<p>The OP’s argument may be applicable to people who go into Math knowing they want to get a job after graduation. But I think the majority of Math majors - the ones who are really interested in the courses and do not seem to be pushing through the major reluctantly - are there for the math. </p>
<p>In that case, there’s grad school, fellowships, and lots of research opportunities for you to continue to do what you love.</p>
<p>As a applied math major (who’s graduating in three weeks), I’m getting nothing. Which sucks, but oh well. I fully expect to make $20k/year coming out of college, which luckily, since my parents are rich, so I have no debt, is perfectly fine with me. </p>
<p>To be honest, I think the economy just really, really sucks right now.</p>
<p>I had a friend who graduated with chem e degree. He hated all his classes and he never had a single internship/co-op. He wound up with a job that pays 55k/year, even though he says he’ll probably hate it. (The dude is pretty indifferent about everything.) I think it’s time to stop blaming stuff on the economy. It’s really just a bailout excuse by now, no offense to math majors who can’t land jobs. My point being: lastchancexi followed his intellectual curiosity and the guy I know, who’s a very average guy, ended up getting paid a lot more. IMO you sacrifice a lot being a math major, and by the end of college, I think people really care more about the paychecks.</p>
<p>I’ve always admired people who were really smart with numbers. I can’t wrap my head around most of that stuff =p.</p>
<p>I have a really nice friend who’s a math major. He’s minoring in computer science even though he dislikes it… more job security. I guess programming isn’t that great of a job though :o. </p>
<p>I would recommend that anyone who’s really good with math go into business…one of my girl friends is doing that. You have a lot of flexibility with business. My dad’s an engineer and even he says that he wishes he’d majored in business.</p>
<p>I’ve never known this, but what are you suppose to do with a business degree? I heard finding jobs is very hard. I know a dude who used to be business. Now he’s finance/math. He’s doing research in that stuff too, so it’s not like everyday accounting stuff.</p>
<p>I think that there is this misconception that all science and math majors are “marketable” or can make a lot of money. Unless a math or science major moves into research, teaching or grad school, he or she can have as hard of a time getting a high paying job as, say, an English major.</p>
<p>@ISUClub Finance is a business degree. Are you trying to say he switched from business administration to finance?</p>
<p>(finance is a major within the business school at UMD)</p>
<p>Ok, I think this is silly. </p>
<p>No, math isn’t directly applicable to comp sci, engineering, or business. Yes, maybe if you want to work in programming or engineering, you should major in comp sci or engineering. But business? A math major is extremely marketable for business, and a lot of people don’t major in accounting or other business majors because they are BORING and not challenging. If you frame your resume in such a way that shows you majored in math for a challenge, yet know practical applications for the subject (perhaps take the accounting exam, know what it requires to work in finance, etc.), you WILL find a job if you put your mind to it. </p>
<p>Don’t want to be an actuary? Don’t want to be a statistician? Don’t want to be a programmer? Don’t want to be an accountant? Well, now we’re getting picky.</p>
<p>What DO you want to be? Find that out and then find out how to make your math major work for you, or supplement your math major with a necessary skill for that field.</p>
<p>I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that the OP never had an internship or coop experience in college. Like many smart HS kids, he knew how to succeed in academia but nobody told him about how to get jobs out in the real world. You do this by identifying area(s) that would be interesting to you, and then getting experience in them before you graduate. Once upon a time, maybe, a college degree from a good school with a good GPA led to a good job. No more. The Ivy and similar elite schools maybe still have cachet, but you can easily graduate from a good school (as in top 25 public) with a 3.5+ GPA and find that nobody is that interested in you.</p>
<p>This entire thread is a joke.</p>
<p>A degree in mathematics can be extremely useful. Even most of the econ majors I know are not the best at math.</p>
<p>NO, no, you’re right… there are no jobs in this country out there outside of engineering, IT, and business (note: not even a specific industry).</p>
<p>Here’s a secret for you: every major can do business and consulting. They prefer science, econ, and yes math degrees, but none of those majors bring any real knowledge or skills to the table for the job – most of those skills you learn after you are hired.</p>
<p>Stop blaming what you majored in, and “the economy” for your life failures. Still a virgin? Must be that damn economy…</p>
<p>No one said your major is some form of vocational training or must be linked to your career. You can pursue it because you’ll never have much opportunity to do so again.</p>
