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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.
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.
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.
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.
Math credentials worked for the last guy up to a point....
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.
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.
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!
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?
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?
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?
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.
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
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.
>>I'd be shocked to see a first-year Texas schoolteacher making $40K.
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Teachers in the suburbs around the bigger cities (where most science jobs would be) pretty much get $40K. 45% of the teachers work in these districts. Here is a quote from TexasISD.com:
Starting Pay
The average starting salary for a new teacher is $32,266, a 10-percent increase from the 2005-06 average of $29,354. This year's average starting salary is 18 percent higher than the state minimum starting salary of $27,320. The average starting salary in districts with more than 10,000 students is $39,457, an 8.5-percent increase from last year.
Seventy-three responding districts (10 percent) have an entry-level salary of $40,000 or greater. Forty-five percent of teachers (130,644) in the sample work in these districts.
The average starting salary in districts with more than 50,000 students is $41,025.
Eighty-seven districts (12 percent) pay teachers on the state minimum teacher salary schedule. These districts employ only 1.5 percent of teachers (4,313) in the sample. Highest Salaries The average highest salary paid in districts to 10-month teachers with a bachelor's degree is $51,349. The average highest salary paid in districts with more than 10,000 students is $62,551. Districts with more than 50,000 students have the highest top salaries paid at $65,875 on average.
From: http://www.texasisd.com/artman/exec/view.cgi/28/5
(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.
...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.
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.
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.
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.