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Ask Slashdot: What To Do With a Math Degree?
First time accepted submitter badmojo17 writes "After achieving her lifelong dream of becoming a public school math teacher, my wife has found the profession to be much more frustrating than she ever expected. She could deal with having a group of disrespectful criminals as students if she had competent administrators supporting her, but the sad truth is that her administration causes more problems on a daily basis than her students do. Our question is this: what other professions are open to a bright young woman with a bachelor's degree in math and a master's degree in education? Without further education, what types of positions or companies might be interested in her as an employee?"
I've know a couple of devs with math degrees, and they were excellent.
...a quant
I'm sure the NSA would love to have a mathematician.
With a PhD. Ranked in the top of his field. Specializing in cryptography applications.
Some teacher with a BS in Math? No.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
C#, Java, C++, Ada, Pascal will do
There are families who value education and aren't satisfied with schools.
If she has additional background in biology, or computing skills, she might find work in a computational biology lab as a staff scientist or assistant ... but the real key is to have a complementary skill, where mathematics helps propel the analysis and work.
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
I work for a major defense contractor and we use math majors for simulations, guidance and other disciplines. We have a developers with math majors as well.
Any creative math major can be a game developer with some CS. Education masters? Serious games: http://www.gameslearningsociety.org/
I come from a family of teachers, so I know all about internal politics. Unless she no longer wants to teach under any circumstances, change schools first before giving up. Try private if you've only done public, etc. If it is truly her passion, she'll find the school for her.
Or, do what my college roommate did and specialize in Sarbanes-Oxley compliance. Make $120,000 a year and hate yourself.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
Actuary, software developer, financial analyst, just off the top of my head.
And she thinks administrators/managers in the private sector are better???
Perhaps a career where she's her own boss may be more fitting for her personality. Tutoring rich kids, maybe.
Table-ized A.I.
Become a professional gambler.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Private school math teacher?
She can still teach. Aren't there schools with less bureaucracy and administrative nonsense; private schools, charter school, etc?
My BS in Math hasn't hurt me, but I can't say it really gives you enough depth in math to do a lot with directly. It is a leg up on engineering or science career paths, but I'd be real surprised if anyone could find a position that relied on an undergrad math degree. Math is a beast, 4 years is barely enough time to learn the basics.
I think she's maybe be best off looking at some area where her education degree could be helpful. Training or some type of course design work or something. I'm sure there's a niche there somewhere for someone that is willing to go out and carve it out for themselves. The other option? Go for the PhD and teach education at a college level, lol (or math for that matter). Heck, I've taught a few college level courses as an adjunct myself, you don't usually need an advanced degree. It isn't the best paying job ever, but she might find that teaching a few courses at college level will tell her if she's at all interested in that. It is a BIT different from teaching K-12 in a public school.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
First, there's always graduate school. Math is a fantastic subject to learn more about, just because (like many other things). After she could probably get into academia or industry (industry at a higher level).
Second, the people I know from undergrad with math degrees, who did not go to graduate school, chose one of three options:
1.) Work for a financial company doing number crunching of some sort
2.) Taking the actuarial exams
3.) Computer companies: but I've heard from them that at job fairs, computer companies that want to hire math majors always want to know the amount of programming experience you have
My two cents
Someone with a BSc. in Math and a MA in Education should be looking into online courseware and educational software.
A good start would be to sample a few of the online coursews in programming and math related subjects from schools like Stanford and MIT. Get a sense of what's available and what improvements are there to be made.
In the Financial industry, "Quants" or Quantitative Analysts use statistics and sophisticated heuristics to feed ideas and information to organizations that deal with trading in the various markets (stocks, options, futures, commodities, forex, etc.), such as hedge funds, statistical arbitrage operations, and private investors. It's a high paying, highly challenging position that deals with all kinds of mathematical functions and techniques, such as optimizing adaptive filters. It's one of the best places for a mathematician to earn a great salary, but your skill and experience needs to be very top level.
Young, shown she can learn and apply reason and logic. Christ, pretty much any career. What does she want to do? She needs to think about what she wants to do, apply for jobs and let them tell her whether she's suitable or what she needs to do to become suitable.
No-one ever said on their death beds that they wanted to spend more time in the office. And your career will never wake up one morning and tell you it doesn't love you any more. Both of these are reasons to do something she actually wants to do.
If she is in the unenviable position of having to trade her time for money in order to live, she should at least do something she has some interest in. Just work out what she wants to do, then get the qualifications or experience to suit. Don't assume her current qualifications should be the starting point for making that decision. She wouldn't necessarily be starting from scratch, having a degree of any kind (especially a Masters degree) gives you a head start in many other areas.
The OP says this person is a "bright young woman", retirement is probably a long way off... hopefully she can find something she likes that makes economic sense also.
Good luck.
- Insurance companies sometimes hire them for statistical analysis of cost/benefits
- Larger hospitals that do research sometimes hire them for statistical analysis of medicines and treatments
- Manufacturing companies sometimes hire them to do statistical analysis of product failures
If she doesn't mind focusing on the statistics branch of math, there are jobs out there.
If she wants out of the education field, and has no interest in learning how to code, her best bet is the business world. Not a guarantee by any means, but she has a better chance than your art history or women's studies major. She'll probably start as an administrative assistant of some kind, for management that would like some number crunchers on their team, and she can make her way from there. It's not quite the mail room, but it won't be a "ready made" position like accounting or HR either. She just has to get her foot in the door somewhere. It'll be for low pay at the start, but that wont last long. I'd try putting in at banks, finance companies, and manufacturers. She'll have less luck at service industries where they either want sales types or admin types with a particular skillset ready to go. Banking is big, profitable, and it's not going away. That's the first place I'd start.Once she has her foot in the door somewhere, the education background might come in handy if an opportunity to be a trainer in the corporation comes up.
