<p>I am going to be a freshman in college next year and I plan on studying pure math. I tell people this, and a lot of people (including my mother) tell me I'm stupid and I'm going to end up homeless and that I should do engineering instead before I waste my tuition money on a fruitless field. Is this true?
I love pure math, but people are saying that applied math is the only useful subject field. I have no desire to be an actuary or go into economics or be a computer scientist, I kind of want to do pure math for the rest of my life. If that leads me into academia, then I'm fine with that - but a lot of the people I meet discourage me from taking that path in life.
tl;dr - am I going to waste my life by majoring in math?</p>
<p>so you basically will need Ph.D in math.
It’s only anecdotal, but read this comment by KnowTheTruth, it’s pretty depressing: <a href=“Holytaco”>Holytaco;
<p>No, you are not going to waste you life if you major in math. It is true that the only real place to do <em>pure</em> math for a living are academia and certain government agencies, and both require a PhD. It is also true that many math-heavy careers require a graduate degree of some sort, including those in electrical engineering. Anyway, I was a math major in college and here are the sort of math-related things my friends did after graduation:</p>
<ul>
<li>go to grad school for pure math</li>
<li><p>go to grad school for applied math (including statistics, bioinformatics, computational linguistics, environmental informatics, and math-y branches of computer science like graphics and machine learning) </p></li>
<li><p>go into consulting or finance (may only be an option with a degree from an elite university though)</p></li>
<li><p>become an actuary</p></li>
<li><p>become a math teacher</p></li>
</ul>
<p>One piece of advice from a current graduate student in pure math: don’t dismiss applied math a priori. There’s a very strong culture in pure math that looks down on anything applied, and I got sucked into that bubble in college. It wasn’t until my senior year in college that I took two applied math courses in the computer science department: computational geometry and machine learning. And I discovered that applied math was actually a fair bit of fun. The reasoning and machinery that goes into it is the exact same machinery that pure mathematicians use (at the same level of sophistication!), but in the end you have tangible useful results instead of a theorem about the cohomology of the tangent bundle of a Lie group (so what?). To be honest, if I had discovered applied math earlier, I would probably be a graduate student in applied math rather than pure math now.</p>
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I hate when people say things like this. Most people that don’t go to college at all aren’t homeless, so how exactly would getting a degree in math increase the likelihood of the event?</p>
<p>To clarify, I do plan on trying for a doctorate in math, but who knows what will happen in four years?</p>
<p>Just make sure you take classes in other things too, such as econ or cs, so that if you end up deciding not to go to grad school you at least have a backup plan. You don’t want to only focus on pure math for 4 years without having taken courses in stuff like cs and then try to apply for jobs, because you will be homeless then.</p>
<p>When I started university, I was thinking of doing pure math too. Actually taking courses made me change my mind. As others have suggested, don’t abandon it just because it’s a tough field to get a job in, but don’t dismiss the other sides of math, like applied math and statistics. As I keep telling all math majors: try a little bit of everything as early as you can, so you can focus later on the subjects you really like. And, if it’s not already required, take a couple of computer science courses (basic programming and algorithms). Those are essential in mathematics and most sciences nowadays.</p>
<p>I ended up doing mostly applied math in undergrad, though I did my graduate studies in Statistics. I have no regrets.</p>
<p>I cannot comment on the outlook on pure math as my undergrad major was computational mathematics (basically an applied math/CS hybrid degree) but I will say this…</p>
<p>I have absolutely NO regrets for being math major. There has been 3 times in my career when I was called upon to do engineering work which I had no previous background in (signal analysis, network performance and systems engineering). Each time, the employer basically said in so many words “you were a math major…you will figure it out”. Math + a few specialized courses in CS or Stats or O.R. or I.E. = a bunch of options. Like the other postings, I would say to definitely take some computer science courses. Use the CS background as a “fallback” plan in case some of your other interests fall though.</p>
<p>I understand that it is important to think ahead for possible career opportunities, however, if you go to college and major in something you don’t like simply because it may offer “better” job opportunities, then you are likely not to be very good at whatever you major in. It is far better to be an outstanding mathematics major than to be a mediocre engineering major.</p>
<p>You are going to college to obtain an education and learn how to learn new things, not as vocational training so when you finish with a mathematics degree, I bet you will be able to apply what you have learned to any number of endeavors, not simply a Ph.D. in mathematics.</p>
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<p>I don’t think these people know what they’re talking about. I doubt someone who doesn’t think that pure math is useful will think combinatorics, or complexity theory are very useful either.</p>
<p>The good thing about majoring in math is that you can usually take both the pure math courses and some courses in one or more applied math areas (CS, finance, economics, statistics, etc.) without overloading your schedule (although it is unlikely that they will grant you a double major degree in pure math and applied math). Pure math can be your passion; the applied stuff can strengthen your backup plans if the highly competitive academic job markets do not work out for you.</p>
<p>If you enjoy it, then you aren’t wasting your life. But your employment prospects are about as good as someone with a BA if you don’t continue on to graduate school. Also, finance is not always an option, contrary to the claims of many in this thread. If you don’t attend a top 10 school nor know anybody in finance, chances are that you will never be able to break into this industry. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that in some industries “it’s not what you know, but who you know”. Finance happens to be one of those industries. </p>
<p>But, if you don’t want to go on to graduate school, then I suggest getting some kind of teacher’s certificate to teach math as that will only be your true option if you attend a school that isn’t in the top 10.</p>
<p>Topology, differential geometry, and complex analysis may be interesting, but extensive knowledge in these topics won’t help you pay the bills, unfortunately.</p>
<p>@Glasss
I’m attending Cornell next year, which I hear does pretty well in terms of financial recruitment. If I do intend on attending graduate school, what are my options then?</p>
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<p>I don’t know what you been by “true” option, but either the only occupation related to pure math is a research mathematician, or there are many more possibilities than just finance and teaching high school. In particular, a job in finance is only tangentially related to what you would learn in math program. I think people just like to promote these because they pay so much.</p>
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I don’t think you should worry at all about finding employment let alone being homeless if you’re attending Cornell. </p>
<p>Anyways, there are plenty of options in graduate school. At this point, you pick an area of math to specialize in, as I’m sure you already know this. Academia has been saturated with grads looking for tenure and doing post-doc after post-doc, but government organizations such as the NSA employ math PhD’s to do cryptography work. I don’t know the specifics, but I’ve heard that these jobs have been nice alternatives to those who still want to pursue research but haven’t been able to find a job in academia.</p>
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If that is the case, then you shouldn’t have a problem naming these “many possibilities”? I’m sure the majority of pure math graduates who couldn’t make it to graduate school nor got a math certificate would strongly disagree with you.</p>
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<p>Also at NSA, you can do both academia AND consulting work as NSA allows PhD’s/professors from U-Maryland (UMCP or UMBC) and John Hopkins to be consultants on crypto projects.</p>
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<p>Why, then, did you start this thread? Did you want us to tell you that everything will work out okay and that all these naysayers are wrong? No one gets that luxury, unfortunately; you have to find this out for yourself. (And, please, keep in mind that you should be walking your path, not the paths of others. Keep your head down, do what you enjoy, and stop worrying about the prospective job market and what others think.) </p>
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<p><em>facepalm</em> </p>
<p>Read your first post. Now, read the post I quoted above. Continue doing this until you see the irony in what you’re saying.</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>