rid of them first? How about the schools (really the state and municipal governments) offer them professional salaries thus making the need for unions and tenures obsolete?
make world, not war
I have an MS in Math and am teaching at a community college in Texas. At a community college (versus university or grade school), there is no pressure to do research, you don't have to answer to parents since your students are almost always 18+, the students are more interested since they are paying for the privilege of education, and you can kick any disruptive idiots out of your classroom without fear of retribution. The administration actually _supports_ you, imagine that.
In my first year, even teaching overloads (18 lecture hours instead of the standard 15 hours) and summer classes as well, I had two months off because of scheduled holidays and breaks between semesters, generally worked 30-35 hours a week total, and still made about $50k with decent benefits and retirement plan. (Teacher retirement in Texas is only good if you plan to meet the rule of 90 (age+years of service), which I plan on)
Certainly I'm not going to get rich like this, but I put a significant value on free time and my hobbies and this is a career that lets me do all these things and have money to spend on them.
What would be a good for me that pays at least $50K. I recently got a physics degree, but I'm 38 years old. I would need to stay in the Dallas area. THANKS!
Actually, for math: everywhere you use numbers.
It turns out we use numbers an awful lot in commerce.
Look for positions in derivatives pricing or risk management (usually called Quants) in a investment bank or hedge fund. You will need to have a strong background in probability theory and stochastic processes and learn about the principals of finance. You will probably need to do at least a masters (I took this course: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/mathfin -- there are similar ones in the USA).
To get a feel for the subject I recommend "The Mathematics of Financial Markets" by Elliott and Kopp and "Options, Futures and Other Derivatives" by Hull.
If you really want to go after the money, finance is currently your best choice.
Good luck.
Hate to break it to you, but doctors and lawyers (not sure about engineers) have their own form of unionization. The American Medical Association and the Bar find ways to restrict the supply of doctors and lawyers, respectively, as well as to reduce the number of competitors and alternatives to doctors and lawyers, sometimes with government force. In all states (I don't know of any counterexamples), doctors and lawyers must be licensed by these agencies; no competing agencies are allowed. In order to get licensed, you'll have to go to a AMA- or Bar-approved medical or law school (once again, no alternatives). Since these cartels don't want much competition (hence, keeping salaries high), admission to a medical or law school is very difficult; thousands of students competing for so few slots.
So, don't think for a minute that doctors and lawyers aren't in "unions." They're just called different names.
when in fact they often have to pay for their own student's school supplies,
class project supplies, various mandatory licensing and refresher courses, etc.
teachers also work long hours during the school year preparing courses, putting together class projects, grading papers, student-teacher conferences, and so on.
in the end it doesnt work out as well as it might seem at first glance.
considering 3 months off in the summer, it's not a bid deal, nor is it a lot of work.
However, at no point should they be buying supplies, and they wouldn't be if they stopped.
OTOH, I ahve bought a lot of supplies for both my childrens class room, and I don't get 3 months off, plus I usually work more hours.
WHenever looking at teachers salarys, alway make the 25% larger wheh comparing to other fields.
I gaurentee you every other inducstry has many people working more then 40.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Where are the high paying jobs for those who are good in math and science? I've heard about math and science shortages for almost two decades now, and I was wondering what high salary/high demand jobs have resulted from these shortages. Most science majors I know actually make less than teachers (in Texas teachers make $38-40K to start for nine months of work
Huh? I've yet to see a new science-degreed grad make less than a starting teacher in the same geographical region. Make sure you're comparing entry level for both, I'd be shocked to see a first-year Texas schoolteacher making $40K.
The other responders are basically right, with a BS science degree you'll start out doing some rather unglamorous work, I'd imagine. From there you can work your way up, and can get an MS or PhD at some point.
Science pays fairly well, although it depends what you specifically do. For instance, generic biology doesn't necessarily sell, but bioinformatics (bio+math) does. Math pays quite well, but it'll be applied math.
And thus, don't expect to see any high-paying jobs in these fields.
Sad, but true.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The grandparent was essentially saying that college grads are victims due to lack of opportunity.
My response is that college students and grads make CHOICES that influence their financial well being. My goal was to challenge some preconceptions about what standard of living college grads are entitled to have - which has a direct relationship on their financial well being.
If you've got the income to support your own home, please do so. If you don't, then don't blame society if you've made a choice to live above your means.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Some will say that is a lot of money for 9 months worth of work.
OK, I'm a teacher, and I am not complaining about my salary. It's not great, but I'm not unhappy with it. However - My school year this year is August 27 to June 25. That's 10 months. I'm tired of the "9 months" thing.
Also, where are all these people getting the idea that only the very most dedicated teachers work outside the regular day? You can't survive as a teacher that way. We even have to sign a responsibility contract that says we will work as much extra time, including weekends, as needed, as well as doing extracurricular activities. I spend at *least* 2-3 hours extra per day, and often more, grading papers, preparing labs, planning lessons, photocopying, contacting parents, helping out with clubs and events, and so on. Again, I'm fine with my pay - I'm just tired of other people telling me how little I work, when I work my tail off. I work harder than when I was in software development.
Snow Days (it snows you should be there)
We have to make these up, you know.
Every state holiday under the sun (we only take the big ones)
This year, I got Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Xmas, MLK Day, and Memorial Day. That's not much more than when I was in private sector.
Long Thanksgiving break
I got 2 days. What are you talking about?
Spring Break
This is nice.
Christmas Break (about 3-4 weeks off we get 2 weeks off)
Nope. I got 2 weeks.
Please, people, don't exaggerate to make a point.
I have a Master of Science degree in Mathematics and I work in the transportation and logistics sector as a pricing analyst. I make about 1.5 times the teacher salaries reported in the post. My job does not require much math, so you might need to seek a job outside the realm of math to make a decent salary. Tech and Corporate Business is where the money is at, practicing mathematicians are mostly in it for the love of the subject, not money.