BTW, has she checked into being a math instructor at a community college? They'll often take BA's in Math with a Masters in Ed to teach introductory algebra classes, "business math" classes, etc. It's pretty easy for community colleges to find English, History, and Sociology majors. It's a little harder finding Math majors, and they'll pay a little better.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Only half joking, my freshman math professor actually did this. He was finishing up his doctorate at the time he taught the class I was in. Couple years later he was in a CS class with me. He'd decided the pure math jobs out there were crap, but math programming there was a market for.
Do teaching or software development
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
There are plenty of countries where teachers are actually respected, paid decent wages and supported by their schools - my little brother ended up in Australia, and even though he's not currently in a particularly nice school (inner city...) he still says it's a massive leap above most schools in the US/UK...
While we're on the subject of giving up your passion, how about accounting? Granted, it's like culinary chef working at McDonald's, but a CPA pays much better than a teacher.
Do what the others have said, go to a different school. And yes, learn to put up with bullshit because it exists in every profession.
----- obSig
I've got a Math degree (not Math Education, mind you, just plain Math). I couldn't find a job to save my life for awhile, but sooner or later I took a tech support job and was moved up to Quality Assurance and may one day move into development.
One thing I *want* to do, but just don't have the fortitude to do is take some of the actuary exams. If your wife is a standard math nerd, doing actuarial work should be right up her alley.
I guess she can really do whatever she wants. A lot of place will just take anyone that isn't an idiot that has a degree. I'm sure anything that she wants to do will be rewarding in and of itself.
1. Head to Vegas.
2. Count Cards.
3. Profit.
Fight Spammers!
We should really know what we're getting into, before choosing a career... but when we don't...
at least Math still opens doors, especially if she did well at university.
Did I forget: Relief Teaching?
Teaching ADULTS [Literacy &] Numeracy... in AU, there's $$ in doing that in small grouups with indigenous students, to prepare them for jobs, eg, in Mining. (and...Mining pays -very- well).
Contractors, definitely. The Feds needs math types in multiple agencies. The Census Bureau does a lot of stat work, for example. DoD needs math types at the warfare centers scattered around the country. Does she have any interest in Human-Systems Integration or training systems? There are a lot of people trying to find ways to get all those personnel trained up on new systems.
Alternatively, teach at a private school. They have the advantage of being able to select and expel their students and there will be less bureaucracy.
Have to have a Masters to teach. Still shy of a PhD but better than a BS.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Ada in Aerospace (where crashes actually kill humans) and Pascal in the Delphi RAD business, which is still there.
Banks employ lots of mathematicians nowadays, especially in the insurance field, but most of them require an MS.
Go into a specific business field that uses math in a non-accounting manner: product development and marketing.
"Product development" in the specification sense, not in the implementation sense. The determining of needs and wants of potential customers and coming up with products and product features that meet this need. Believe it or not the way people are taught to do this sort of thing in business school actually involves mathematical modeling, sampling and statistics, etc. I was shocked and thrilled to see how much advanced math is used in graduate level marketing classes.
You're wrong about that. Yes, top of their field mathematicians have a place. But frankly, very few people have the training to be cryptanalysts even with a Ph.D. under their belt. There's theoretical cryptography, and there's real world cryptography; virtually everyone will require additional training to do the job, and if you need stronger theory, the feds give great education benefits. A B.S. in mathematics will definitely get you looked at if you've got a decent GPA or work history. Look at nsa.gov for job postings under mathematics and cryptanalysis; if you've got any programming background as well, they'll want you.
Yeah, but which infinity? There's a lot of them.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Move to a better school district. She won't have "criminals" (not my word!) in her class. She will have brighter, more educated, and well-behaved children. That will probably improve the administration situation as well. I would say just "teach" in a better school district, but the sooner you make the move yourself to a better district, the better... since raising kids in a bad school area gets progressively worse as the kids get older.
And don't give me any crap about how I must be a mean conservative... most of the white liberals who work and live in/near Berkeley, CA refuse to send their kids to the neighborhood government schools...
She could develop and/or present courses for Mathworks or a similar company.
Have to have a Masters to teach.
Not to teach at the primary or secondary levels you don't.
There are a lot of opportunities in signal processing (wireless, speech, and vision), and the math background would be an excellent differentiator. However she would need to learn digital signal processing, MATLAB for prototyping, and C/C++ for building fast signal processing systems.
The NSA will hire smart math grads for signal processing and train you up to some extent.
Tell her to spend the year getting a master's degree in mathematics. At that point, she is eligible to teach at a two year college. I have a high school teaching license in science but after 1.5 years I gave up for pretty much the same reasons. Because I have a master's degree in physics, I started teaching at a community college. So much better! The students grow up over night, you don't deal with parents regardless of the students age, and you can kick any trouble makers out of the class. I'd never go back to a high school! Lots of jobs for math at two year colleges.
If she is bright and loves mathematics, she should go on to do graduate studies. Undergrad maths is really boring compared to graduate level stuff. Then the world is her oyster. She should find a good school and a good supervisor. The world of professional mathematicians is pretty exciting !
I just graduated with a pure math BS from UCSD with a minor in CS. I got hired by Metron (www.metsci.com) as an operations analyst. Which is essentially just answering questions and doing research for the DOD. As someone who is also a tutor, I can also understand your wife's position. A good question to ask is what did she specialize in? I specialized in probability theory and real analysis, this lends it self to multiple careers. If you specialize in math education your options might be more limited since those courses tend to take away from your time attending more applicable courses. That said, private tutoring is lucrative if you know how to do it and know who to look for. People who tutor calculus are sought out pretty often, given that a lot of high school calc courses are less than adequate. Other things to consider, she probably could market her self as someone with high critical thinking skills and thus apply for positions, that while not math oriented, will accept math majors.
