<p>I am a junior in a small Louisiana university, and I'm majoring in math. I plan to graduate in Spring 2015, and all I pretty much know is that I want to go to graduate school (clueless about where or in what). For the past year or so I had felt certain that I wanted to pursue a PhD in math, but now I'm not so sure if that's what I'm cut out for. So my question is, what are some of the best (considering job satisfaction and salary) careers for someone who already has a B.S. in math and wants to continue their education in graduate school? Alternatively, what graduate programs (as in the field of study) does a math degree readily transition to? (i.e. statistics, for one)
An aside: I have looked into being an actuary; I'm just not sure if I'd enjoy it (I might). Also, forensic accounting has sounded very appealing to me lately, but I don't know how I'd do that with no undergrad accounting experience.</p>
<p>-Entry-level statisticians often have a BS in math with some statistics coursework
-Biostatistics - subset of above
-Financial analyst
-Market research analyst
-Educational analyst at at testing company like ETS or Pearson
-Management consultant; they love quant majors
-Policy analyst
-Technical writer, if you’re good with writing
-Software engineer, if you have some experience with computer science/coding
-Teach middle/high school math (don’t have to do it in a public school; you could do so at a private/independent school or charter)
-Operations research analyst
-Security analyst (like cryptography in telecommunications, banking, military, government)</p>
<p>Potential Graduate Programs:
Statistics
Biostatistics
Epidemiology
Finance/Mathematical Finance
Psychometrics/Educational Measurement
Public Policy (specifically analysis)
Operations Research
Actuarial Science
Risk Management & Insurance
Bioinformatics (with some CS experience)
Information Systems
Computer Sceicne
Applied Mathematics</p>
<p>Get a master’s in data science/computational statistics and make $150k (entry level) per year at a technology company. That’s what I would do if I were you.</p>
<p>It’s the rare entry-level data MA-educated scientist or computational statistician that makes $150,000 a year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that the average statistician makes $76,000 a year; a salary of just $121,000 puts you in the 90th percentile of statisticians. I think that some experienced PhD level statisticians can make that much, and maybe some MA-educated ones with more years (10+ I would guess - perhaps) but I think it’s much more realistic to expect that you won’t make that graduating with an MA right out of school. I think an entry-level data scientist can expect to make around $60-80K depending on the company and the location.</p>
<p>Operations researchers make on average $72,000; industrial engineers about $79,000 and software developers about $93,000. Even mathematicians make on average $101,000 per year. All of these median figures includes experienced mathematicians.</p>
<p>The other thing is that money isn’t everything. Personally, I love data science and computational statistics, but some people detest prob and stats - you have to like it, and like spending most of your day building models for analysis (although there is a lot of talking to people and going to meetings doing or assisting in presentations involved). Some people also don’t want to spend a lot of time translating statistics-speak into every day language for the business folk who have zero experience in statistics, which is difficult especially with complex models.</p>
<p>Also, sometimes industry matters - some people would prefer to be in education or healthcare over technology.</p>
<p>Statistics gives you lots of options for career paths. There are opportunities in any heath/biostat-related fields, educational stat/measurement, marketing, survey methodology, and yes, “big data” related studies. Different grad programshave different concentrations available, and you can look around for what might interest you.</p>