You could choose worse than being an algorithmic trading developer (normally referred to as a quant). This is a very well paying field (not as good as the hedge fund manager mentioned previously). The work is a combination of trading knowledge, software development and statistical analysis. Trading algorithms have been long since been putting the "junior trader" jobs out of business. A decent algorithm with many strategies can trade in many ways, depending on what the customer needs. Your job would be to create new strategies based upon customer requirements as well your own experience. Many trading strategies are very closely guarded secrets. The quant that "owns" the knowledge has great power and often commands a very good salary. There are several books you can read up on the subject.
(Full disclosure: I'm a recruiter for IT/Quant Finance companies): If you're really interested in making money and using advanced scientific/mathematical education and experience, quant finance is definitely one way to do it. Most of the quantitative hedge funds I've worked with are pretty anti-institutional: they're trying to attract PhDs, not MBAs, so they try to run their companies like a grad school (with a seven-figure prize for a good dissertation). Stuff like this sounds like exactly what the original poster was asking for.
Unfortunately, C/C++ and (to a lesser extent) Java are the standard languages (although there's one company that uses Ocaml), so a brilliant hacker who happens to love Ruby or Haskell or something less mainstream isn't likely to get a fulfilling role. On the other hand, these companies hire Google-quality people for several times Google's usual salaries, so it's a fair tradeoff; if you can hold onto a quant position for a few years, you'll probably never have to work again.
I'm reposting this article I wrote (and published on a now-defunct website) when I first started working...and I wondered what high-paying jobs were available for Classics Majors who were in the Army and had lots of technical experience from playing games and downloading 0-day warez from questionable sources:
How to Land a Job in Corporate America
Nowadays, recent college graduates have two options to consider after graduation: go to graduate school, or join the work force. For the interests of the captivated audience reading this article, I won't bother discussing graduate school (but if you're interested in grad school, I can forward you my other article, "What to do after being denied admission into your favorite grad school").
The problem with finding a job is that most recent college grads don't have the experience that most employers want, and on the other hand, most recent college grads want a job that will best compensate them monetarily. Obviously, most entry-level jobs pay meager wages and won't cater to a person's decadent lifestyle (that is, if you want to continue eating out every night and hitting the bars and clubs once a week). What's not obvious is that if you want a good job, you have to start out at the bottom and work your way to the top. Nobody is ever going to offer a position for an entry-level CEO. So, reality has to dictate the fact that success and wealth come later in life.
Evidently, success and wealth (at least the monetary kind...intrinsic wealth and success can be attained anywhere) can only be attained through the right job, and by the right job, I mean a career in Corporate America. Albeit, anyone can have success and wealth through any given vocation, but only through Corporate America can a person lose all that is meaningful to him and suddenly take on the values and responsibilities of a large group of people and do things for the interests of the company. Once this becomes ingrained in a person's mentality, then he is well on his way to success and wealth.
But, how, you may be asking, does a person go from a happy-go-lucky everyday joe to a person clawing and inching his way up the corporate ladder? Well, my first piece of advice is to network. Learn to make friends in the corporate world, attempt to maintain those friendships, and once those friends learn of your graduation from college (it doesn't matter what your grades were), take advantage of them and use your friendship as a basis for future interviews and job offers. Use them for all they are worth, because if they don't land you a job, then think of the money you wasted on the friendship.
If networking doesn't work, I suggest trying to attend information sessions hosted by corporations regarding employment opportunities. When you attend these info sessions, make not only a mental note of the people that are attending, but take down their names, addresses, and phone numbers. You can then begin to develop friendships with the people who share your career interests. Most likely, these people will have advice on resumes and would be glad to share their list of contacts with you. If they're not willing to part with such information, then sabotage them. If he's not with you, then he's against you, and competition lost is a position gained.
If neither of these two tactics work, you can always do everything by yourself and go directly to a company for an interview. Don't bother calling and mailing a resume. I always feel that this method of gaining a company's attention is a waste of time and stamps. Rather, if you go directly to the Human Resources office without an appointment and refuse to leave without being seen for an interview, they'll see how determined you are, and isn't determination a respectable quality of a potential employee?
Once at the interview, don't be nervous, but rather, be straightforward and honest. It's never a good idea to lie about skills and attributes that you don't have. Instead, wear revealing clothing. If you can't wear revealing clothing, flirt with the in
semper ubi sub ubi
The problem is not that there are not high paying jobs for people with science and math backgrounds (there are plenty), the problem is that *research* does not pay well.
Research is what you do during the 6 to 12 years of grad school and post-doc while you make less than a construction worker (I've been a construction worker and a physicist, construction pays better). It's about a decade of working your ass off, with no guarantee of success, very little pay, and frequent ego shattering failure.
Let's say you don't go to grad school or do a post-doc, or that you don't want to work as hard as those jobs demand. What happens? You can still get a good paying job in science or math, and you can still do research, but you'll (almost) never have the opportunity to direct research or have your views taken seriously by the journals, scientific agencies and professional organizations (the gatekeepers of scientific "truthiness").
Essentially, you don't have a chance to be a world-leading scientist. And *that* is what we don't have enough of in the US. Our best scientists are often imported from overseas (and we don't have enough women making it to the highest ranks). But, the barrier to become a scientist is not economic (there's no grad school cost), but something else.
The culture of science is such that many people are turned off for fear of not being good enough, or strange enough or something silly like that. Virtually any slashdot reader could be a physicist, and wouldn't you rather be working on fusion than whatever you're currently doing? Why didn't you?
Someone with a degree in computer science should be doing pretty well, or someone with a degree in math or physics and some programming skills. I would suck to be a biology major. CNN had a list, in 2006, of the bachelor's degrees with the highest starting salaries. It's dominated by business-related, engineering, and mathematical science disciplines. http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/startin g_salaries/index.htm
Get an MS or Ph.D. in Medical Physics.