Hope she finds something better :)
Eat sleep die
One mistake I think a lot of people make is translating a degree into a career path. True, you can match degrees to jobs but often most employers are looking to see that you have education when they look for a degree. At least in my rather limited perspective.
So she should try to find something she likes, not necessarily directly related to a degree in math.
Right, but she's already burnt out on working with flaming assholes.
I know a math degree doesn't guarantee she can get her head around various products well enough to train folks how to use them, but I'm pretty sure she'll do better than some... and the students are usually a little less riotous.
In many states you do. And in this case, the summary notes that she has her master's in education.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
As others have pointed, one only needs a bachelor's degree to teach at the primary or secondary level (elementary, middle, and high school levels). What has not been pointed out is that the degree need not even be in the field taught. In the year that I got my secondary education credential, there were five or six other people in the math education program. Of those, I was the only one to earn a degree in mathematics---the others earned degrees in math education. They were not required to take any mathematics beyond two semesters of calculus.
This may be particular to Nevada, though I sincerely doubt it. There is a notion among people who train teachers that it is sufficient to know how to teach and have a passion for teaching. The assumption is that if you know how to teach, then you don't really have to have mastery over the material that you are teaching. You need to know it only well enough to follow lesson plans that are available on the internet.
Rhapsody in Numbers
-Tutoring
-Remote Sensing/Geomatics
-Land Surveying
-Hyperspectral Data Processing
-Statistical Data Mining
-Audio/Sonar Signal Processing
-Genomics
-A.I. development using statistical measures
-Chemical Numerical Combinatorics
And, No, I won't explain any of these. I refuse unconditionally.
I've heard that the NSA is the biggest employer of mathematicians in the country. I'm sure they don't have much trouble finding work for them.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
are you western? considered the military industrial complex? its all the lucrative pay of the private sector and none of the hassle of applying for grants each year to study silly things the government doesnt fund anyway, like climate change research. As an added bonus, the employment is based on unjustified, uncodifiable fears and uncertainties that simply exist without premise, so youre guaranteed a job in perpetuity!
but in all seriousness yeah, I asked myself the same question after i got the Computer Science degree and math minor. the only people willing to hire a mathematician are nasa or raytheon, and nasa ain't payin my student loans down so the devil it is.
Good people go to bed earlier.
(Much of what you see are math equations solidified.) Chief Economist for Google said statistician would be the sexiest occupation for the next ten years. Check out computational engineering too. Most colleges and Universities have life time placement services. They will be helpful. The sky is the limit.
If she's looking for a job where dealing with administrators (the boss, supervisors, whatever) is not far more challenging that actually doing the work, I think she's going to be disappointed. This is not a problem unique to school teachers.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
I spent my first ~10 years as an active duty US Army Artillery officer, and my math background helped me not only to get job done, but to understand WHY things worked, and more importantly, why they might NOT be working.
I later transitioned to a Unix sysadmin gig, and then to information security, where I've been happily making a living for ~20 years.
The math helps. Let's you go toe-to-toe with the crypto geeks if nothing else. A BS degree carries a whole different type of cred than a BA as well. The social skills from the service help in understanding the hax0r mentality, and I'm pretty confident your wife's ed background and masters level degree would help in that area as well.
With the education and experience you describe your wife as having, she will not have any trouble stepping outside of the box, the first step is the hardest one. Get the resume in order, and start sending applications out.
Red
Talk to the big defence/aerospace firms. Lockheed, Raytheon, Thales, etc.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
[NT]
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I mean, really.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I have a BA in Math and am 2 credits away from an MA in Secondary Education. I've been a web developer for about 10 years now. A math degree is pretty much universally applicable to any profession. Just doing student teaching I found a school district I'll never set for in or have my daughter set foot in. I've had jobs not work out. I live in AZ and currently work for a company in CT and have a handful of other clients. My boss in CT recently mentioned that he may be able to get some work in Data Analysis since I have a math background. There's tons of opportunity out there if you know math. And apparently he's billing his clients at over $200 an hour to do analysis. So it's lucrative as well if you can find work. I'm not sure what entry level pay would be.
It doesn't matter what career you are in, you're going to find places that you just don't fit. You can't change a company. You can't change a district. And you're probably not going to change yourself, so try a different company or district.
One bad experience doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't teach. Take what you learned from that experience and move forward. I switched to a different district for the second half of my student teaching and things worked out very well. I had a student transfer from the first district with a failing grade, she was only at my new school for a couple weeks and got about a 75% on a test she expected to fail. It just re-enforces the idea that the first district can pound sand. I'm very good at what I do and if I end up at a district that won't let me do my job I'll happily work somewhere else.
Work Safe Porn
Junior college instructor.
I came here to say this. You don't have to bang your head against the wall trying to teach the unwilling. Apply to a junior/community college and teach people who actually want to be there, want it badly enough to pay for the privilege because they want to improve themselves. Sounds a lot more fulfilling to me.
"Bother," said Pooh, as lightning knocked out hi%#&(F*@NO CARRIER
In many states you do. And in this case, the summary notes that she has her master's in education.
In nearly all states, all you need is a generic bachelor's degree to teach in primary or secondary levels as a prerequisite for getting a teaching credential.
Of course, there is an additional requirement of verification of subject matter competence. This might be satisfied with a master's degree in the subject matter specific to their teaching credential, but in nearly all states it can also be satisfied by enrollment in a teacher-subject certificate program at a community college, or by just taking (and passing) a state administered teacher-subject exam. Although many teachers have master's degrees and higher (because of union contracts, higher degrees affords them a higher pay grade), some (like the teacher mentioned in the summary) have that master's degree in education, and not the subject matter of their teaching credential.
