So I will be majoring in applied mathematics (perhaps double majoring in economics) at Johns Hopkins this fall. My concern is, am I getting the full value of Johns Hopkins by majoring in math rather than one of their really well known fields (bme, natural sciences)? Thanks
If math and economics are what you are interested in academically and as career preparation, then why worry about other subjects that are offered that you may not be as interested in?
Career directions for your majors would likely include:
- actuarial or (quantitative) finance jobs
- PhD study in math or economics, aiming for research or academic jobs
- teacher credential to teach high school math
The most important thing is what you want to be doing after you graduate. You should study whichever field will best help get you to where you want to be. You should not be majoring in something different than what you want to do for the purpose of it being a better ranked department within the school.
I see, that makes sense. I appreciate your help guys!
@SadHippo @ucbalumnus
If you intend to be a math major, see if you have an interest in biostatistics.
I did not know what I wanted to be when I was in college, but I was majoring in mathematics because I enjoyed it. This is kind of a recipe for disaster after graduation. I did not know what I wanted to do until the last few months before I graduated. I don’t expect you at 18 to fully know what it is that you want to do with your life because I had no idea either (was going to be a pharmacist at that age), but I would give it some serious thought of what you think would make you happy, read about the career outlook and heavily look into peoples experiences with the profession.
They poorly managed what opportunities there were for math majors at my alma mater and have since I think remedied this by having the career center give specirfic workshops tailored to helping math majors find careers. There are quite a lot of math majors at my alma mater (>600). While I was attending, there was not that many companies recruiting math majors. I’d highly advise to double major.
There are other advantages generally to having a math major. If you are interested in getting an econ PhD, they actually care much more about how much math you know than how much econ. The same may be starting to be true for some political science departments. If you throw in a little bit of coding, ask @ucbalumnus but I suspect that you’ll also have no problems with employability.