Working in a clinic, you'll START at $80-90k w/MS, ~$120k with a Ph.D., slightly lower working in R&D/Industry.
Great job satisfaction, saving lives and all.
There is a huge tendenacy for kids in highschool to drop math and sciences because they "think" it's too hard, or its not cool, or a million other reasons. The "math and science" jobs aren't just the mathematician and pure scientist. Economics, engineering are two obvious ones. Has anyone paid attention to how technical heavy duty mechanics has become? Many companies won't take an apprentice on that doesn't have a high school diploma.
Engineering jobs routinely lead to management jobs where the money is plenty and challenges can be enormous.
but you can't do any of this without highschool math and science. I believe the encouragement to keep taking math and science is more aimed at highschool level so kids don't close the door on their opportunities.
Certainly in the mining industry we are screaming for people, but they just aren't out there. Engineers can pretty much name their price these days.
... Far from it actually.
Don't fall into the trap of "Don't bother with math, you don't want to be a teacher." There are definitely very good, high-paid jobs for skilled people with Math backgrounds.
As someone pointed out in another comment, Economics is a big field for Math majors. Lots of large businesses and investment firms want people with strong Math backgrounds for all kinds of work. Some directly related to what you might think a "Math guy" might do, some more general such as investing, etc.
Any engineering field will need a few individuals with exceedingly strong math backgrounds and there's a lot of "regular" engineers out there that you wouldn't want doing formal proofs (think Intel FDIV bug).
Teachers are considered professionals like doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Just because you don't believe professions with unions and tenure are professionals, doesn't mean you're correct. Also, um... Both doctors and lawyers are essentially certified by outside boards that lobby for them. Just like a union. And just like a union they can't find work unless they belong to these organizations. Law firms pretty much always have a structure that mirrors tenure. Make partner and you're set for life.
As for the summer bit. Frankly teachers have it right. We're the dumb asses working during the best months of the year.
...has a master's degree in Science!
Investment banking is not about math. It's about Andover, Exeter, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, yachting, golfing, playing squash and knowing which years were good in Graves vs. Medoc. It's a salesman's game. Same with law. If you want to be one of the rich lawyers, you must be a salesman. The lawyers who are not salesmen do not make partner and see the 7-figure annual distribution checks.
If you enjoy math for the sake of doing math, you're going to want to look into physics, cosmology, astronomy etc...and you're going to be looking at PhD to get employment. There's only so many jobs in these fields and there are more PhD's than jobs, so why hire anyone without a PhD? Don't go there unless you really love math and you're more talented than 90% of the math majors.
If you want to work in science, you've got chemistry which is revived as nano-this and nano-that, biology which is really genetics or molecular biology for big pharma, and you've got computer science, robotics, and the various engineering disciplines. If you want to get somewhere with a BS, you'll probably do better in engineering and CS.
If you like talking to people, solving puzzles, or cutting meat, go to medical school.
If you want to really make money, start a business. No college required. Just a good idea, ability to sell, ability to execute, courage and persistence. The good idea is the easiest part.
My brother majored in mathematics at a top school. He minored in philosophy. He had a 3.75 GPA. After getting his BA, he could have gone the teacher route, the professor route or into defense contracting. Instead, he chose to work in housekeeping at the lodge on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. 15 years later, he manages a $15 million unit of a billion dollar business with a couple of hundred employees reporting to him. The most direct route isn't always the most rewarding.
Working independently needs a set of managerial skills which its not necessary for everyone to have. If everyone was required to run their own businesses we would still be in the age of artisans and home based factories prior to the industrial revolution. Modern society has done a division of labour between technical and managerial skills and just like managers wouldnt be generating any cash without technical workers to do the actual work , technical workers should not be expected to do the managers job as well as their own. Both types are needed in the modern economy and need to be adequately compensated. Unfortunately for the technical types under the current system managers have more pricing power. There probably is a fair solution to this problem but I dont know what it is.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I have a math degree (B.S.) and my first real job out of college is a computer programming gig, image processing software, at 50K (USD) annually plus benes. As a comparison, teachers in the area with a master's degree make about 40K. I'd avoid looking for a position that has "assistant" in the title like "research assistant." With just a B.S. you're probably not qualified for jobs with titles like "Physicist" or "Mathematician," but I'd say if you're trying to make the most money, avoid those titles. They're for researchers actually interested in the work and not the money. Look for "consultant," "engineer," or "manager." i.e., choose "chemical engineer" over "chemist" and certainly "chemical research assistant." For the most part, ignore other words in the title: if you picked a tough major and did well, that should be impressive enough. Just because you majored in physics does not mean you can't be an effective software or mechanical engineer. Also, avoid places that are "always hiring" unless you have some "in." By "always hiring," they mean, "always looking for a great deal." This means they'd like to pay you less than your true market value. Plenty of employers are looking for a talented employee with a technical degree, but they'll fill the position quickly. Ideally, secure your job through networking, you'll almost always secure higher salaries that way. All that you want to make a lot of money in math or science, come up with a marketable concept and start your own company (I'm still working on this one). You'll (probably) never get rich working for someone else.
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Texas base teacher salary for a starting teacher is $27,320. See... http://www.tea.state.tx.us/school.finance/salary/s al07exp.html/
You need to check you figures. On top of the base salary, individual districts can add to the base salary from local funds. A base salary of $38 to $40K for an entry level position would only be acheived at a wealthy district or a district with crime/social problems.
Get a job doing what you love to do. Set up your life so you only spend 30% on housing (buy a house wherever you can afford it with this percent of your income, fuck impressing people for 10 years at least... never spend anything on an apartment), 30% on living and 40% stick into a high growth mutual fund of some sort (YMMV but energy is still really good right now).