Also, for some hard to fill positions like math and science teachers, some districts even can waive the subject matter competence requirement if the bachelor degree happens to be in the subject matter. The teacher can be granted a temporary emergency credential, which allows the teacher to teach and gives the teacher a few years to pass the subject exam (w/o requiring any more courses). Sometime this emergency credential can be extended nearly indefinetly. I'm not saying this is the case with the teacher mentioned in the summary, just that it's quite possible to have a teacher just have a bachelor's degree in math and teach math w/o any other qualifications.
I had a great math teacher in high school.
15 years later, it was kind of a blast from the past to walk into the employee cafeteria and encounter my high school math teacher, now a software developer for the same corporation.
Why did your co-dependent become a teacher for?
You can tell her that the first year of teaching will be hell, and that it will get better the following year. No need to lie. She spent a lot of time and money to become a teacher, have her try one more year before she joins up in a JET program.
If her school is a Title 1 school, she may be eligable for a PELL Grant. And she can go an get her Adminstrative Credential.
Companies that make business software tend to need Trainers/Account Executives/Project Managers/whatever to actually implement the software and train the users for the entities that purchase the software. The pay may not be excellent for someone with a masters, but it's pretty solid and there are always managerial opportunities. Companies like ADP, Kronos, SAP, etc hire these types to implement their software for businesses, cities, the military, etc. I can provide some specific postings if interested, just so you can see what I'm talking about.
Keep in mind I'm reading a little between the lines assuming that her two degrees and her experience lead her towards being capable of teaching technical things to complete laymen while also being organized and capable of tailoring what needs to be done for each situation.
Teach at a private school? Surely there's one in which the administrators don't suck.
Agreed. Tutoring will pay better than regular teaching, will generally involve better students and will always have the best administrator you can be.
The reality is that for some high demand subjects like math, tenured teaching pays surprisingly well. Also you have have summers off, and the pension and heathcare benefits. A tutor in those subjects generally doesn't do as well as thier teacher counterparts, end up working irregular hours (weekends/evenings), and lack similar benefits.
For example, in San Jose (a pricy area), you might get $65K as a math tutor if you work for someone and that is probably pretty flat over time (limited pay-bumps for senority), but as a tenured teacher, by the time you get some senority, you can pull in maybe up to $85K or even higher in secondary school (and still have summer's off, pensions and healthcare benefits). I know a couple math teachers that have looked into tutoring or going to private schools, but once you have senority and tenure, they found it's hard to walk away from the money... If you happen to have an ivy league degree, another other option is to go work in one of those SAT tutoring centers that claim they have ivy league tutors (they tend to pay more). On the other hand going out by yourself requires lots of hustle (like any small business). Of course, if find a few insanely rich person willing to pay you a small fortune to privately tutor their kids, maybe it might be worth it, but in this economy, maybe that's not realistic...
However, entry level public school teachers get paid squat (and they are the ones w/o the job security either). That is a topic for another day...
Seconded. Apparently she's married, so moving abroad may not be quite so easy, but there are international schools in just about every country that will let you teach in English to students who are probably better and with administrators who are at least different from what she's dealt with so far. May be better, may be worse, but at a minimum she'll be experiencing other countries and cultures. That's valuable.
This is not flamebait. I am a private school teacher so I say this with honest clarity. Some public school administrators are largely a joke. I am currently getting my master's degree in education administration and I hear horror stories day in and day out from classmates that work in the public system. Granted, I live in New Orleans so our public system is a dysfunctional mess. However, across the nation the legislative mandates that any public school teacher have to deal with are contradictory at best and truly insane at the worst. So ditch the public system. Private schools tend to be run more like companies and lousy administrators don't last. Firing teachers is a breeze... in fact, you're simply not rehired. To work in a private school you have far less legal protections but you have students and administrators that truly care, supportive parents (not always) and colleagues that are largely pros. (in the case of a good private school, much like in the case of a good company) So instead of bailing on the profession, bail on the bad school. Also, to be fair, there are thousands upon thousands of EXCELLENT public schools out there and perhaps your wife should look at other options in the area. Often times a different district or parish (counties for everyone else) will have a very different system. But really, don't give up on the dream of teaching. Teaching provides far more than can be measured and on my deathbed I will take a massive amount of satisfaction to the grave with me. Difference makers take it with them. Moneymakers may or may not be able to do the same.
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
But this way she could retire early.
Seriously - making a lot of money doesn't suck. And she's already used to dealing with assholes. Might as well make it worth your while.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
To teach an university now days more or less requires a PhD if you want to make a career of it. A one off course that pays next to nothing sure, even a Bachelors can teach that if you have enough experience. But one thing you definitely do not want to do right now is teach at a university as just a full time lecturer position (non tenured). Because you're constantly one year away from having your job taken away, regardless of your performance.
When push comes to shove tenured faculty have to be retained, which is part of tenure (and they do a lot more than just teach), and lecturers can get cut. When they get the budget for a full time tenured position to fill that spot you don't qualify. All ways around it's a bad job to have.
You could always try and teach math at a community college, but there you run the risk of being overqualified, and they will happily replace you with someone else.
It's not surprising that a field that intensely studies logic and reasoning(logic/truth tables are Philosophy 101) would be good at something that is completely dependent on those two skills as base skills.
That's every job these days. She should get used to it.
The trick is to get paid the most money possible for putting up with them.
Teach, but at a corporate / junior college / etc level.
Heck, if she's dynamic, somewhat attractive, and can motivate people she can make a killing as a technical trainer. Especially with her husband having a job and benefits, find a niche, and train people in basic software use, office math skills, etc.
That's the persistent bullshit about NSA. No, a mathematician in the top of his/her field is at a research-one university (secrecy is never a good way to attract good scientists). NSA has lots of people at all levels, from BA to PhD.
Actually I'd much more recommend one of the government labs than NSA itself if you want to go for a government job. At NSA you'll probably need to have too much clearance for comfort.
There are lots of industry jobs where they'll be delighted you have a bachelors in math.
