Reasonable careers for Math Major

[Anonymous]

Professional Subtracter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid considering a physics or math major and wonder the same thing. I think an engineering or applied math degree would be more practical, but I get why DC is more interested in studying physics or pure math. I hope that the pure physics or math degree will open doors for jobs or grad school if paired with a practical minor.

Be clear-eyed on what he's going to do after undergrad. We have two kids in our extended family that went to CMU - one for math and one for physics - and both struggled to get jobs after undergrad. One of them did a minor in CS (he stayed an extra semester to get the courses needed) before he landed a programming gig and the other (math) I think went on to grad school. This was during the CS boom days, pre-covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid considering a physics or math major and wonder the same thing. I think an engineering or applied math degree would be more practical, but I get why DC is more interested in studying physics or pure math. I hope that the pure physics or math degree will open doors for jobs or grad school if paired with a practical minor.

Be clear-eyed on what he's going to do after undergrad. We have two kids in our extended family that went to CMU - one for math and one for physics - and both struggled to get jobs after undergrad. One of them did a minor in CS (he stayed an extra semester to get the courses needed) before he landed a programming gig and the other (math) I think went on to grad school. This was during the CS boom days, pre-covid.

This is worth noting. Both math and physics are degrees that require selling yourself to employers. There are people around here that suggest these are the mark of genius and some sort of automatic pass. Not true, hiring mangers still need to see boxes checked, and that's assuming the resume makes it into the stack in the first place. Many people still see these as navel gazing degrees. When they say you must be smart they just can't think of anything else to say. And they are not wrong, extra study without practical application is not a flex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What level of college/program? What minor? What electives? What personal skilled interests/hobbies?

Undergrad in pure math is a professionally useless liberal art degree. It's a gateway to science and technology like History is for law school applications. It's a general foundational education, not vocational. It's an enhancer to your other skills, not a skill in itself.
You need to combine it with something.

Entry level jobs include actuary, auditor, something in data analysis, teacher in a district desperate for staff.
If you have a secondary interest, more options open.

you people are utterly clueless, this is why you don’t get your advice from the bone heads of DCUM.

This is a pretty reasonable response actually. The people who go from math degree to CS are overwelmingly CS double majors or students who had a deep interest in computer science. You don't walk into a computer science career willy nilly and do need the technical skills. Combinatorics and Galois Theory doesn't just create Python script alone.

Where are what is the job title?
IDK about that. I was required to program in my 400 level math classes and "walked" into a IT job straight from undergraduate Math.

DP. +1. My kid is a Jr math pure math and just walked into an AI job that pays $50/hr

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What level of college/program? What minor? What electives? What personal skilled interests/hobbies?

Undergrad in pure math is a professionally useless liberal art degree. It's a gateway to science and technology like History is for law school applications. It's a general foundational education, not vocational. It's an enhancer to your other skills, not a skill in itself.
You need to combine it with something.

Entry level jobs include actuary, auditor, something in data analysis, teacher in a district desperate for staff.
If you have a secondary interest, more options open.

you people are utterly clueless, this is why you don’t get your advice from the bone heads of DCUM.

This is a pretty reasonable response actually. The people who go from math degree to CS are overwelmingly CS double majors or students who had a deep interest in computer science. You don't walk into a computer science career willy nilly and do need the technical skills. Combinatorics and Galois Theory doesn't just create Python script alone.

IDK about that. I was required to program in my 400 level math classes and "walked" into a IT job straight from undergraduate Math.

DP. +1. My kid is a Jr math pure math and just walked into an AI job that pays $50/hr

What was the job title? What company or type of company?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What level of college/program? What minor? What electives? What personal skilled interests/hobbies?

Undergrad in pure math is a professionally useless liberal art degree. It's a gateway to science and technology like History is for law school applications. It's a general foundational education, not vocational. It's an enhancer to your other skills, not a skill in itself.
You need to combine it with something.

Entry level jobs include actuary, auditor, something in data analysis, teacher in a district desperate for staff.
If you have a secondary interest, more options open.

you people are utterly clueless, this is why you don’t get your advice from the bone heads of DCUM.

This is a pretty reasonable response actually. The people who go from math degree to CS are overwelmingly CS double majors or students who had a deep interest in computer science. You don't walk into a computer science career willy nilly and do need the technical skills. Combinatorics and Galois Theory doesn't just create Python script alone.

Where are what is the job title?
IDK about that. I was required to program in my 400 level math classes and "walked" into a IT job straight from undergraduate Math.

DP. +1. My kid is a Jr math pure math and just walked into an AI job that pays $50/hr

The real question is, how many kids in his cohort are able to replicate that or get something similar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid considering a physics or math major and wonder the same thing. I think an engineering or applied math degree would be more practical, but I get why DC is more interested in studying physics or pure math. I hope that the pure physics or math degree will open doors for jobs or grad school if paired with a practical minor.

