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Fun Things To Do With a Math Or Science Degree?
bxwatso writes "My niece just took the ACT and got a perfect score on the math section. 25 years ago, when I took the test, the kids who aced the math section were pretty special. Her score, combined with straight A's so far in high school, suggest to me that she might be able to go to a top university (MIT?) based on her math aptitude. The rub is that she doesn't like math or science, even though she finds them easy. She doesn't want to be an engineer or scientist. I thought the folks here would be a great group to ask: What are some creative, not too nerdy professions that nonetheless require a talent for math, engineering, or science?"
My first girlfriend have like a perfect score (not just math, but 36 composite score) and are ranked in the top 5 in our class across 500+ students. She got a B.A. in elementary education last year. Probably an influence from her pastor.
New Economic Perspectives
At my mid-level university, one quarter of all students who made it past the second year in my rigorous program had perfect scores on both sections. The test really isn't that difficult these days, and even a moderate amount of targeted prep combined with a targeted curriculum puts you in a strong position; put her in a Putnam and we'll see what she's made of. MIT is the sort of unpleasant experience that should be reserved for those who genuinely want it.
Federal Agent? Whether it be FBI, NSA, DEA, DHS etc. They need 'nerdy' people. Jobs in hot areas for them are Forensic Computing, Forensic Accounting, etc. I sure there are more but those require a math/analytical mind. Plus there's potential to shoot someone...
I was pretty gifted in mathematics when I was young, to the point I would easily win school-wide maths competitions despite not working and having skipped a grade. I never worked much on it anymore until my natural aptitudes weren't enough to keep up during high school (I must point out that I'm French and not American), and I got to college (CS) without even knowing what a complex number was or what the sigma sign represented. Then I dropped out of high school for numerous reasons, one being that I performed too poorly due to my lack of interest and investment, particularly in mathematics.
However at that time I had an idea which sounded pretty damn exciting, namely a spectrograph and spectrogram synthesiser, so I started this project and picked up C and digital signal processing, which progressively involved more and more mathematics until I would know everything about complex numbers, Fourier transforms and negative frequencies and would start scratching maddeningly long equations on sheets of paper.
Before I picked that up I thought maths were some sort of pointless intellectual masturbation that only really served mad scientists who write papers about crap like string theory, but when I found out how it relates to all that is multimedia, and even to our senses of sight and audition, it all became very alive and interesting, and the point is, with that sort of stuff you can do anything you want. You can make your own synthesiser and make music out of it, you can create your own visual effects, or you can work for a space agency's contractor and work on systems that will be sent in space, probably a handful of other stuff that could be "creative and not too nerdy". Not too sure what "not too nerdy" involves..
You just got troll'd!
I'm a woman who aced the math ACT but didn't feel like studying math or science. I was into foreign languages. So now I have a bachelor's in Spanish and a master's in French literature, and I'm a web developer. Go figure.
What might have convinced me to study one of the hard sciences is seeing people actually at work using them. If I had met any pharmaceutical researchers or civil engineers or software developers and seen what they do at work every day, I might have found it more interesting. As it was, I had no frame of reference for working with math or science, and therefore no interest.
I have no idea what current philosophy academics are interested in, so I can't accuse them of not keeping up. But if they aren't keeping up with AI, the Simulation Argument, Bayesian theory and other such statistical things, QM's implications for the many-worlds hypothesis, and computer science research into semantics, just to pull a few things off the top of my head, they are wasting their time in several fields traditionally included under the rubric of "philosophy" (epistemology, ethics, etc.).
We still have no rock-solid answers to speak of to the old questions, but for the first time in millennia, we actually have some data for some of them... and we're only going to be collecting more. And even what little data we have has opened up more questions; "what does it mean to be human?" will begin to take on new overtones when we start asking just exactly how augmented does an ape have to be before it is "human", just how smart does an AI have to be, and, of course, is a binary definition of "human" even feasible, and if not, what is? And so on.
(I know for a fact there are philosophers interested in this. I simply don't know if they are in or out of the mainstream. Certainly they will eventually be in the mainstream.)
Nobody's said "Architect" yet...
but it's certainly one of the most creative things I can think of which requires an aptitude in math (geometry) and science (er, engineering).
(I took a bunch of econ courses, and didn't have to solve one differential equation)
It is very easy to get an undergraduate degree in econ without knowing anything more than algebra and some statistics... BUT that doesn't mean differential equations aren't involved, it just means your profs didn't go the extra step and show you the calculus happening behind all those wonderful graphs. And honestly, it means you didn't get your money's worth.
If you took graduate level econ courses without touching differential equations... I really don't know what to say. For any degree in economics, one would be very well served taking as much pure math as they can handle.
That said, a minor or (double) major with statistics can take you into almost any field you like, since everyone needs people to crunch and interpret numbers.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Okay, now that everyone here is done laughing, let me explain the logic.