She should do her part to prevent the coming of the Idiocracy. She should produce as many kids as possible. Before long, she'll have a classroom full of kids. She'll have the right to disipline them and there won't be annoying administrators to play politics. Aim high: ship them off to good schools (MIT, Stanford, Texas A+M, CalTech, etc.) at age 15.
could be outside shot. would need advanced math degree for crypto or other serious geeky stuff.
Good.
Funny, tho, after reading through the thread thus far (and expanding most of the comments) no has mentioned working for a bookie. Wouldn't that be a natural application?
I'm a mathematician from a very modern-algebra-oriented education. WE CAN LEARN ANYTHING. That is what our training as mathematicians gives us: give us the rules and we'll give proof of a certain property... almost everything works like that. We just have to want to learn how to do 'it'. Programming (what I am currently doing) works, but I am looking forward my masters' next year. IT'S NOT THE DEGREE that will help you, it's the TECHNIQUE OF LEARNING what is valuable about being a mathematician!
A bachelor's degree doesn't make one a mathematician.
She's a teacher. Which NSA might want too, if she's young and healthy enough, that is. It's illegal to discriminate against someone based on their age or handicap, except if you are a government TLA. And, of course, provided she's willing to work for such an organization.
Make that something better for health, and yeah! Grapefruit juice, pomagranite juice, or tomato juice would be great.
There is nothing wrong with being a housewife. It's even a duty if there are kids. (and smart people should make kids)
I know you are trying to help and will frame stuff as ideas or suggestions or whatever, but I have been there with two wives and I can tell you from having done it both ways that what she needs is your confidence, not some clever ideas (especially ideas from some random bozos on teh internet.) She is the one who should me having the ideas and doing the talking, and you are the one who should be doing the listening and smiling. If she freaks out and says she doesn't know what to do, the right answer is "I know you'll figure it out."
1) The end of the school year is typically when many teachers feel like getting out of the profession. This could be fatigue talking. I'm conducting exam review right now, and after three precalculus classes in a row in the late afternoon, doing limits, regression, trig. substitution, derivatives (not using shortcuts, but using the limit definition), vectors, and parametric functions, I'm exhausted. Maybe she wants to take some time over the summer to reflect about what it is she wants to do, and see how she feels in late July / early August. We don't start school until after September 1st.
2) Actuarial science is a field that might be good, if you are good at self-study (other posters mentioned insurance companies, and this is the path to such positions). The exams and preparation materials are not expensive (meaning, a lot less than taking courses at a university). Once you pass a few exams, many insurance companies will hire you and support you through the rest of them.
I can understand how she feels. It's not easy. That being said, usually by August I'm still excited to go back to work. I'm sorry it hasn't worked out better for her.
Anyone who calls kids criminals should be kept far away from kids.
Excuse me? They assault each other and the teacher. My brother was teaching high school in DC and one day a student grabbed his wallet right in class and tried to run. Fortunately my brother was ex-military and knew what to do, but seriously, WTF??? Yes indeed, they are criminals.
Where do you imagine criminals come from? Do you think people suddenly turn criminal at age 18, and couldn't possibly be evil fuckers prior to adulthood? Heck, some asshole stabbed me in the 3rd or 4th grade and I still have the scar 3 decades later. In case you can't figure it out, that would be an assault with a weapon.
It's mightly sick that during childhood the decent people are forced to be in the presense of rotten people. Criminals don't come from thin air. They are essentially sitting in every classroom, except that they haven't yet been arrested because the authorities ignore criminal behavior in children. Remember, I still have that scar.
Actuary. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/2009/snapshots/52.html Fold the education degree until it's all corners, and...
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
She would have to start out on the lower end since she has no experience, but the math degree is a typical qualifying degree in either job.
I don't know how well it pays, however an avenue to investigate is working for a textbook publisher, writing, editing, or error-checking new versions of textbooks. A roommate of mine in college did this to help pay his way through school, and he thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I'll wager that in this networked age this might even present an opportunity to work from home, which may be important to you if you are thinking of starting a family.
Another line of investigation is to work with local home-schooling cooperatives. They'll often hire teachers to write a math curriculum for them, and conduct weekly classes for the students. In a larger metropolitan area you may even be able to do this with several cooperatives.
Cyrano de Maniac
...and if anyone needs any evidence just look at what was on the front page of my newspaper this morning. If the local schools are going to implement this idiocy then it is going to be exceedingly hard on the students when they get to university and find out that not only do they get a zero if they fail to and in an assignment but they'll get zero if they hand it in late too.
Still he did miss one opportunity: if you cannot award a zero for work that is not handed in you could give them an imaginary grade for their imaginary work - they might even learn something about complex numbers when they ask why they got 100i% for a fully imaginary assignment.
My university's math department maintains a web page listing careers for math majors: http://www.rit.edu/cos/math/Students/careers.html
Goldman Sachs, no question.
I've been an unemployed math graduate for 3 years now. Instead of education, I went for an economic's master's after the math degree. I found these comments helpful, thanks.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Same field, but is in some aspects better. Actuaries get high marks in job satasification. Good pay (not as good as quants, but....), easier to get into, good life / work balance, no insane presure, etc. Plus, as an added bonus, you can tell the exact time when somebody will die - but you can only use this power once. On the downside, you make accountants look sexy.
....get a MBA so you can actually make some $$$.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'm surprised no one has already said this: get a master's in CS, then get a software engineering job.
If the problem is the administration, look at teaching in private schools or Catholic School Systems.
I'd second the idea of looking into finance. It's good money, which is enjoyable. And it's highly misunderstood in terms of its "evil"-ness. The majority of the industry is doing good things that create efficiencies in the market and benefit everyone (to varying degrees...). Furthermore, it really doesn't have to be as intense as some people think. As a quant, ie financial researcher (which is what you'd want to do with a math degree), you are working with PhD's and other more nerd-type people who tend to be very reasonable. You can usually limit how much you have to interact with the "asshole" components of the business -- though that may limit your advancement to some extent.
