I’m a junior in college studying math (concentration in applied math) and I’m not sure what to do for a career. I’ve always been interested in science - especially biology & psychology - and began college as a biology major (premed) but was disinterested in the curriculum and didn’t want to suffer through med school/training so I switched to math. I’m currently also taking classes in computer science and statistics. Some of the areas of study I’m intrigued by are: math modeling, complex systems, data science/machine learning, biostatistics, programming. I like scientific research but I have no interest in financial/business applications of math. Am I basically on the path for academia or are there other careers I can consider?
Take a look at some software companies out there. If you can get a job at a company that uses algorithms for automation, you can spend time doing mathematical models, machine learning, and complex systems (sometimes including programming, but sometimes not). I know you say you are not interested in business applications, but I would challenge that.
I used to work at a company that provided software to logistics companies that would optimize and streamline their operations. For the folks who worked on optimizer algorithms, they didn’t care too much about the business aspects of anything… it was really just a huge math problem for them: you have a thousand trucks that need to deliver a hundred thousand items among 3,500 unique locations; how do you minimize the costs the company faces without violating any rules and regulations?
Just saying, if you look hard enough, you can find a company that you might like. If you PM me, I can let you know of a couple specific companies to consider (don’t want to put them on the general forum for a multitude of reasons)
They mostly take Phds, but NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the world.
Math has very important applications to both biology and psychology.
Psychology has two entire fields that are driven primarily by mathematical applications. The first is quantitative psychology, which is about the development and application of mathematical/statistical solutions/tools for use in psychology. My postdoctoral fellowship was with a bunch of quantitative psychologists. They are a highly in-demand subfield; there are more job openings for quant psychologists than there are PhDs to fill them (which is the opposite from what the norm is in psychology), and they tend to get grant-funded easily because everyone wants to put a quantitative scientist on their grant for support. You’d get a PhD in quantitative psychology in a psychology department to do this. Quantitative psychologists can also be employed in non-academic research at a variety of agencies and organizations.
The second one is educational psychology, specifically psychometrics. I know that sounds weird, but educational psychologists (some of them, anyway) are highly trained in math primarily because of assessment. There’s an entire subgroup of educational psychologists who specialize in creating and adjusting and performing research on standardized testing and assessment across the educational spectrum. Some are academics; many are employed by non- and for-profit firms that specialize in testing (think ACT, ETS, the College Board, Pearson, et al.); others are employed by agencies that try to understand education and the role of testing in it (think government agencies, NGOs, nonprofits, even corporate employers with an education business).
There are other jobs in the social scientists that a statistician or mathematician could do - like policy or economic analysis or serving as a statistician in social science research in academic or nonprofit or government institutions. If you did a search on USAJOBS for statisticians right now you’d find plenty. You’d just need an MA in statistics or applied math for the vast majority of those jobs. For a current math major, an MA in stats or applied math could probably be completed in one year full-time.
Biostatistics obviously is a field you brought up - and epidemiology is another one. Both use math and stats to model disease and health patterns. You can get a PhD in either, but there are lots of job opportunities at the master’s level in both fields, especially biostatistics. Many academic research teams hire one or several MS-level biostatisticians to analyze their data, but so do other organizations and agencies of all types. Epidemiologists are hired primarily by government agencies but may find work in other places as well. You’d likely get an MPH in either at a school of public health, although MS programs do exist in both fields.
And with interests in programming and data science/machine learning - oh, you could write your own check. Even in academia and research. Research has a great need for data scientists. When I was working in public health research, we often partnered with engineers and data scientists to come up with some neat tools for research.
If you are interested in the interplay between social science and math, there are some programs that emphasize that. Check out Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences at Columbia; the MAPSS program at Chicago; and the Applied Psychological Methods master’s at Fordham. But an MA in statistics with some coursework in te social sciences (or an MPH or MS in biostatistics) may be more useful to you.
Thank you @juillet for an incredibly helpful post!