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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.
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
There are families who value education and aren't satisfied with schools.
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)
Become a professional gambler.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Private school math teacher?
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.
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...
1. Head to Vegas.
2. Count Cards.
3. Profit.
Fight Spammers!
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.
Right, but she's already burnt out on working with flaming assholes.
There's good money in it, assuming you can get motivation out of making the already absurdly wealthy incrementally richer. I spent time at a hedge fund; paid better than any job I've had before or since, but it was really hard to go to work every morning, because I felt no sense of accomplishment. I just felt like I was squandering my education skimming off the work of others (see High Frequency Trading, the entire speculative commodity futures market, etc.).
The few people who benefited from my work (besides myself) were already so wealthy (the minimum net worth requirements are ridiculous) that every single one of them could stick their money in a savings account and spend it at a rate of $200K a year for the rest of their life with no risk of going broke. Hard to get excited by the prospect of letting them spend $300K a year...
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
I work in a research lab. Honnestly, we have no use for someone with only a bachelor in mathematics. The people that are convinced they need reasonable statistical analysis are typically capable of performing the job themselves. The ones that do not have that skill do not care. (They should, but they don't. So they won't hire you to do that)
Sigh... What part of my post did you read as "I wasn't getting paid enough"? I already said, I was paid quite nicely there. But no amount of money can help when the problem is wanting to do more. Designing software used by thousands of people, supporting some noble goal, whatever. Giving those with lots of money even more money isn't motivating no matter how much they pay you to do it.
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