It's sort of the opposite of education, of course (in terms of philosophy). But personally, I've found it's far more satisfying to be valued and respected for what you do by those you work with/for, than to work hard for little pay or recognition to do something that's theoretically more "valuable". But to each their own of course.
What has not been pointed out is that the degree need not even be in the field taught.
Yep, I had a friend whose wife tried being a high-school teacher for a short time. She had a degree or degrees in Latin and Classics, and so they stuck her with teaching Spanish, even though she didn't know any Spanish. She quit that job partway into the semester.
I'm not sure the "My wife looks good enough to be a prostitute" is the best argument to make.
Learn to love Alaska
She became a Physician Assistant. Read about her and her decision her http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/19/masters-degrees-jobs-education-leadership-howard.html
im the son of a prostitute you insensitive clod! not kidding either... BLEH well my point was more that maybe his wife is fat, ugly and awkward around people, mine is only socially awkward homeschooling byproduct.
You *definitely* don't need a PhD to work as a mathematician at the NSA, nor do you need a specific background in cryptography. If you failed abstract algebra in college you're probably not getting a job there, but my understanding is that it's not that difficult to get in so long as you're qualified, a citizen, and can pass a background check. The NSA is the single largest employer of mathematicians in the world -- they're certainly not just hiring the extreme elites.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
Why did your co-dependent become a teacher for?
She should have been an English teacher.
Find a new teaching job in another district. Undoubtedly, somewhere within 30 miles or so of where you live there exists another school that she could apply to. There's no concrete reason why she must find a new career.
I currently work at Manwin and we are looking for mathematicians to help optimise ad revenue. http://manwinjobs.com/ for more, it would probably be in the Montreal office.
I learned a lot about people teaching at CU with a group of Ed majors, mostly how to get a solid performance out of a wider variety of people than I was used to. Math teaches you to think, and education teaches you to think about other people. The skills apply more widely than my now narrow field of scientific software dev.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
Considering there are a lot of vacancies for teachers with Math backgrounds in Australian schools it may be an option for his missus and himself to consider. The administration BS is still fairly high in any teaching system as parents believe that if their little darlings are not the top of the class it must be the parents fault and you get all the PC garbage everywhere now. I hate the fact that if little johnny breaks his arm in the playgrounds it's almost as if the world has stopped turning. So many games and activities have been banned due to fear of lawyers.
Math as such is an abstract science. Rarely you can find someone who is willing to pay you to prove a theorem.
However math is a necessary foundation in many very useful jobs. Computer science had been mentioned, but it's not that math-heavy. Rarely a common coder has to come up with a novel solution of a complex math problem. There are companies who do FEA, those are actually trying to find those novel solutions, but most coders are just making dumb GUIs and a fairly trivial business logic for them. Most problems in the world (like the payroll) are not scientifically complicated, but they are very common.
Analog RF and microwave design, however, is built on math, and some of that math is not obvious. Analog RF designers are a dying breed in the USA because of exactly that reason - it is hard. But for a well prepared student it's not hard at all. Get a diploma in electrical engineering and a big stick to chase employers away. Every CEO and his dog want to have "wireless something" - but at frequencies above 2 GHz (where most of the good stuff currently is) you cannot wind a coil on a pencil. You have to design a PCB structure that makes no sense whatsoever to unitiated. With frequencies going higher and higher every year, as more bandwidth is demanded by gluttonous public, RF design is an art where you have to balance semiconductors, laminates, mechanics, and the laws of free space. Power needs and the BOM cost are just icing on that cake.
There are other applications of math - like in financial business, for example. But I'm not familiar with them and cannot advise either way.
I'm pretty happy teaching college math classes, usually part-time -- not perfect, but far more hands-off by administration than in primary school. (Got this idea called "academic freedom" that helps some.) Most college courses nowadays are taught by part-time adjuncts -- at much lower pay than full-time, usually no benefits, but it's an option. The education degree won't be relevant -- depending on where you are, possibly a B.A. is enough for adjunct work, or you might need to get an M.A. (which is what I have).
Other option I hear a lot is private tutoring. Good luck.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
"Yeah, but which infinity? There's a lot of them."
Please be more specific -- exactly how many?
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
See if she can get a job in a big company. The initial position is not that important but the eventual goal would be to learn the various software packages that the company uses. Then, with her teaching background, she could go into corporate training. Say goodbye to those snot-nosed smart asses in public school and say hello to teaching adults. Adults that are in your class because a) their boss told them to be there, and they damn well better pay attention or b) they signed up for the course themselves and have a genuine interest in attending. Either way it's a win for you. Plus the odds of one of your adult students packing heat is next to none :-)
If a BA in math, and MA in teaching, sounds like she has been teaching a few years. Most likely she has already had that "pay your dues" year of really horrible classes of students that earns her some "street cred" amongst her colleges and admin. There is no doubt, if your in a minority school, like I am, you will be dealing with some tough clientele. I had to wrap my head around that the administration has a different view than teachers and they have their own agendas to satisfy which may be in direct conflict with student learning. Switching schools or districts will only produce different, but just as difficult, problems as before. Teaching is an act of passion striving towards social justice. You teach because there are lousy schools, administrators, parents, politicians, and yes, lousy students. You revel in the ones you can save and move forward in spite of all the roadblocks in front of you and them. When you have to slog your way, daily, through all that mess, and you feel like your not gaining any ground, it is hard to keep in mind the reasons for teaching in the first place. Sounds to me like she is burnt and needs to take some time out to re-figure out her reasons for doing this.
start a private math school for the children of the parents who while not rich enough to splurge a private college still do not want that the only options left for their children will be "blue collar" which in practice means:
- criminal
- prison guard
- hamburger flipper
It makes one realize how Hypatia must have felt. History has a way of repeating itself until the slowest either catch on or go extinct.
are a terrible idea since punishing the weakest schools only creates more disparity that leads to a too poorly educated electorate that leads to more money in the pockets of a few as most students and future citizens fall into functional scientific illiteracy, which as their proportion to total number of citizens increases civilization will be unable to cope with the increasing chaos, thereby threatening the environmental support necessary for human existence.