Keep your eye on the ball, which is 5 years from now, no matter when now is. That 40% you put into growing your money will compound no matter how poorly you manage it. In 5 years you will have a hell of a lot more money than you had before AND because you bought a house your housing investment will also appreciate and you can then sell and get something much nicer.
In 10 years you may even look like a respectable member of society AND you'll have enjoyed getting there.
So get a job, any job, that you like... and then live. Set your life up correctly, then relax and let time do the work for you.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
"for nine months of work"
I see this again and again and again. Why is it so difficult to understand that teachers do a lot of their work outside the classroom doing prep work, taking cert classes and grading. You wouldn't say a systems designer does 0 months of work a year because they don't write code.
Parent is right on target. I do know a lot of "quants". Finance simply is where the money is and the pay can be huge. You either go work as a quant for a company managing lots of bucks (like, say, a Fortune Global 100 consumer bank) or, if you're after the real bucks, you go working as a quant for a hedge fund (or a FHOF - Fund of Hedge Funds). One typical project may involve you're average MBAer drafting some crap under a spreadsheet, then the quants comes in and makes a real model from the crappy spreadsheet then the programmer comes in and writes lots of Java code... Then monte-carlo simulation are run on hundreds of computers. Then the company you work for earns lots of money (or lose less money than others ;) and you can get rich (especially if you've got bonuses).
Crazy money there. One of the only way I know to earn more than that is to create your own succesful company.
That said the maths (and programming) behind financial stuff are not very complicated and boringly repetitive.
I'd bet dollars to pesos you're living on a coast. Same here, but if I had a wife and kids, I'd have to think long and hard about it, just like my parents did. Sucks that those morons, combined with more income disparity (which also drives up prices because the rich can afford to overpay for 3 or 4), are forcing us to change our lives though.
Wish I had the mod points to mod you up. It's amazing how many armchair teachers (and moderators) have chimed in on this thread who have no idea what goes on behind the scenes of the schoolday. My mom has taught public school for 20+ years, so I know what you're talking about.
make world, not war
My wife was able to get a job selling scientific related equipment out of college. Started at a company that sold HPLC columns, then moved to a company that sold Ion Chromatography instruments. Now she is a teacher however. Much less stress (and salary)
Electrical Engineer is always good. Quantitative analysis is good too. I had a buddy that worked for Ping golf clubs and did pretty well analyzing numbers for them. But a job you'll enjoy really is much better than the one that pays the most. In my experience If I hate a job I can stay with it for about two years. Not really worth it.
I think that it's wise to look for how you can:
a) do the work that you're willing to tolerate (or enjoy)
b) for the most pay possible
I think that your premise that employers are going to screw employees at every turn is false. Employers are not evil by nature. They are run by people, and people sometimes make bad choices. The fact that some companies show little loyalty or protection for their people does not mean that all companies will screw people.
I have worked for more than one company that I thought was a good place to work. If you expect that your employer will screw you, I suspect that prophecy will self-fulfill.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
If you are *VERY* good with maths and especially statistics, bank may be interested.
They need very good models of loans, default, risks and such calculations and are ready to pay for those.
Of course, you need to prove that you are quite brilliant...
Fresh new patent lawyers with science and engineering degrees are getting $160,000 and up right out of law school.
0 5
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=11750726392
your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through
an undergraduate degree in one of the "pure" sciences is close to worthless. You learn few practical skills, not even how to do research, unless you do undergrad research, which I recommend. All you've proved is that you're smart, and there are plenty of smart people with practical skills to boot...
If you love math or physics, I'd say either plan on getting graduate degree, or double major in some kind of engineering field. Computer science is popular right now, but that's not exactly an endorsement (popular = more competition = less pay). I went the CS route, but out of love for CS, not out of love for money (although the money's still pretty decent if your skills are good). Electrical engineering, aeronautical engineering, X engineering are the way to go if you want a high paying job that benefits from an undergrad degree in maths or physics.
There are a number of math jobs mentioned on other slashdot posts that don't require a PhD, but they all sound suspiciously like accounting to me, which brings up the question of why they'd hire someone with a math degree and not an accounting degree...
If all you have is a math or physics BS, you can *maybe* get a decent job, but you'd be better off teaching yourself some practical skills first, or going back to school for an engineering degree or a Phd.
Just to be counter-example, I feel like saying that I am currently doing the following:
1 - going to college full time (12 credits in the coming fall/spring) at a 4-year college, majoring in Electrical Engineering
2 - studying for the GRE (which I will take to pursue my masters while working full time)
3 - working 32 hours/week
4 - in a committed long-term relationship (she is also in college, also persuing a technical degree: microbiology)
5 - living on less than half of what I make. I make ~$12/hour at my internship. This + scholarships (high GPA and minimal volunteering payed for my tuition) pay for books/books/rent.
6 - this one will come as a shock, I have over $5000 in investments (staying at home through high school, investing everything I made)
7 - I do not own a credit card (my bank has provided me with a debit card, however)
8 - I will own a house within 15 years, easily, living inside of my income, investing the rest
9 - I live off-campus with several roommates (including my brother atm, but I have always had roommates)
10 - my monthly payments are as follows: rent, electricity, phone/internet. I have no cell phone, I have no car payment (paid in cash with part of saved money when my Saturn died last Thanksgiving), we split three payments that we have to make.
Also, my parents are middle class and divorced. My mother makes ~40K/year, my father makes ~30K/year, my step-mother and step-father are retired. Although they pay for gas/food when I come home, I get little aid.
I am happy to be in America, where capitalism (if not Republicanism) rules the day. I am proud that my money has value, my bank is insured, and hard work pays off.
We are not all deadbeat Social Services majors questing for what used to be a high school diploma and finding only crushing debt.
my company hired lots of maths majors as software engineers 8 years ago, started around $45k. if you were good, your salary doubled since then
I think the same is probably true of the games companies.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Your situation should have illustrated the primary reason why teachers don't get paid well. Women will do it for cheap because they can do it and still be a stay-at-home Mom for the most part. As a professional, a mother of four would barely make enough to pay for day care. Okay to be honest I have no idea what day care costs, but you get the idea.