Be clear-eyed on what he's going to do after undergrad. We have two kids in our extended family that went to CMU - one for math and one for physics - and both struggled to get jobs after undergrad. One of them did a minor in CS (he stayed an extra semester to get the courses needed) before he landed a programming gig and the other (math) I think went on to grad school. This was during the CS boom days, pre-covid.

This is worth noting. Both math and physics are degrees that require selling yourself to employers. There are people around here that suggest these are the mark of genius and some sort of automatic pass. Not true, hiring mangers still need to see boxes checked, and that's assuming the resume makes it into the stack in the first place. Many people still see these as navel gazing degrees. When they say you must be smart they just can't think of anything else to say. And they are not wrong, extra study without practical application is not a flex.

I hate that HR departments do this. If I have two ambitious students who both have potential, but one studied math instead of econ, I'm now more interested into why they're interested. It makes no sense to weed out people by major just because they didn't study something perfectly aligned with the company-plus it's not like most of an economics major is any less navel gazing.

[Anonymous]

I know math majors that went on to be actuaries - one eventually went on to get an MBA in Operations Management and ended up working at a consulting firm in jobs that were heavy in data analyses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What level of college/program? What minor? What electives? What personal skilled interests/hobbies?

Undergrad in pure math is a professionally useless liberal art degree. It's a gateway to science and technology like History is for law school applications. It's a general foundational education, not vocational. It's an enhancer to your other skills, not a skill in itself.
You need to combine it with something.

Entry level jobs include actuary, auditor, something in data analysis, teacher in a district desperate for staff.
If you have a secondary interest, more options open.

you people are utterly clueless, this is why you don’t get your advice from the bone heads of DCUM.

This is a pretty reasonable response actually. The people who go from math degree to CS are overwelmingly CS double majors or students who had a deep interest in computer science. You don't walk into a computer science career willy nilly and do need the technical skills. Combinatorics and Galois Theory doesn't just create Python script alone.

IDK about that. I was required to program in my 400 level math classes and "walked" into a IT job straight from undergraduate Math.

DP. +1. My kid is a Jr math pure math and just walked into an AI job that pays $50/hr

What was the job title? What company or type of company?

Also curious. What's an al job? Or do you mean ai? Is this a full-time job or a part-time hourly gig?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid considering a physics or math major and wonder the same thing. I think an engineering or applied math degree would be more practical, but I get why DC is more interested in studying physics or pure math. I hope that the pure physics or math degree will open doors for jobs or grad school if paired with a practical minor.

Be clear-eyed on what he's going to do after undergrad. We have two kids in our extended family that went to CMU - one for math and one for physics - and both struggled to get jobs after undergrad. One of them did a minor in CS (he stayed an extra semester to get the courses needed) before he landed a programming gig and the other (math) I think went on to grad school. This was during the CS boom days, pre-covid.

This is worth noting. Both math and physics are degrees that require selling yourself to employers. There are people around here that suggest these are the mark of genius and some sort of automatic pass. Not true, hiring mangers still need to see boxes checked, and that's assuming the resume makes it into the stack in the first place. Many people still see these as navel gazing degrees. When they say you must be smart they just can't think of anything else to say. And they are not wrong, extra study without practical application is not a flex.

I hate that HR departments do this. If I have two ambitious students who both have potential, but one studied math instead of econ, I'm now more interested into why they're interested. It makes no sense to weed out people by major just because they didn't study something perfectly aligned with the company-plus it's not like most of an economics major is any less navel gazing.

dp.. that is your opinion, but this is how the game is played in the real world. If I'm wanting to hire someone who understand Econ, I'm going to want someone who can hit the ground running, who already understands the terminology and concepts rather than someone I have to train, even as I know that person can be trained.

A cousin was a physics major at Cal eons ago. Couldn't find a job after graduation so they got a masters in EE.

Can't do much with a Physics undergrad degree. Math is a bit better. BTW, my DC is a dual CS/math major, and they know that math alone means it would be harder to find a job. They love math (like, really love it and does it for fun) and wanted to continue doing math in college, so that's why they decided to dual major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid considering a physics or math major and wonder the same thing. I think an engineering or applied math degree would be more practical, but I get why DC is more interested in studying physics or pure math. I hope that the pure physics or math degree will open doors for jobs or grad school if paired with a practical minor.

Be clear-eyed on what he's going to do after undergrad. We have two kids in our extended family that went to CMU - one for math and one for physics - and both struggled to get jobs after undergrad. One of them did a minor in CS (he stayed an extra semester to get the courses needed) before he landed a programming gig and the other (math) I think went on to grad school. This was during the CS boom days, pre-covid.

