I was right. According to Warren Buffett higher-order math is useless in finance.

[Myrmidon73]

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There is some truth to that, but being able to get good grades on a math test is not the same as solving a puzzle in real time, in front of an interviewer. At school, you can spend an entire evening working on a problem set if you need to, and by the time you take the test, the problems are usually taken straight out of the problem set. But when you go to a job interview, they want to see you think on your feet, quickly, and they’ll likely throw a problem at you that’s not like the problems you learned to solve in school, it’s likely to be a problem that requires, in your own words, “a lot of insight, creative thinking, a sharp mind, and the ability to see through the problem and understand it on a higher level”.

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<p>Stop saying you’re a math major if you haven’t done (or have any interest) in pure math. It implies that you do. I know that you like applied math. Do engineering. Or some other natural science. Or major in applied math (if your school offers that as a major). Then, say you want to do that.</p>

<p>If you’re having trouble thinking on your feet, it’s because you’re not learning your calculus/diffe like it’s intended. You’re simply memorizing algorithms, and not understanding why or how they work. As a result, you have a hard time connecting abstract ideas to them.</p>

<p>Try and focus more on why than what. If you truly want to major in math, you’re going to figure that out sooner or later. You may be book smart, but it’s ridiculous to see someone not know the difference between pure and applied math (especially when one is his major), and how they can be applied to the real world.</p>