I'm working my way through a CS degree. The math classes are interesting, but the CS stuff is all 'we'll pretend this is how theory works out in the real world, while pretending to teach you how the theory works in the labs.' Interesting, but not particularly useful except when teaching. Somehow, without any art background other then some highschool photography, I got into a Cyberart cross discipline class. I expected to be the hired coder, there, just working on someone else's idea. Turned out to be the best class I've ever taken.A year later, I'm working for the Art Department, writing code for 3 different grants and two class projects.
And no, CS wasn't a pre-requisite for any of these projects.
That is always good advice, but remember, at that age it is difficult to see the value of science. It is difficult to understand, even for college seniors in technical majors (math, natural sciences, comp.sci..etc), the immense benefit of being someone who understands how the world works. It usually takes a little sit-back and thinking to come to grips with the fact that you are proving things about the very nature of logic itself, or modelling the universe at levels the human mind did not really evolve to deal with. Anybody capable of doing science(esp at a high level), and enjoying this incredible meaningfulness and understanding (read:enlightenment) that comes as a result.. those people should be at least encouraged to pursue it. No harm could come from an honest suggestion. She may owe him so much for it later.
There's a link my brother sent me awhile back with a guy with an interesting theory about why there are more men than women in advanced sciences:
Because a PhD in science is a really poor career choice, and women are usually smart enough to avoid it, while men are much more likely to be sucked into it.
The fact is that if you have the brains and discipline to get a PhD in science and become a prof at MIT or Harvard, you could probably make a *ton* more money, and quicker, and have much more job security, going into medicine, law, or business. Or you could be slave-labour grad student for 7 years, then serfdom post-doc for 6 years, slave as an untenured professor for 6 years and then be fired... er sorry, "denied tenure" and be looking for a brand new job or an entirely new career at the age of 35.
But back to the question: one really good career path is to study engineering for undergrad because of the analytics and problem-solving skills it gives you, and then go into business or law. A lot of engineers make awesome businessmen because of the way they've been trained to think by their engineering education.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
Yeah, management, entrepreneurship, business development, business strategy... all of these are completely different activities requiring different skill sets. What I was talking about wasn't engineers going into management, so much as engineers using their analytical thinking to optimize business practices, finding the best place / the best way to make money in a particular competitive landscape, making strategic alliances for growth, &c.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
There's a link my brother sent me awhile back with a guy with an interesting theory about why there are more men than women in advanced sciences.
http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science
The fact is that if you have the brains and discipline to get a PhD in science and become a prof at MIT or Harvard, you could probably make a *ton* more money, and quicker, and have much more job security, going into medicine, law, or business.
Yeah. Too bad that for anyone thinking about getting a PhD in science or mathematics, getting a degree in medicine or working as a lawyer is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Perhaps even less so, since at least with paint you actually have time to do something interesting.
A very good friend of mine, who worked as a very well-paid IT consultant for a huge multinational, once told me something I found interesting, that my experience has shown to be true: "there's always good jobs for those who excel, so go with what you like, not what will make you the most money".
Or you could be slave-labour grad student for 7 years, then serfdom post-doc for 6 years, slave as an untenured professor for 6 years and then be fired... er sorry, "denied tenure" and be looking for a brand new job or an entirely new career at the age of 35.
Which is still better than making "teh big bux" for three years doing something you don't like, then making shitty money in a job you hate for the rest of your life after the entire field changes focus and you're left behind, your skills outdated by your lack of interest in the area. Sorry to burst your bubble, dude, but I've yet to meet someone who excels at their job and doesn't love it, be it in programming, sysadmin, mathematics, even music and photography. All this "follow the money" philosophy seems to create is mediocrity.
But then again, that plus your brother's quote explain the long-standing question of why are there so little, truly successful women out there ;)
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Totally agree with above post. Here's a little cautionary tale for you, from a girl who was pushed into a science major:
I scored above the 99th percentile on my SAT, ACT, as well as the ASVAB (one of the qualifying tests to join the military.) In fact, I just about maxed out the scores on the ASVAB - my recruiter wanted to photocopy and frame my scores in the recruiting office. I usually scored higher on the verbal sections than math sections on all of the above tests, but I was still in the top few percentiles. Given all that, I thought I was hot shit.
In high school, I had only had slightly-better-than-average grades because I didn't enjoy doing homework, but I generally did very well on my exams. I took a lot of AP and honors courses in both math/science subjects as well as the liberal arts, and breezed through them. Then when it came to college, I got a full scholarship to a state school. I matriculated as a biochemistry major because 1.) I've always done really well in those related subjects and 2.) my father is a biochemist, and he pushed me to follow in his footsteps. It was not my top-choice college, but I went there because it had good reputation and the scholarship was quite persuasive as well.