This is worth noting. Both math and physics are degrees that require selling yourself to employers. There are people around here that suggest these are the mark of genius and some sort of automatic pass. Not true, hiring mangers still need to see boxes checked, and that's assuming the resume makes it into the stack in the first place. Many people still see these as navel gazing degrees. When they say you must be smart they just can't think of anything else to say. And they are not wrong, extra study without practical application is not a flex.

I hate that HR departments do this. If I have two ambitious students who both have potential, but one studied math instead of econ, I'm now more interested into why they're interested. It makes no sense to weed out people by major just because they didn't study something perfectly aligned with the company-plus it's not like most of an economics major is any less navel gazing.

dp.. that is your opinion, but this is how the game is played in the real world. If I'm wanting to hire someone who understand Econ, I'm going to want someone who can hit the ground running, who already understands the terminology and concepts rather than someone I have to train, even as I know that person can be trained.

A cousin was a physics major at Cal eons ago. Couldn't find a job after graduation so they got a masters in EE.

Can't do much with a Physics undergrad degree. Math is a bit better. BTW, my DC is a dual CS/math major, and they know that math alone means it would be harder to find a job. They love math (like, really love it and does it for fun) and wanted to continue doing math in college, so that's why they decided to dual major.

I get its the reality of the market, but I think they're wrong, especially with the way you are describing it. Many of the econ majors know zilch about actual corporate practice or lingo, unless they learned it off wso. I like the approach by Citadel where they'll basically take on whoever is the smartest in the applicant pool and through em in a quick boot camp to get them knowledgeable on markets. Often, the leaders in industry train their talent and don't expect the moon and beyond from people who just entered. Most corps also aren't looking for people who "know econ" but know finance or accounting. Undergrad econ is really not that sophisticated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid considering a physics or math major and wonder the same thing. I think an engineering or applied math degree would be more practical, but I get why DC is more interested in studying physics or pure math. I hope that the pure physics or math degree will open doors for jobs or grad school if paired with a practical minor.

Be clear-eyed on what he's going to do after undergrad. We have two kids in our extended family that went to CMU - one for math and one for physics - and both struggled to get jobs after undergrad. One of them did a minor in CS (he stayed an extra semester to get the courses needed) before he landed a programming gig and the other (math) I think went on to grad school. This was during the CS boom days, pre-covid.

This is worth noting. Both math and physics are degrees that require selling yourself to employers. There are people around here that suggest these are the mark of genius and some sort of automatic pass. Not true, hiring mangers still need to see boxes checked, and that's assuming the resume makes it into the stack in the first place. Many people still see these as navel gazing degrees. When they say you must be smart they just can't think of anything else to say. And they are not wrong, extra study without practical application is not a flex.

I hate that HR departments do this. If I have two ambitious students who both have potential, but one studied math instead of econ, I'm now more interested into why they're interested. It makes no sense to weed out people by major just because they didn't study something perfectly aligned with the company-plus it's not like most of an economics major is any less navel gazing.

dp.. that is your opinion, but this is how the game is played in the real world. If I'm wanting to hire someone who understand Econ, I'm going to want someone who can hit the ground running, who already understands the terminology and concepts rather than someone I have to train, even as I know that person can be trained.

A cousin was a physics major at Cal eons ago. Couldn't find a job after graduation so they got a masters in EE.

Can't do much with a Physics undergrad degree. Math is a bit better. BTW, my DC is a dual CS/math major, and they know that math alone means it would be harder to find a job. They love math (like, really love it and does it for fun) and wanted to continue doing math in college, so that's why they decided to dual major.

I get its the reality of the market, but I think they're wrong, especially with the way you are describing it. Many of the econ majors know zilch about actual corporate practice or lingo, unless they learned it off wso. I like the approach by Citadel where they'll basically take on whoever is the smartest in the applicant pool and through em in a quick boot camp to get them knowledgeable on markets. Often, the leaders in industry train their talent and don't expect the moon and beyond from people who just entered. Most corps also aren't looking for people who "know econ" but know finance or accounting. Undergrad econ is really not that sophisticated.

an econ major would've at least had exposure to accounting and finance concepts and such; math majors don't.

My DC knows jack about econ and the business world. I told them that should take some business classes, and they did take one last year for a gened credit.

If DC could find a job doing calculus all day and get paid six figures for it, that would be their dream job. Alas, that won't happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whenever talking about STEM Careers, people promote the most outlandish and hardest positions to get- FAANG techie, Quant for Citadel, and I've even seen Cryptographer for the White House. What are REASONABLE positions that a person with a bachelors in pure math could achieve without a significant disadvantage?

work with computers. work at the IRS.

[Anonymous]

The NSA hires mathematicians right out of college for cryptoanalysis and analytic programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The NSA hires mathematicians right out of college for cryptoanalysis and analytic programs.

from BYU