As lots of people are saying 'become a Quant' - I thought you might like a Quant to tell you about it -
There are many kinds of Quant, this is what some of them do, but it's not exhaustive -
1) Desk Quant - help traders understand trading issues on a day-to-day basis. Rapid application development (probably on Excel/VBA/C#), quick/pragmatic thinking are essential skills here.
2) Analytical Developer - less math (still got to understand it though), more programming (exceptional skills). Development of analytics libraries - probably implementing/optimising/enhancing ideas that a Desk Quant or Modeller has developed for the desk. Much more 'backroom', but not as well paid.
3) Quant Modeller - concentrate on developing new model ideas, and requires very very very good maths skills. What most people mean when they talk about 'a Quant'. Make a packet of cash if they develop something useful (before the rest of the market does).
What do I do? I'm mostly 1 and 2 in Equity Exotics at a US bank. I'm well paid and love my job. It's very hard work, but that's what you get paid for! There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Make sure you study stochastic calculus in your degree (Math/Physics/CompSci). Do the degree to an advanced level at a good school (get at least a Masters or Phd). You should at least know what Black-Scholes is and how to derive it. Don't be scared to apply - those who don't ask, don't get.
There are many other things to consider - what asset class you would like to work in - Equities, Credit, Energy, FX, Commodities, Rates... or which area - Risk, Trading, Research, etc., Each has different emphasis on skills, different requirements of computing and math skills. My bank lets Quants move between asset classes and job emphasis, I don't think this is universal though.
1. Summer lasts from mid-june to mid-August. Teachers work after students get out and come back before classes start. That alone makes for ten months work per year, not nine.
2. During the regular school year, vacations may not be taken. You get a couple of weeks time off (Christmas/Spring Break) but unlike other jobs, you don' get a choice as to when.
3. During the day you may or may not have time for lunch. An hour is unheard of. A few minutes is more common. When the kids are eating, you're getting your work done or covering for someone else.
4. A day for the students starts at 8AM and ends at 3:30PM. Teachers need to be there before and after to get them into class and out of the parking lot. That's 8 hours plus with above lunch.
5. Summers are often spent developing lesson plans, going to conferences and doing the things required to remain certified.
$40K is about right for a teacher with over ten years experience and a Masters Degree in the relevant field (in Florida).
It has taken a long time to get people to understand how poorly teachers are paid. Now we need to dispell the myth about how little they work.
It's hard for me to tell whether you think "experienced" teachers should be more highly compensated because they "do it better" or if you think the better teachers should just be paid handsomely outright, regardless of their tenure. I believe a teacher's pay should be based on performance, not the number of years they haven't been fired. How to measure teacher performance is up for debate.
I'm not going to say teaching is easy, but everyone that I know that became a teacher basically defaulted into it because their other career plans didn't work out or because they didn't have career plans in the first place. Granted, this sampling does not represent every teacher and the job itself may not be as easy as many people think, but it's an easy job to get and a difficult job to lose. Everyone on this message board could get a job teaching, but not all of us could get programming or chemical engineering jobs.
And isn't it the teachers' unions that oppose differential pay anyway? Steve Jobs had it partly right when he said the teachers' unions are the problem with the U.S. public education system and that you'll never get good people to run schools when it is so difficult to get rid of the bad teachers. But there are other problems with the system like lack of choice for students (why not let them attend any public school they want?) and economically speaking, the demand for education is artificial (everyone is required to attend). Plus there's a cultural issue, especially in low-income areas (black, white and otherwise), where scholastic achievement is frowned upon by peers.
Teachers always seem to be fighting for higher pay and I'd love to see them get it, but not some little five percent or twenty percent increase. Ignoring the tax implications, can you imagine if teaching salaries were suddenly put in the six-figure range and principals were allowed to hire and fire at will? What percentage of today's teachers would lose their jobs to truly qualified professionals? 20%? 80%?
There is an overriding attitude when it comes to education that every child should have the same opportunities and therefore be treated the same, but children are all different; they learn and are inspired in various ways, so why is the goal to make every classroom identical? The current system caters to a certain mindset and I guess I (and probably most everyone on this board) was lucky to be one such "good tester," but it would be nice if schools were allowed to specialize, liquidate the teaching pool a bit and students were allowed to shop public schools.
I'm not saying privatize, but at least take on some of the philosophy of privatization and competition. Then educational budget increases (and decreases) will have an actual impact on quality of education and money will go to the teachers that deserve it.
PS. I also have a hair-brained scheme where an uber-tiny fraction of each citizen's income would go to every school and teacher they ever had. Recieve teaching royalties until you die- how's that for incentive?
Job prospects for people with a B.S. in geology are outstanding right now. Either in the environmental side, or the water resources side (water quality or quantity), or in the mineral exploration side, you'll have many opportunities. A M.S. gives you a leg up, but even undergraduates who haven't completed their degrees are being recruited. Skills in GIS (ArcINFO and the like) are also valuable.
If you can dream up new ways to harm your fellow man, then your future is assured, young scientist!
However free the market be people are not equal (unless you believe in Communism or Christianity). Every person has a different level of ability and is able to do a different jobs. Jobs which can be done by a large number of people will always pay less than jobs that can be done by only a smaller number of people. The AMA might be artificially restricting the market by say preventing H1Bs being used to hire doctors whithout forcing them to do another degree in the US but the fact reamins even if every doctor in the world was free to practice in the US doctors would still get paid more than the guy who puts up sheet rock or the guy who administers unix servers. Why? Because the doctor could put up sheet rock or administer servers if he put his mind to it but the sheet rock installer or the network admin could never do the doctors job. Yes there is abuse of power at CxO levels but the solution in a free market is to let these companies go bankrupt and let them be taken over by Indian Outsourcing companies whose CEOs live in India and dont make millions of dollars. The free market can deal with most situations but there is no guarantee it will deal with it in way which preserves your standard of living.
