<p>I agree with other posters, to think about what interests you about math. </p>
<p>S. graduated 2 years ago from a top ten lac with a double major in applied math and econ (high honors). He did not find it “easy” to get hired. He now works as a cost analyst. In retrospect, he thinks CS and Math rather than econ and math would have offered more options.</p>
<p>One of my son’s fantasy jobs is a sports statistician. It combines his love of sports with his love of math. MLB was actually hiring people to keep stats on games in various cities and log them in online. My son applied last year (he was only 16 at the time) and didn’t get the job-hardly surprising but what the heck. :-)</p>
<p>daffymom, cost analyst is a great and much needed profession. If your S likes it there is a career there.</p>
<p>Operations Research. The most fun part of mathematics, hands down. And not all engineering is a no-go. Try Industrial Engineering, which (depending on the specialty) is heavy on Math, OpRes, Probability and Stats, and the like. </p>
<p>I had a few PhD friends in Applied Math & OpRes at a major industrial research center and they were doing decision analysis stuff for Fortune 1 CEO level management… Human Excel basically… “Do we build the plant here or there”, “do we buy or make”, and the like. </p>
<p>Those who suggest actuarial work may actually want to spend a week or two working as actuaries :-). Makes accounting look exciting…</p>
<p>To answer the question posed about tenure track jobs after PhD…I didn’t say a math PhD, I suggested a PhD in finance or operations within a business school. World of difference The business school industry booms and has been growing for more than two decades. you’ll have a choice of jobs. No such thing as post docs in these fields. You’ll do research mostly, with some teaching. Starting salaries around $150k.</p>
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<p>Lol…new and trendy. It’s actually been around since WWII, and well established as an academic field of study for about 40 years. Most of my colleagues have been working in the area for several decades or more.</p>
<p>Sorry, I guess my word choice was poor, I don’t mean that the field itself is trendy, but that people seem to promote it a lot without really knowing anything about it. Or at least, I’ve heard that as a suggestion many times from people that couldn’t say anything substantial about the field itself.</p>
<p>^ Oh yeah, I agree with you. It is fascinating how something that has always existed but outside of the general public’s eye, suddenly becomes something that everyone’s uncle is talking about.</p>
<p>Operations Research? It has been a required course for most MBA programs for over 30 years.</p>
<p>What if a student “loves” linear algebra - any insights on way to proceed with that will be much appreciated. TIA</p>
<p>Not a single Operations Course - a whole focus on OR, Decision Analysis & Support, and the like. A great intersection of statistics, applied math, computer science, and industrial engineering (operations mostly). </p>
<p>For the student who loves linear algebra, may I suggest a focus in computational math and numerical analysis. I have been known to bring an IBM 3090 to its knees (vector processor and all) by doing heavy duty numerical analysis stuff, mostly matrix manipulations.</p>
<p>Linear algebra also plays very well into engineering math, especially structure analysis and the like, or, for more fun, computer graphics (think of the uber-graphics cards of today as nothing but multiprocessors that require heavy duty math, lots of it linear algebra and the likes) or solid modeling (likewise but more formal and stuffy.</p>
<p>There is also a lot of interest in multiprocessor computer programming as cpu multi-cores are getting everywhere. And, of course, lots of math there as well…</p>