The top rated private schools are often top rated because they drill for standardized exams. :(
I know a huge number of people who went to private schools not because mom and dad were motivated but because it was fashionable. It can easily go both ways.
That said... if you find a private school who boots kids out who don't meet certain academic requirements... even if the kids parents are rich an powerful, this is a great option. That way, if your students are hurting the rest of the class, you can call the parents and they'll quickly sort out the problems.
I actually really like middle class private schools as opposed to upper class ones since middle class ones generally have students whose parents sent them there because of academic reasoning as opposed to fashion.
Sorry for the cheap shot, but in a way it is true. Education is useless without skill, ambition and desire, too many people confuse education with knowledge and ability. I've known very successful high school drop-outs. I've known MBA's working part-time jobs. By asking *us* what she can do with her degree, she's admitted she has no clue. What the hell? You put the time and money into getting a degree and you have no idea what you would do with it? You have one life. Time if of the essence, why would you invest that much time if you didn't have a clue what to do with it when you were done? (Can you tell I have a child in college?)
The answer has always been and always will be, what can you, you bright and shiny special and unique snowflake, do that is mostly better than most other people? That's the question. Answer that question and you have your answer. If the answer is not economically viable, learn to say "Do you want fries with that?" If you are really lucky, you get to like what you do for a living. Even then, you'll hate it a lot of the time.
That applies to EVERYONE, myself included. OK, career forum over, get back to work.
First you said she had a degree in math. Then you said she was a teacher. That's an impossible combination. To be a teacher your bachelor's degree isn't allowed to be in anything except Education. To be a math teacher, for example, you major in "math education" -- which is fundamentally an education degree, not a math degree. (Yes, I suppose, theoretically, someone could double-major in math and education; but education is a very "heavy" major, class-schedule-wise, so said someone would pretty much have to be independently wealthy in order to pay for three or four extra semesters of undergraduate classes, which would not be eligible for any significant financial aid...)
If you're asking what she can do with a math _education_ degree, besides teach, the answer is "anything that requires a bachelor's degree and doesn't care what your major was". HTH.HAND. (There are more such positions than you might think. Statistically, about a third or so of the people whose highest degree is a bachelor's are working outside their major. I am one of them. When applying for such a position, you can legitimately leave irrelevant Masters degrees off your resume, on the grounds that they do not pertain in any way to the work you'll be doing.)
However, based on the rest of your post, it sounds like the real problem isn't teaching per se but the deplorable state of the public schools in your specific geographical location, which from the way you describe it must be a big city. Big cities are unpleasant places to live and work, everyone knows that. What she needs to do is not so much get out of teaching as get out of the city. Tell her to polish up her resume and send it round to some less urban school districts -- you know, school districts in cities with a population of ten thousand or so, separated from the next town over by some intervening countryside -- the kind of place where even the really bad kids are at least a little bit intimidated by the vice principal's scowl. The commute shouldn't be any worse than what the people who live in those places do when they drive into the city to work, which is quite commonly done -- up to 20% of the population in many small towns commutes to work in the city.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I teach English in a Japanese high school. In my opinion, the teaching aspect of the job is orders of magnitude more difficult than the English aspect of the job.
The problem is not mastery of the subject. It's just not required. The problem is that most teachers do not know anything about how the mind works. I have met scores of ESL/EFL teachers. I can count the number who had ever heard anything about language acquisition theory on one hand. With respect to memory, I have *never* met a teacher who has ever read anything about the forgetting curve, the spacing effect, interleaving, or *anything* about memory discovered in the last 40 years. Applying these concepts to the classroom? Forget about it. It's not even on the radar. And that's not to mention the huge challenge of dealing with the psychology of motivating random groups of (especially young) people.
I will say that in my opinion, it *is* enough to know how to teach and to have a passion for teaching. But I've met a rare few people who fit the bill. Standing up in front of the students and cajoling them through the textbook is *not* "knowing how to teach".
To bring my rant somewhat on topic (although I doubt that the OP will ever read this deeply), I will lay odds that his wife's problems only *appear* to be with her colleagues/superiors. Teaching is hard beyond most people's definition of the word "hard". This bright eyed, bushy tailed, young person thinks that they can teach. But the truth is almost certainly that they suck nearly as badly as all the people around them that they are complaining about.
The key to moving past this point is to ignore the incompetence of others so as to be able to fully concentrate on your own failings. This problem is so difficult that if you allow yourself to get distracted by the circus going on around you that you will never move forward.
When users opt in, anonymous data can be sent for analysis to software vendors. Often this data needs extra analysis from its raw form. This is called telemetry analysis and would be perfect for someone with a math degree. Here's an example: http://blog.mozilla.org/metrics/2012/05/24/5358/
Or she could simply be one of the hordes who work for government contractors who support the NSA and similar agencies. The standards are, unfortunately, not so high. Problem is one needs to work in some very specific locations, and an existing security clearance is often a prerequisite.
A second option is to teach online. Again, there are few behaviour problems online (although flame wars are possible,) and I suspect your wife would find this satisfying. A bonus is that you can usually work from home when you teach online.
If you are thinking of teaching online, I recommend Palloff's and Pratt's book (see below) as a good starting point: Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2001). Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom. The realities of online teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
With an MS, you can teach at a community college. A lot of the students there are really trying to learn. A lot of them are among the smartest you could hope for (my roommate 23 years ago was a computer engineer who graduated near the top of his class at VPI... who did 2 years at a community college, and then 2 years at VPI. Now he has a PhD.)
