<p>I just recently came upon the Applied Mathematics- Economics (Math/Economics double) major. I love math and my family has been pushing for me to attain a mathematics degree since I was little. Unfortunately, I had never seen the practicality of it with my intentions (I dont want to teach or research math) and have preferred an accounting/finance/econ degree for a while, but my mother wont allow it for various reasons (some which I agree with).</p>
<p>Now, I have been reading about the doublemajor, although i havent found much on it. Its a heavy courseload (I dont care), can lead to actuarial, statistical, and other book-keeping professions. Has an above-average beginning pay grade and there are plenty of jobs still available in the field (a heavier focus has been paid to actuaries since the depression) and, of course, double majors look great.</p>
<p>Is there anything else I should know about the double major? More importantly drawbacks (aside from courseload)? I cant find much reading on it except for a cnnmoney.com article that drew it's praises as a degree. </p>
<p>Math and econ is a powerful combination. If you can double pure math with economics you will be analytically head and shoulders above any business major, and you will have a heck of a lot of doors open to you provided you finish with a strong GPA. To get a sense of the math electives you should be taking, you may want to look at MIT’s economics department webpage in the graduate studies section. If I recall correctly, the most valued math courses are real analysis, complex analysis, topology, measure theory, differential calculus, linear algebra and as much calculus as possible (plus stochastic calculus if you have time). Any other additional pure math is also valued of course, but if you do great in these you will be putting yourself in a very strong position for a huge variety of future opportunities- private, public and academic.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you. Your parents are probably doing you a major favor here by emphasizing the importance of math over fluffy business courses. It may seem like a pain now, but there is a very good chance you will thank them in a few years.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot nauru. Im not really sure which mathematics courses ill be taking as Im only currently in calc 3 (multivariate) and basic stat and probability (so I can later take the complex analysis and probability courses) and my school allows me to pick and choose which later courses I want to take. </p>
<p>And yes. My uncle and my mother have been pushing a math bases major for years now, and last year I was interested in doing an accounting, or subtype of it, major. My mother disagreed and so I went on an engineering track. I never found physics that interesting, nor the likelihood of me taking courses on fluid mechanics, chemistry, etc. </p>
<p>I also like that, although it is a very intense major, at the school I am at it still allows me to take other courses, which is pretty “cool”. Engineering did not allow me to do that.</p>
<p>Yeah stats and probability obviously you need to learn well. I just thought that’s a given, so add at least 2 or 3 statistics courses to the list (whatever it takes to learn a good chunk of probability theory, parametric and non-parametric testing, several models of regression analysis and how to check their validity. Also try to remember to learn at least one test for normality (Lilliefors or something) even if it’s not in the curriculum! I used to take it as given that everyone in physical and social sciences learns this, but it turns out that some top schools (ivy league), unbelievably, don’t teach this to all their students. Yet it’s one of the most important things to know for real life and academia. It has happened that a PhD student at a top school was defending her thesis and had rejected the null hypothesis in her massive data analysis, but upon questioning by the committee it turned out that she had not checked normality of the data. Sure enough the data turned out to be non-normal, and after retesting with a non-parametric method the null could not be rejected and 5 years of experiments turned out to be essentially worthless. True story.</p>
<p>Engineering is indeed a pretty inflexible major (with some pretty inflexible people I might add!), and I can understand wanting to stay away from that.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that if in 5 or 10 years you still really want to do bean counting for a living (20 bucks says you won’t!) it will be no problem for you to pick it up few weeks, on the job, and it will seem simple compared to the much more analytically intensive stuff you did in college for your math/econ double major. </p>
<p>Do take other courses but also keep in mind that generally the more math electives you take, the better off you’ll be.</p>