<p>Self-explanatory: if you really, really like math, should you major in engineering or applied math or pure math? (I'm leaving this question very vague, so you can take it wherever you want to take it.)</p>
<p>Both…do applied math (with a CS concentration) as an undergrad and then take engineering in grad school.</p>
<p>As I have said before…I am VERY BIASED on this approach. :-)</p>
<p>The Parents have been discussing this very thing–
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1107379-math-lovers-how-choose-math-major-vs-engineering.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1107379-math-lovers-how-choose-math-major-vs-engineering.html</a></p>
<p>If you narrowed your choice between math and an engineering field, pick math. Engineering is notorious for age discrimination, and you will probably be looking for a new career suddenly in your late 40s or 50s if you followed an engineering career. Engineers in that age group don’t get interviewed and don’t get hired.</p>
<p>If you are a talented engineer you won’t have to worry about that any more than you would in most math careers. My husband is an engineer in that age group (in aerospace, which is notorious for its cyclical volatility) and has a wide circle of colleagues and friends in the industry. I can’t think of any who have had trouble with employment. The fact that you are “just a girl” will only improve your prospects.</p>
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<p>Do not listen to this. This statement is completely false. Speaking from experience, if you are a good engineer with experience, you will not be looking for a new career in your 40s or 50s. I’m not sure what experience this comment is based on but I can tell you that I know many, many engineers in their 40s and 50s and not one has had to change careers or has had trouble holding a job. Not an accurate statement whatsoever exengineer.</p>
<p>See the other thread referenced in post 3.</p>
<p>If you choose math, note that the math major requirements typically are not huge, so that you can take a lot of math courses as if you were a pure math major and take courses in computer science, statistics, economics, or finance as if you were an applied math major. Although it may be harder if you want to take courses in all of those to maximize job and career prospects…</p>
<p>Another thing you could do is take physics along with math in your freshman year to retain the option of going into engineering as well as math.</p>
<p>To take other non-math courses can be done, but one has to pretty much know their potential avenues almost as a freshman. For instance, the first two economics courses COULD be taken as your social science general education requirements since economics IS considered a “social science”. That would allow some of your free electives to be used on the junior/senior-level econ courses or the mathematical econ courses. Also, you may want to take the statistics courses for the math/stat majors as opposed for the engineering majors (separate probability and statistics courses instead of the combined prob/stats course for engineers).</p>
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<p>I am in this age range and have not experienced this yet. I work in databases and it still seems that many new CS majors still select database courses as an “optional” course. Most database architects, developers and DBA’s are old like me.</p>
<p>“Do not listen to this. This statement is completely false. Speaking from experience, if you are a good engineer with experience, you will not be looking for a new career in your 40s or 50s.”</p>
<p>I vigorously disagree. In the market I am in, Greater Toronto, there is an oversupply of engineers and the difficulty of older engineers keeping employed here was confirmed to me by a member of PEO council, Denis Dixon. That is from Professional Engineers Ontario by which I am licensed. Despite having two passports, U.S. and Canadian and looking in both countries, I am being totally shut out regardless of my great experience and 20 years in my last job. It’s only false if you haven’t experienced it yourself, but you can’t blatantly say it’s completely false. At age 54 I am now a true ex-engineer and have not had even contract work since August. I could have done better with a two year program from a community college.</p>
<p>Exengineer, you have experience in engineering, but do you have experience in math? I believe you that you are having a hard time with engineering jobs now, but do you think the situation would be any different for a person with a math degree? From what I hear, people tend to make their greatest mathematical achievements when they are young. </p>
<p>ucbalumnus, if I were to go that route (the pure math major while taking lots of math-related courses), what would my options be upon graduation? A job? Grad school (in what field)? </p>
<p>Does anyone here have experience in pure math? Have you ever felt like the proofs were totally useless for someone who doesn’t want to go the PhD route?</p>