**Life is too short to be serious**
you can make a fortune.
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
Disclaimer: I used to work there, right out of college.
Forget about the money. The journey is the reward. Particularly if you are in the math and science field. If you want monetary rewards hire a bunch of math and science guys really cheap to do the work for you. They often do not know how valuable they are and will work cheap because you'll give them soft drinks for free, a beer fest every Friday and call your place of employment a campus so they can pretend they are still in academia. Let them run around wearing funny clothes and give them squirt guns to splash each other with and they'll work 80hr weeks because they like it. If you become concerned that the math and science guys from the US are a little too expensive lobby the gov't for more H1-B visas to put a little pressure on salaries so that you can increase your own. Your new Title: Silicon Valley CEO Did I give away the secret recipe? Doh!
Work for government contracters.
The DoD will reward you well.
The only price is your soul.
If you're in Texas (or willing to move to the Baltimore/DC area or California), there is lucrative work, assuming you're an American citizen and don't mind selling your soul to the military-industrial complex. It doesn't matter what branch of science: biology or chemistry people are needed for chem/bio warfare; physics, math, and engineering are needed for every other kind of weapon or defensive system out there.
Starting salary in my area (one of those areas from above) with a B.S is $55k+ in the defense field, as long as you're able to hold a clearance.
Where are the high paying jobs for those who are good in math and science? I've heard about math and science shortages for almost two decades now, and I was wondering what high salary/high demand jobs have resulted from these shortages.
Well, actually very few thanks to H1B/L1 visas and American businesses deciding that they don't want to pay free market rates for native technical labor (although it's just dandy for their products). Whenever the pool of available native tech talent starts to get the slightest bit tight they go to Congress screaming "We need more imported tech labor!!!". Of course the truth is that they don't need more imported tech labor, they just want it given they can pay imported labor far less (especially in urban areas where the cost of living is high, where a great majority of tech jobs tend to be today) and can keep them captive (i.e., the imported labor can't quit to find a better job/more pay once they're here without risking their visas and associated deportation). It's all basically a scam (note the current Charlie Foxtrot in progress regarding the proposed immigration law overhaul) to keep business fatcats from paying people market value for their technical skills.
So what's been the glaring end result of these visa policies? The pool of native tech talent continues to drop because nobody wants to work for artificially suppressed wages (i.e., the free market at work), so the businesses then scream even louder to Congress for more imported tech labor to thwart what are basically the effects of the free market further depressing the outlook for native techies. Technical work has now gone the same way as textiles and agriculture in that it's a trade for a dedicated, cheap labor pool.
Most science majors I know actually make less than teachers (in Texas teachers make $38-40K to start for nine months of work).
Rest assured if the business types have their way it will continue to be so; do yourself a favor and go to business or law school.
...Nature Magazine has a job posting board for just science jobs. As of a few minutes ago they have over 3,400 jobs on there.
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help. -Ronald Reagan
And you might be onto something. Meth science can make you a bundle.
I like music
This is so true. For short huals you can work more but over a six month period about the best you can actually work is ~50+/-5 hours. If you get above this number then the number of productive hours start droping. If you are below the number of productive hours goes up in about a linear fashion with hours worked. Kind of like a pyramid. As a point - the Japanese "work" ~12 hours per day 6.5 days per week. BUT they never seem to do much while there. The French seem like they never have to go to work - yet when they are there, they are really productive. Yes, I know that this is a little bit of a generalization. There are people who only work productively 10 minutes a week and then there are people who seem to productively work 90 hours/week. I am talking about an average.
One thing to note is that I tell my graduate students to not stay too long and to take some vacations. This sounds strange but I want to maximize their productivity. (My advisor got mad at me once for wanting to take a vacation. We did not always see eye to eye - but my work got him tenure and me a PhD - so it was not all bad for either of us.)
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Some day I am going to need to learn how to 1) speel and B) tpye
This message was brought to you by "Lack of Sleep."
I've heard about math and science shortages for almost two decades now,
A myth perpetuated by biz lobbyists trying to generate an excuse to offshore or hire more visa workers. There was a Rand Corporation (a research institute) study that said there is no general sci-math "shortage".
Table-ized A.I.
Well, I live in a country with universal health care. Secondly, I now work as an academic, and I Really Enjoy My Job, and have ZERO interest in retiring, as I am having way too much fun teaching. I. Am. Free. You are not. I am not filling out TPS reports. The closest I get to that is a monthly faculty meeting and occasional committee work. However, I am on committees that are actually engaged in something interesting, so they are not a burden - they are another fun thing to do.
So, I make enough to keep a roof over my head, and my kids can go to college for free. I have zero interest in retiring - I will work until I die, because I am doing interesting and valuable work and research.
So, no, you are wrong. You don't have to be a money whore to be free - you just have to love what you do. Your notion of freedom is caprice.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Everyone wants highly-skilled labor to work hard for very little money. The people who complain that there aren't enough qualified workers in field X are just trying to find people who'll work hard at low pay.
No, I will not work for your startup
I graduated in 1995 with a degree in math and a degree in education. I had wanted to go into teaching since I was in grade seven, and that's exactly what I did. My first job was at a private high school teaching computer science for $32K for a ten-month contract.
My roommates at the time, both math grads with jobs in the computer industry, made higher salaries than I did and they can attest to the fact that I worked much harder and longer hours than either of them. A typical day for me was getting to the school for 7:30 to open the computer lab, teaching five classes a day (semestered school), getting 25 minutes for lunch, keeping the lab open until 5:00, going home and working until 11:00 or 12:00 getting ready for the next day. I worked weekends and holidays to get caught up, but I never felt like I was totally prepared for the next day. I absolutely hated my job.
