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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm about to start my senior year of high school. I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit of a slacker academically. From my observations, it seems like math majors, particularly pure math majors, have a much easier time in college than anyone else. Is this the path I should follow if I don't want to have to work hard in college?[/quote]Not sure what you mean by pure math. I guess it is that part of math that is less applied. It will be more theoretical and more abstract.

I studied engineering many years ago at Virginia Tech. I completed 7 years of education including some time as a PhD student. My focus was mainly operations research and traffic/transportation. Various math topics needed include probability theory, birth-death processes, Markov chains, and queuing theory. Then there is deterministic optimization (linear programming, integer programming, 0/1 integer programming, dynamic programming, geometric programming, penalty and barrier methods, and graph location). Then there are probabilistic domains such as inventory control and reliability, maintainability, and availability. When real world probability distributions are introduced, closed form solutions may not be tractable. And in this case, simulation techniques are introduced.

That stuff is not easy. I would describe it as a lot of applied mathematics. But an applied mathematician likely deals with more complex and abstract topics than those I listed. And a “pure” mathematician would be dealing with yet more complexity and abstraction. If your mind is wired for that much complexity, then definitely go for it! But I doubt most math majors, of any type of math, enjoy a “much easier time” compared to others.

Check out www.siam.org for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Check out their publications to see if that is appealing.[/quote]

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