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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?"
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...
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.
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
Medicine is great if you are prepared for the huge amount of student loan debt that comes with it.
There are a variety of ways to deal with that.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
what does "elementary education" have to do with math or science degrees?
in any case, if the ACTs are anything like the SATs then they're more of an indicator of general academic aptitude (including test-taking skills) rather than a measure of math ability, writing ability, etc. that's not to say that getting a perfect SAT/ACT score isn't impressive, and there's certainly a correlation between good students and good SAT/ACT scores. but they're not an indicator of intelligence--though they might be an indicator of college-preparedness. for instance, i have several friends who scored lower than me on the SATs who i know for a fact are much smarter than i am.
also, in my experience maths and sciences don't become very challenging until you get to about college undergraduate level material. and i don't think the SATs/ACTs really test for scholastic aptitude beyond 9th or 10th grade high school course material. a better indicator of whether a student excels at math/science would be the AP exams, which do cover things like calculus and college-level physics.
it's quite easy to excel in high school algebra & geometry, but the learning curve really shoots up once you get to multi-variable calculus/linear algebra or discrete mathematics. so you really shouldn't push a student into a math/science field that they're not interested in just because they find the high school material very easy. because once you get to college level courses, it quickly becomes a completely different story. and at that point it's vital that the student be interested in what he/she is studying, otherwise they won't have the drive to push ahead and will quickly get burnt out.
that said, the reason a student might not be interest in math/science in high school could be due to their high school math & science curricula not being challenging enough to hold their interest. if she isn't in AP classes then perhaps she should try to take some math/science courses at a local community college. that will help to expose her to what college-level maths & sciences are really like, which she might find more interesting. also, i think it's a bad idea to treat college as a trade school or vocational training. students should be free to take classes that pique their interest and follow academic pursuits that they enjoy. once you've found your niche and finish college, you can then decide where best to apply your acquired skills. otherwise you might as well go to a technical school.
There is no math section on the ACT. It is a computation section that they call math. On the GRE it is called quantitative. University mathematics programs end up with many students who think they are good at math until they hit algebra and analysis and wonder what the hell happened. They tend to go on to become math teachers.
When I was in grad school the best predictor of success in mathematics PhD programs was verbal GRE score, but nobody advises students who score perfect on the English portion of the ACT to think about being a mathematician. I wonder why that is.
She doesn't want to be an engineer or scientist. I thought the folks here would be a great group to ask
You are better off asking her what she wants to do. What is she interested in? If she has no idea then going to a large university where she'll be exposed to a number of different fields and opportunities is not a bad idea.
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.
Pretty good advice. Although I'd had a strong interest in computers from at least the age of 10 (and math since 5), reading those career counseling guides with pictures of nerdy-looking programmers in horn-rimmed glasses made me fear what my life would be like if I followed that path. So, instead, I wandered around in the wilderness for a few years, trying this and that and discovering what I wasn't good at. Finally, I returned to computers and it was quite a revelation.
I've no idea what'd be good in your case. Maybe just encourage her to keep an open mind and explore the possibilities.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
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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.
I absolutely agree with this comment. I'm from the UK and I suffered the same fate that you wish to throw upon your daughter - being coerced into a specific degree program at a top London university just because I excelled in that area in my secondary (high) school, without realising myself what a change it would be from the material I had learnt thus far through my life. It certainly didn't do me any favours.
/like/ to do - see all the other degrees and/or career paths your daughter could take, excel in and enjoy and still lead a successful life at the end of it. It'll be like a voyage of discovery for you! - finding out what professions are good for your daughter, instead of the professions you can push her into despite her distaste for them.
I am trundling along. I appear to have the required intelligence in order to complete my degree (or so I hope!) but damn is that learning curve STEEP.
Other than that, it strikes me odd that you can't come up with some viable and interesting options yourself. Basically, unless your daughter wants to be an elementary school maths teacher, she's probably going to be surrounded by it 24/7 for the rest of her life (researcher, anyone?). If she's not going to enjoy it, please, don't make her do it - and that includes cajoling her into believing it's the only thing she's possibly good at.
Instead of asking what you have here, I suggest you ask your daughter what she'd
Good luck.
I live only for the present moment, there is no other moment.
As someone who is starting a math grad program next year and got an 800 on the GRE verbal, I can't tell you how happy I am to hear you say that :-) Boasting aside, I have always felt that people miss out on the distinction between mathematics and computation. Performing mathematical operations sequentially to arrive at an answer, a la a computer, is what you do on the SAT (and I assume the ACT as well.) This is a very different feat from sitting down with a math book and trying to wrap your ahead around a theoretical concept. To me, writing a proof has always felt like far more of a right-brained activity
than a left-brained one. When I'm thinking deeply about something mathematical, the feeling I get is akin to what I experience when playing music or drawing--completely different from performing addition and subtraction. I theorize that this is why a lot of math professors are crummy arithmeticians.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Interesting... In 1980 when I, a female, applied to an engineering program at CCNY, I was told by the Dean of Engineering that I couldn't possibly become an engineer because I had gotten an 800 (perfect score) on the English part of the SAT in high school. Now many years later, I am giving up writing, which even as a tech writer working with engineers has been a total bore to me, and I'm back in school enjoying the hard sciences once again. Two morals to this story: 1. She should do what interests her, no matter what her grades are in anything. 2. It is never to late to change direction, so don't worry about her. She'll figure it out on her own.