At the end of that contract I took a position doing system administration and network management for a start-up cell company for around $38K. I worked through two wireless network builds, putting in many hours of (paid) overtime and ended up managing a team of around ten - and loved it. Since then I have worked for large and small consulting companies and am now working in a management position at another wireless operator. I have still never worked as hard or been as stressed out as I was in that year of teaching and I'm probably making twice what a teacher with the same number of years of experience is making.
There are more than teaching and research jobs for math grads - there are a lot of jobs of which you cannot possibly be aware until you gain some experience in any field. Pick a field or a company that interests you and find an entry-level job that matches your interests and level of education and if you're successful, you will likely be rewarded. Don't expect to make a large salary right out of university, you have to prove you're worth it.
I know a number of people who are still teaching and they don't do it for the money alone. They are aware of the opportunities that exist in the private sector, but they continue to teach because they get other, non-financial rewards for their efforts.
Yes, quant careers are great if you want to make quick money. They are also very intellectually challenging, something difficult to find in corporate america. But also consider the downsides: you'll be working in an intense Wall St. environment with intense type-A personalities. This means that 1. you'll be yelled at (not all jobs, but many of these types of jobs) 2. your position will be volatile, great $ in good markets, but a market crash for your product type can wipe out your position. 3. forget about any respect if you are black, hispanic, native american, arab, whatever. these are brutal places and one of the few remaining glass-ceiling'd areas, mostly because so much money is at stake. sure you'll make a lot of money, but when your co-workers dont greet you in the morning or respond to your "good mornings" you'll see how much work environment matters. 5. you often have to get to work at 6:45am, though you leave early As you can see, the downsides are almost all cultural. If thats cool with you, great.
Teachers chair meetings?
Quick poll, who's chaired a meeting where they had the authority to send anybody out and possibly force them to repeat a year of work? Where they had the absolute 'last word' that counted? Teachers have authority over their classrooms more similar to jail guards.
We know a classroom is nothing like a meeting of peers (or close to peers).
Teaching is more like guarding a jail then it is like running a meeting where you've got to actually solve a problem (or at least get everybody thinking about the problem and working together). Granted we all did that first (on trivial problems) with teachers nudging us along. Those teachers are rare, as you see when you actually have to run a meeting of people who never got that everything isn't all about them.
Of course their are those meetings where one person talks and everybody else listens. They are a symptom of disfunctional organizations (including schools).
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You know why education degrees are disparaged right? (Lowest average SAT/high school GPA incoming, highest average GPA outgoing).
I assume you learned something useful before going back for the ed degree and teaching certificate.
It is true that if all you have is an education degree people will assume you couldn't get a 'real' degree. This is doubly true for education doctorates.
Finally I've got two parents that teach (Mom runs her own 'Harvard prep' preschool, Dad is a college prof. where I first heard the 'WTF he's a PhD!? It's in education! Oh that explains it.' interchange.) They have most of the teaching profession bracketed and are always hanging around with other teachers.
None of them ever stop complaining. (Except Mom who just said fuck all that and runs her own school.)
As for me, never. I'd shoot the first of the little bastards that did any of the things I did to my teachers to me.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
8 - I will own a house within 15 years, easily, living inside of my income, investing the rest
If you plan on buying a house, then you really should get a credit card. In fact, you should have got one the day you turned 18. 15% of your FICO score is based on credit history. Having a credit card is basically the only way to do it. Use it for your misc. purchases and pay it off every month. It also saves you heartache in case you have to dispute a charge, your money is not tied up somewhere (as is what happens often when you dispute check card charges).
Oh, and there's a good chance you'll burn out at some point. Don't worry, most engineers do. It'll probably be junior year. You'll be trying to learn Laplace transforms and Fourier transforms and z transforms and trying to work 30 hours a week and at some point something will just snap. You may or may not rebound. Most at least slide by. But as someone who had a fair share of both mechanical engineering and electrical engineering curriculum in addition to way more math than I should have taken, electrical engineering is no walk in the park at a good school, so just try to keep your head above water. If that means not working and having to take some loans out, do it. In the long run, a small loan now will pay off big time.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
The push to make teachers work the same hours as everyone else often sees teachers doing nothing but bureaucratic baloney. Teaching isn't easy, but some of the best teachers don't have to do hours of prep because they know their subjects and can wing it very well. The exception is when preparing reports. At report time teachers work longer hours than just about any other profession and their reports usually have to fulfil some soul destroying criteria that means they don't actually get to grade students as they'd like to be able to.
You're also forgeting that teaching isn't stress free and that's one heck of a difference. For school teachers in particular controlling a class of feral students is a thankless job that pays very badly for the required effort AND they're responsible for the well being of the children as well as teaching them but they don't get pay that's much better than a child care worker. When you start teaching adults your knowledge has to be much more indepth and you have to keep up with your field (most of which you must do on your own dime and in your own time).
Free time as a teacher? Only if you're a substitute teacher (and then you're not paid for holidays).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I'm easy. Prostitution.
I graduated from a good school with a meh GPA (3.30) and a double major in EE and math.
I took a job with Sclumberger (oilfield services) as a field engineer. I was making 72k right out of the gate (Colombia hazard pay). Upon realizing just after a week (post-training) that the 80 hour weeks would kill me, I quit.
I've been teaching middle and high school math ever since (next year will be 4 years). I took a job in a private school. No certification needed, no BS classes every summer. This summer I've got 10 weeks off. My only school obligation is a week of an AP institute in July. My salary started at 42k. Far less than what I would have made at Schlumberger, but still decent money for teaching.
My week is typically about 45 hours. I don't take work home. I have no illusions that I am a stellar teacher, but I am adequate. I know what I am talking about, which is a huge head start on many teachers.
My sanity appreciates my decision.