Arguably the job teaching at a community college is better than that at a 4 year institution, especially if you use your time for such things as textbook / study guide creation.
You write the handwritten pages and sketches, and let the publishing company pay for a person to do the compositing / typing / proofing / photoready copy, and you can do quite well.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Analytics is the new buzzword in corporate circles. Maybe she can get into a consulting company that provides analytics services - there's a lot of these popping up these days. A lot of this is just statistical analysis; it's just that the business types are just now starting to figure out that there's some value in using data to analyze decisions rather than just gut-feel.
It seems like everyone's now out there, "gotta get me some analytics".
Consider becoming an actuary for an insurance company, especially one that sells commercial insurance. While homeowners and car policies are somewhat standardized, companies tend to have unique aspects that make pricing insurance difficult. Hence, the need for actuaries to calculate the risk of policies. It's rather demanding in the math area but pays well as only a few people can cut it.
If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
I've heard many of the problems with the public school administration aren't problems at private schools. The claim is that "at will employment" makes for a better relationship with the administration. I don't know how true that is, and I wish I could think of where I saw the original discussion I would ask some private school teachers their feelings on the matter and see what kinds of response you're able to get.
Alternatively, you could always look for work in Finland :-p
I used to work for a gaming company that hired mathematicians to figure out the math behind the payout percentages of their slot machines (they have to pay out a certain percentage by law). They seemed to enjoy their jobs and were paid quite nicely, as there's a metric shit ton of money in the gaming industry. If any mathematicians are interested, this is the company I used to work for: http://www.multimediagames.com/
I spent the last half of my career with the Feds as a statistician after working as an engineer for the first 15 years (MS degree in Physics). It pays a lot better than teaching and the retirement benefits are pretty good, especially the health care. You don't make all that much to start, but, if you have something on the ball, you can move up easily. The only disadvantage is you have to work where the job is.
How about earning enough money to actually fund some of the stuff you care about? Or just fund your doing unpaid fun/worthwhile stuff for several years afterwards? Way, way better motivation for me than 'designing software used by thousands of people' (yes I am in finance, and already am donating nontrivial sums to some little-known bands I'm a fan of).
Find a better school.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I don't know on what planet a PhD in math can automatically give you this salary.
The
Try http://www.usajobs.gov/ . There are lots of jobs there in every geographic area. Even a few math courses will open up lots of these jobs. A complete major will open up even more.
Exactly my thoughts. Most teachers come to the profession with a desire to change the world. Why not try to make Principal as soon as possible?
Of course, she'll probably want to move to a different school – with a less-insuffrable administration – before getting much further. To stay is begging for burnout.
They always told me when I was getting my math degree I could go on to do almost anything. Which wasn't helpful since I had no idea what I wanted to do (hence the math degree). I tried grad school but was fully uninterested. Many lifetimes later I am happily a developer.
There reportedly are over a million kids who are home schooled in the US. And a whole bunch of sites that cater to parents who give it a shot.
Not all of these parents are good at math, physics, and so on. Maybe she could locate enough of them in your area to make a living, or work for (or create) a site in that field.
I have an undergrad in Mathematics, and planetarium, museum, and other informal education opportunities are great. I've been teaching in planetariums for 7yrs, and I absolutely love the lack of bureaucracy compared to K-12. Community college teaching is also a viable option.
I came, I saw, She conquered.
But only one you can count.
See here: http://www.ams.org/profession/career-info/early-careers/early-careers
For example, stockbroker, research scientist, urban designer, public utilities analyst, animator, foreign exchange trader, population ecologist, estimator, epidemiologist, statistician, technical writer, market research analyst, cryptoanalyst, quantitative analyst, commodities trader, air traffic controller, climate analyst, financial aid director, pollster, forensic analyst appraiser, banker underwriter actuary, computer programmer, production manager, professor, claims adjuster, benefits administrator.
You don't mention which grades she is teaching. Is it possible that she is teaching the wrong age group for her style of teaching? You mention "disrespectful criminals" which makes me think of inner city middle school. Perhaps a change of venue would be more satisfying than abandoning her dream. Our schools *need* teachers with a love of math. Please don't give up.
I did not mean to say that one simply needs to master the material in order to teach it. One must have a passion for teaching, and the high level of skill required to teach. However, that simply is not enough: one must also be a master of the material that is being taught. In fact, you make my point for me:
I would argue that knowledge of language acquisition theory is a huge part of the linguistic mastery required to teach a language. One shouldn't be trying to teach a language until one knows some theory about how languages work, part of which is understanding language acquisition. This represents a high level of specific knowledge about languages, and not a more general ability to teach. For instance, as a math teacher, I don't need to be a linguist, or have a deep knowledge of language acquisition (or, going the other way, understanding the cognitive basis of numbers is important for me to know, but not for you, a language teacher, to know). Moreover, I think that you would agree that one cannot really teach a language that one does not speak, read, or write. Three or four years of high school Russian does not qualify one to teach Russian.
On the other hand, a native Russian speaker is not qualified to teach Russian by default. As you say, he or she would also need extensive knowledge about developmental and cognitive psychology (which, as you say, is lacking in most teachers), as well as some training in classroom management, and other teaching skills.
Finally, you say
If you have not mastered the material that you are teaching---if you don't have a deep understanding of the knowledge that you are trying to convey---then how are you doing anything but cajoling your students through the textbook?
When you note that there are surprisingly few teachers who are any good, I agree. But this is a result of both a lack of teaching skills and a lack of subject area mastery. One needs both sets of skills in order to teach. Being a great teacher is important, but you could be the greatest teacher in the world and, if you don't know that you are trying to teach, you are sunk.
Rhapsody in Numbers
Go write those algorithms that figure out the stock price of chicken wings blips $0.02/share whenever it rains +2 inches in Nebraska.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!