<p>Just a girl I’m not sure how old you are … but I faced the same question when I was applying to schools … and one of my search criteria was that it had all my interest areas (math, engineering, physics, computer science, and architecture) … and then my first two years of college I planned my courses to keep my options open as long as possible (I kept everything but architecture in the hunt) and then made my final decision late my sophomore year when I had to.</p>
<p>Not being familiar with the job market for math majors, I do not know if things would be better or worse for them right now. A lot is based on supply and demand. Competition is very different from one engineering field to the next. Some may find getting a job easy, some will find it impossible and give up. I have given up on engineering and am now pursuing inside sales and other options. If nothing there, then commercial driving (trucking).</p>
<p>I dont mean hijack this thread but exengineer what kind of engineer are you?..I live in the GTA and am attending uoft next year for industrial engineering. I did consider doing a math degree in operations research but i didnt apply to it :S</p>
<p>Major was Metallurgical Engineering, now renamed Materials Science & Engineering where I graduated and dropped at several other universities. I wouldn’t hesitate to call it an obsolete major, should be flushed out of universities entirely and some of the courses added to Mechanical Engineering curriculums. Most of it however stinks like yesterday’s fish heads and chicken bones, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.</p>
<p>My eldest son has a bachelor’s degree in math from Harvard. He is in graduate school now, but a number of his graduating classmates had job offers rescinded because of the poor economy. (This was in 2009.) There are no guarantees regardless of your degree. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s reasonable to warn this girl away from engineering in general because of your bad experience in one particular field.</p>
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<p>Possible job and career options:</p>
<p>Math + CS (including algorithms / complexity, software engineering, operating systems, computer networks) => computer software development
Math + statistics + economics + finance => quantitative finance, [url=<a href=“http://www.beanactuary.com/]actuarial[/url”>http://www.beanactuary.com/]actuarial[/url</a>] / risk management jobs</p>
<p>Of course, graduate school in any of the above subjects is a possibility if you have taken at least a few of the core junior and senior level courses for the subject.</p>
<p>Here’s the lowdown on math versus engineering:</p>
<p>Applied math, more general, wider range of opportunities. You will almost certainly have to go to graduate school for a MS in an engineering field or applied math to get an entry level job that you could obtain with an engineering degree with a BS. I’ve had quite a few friends graduate with applied math degrees, and they have had a hard time getting good paying jobs (relative to my engineer friends).</p>
<p>Engineering - Still pretty broad. A graduate degree in Engineering is a waste of time unless you want to teach. </p>
<p>Pure math - Get a PhD or don’t do it at all. If you can’t land a job in academia (it’s almost impossible these days) then you’ll be starting out slightly better than someone who’s just coming out of college. It’s a huge opportunity cost. I would not recommend a pure science to anyone at this point in time.</p>
<p>A nice combination would be to take a good concentration in computer science at the undergrad level. You do NOT need to double major, just take the courses that UCBAlumnus pretty much laid out. Even if you do not care too much for software development or I.T., there are jobs out there so it is a good fallback plan.</p>
<p>At the graduate level, I would look into either systems engineering or engineering management. Either program will take math majors unless you choose U-Arkansas, lol (sorry, still kind of mad at that school for turning nose from non-engineering majors). As you get higher in position in engineering, you will need to be able to guide/manage end-to-end engineering efforts and that is where systems engineering or engineering management comes into play. Both majors, give you courses in technical management while allowing you to take a 4-5 course specialization. </p>
<p>While at the “grunt” engineering level, you will see math and physics majors working alongside of engineering majors and doing similar work, from WHAT I HAVE SEEN, it seems like higher engineering positions want graduate degrees in engineering instead of graduate math/physics degrees. It was the main reason why I decided to complete a graduate engineering degree than a graduate math degree.</p>
<p>You made a class statement about all engineers when you should have been making a specific statement about metallurgical engineers who live in Toronto. That is highly irresponsible considering that many young people read this board.</p>