Long story short, I flunked out of college. Miserably. It only took me a semester before I was put on probation, a year to before I lost my scholarship, and then another year before they put me on academic suspension for not making the minimum grades. I hated my major, I hated my courses, and I hated everyone at my school. I didn't even bother attending my classes most of the time. I could rarely be bothered to even leave my room.
Anyway, I was too afraid to tell my parents that I flunked out of college... so I didn't. Instead, I told them I was doing fine, and became a stripper to pay for an apartment away from home and to attend community college while I figured myself out. Before I became a stripper, I also considered the possibility of running away to another country and suicide - being an academic failure is THAT big of a deal in my family, and I was THAT upset about it. I actually managed to pull this off for a while, until I couldn't take pressure of living a double life anymore.
I eventually 'fessed up to my parents. I pulled up my grades enough to transfer to another school. Unfortunately, I'm still a biology major for practical reasons - despite me failing so miserably at my last institution, I managed to pass enough courses in my major that my fastest route to graduation is to continue in my major. I am under a lot of parental pressure to graduate as soon as possible - for them, it's a great source of shame and embarrassment amongst our family and friends to have a daughter who didn't graduate college in 4 years.
Honestly, if I could do it all over again, I wouldn't have even gone to college at all until I was sure of what I wanted to do. I didn't discover my love and talent for physics until just last semester, when I aced my physics course. (Until then, I had always done rather poorly in physics - another reason why I chose biology/chemistry.) If time and money weren't issues, I'd probably pursue a degree in either engineering or physics instead of biochemistry. It's amazing what motivation can do - despite my past track record of laziness, I'm actually doing quite well now. My current school is a lot more academically rigorous than my last one - if I had put in a quarter of the effort that I am putting in now, I probably would've graduated a year early and with honors, no joke.
I'm not going to lie - being a stripper was probably one of the best and most formative experiences of my until-then overly sheltered life. I learned a lot about myself, about other people, and about the way the world works. It was a better education than I could've gotten at school. It also changed me to WANT to become a better person and to WANT to use my (other) talents to do useful, constructive things. Without all that, even if I had managed to pull up my grades to go back to school to please my parents, I probably would've fallen back into a cycle of avoiding class and failure all over again.
Moral of the story is, let her do what she likes - for herself, and not to please you or anyone else.
Yeah, but I bet you're still teaching Liebniz's Law (the identity of indiscernibles) as if it was true, whereas it is known to be false since the 1920's. Quantum statistics tells us that with as much certainty as we know anything.
I know of a couple of people who are working on formal logics that violate Liebniz's Law, but they are in the tiny minority. What the others think they are doing is not clear, because they are certainly not working on logics that have anything to do with the universe we actually live in, where it is trivial to have two entities that are indiscernible by any means whatsoever, but that are not the same entity.
Having worked with a number of philosophers over the years, including ones from first-rate schools, I have been repeatedly appalled by both their ignorance of and lack of interest in ordinary scientific truth.
They still, for example, think the whole "brain in a vat" thing is interesting, which is laughable to anyone keeping up with neuro-chemistry and neuro-physiology, which are telling us that we think with a lot more than the lump of neurons at the top of the spinal chord, and that our ability to act on the world is at least as important as our ability to observe it (somehow philosophers tend to leave out effectors in their brain-in-a-vat fantasies.)
If you press philosophers on these subjects it turns out that they don't mean a REAL brain in a REAL vat, but some kind of fictional, imaginary brain that fulfils whatever conditions they feel like making up to make their argument go. Again, not so interesting if you think philosophy ought to be about more than mental masturbation over imaginary worlds. The use of fantasy thought-experiments in this way by philosophers, which is totally different from the carefully-controlled thought experiments scientists use as the starting point for some arguments, is a real problem.
And I've yet to meet a philosopher who understands conditional probability. See the rather sad debate over the "envelope game" to appreciate the consequences of that.
Then there's that funny guy in philosophy of science who asks "suppose we were to find a substance that was identical to water in every respect but was not H2O, but rather XYZ?" This question is discussed seriously in the philosophy of science, or was ten or fifteen years ago, whereas to anyone who knows anything about how science actually works it is either incoherent or stupidly uninteresting.
If my experience is at odds with yours, well good! I'm glad to see things are improving--there were signs of betterment on the horizon when I was involved with identity theory and quantum ontologies a decade or two ago, but it was clear there was a long, long way to go.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Lots of women are being pushed HARD into science
and engineering. They seem to resist this.
Is it so hard to believe that different hormones
might result in different behavior? Why must we
judge this as a bad thing? Why must we judge the
value, even the economic value, of a person in
dollars or euros or whatever?
Maybe she'd like to stay home. Why can't she?
There won't be too many bright people in the
next generation if today's bright people focus
on for-pay careers. That's how evolution works;
it'd be good IMHO to resist becoming a world
full of idiots. Smart people should have kids
too, not just the dumb ones.
It's even rewarding. She can homeschool a dozen
bright kids. Really, it's extremely rewarding
and it's a full-time job.