Financial Engineering is a good high paying math/programming job. Look at the jobs at wilmott.com http://www.wilmott.com/categories.cfm?catid=5
If you are planning on getting married, it won't matter how much you make because your spouse will either spend it or compalin about anything you want to buy as 'extraneous'.
Your analysis is silly. When I started work it was literally hand to mouth, which was OK, I knew that over time I would be paid far more. Oddly enough five years later I was in the highest paid engineer grade in the (national) company. Now I'm the highest paid engineer in a huge international company. Bummer heh?
/feed/ me 24/7. I don't see why a recent grad should expect to eat out very often. Or even buy lunch, if it costs too much. grads are poorly paid by the hour because frankly they are unproven.
123 dollars a week for food is hmmm, aspirational. I'll happily pay that for a meal, but my grocery bill is around 50 a week, which would
"Where are the high paying jobs for those who are good in math and science?"
Essentially the same as the high paying jobs for those who are not good in math and science.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
In my prior role I managed a team that did data analytics and predictive modeling for a large financial company (but not on the trading side). If the question is what you can do with a BS in math or science, well, teach or become a computer programmer/tech is about it...The entry level jobs in that field require an MS or PhD. I hired two "newbies" for my team -- one with a master's degree in Applied Mathematics and one with a PhD in Computer Science (but really he was more of a computational mathematician/programmer). One was a us citizen and one was on the special US School PhD version of the H1B. Having been involved in the recruiting and hiring I know that in this one case the H1B status didn't affect the salary offer. Both started at significantly more than $50k... Before the flame begins, note that I said "in this one case". I know too many IT professionals who are basically paid slaves to abusive companies, too.
Summers for teachers ain't free time any more (maybe a generation or two ago, but not now). And, the 9 months is mostly 24/7 sort of work: grading, planning, preparing, researching, doing paperwork...
My point was that what most people consider a minimal acceptable standard of living affects their spending decisions, and for people with low incomes, other choices can be made which on the surface seem objectionable.
If you're willing to do "whatever it takes" financially to live within your means, you're not trapped by the man. The poster to whom I replied indicated that the system was trapping young people. That's a load of crap. Let's empower people, not teach them that they are victims.
We agree - spend less than you make.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I see your point. not.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Before the flame begins, note that I said "in this one case".
Your point is well taken; however, I claim that hiring someone with a PhD is far different than hiring a more typical technical person, say for instance a software developer (for which there are greatly far more slots than PhDs). I've gotten enough recruiting calls to know what companies are using H1B labor, which recruiters are doing the recruiting for them and what it is they want to pay potential candidates. The recruiters are always Indian, can barely speak English, and think they're going to keep you on the phone for a 10-minute technical interview before they'll even tell you what the slot their recruiting for pays (typically like $30-40/hr, which is less than any salaried job that someone from this country with a B.S. degree and almost no experience can get). Considering most really good J2EE developers in my neck of the woods (where the cost of living is the highest in the country) get paid $100-200/hr even where government clearances are not required, I'd say it's perfectly accurate to say that across the industry H1Bs are depressing wages to a great extent.
The standard for freedom that you describe is called "Financial Independence". Indeed, very few people ever reach that point (passive income exceeds living expenses), even in retirement (most retirees must tap their nest egg's principal, not just live off of appreciation, dividends, and interest).
:)
But can we even describe that as "true freedom", as you say? After all, a person with way more than $800k well-invested may still have responsibilities. To his wife, to his kids, to his family. To his employees, community, church.
Simply accumulating $800k doesn't buy you the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, and to whomever you want.
But then look at a bum on the street. He goes wherever he wants whenever he wants. He doesn't work, save asking passers-by for nickels, dimes, quarters each afternoon. He has no responsibilities to anybody, and has nothing to lose. That sounds an awful lot like freedom to me.
Of course, given the choice between being the bum on the street and having a high net worth, I would choose the high net worth, and he probably would as well. The funny thing is, though, that bum on the street probably has a strange, idealized view of what it's like to have more money than you need. My guess is that you suffer from that same perception-misalignment.
I guess a million bucks isn't what it used to be.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
In theory this concept is a good one. The problem is that the playing field is not level and never will be.
The first issue is that we are such consumers that we demand to buy more and more crap and at the lowest possible price. The consumer will win here because business exists solely for the purpose of maximization of profit. It's the only moral mandate for any corporation. You cannot blame the corporation for striving to compete to provide the cheapest, highest quality products possible. This is what the consumer demands, and businesses work to provide what is in demand.
Secondly, we don't live in a world where the rules are applied equally. US based corporations mandated to pay a "living wage" by US standards will be completely unable to compete. Do you realize that in Indonesia you can live on $80/month, and be far far better off than many people there? Companies trying to compete in an economy like that will be compelled to pay what? $50K/year as a living wage? Even at $25K/year, that's $2,000/month or 25 TIMES the amount of pay that would satisfy many people in that economy.
Businesses would move outside the use and pay local economy wages then sell completed products to US based companies.
Remember that the only moral imperative for a corporation is to make money. (And the fact that they make money means that they can hire employees and pay your salary.) Making a profit is necessary and good, not an evil thing. Businesses only stay in business if they can produce goods and services demanded at the market rate.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Sorry but that's defeatist rubbish.
Free trade and crapitalism aren't the end all be all ultimate answer. Just as other political ideologies break down so does unfettered capitalism in a global market.
All civilized countries should make the import of goods produced under conditions where a living wage was not paid illegal, and actually enforce it. This is in everyone's best interests and should be what the world trade organisation and world bank are about, not driving everyone to compete in a market where the employer has all the power. Jobs that can be replaced by robotic machines will disappear but the jobs that are left will be ones that allow people to feed their children. Yes, gadgets and luxury items will indeed be more expensive. I can live with one gadget and one computer instead of 7. So can you. Neither of us are going to do well without a living wage.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer