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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
Well you could ball it up and try and shoot it into a waste basket from a distance.
Make it into a paper aeroplane.
Burn it
Origami perhaps..
Yeah, that's all the fun things I can think of doing with a degree...
With her mathematical/scientific aptitude and overall intellectual capability, there's one very simple and satisfying career choice!
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Most prerequisites for medicine (or dentistry, veterinary medicine, or chiropractic school) are science classes. If she does well as math and science, she may way to consider those paths.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
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.
Mastering the advanced concepts in Math and science is a lot more involved then High School. So if there is no interest, brilliance now could translate into mediocrity.
You could explain to her that neither math nor science in general is a `nerdy' profession, that she will outgrow her adolescence and that she will very soon hardly remember the names of her high school classmates. That there are peers out there to be had that are considerably more valuable than those who might have instilled in her that fear of nerdiness. That, in fact, she should do whatever it is she may want to do.
not too nerdy professions that nonetheless require a talent for math, engineering, or science
There are some areas of scientific research that really aren't all that terribly nerdy. What are her hobbies? If there is something that she does for fun, she may be able to find a scientist that works on making it better...
Not all components of scientific research happen in traditional lab environments.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
You mentioned what she's good at. Try to find out what she likes and see if there's a match there. Sure, she's got the potential, but if she's not happy doing it - even if she follows it through, she's doing it for the wrong reasons. She'll probably not be happy doing it.
As do most women in programming and the games industry which is why I find it ridiculous to pander to all this women in the games industry bullshit.
Let her do what she wants.
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...
If she enjoys psychology (or at maybe at this point just liked to talk on the phone a lot) she may want to consider that as a possibility. Research psych requires a lot of statistical and analytical skills
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 think the question to ask is what would bring her the most joy, which might be the thing that challenges her. She should try a little of everything, and find the thing that engages her, makes her feel alive and driven.
I'd suggest looking into Howard Gardeners Multiple Intelligences writing to get an idea of the scope of the situation.
All the technology in the world won't hide your lack of vision, talent, or understanding.
Seriously. It's her life. As long as it's legal, ethical, and either it pays the bills, it doesn't matter if she's a garbage collector or a business tycoon. Yes, it may be better for society if she were to somehow use her talents, but if her interests lie elsewhere support her in her chosen path.
Give her your love, your emotional support, and to the extent you can and she needs it, practical/cash support.
Now, if you'd said she's trying to make up her mind between a math/engineering profession and one that doesn't require those skills, then I would strongly recommend steering her in the direction that her talents lie. But from your submission, it sounds like she's made up her mind.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Anything. Math is the basis for biology, music, the arts (even if that math looks like chaos theory) and just about everything except (and maybe not except) philosophy. Actuary... Pay the "dues" for a few years then make big dollars and having been bored to tears the first years, get to figure out interesting problems. Like the likelihood of a death on a space trip to Mars. Useful in telling NASA how much their insurance will cost. Try to avoid being the bean counter set where you have the job of balancing law suit payouts versus thickness and grade of metal in vehicle gas tanks... But the MBA or PHD in economics from say Wharton combined with a bachelors in compsci, hard sciences, engineering, or even physics would put her a world ahead.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
(Bernake and many federal reserve bank chiefs hail from MIT)
Wait, I thought you said you had a stellar economics program...
I'm pretty good at math, but don't particularly like it. Also, science is cool and I like reading about it, but it has always looked like a pretty dreary profession.
Basically, though, math skills are indicative of structured, logical thought. That is useful everywhere.
Don't push her into something just because she's good at it. Let her do whatever she wants. If she's smart, she'll probably be fine.
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.
Graduate level economics is almost indistinguishable from graduate level math (or physics)
This is not true (and fortunately, thank god, functional analysis while applicable in theory, has little to say about relevant real world economics). People who say econ is no different from math, obviously haven't taken a serious pure math course. Graduate economics is somewhat technical and quantitative but is not rigorous or formal enough to be confused with a branch of mathematics (unless you take an advanced theory course, which is not representative of the field as a whole). At the same time, there is not enough dynamical systems in it to be confused with physics (I took a bunch of econ courses, and didn't have to solve one differential equation). But yes, econ a very quantitative, and so math,stat, or physics majors could feel at very comfortable in an econ program.
Her school experience with math is probably limited to figuring (arithmetic, algebra, calculus), which is nothing like what real mathematicians do (geometrical proofs are closer-- if geometry was her favorite math class then she is fonder of "real mathematics" than figuring, a good sign). Similarly, a career in the sciences is hard to extrapolate from a typical high school science course. In both cases, she has probably yet to see the creative side of science and math, which is where all the fun is. I'm a bit too tired to think of concrete demonstrations for her, but I might say to her, "Look, you have a talent, and life is smoother if you're working in a field in which you have talent. Of course, if you don't actually like the field then talent won't help, but try it and keep an open mind." You might try arranging a meeting with a research scientist, mathematician, or engineer. (There are also high school level competitions which could be fun, although they do look geeky.)
Of course, if she doesn't like it, she doesn't like it-- but I hear a lot about the subtle pressures which keep the male-female ratios in physics and engineering high, and so I wonder if her reluctance is due to personal taste or peer pressure (or maybe even some teacher one time told her she was bad at math, and it stuck with her regardless of current successes).
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My god, it's the complete Red vs Blue set of trolls.
I wonder what they go for on ebay?
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The tough thing for high schoolers trying to choose a college, major, FUTURE, etc. is that they usually have no *clue* what they'd like to do in the real world, because they haven't had much contact with it.
The vast majority of science and math education for a high schooler is learning how to jump through mental hoops and regurgitate information to pass exams. There's a big gap between studying a subject in school and *using* the skills related to a subject in a job somewhere.
A lot of job satisfaction lies in working with people you respect, who respect you for playing an important role in fulfilling whatever goal the company has. The tasks you perform should also ideally fall into a comfort zone where you're using your talents without being in way over your head.
I tend to think most kids will do best with a broad education with as many internships, etc. as possible, so they can try out different kinds of work environments.
The highschooler in question might end up using math in her job -- if she's good at it, that part will go easily -- and may well be extremely interested if she's interested in the goal she's actually accomplishing. Why would she need to be interested in jumping through hoops?
A degree in math opens the door to many other areas: computer science, any other science, teaching or management. It essentially provides the flexibility and ability to think abstractly. Doing mathematical research is only one option, the actual work can be very applied. A good math education teaches naturally how to understand a complex issue, reduce it to a model which can be solved. Starting with "hard science" makes other areas easier to understand. A good reading for a student pondering the question whether math is an option is Ian Stewart's book "Letters to a young Mathematician".