<p>I've seen a lot of people on this board talk about pure math majors, and how often you'd need a PHD to get a job, but I personally do not want to work in academia or spend time getting a PHD before a job while my student loans rack up interest. What about applied math, as in the major in engineering schools that includes physics and computer science? Can anyone who's done this share their experiences?</p>
<p>I am not a math major but I have taken many math classes.
Applied Math is very much similar to the usual mechanical engineering degree. So you can work as an engineer.
You can also take an actuarial science class as an elective and see if you are interested in becoming an Actuary. You can work in the financial sector as an Analyst for big name companies.
Any job someone studying physics can do, an Applied Math major often also qualifies for it. If you want to do something science related, there are so many opportunities with requirements for degrees like physics/Engineering even comp science that you can apply for. All you need is to choose whatever you want to do and (if necessary take a few relative classes as elective).</p>
<p>Unless you want to go to graduate school, I would study applied math as a “supplement” to a second major or minor in a field of application. </p>
<p>For example, while engineers benefit from a good dose of math, mathematicians are not prepared to do engineering work. (A math class will not teach you material science or control design, for instance.) Computer graphics or artificial intelligence are basically all math, but you still need a solid computer science background beyond the 1-2 programming courses for an applied math degree to work in the field. Statistics by itself is useful, but you’ll be a much better statistician if you understand the field you are working in. (Knowing the relevance of your data will help you interpret it, and it also helps you decide which data is worth collecting and analyzing in the first place.)</p>
<p>If you want hard data, contact an applied math department of your choice and ask them about the first post-graduation job (or graduate school placement) of their most recent graduating class. The department probably does not track its former students, but professors (especially major advisers) usually have a pretty good idea of what many of their students are up to.</p>
<p>An applied math major who has an emphasis in optimization and operations research can certainly to some industrial engineering positions as many IE programs (especially graduate programs) are just “applied math/operations research” degrees.</p>
<p>The computational math major (a version of an applied math major…and my major, yay me) prepares you for some software engineering positions…although I always recommend taking the entire CS core courses (around 5 or so).</p>
<p>Probably a common route with applied math majors/minors is some combination with CS, economics/finance, and/or statistics (major in one, with second major or minors or courses in one or more of the others).</p>
<p>S. double majored in applied math and economics and now works as an analyst doing parametric cost estimating.</p>
<p>Despite a high GPA from a top LAC and passing 2 actuarial exams on his own, he was never able to nail down an actuarial internship. He had one interview for an actuarial development position but the job went to an actuarial major. However, maybe he just did not have the right connections to get an actuarial internship</p>