<p>Math is a worthless degree. Linear algebra, ODE, Calc I-III, stats… they’re all pretty useful, but as a math major you will be taking upper level math courses that are heavy on theory that are pretty much useless except for the sake of knowledge.</p>
<p>You are better off with the MIS and a minor in math. </p>
<p>Better yet, major in Computer Science and minor in Math.</p>
<p>As I have said so many times on this board…“I am biased”, so do not take everything I say as gold but…</p>
<p>My undergraduate degree is in computational mathematics which turns out was an excellent preparation for software engineering positions. Not one time was my math degree a detriment when applying for SOFTWARE development positions. If I had to do undergraduate all over again, I STILL would choose being a math major as a route to software engineering positions instead of CS. For one, once you take the CS core (algorithms, data structures, theory of programming languages & operating systems), you have more flexibility in selecting more practical CS elective courses.</p>
<p>You also have several upper-level math courses that are CS-related like cryptology, combinatorics, graph theory and parallel algorithms. I would call a math degree FAR from useless. It has been useful for me for 22+ years.</p>
<p>Degrees are what you make of them. I’ve said it before, a math degree is what you make of it. If you take a well-balanced blend of theory and applications with some CS, you’ll have plenty of job opportunities. What you’ll have are problem solving, critical and abstract thinking skills, with the necessary programming competencies that are essential in today’s job market.</p>
<p>My University also offers a masters program in Computer Science and a Masters in Software engineering. I was thinking of doing the degree in MIS, taking the prereqs for the masters, going straight into the Masters program for one of those, then maybe after getting some work experience go to UIC for an MBA., Would that be a good plan?</p>
<p>@Csh123 Your assertion math is worthless is a clueless comment. I work as a recruiter for the most prominent management consulting firm in data analytics and can assure you the compensation is not only strong but the demand outstrips supply. This supply/demand imbalance is true not only for our firm but for the management consulting industry and other companies in many industries.</p>
<p>You probably search for Mathematician or Statistician on Indeed.com and conclude not a lot of jobs right? Do a little critical analysis and look into Actuary, Data Analytics, Operations Research, Quantitative Finance which at the undergrad level require both applied and theoretical math as one of highly regarded qualification. Also, many other jobs that look on math degrees favorably (investment banking, asset management, sales & trading etc) will have job titles that have no reference to math but also look highly on quantitative backgrounds.</p>
<p>Furthermore, every internet company generates incredible amounts of data about their customer and traffic - all of this is data that needs to be analyzed and interpreted and is seeing explosive growth. Hope this helps with an alternative perspective.</p>
<p>Just to reiterate what everyone above seems to agree on: math is extremely useful as a tool in other fields but quite useless on its own. If you major in math, pick a second field of concentration.</p>
<p>I honestly never heard that math was a useless major until I joined this forum. Funny how people repeat things they see one another say until it seems like common knowledge. </p>
<p>Fore example: Somehow engineering is a great business degree because of the math (true), but mathematics, which has even more of the same math, isn’t good for business because it doesn’t have enough um… thermodynamics? Right. We all know how how critical thermodynamics is to investment banking. I see the logic.</p>
<p>It’s all confused mimicry. You can do anything with a math degree. Just the fact that you’re weird enough to major in the one subject everyone else avoids like the bubonic plague impresses employers.</p>
<p>MIS is a great degree too though, especially for IT. Like math, a lot of people who know nothing about it casually dismiss it as “not quite engineering”.</p>
<p>^ I am a grad student in math and I believe that math is useless unless combined with something else.</p>
<p>Well, if you get a math degree from Stanford or MIT, consulting and finance firms will hire you just because you are smart. A math degree from DePaul is much less impressive. I graduated with a math major from a good-but-not-wow liberal arts college. My classmates who got jobs were precisely the ones who could do something other than math. The pure math people either went to grad school or were unemployed. Go figure.</p>
<p>What experience and qualifications is your opinion based on?</p>
<p>By the way, is it actually true that an engineering degree (from a non-prestigious university) will get you a business job straight out of college? I was under the impression that the typical route into business for an engineer was one of the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Get an MBA. Business schools might appreciate their quantitative training, but after business school they are just trained business people like any other.</p></li>
<li><p>Work in production for a few years, then move into management. Former engineers are valuable in management because they understand the production process, not because they took a couple of math classes in college.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>A math major straight out of college has neither credential.</p>
<p>I’m actually wondering the same thing for quite a while. I am extremely passionate about mathematics so it has been difficult for me to post. I will be going to UC Berkeley (one way or the other), and was also planning on pursuing graduate school. I was maybe planning on double majoring in Computer Science or Physics. I’m just not sure if I’m wasting my time with the math degree. I do want to go on to be a college professor in mathematics.</p>
<p>Math is a useless degree by itself. I speak from first hand experience. I majored in pure math, and every single year I was unable to get a summer internship, because I had no skills. I decided to do a double major with computer engineering, and I instantly became more employable and was at least able to get interviews for internships. </p>
<p>Learning how to program as a math major is the most important skill you can learn. Outside of academia, no employer is going to hire you because you know what the definition of a group is.</p>
<p>I think we can all agree a purely pure math degree is pretty useless outside academia (I know some people whose only skill is proving theorems, yeah, they can’t do anything useful). But a well-rounded math major with a mix of pure and applied math (including statistics), with a couple CS courses (which are usually required anyway) is actually useful in a number of places.</p>