<p>I’ve personally heard countless engineers lamenting they didn’t major in something they cared about more, like english, philosophy, mathematics, or sociology.</p>
<p>“So math is mostly useful as an embellishment on the transcript. Abstract math isn’t very applicable in society. Smart people go to waste. I find this very sad.”</p>
<p>ISUClub, it is possible that my current predicament has led me to feel depressed and distorted my way of thinking, but are you sure that all people who can easily do undergraduate level math are “smart”? I am so average and even pathetic in so many aspects of life sometimes I feel like I’ve lived a life of denial.</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered why people who do well in school are considered smart. In my opinion the only thing those people are good at is regurgitation and putting more effort into it.</p>
<p>I’ve had multiple people tell me that a math major is useless unless you have a Masters or Doctorate.</p>
<p>“Here’s a secret for you: every major can do business and consulting. They prefer science, econ, and yes math degrees, but none of those majors bring any real knowledge or skills to the table for the job – most of those skills you learn after you are hired.”</p>
<p>peter_parker, I disagree. If your claim is true then I’m either not a math major or I’m in denial about my ability to do business. “Doing” is not the same as “doing well”. It’s also not the same as being competitive. When I was out of college I interviewed for several entry level business related positions and was not hired for any. I was all but laughed at by an interviewer after I failed to answer basic business related questions. Nothing tricky, just questions designed to gauge the candidate’s understanding of how a business works. I think I would have passed the interview if I had taken at least one business course when I was in college. If I had been a business major I probably would have gotten the job.</p>
<p>"The Ivy and similar elite schools maybe still have cachet, but you can easily graduate from a good school (as in top 25 public) with a 3.5+ GPA and find that nobody is that interested in you. "</p>
<p>mikemac, sad but true.</p>
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<p>That interviewer is a jackass. Some people forget how difficult it is to be in the position of needing a job and how stressful a job interview is. Any interviewer who would openly laugh at you in an interview is a jerk who makes him or herself feel better by putting other people down.</p>
<p>Maybe it isn’t that easy to get started in your professional career with a math degree. If you had a business degree maybe you could have answered the interviewer’s simple minded questions and gotten the job. But then you would have been working for someone who wasn’t terribly smart.</p>
<p>How do I know your interviewer wasn’t smart? Because he or she didn’t try to ascertain how smart you are or how well you would fit in at the job. They succeeded in tripping you up because you couldn’t answer questions the concepts of which aren’t terribly hard to understand.</p>
<p>You’re discouraged now. Keep looking for the right place for you, it’s out there, you just haven’t found it yet. Down the road you might be glad you majored in math in college.</p>
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<p>He/she said all BUT laughed at, meaning he wasn’t laughed at…</p>
<p>other than that I agree</p>
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<p>Look, most jobs in the world are matter of <em>getting stuff done</em> - not about some insanely complex theory. If you want someone to pay you for that stuff, you need, imaginably, several years to do a PhD to figure things out. This shouldn’t be hard to imagine.</p>
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<p>True, but I think what mathematik is saying is that a highly theoretical math major is less likely to care enough to learn things that people in business care about. I agree, though, that one should not blame the math major but one’s own inability to train oneself in relevant skills. I for one know talented math majors successfully making top law schools and getting hired for computers work at Google.</p>
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<p>Quoted for truth.</p>
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<p>I doubt it’s business courses that taught business people so much as constantly interning, thinking about these things, etc. A math major I know took courses mainly in math but a fair number of CS courses and interned a lot - this led to great employment success. </p>
<p>If you want a career, don’t focus on blaming or affirming major choice - set your eyes on the career, and you will do what is necessary. If you leave it to your major to do it for you, you will not do WELL at your career, but with a more practical major, you may at least make it to a degree.</p>
<p>Take [and pass] a few actuary exams and you will have no problem finding a job.</p>
<p>I’m a computational mathematics major. I started out as software engineering, but I loved the math so much I decided I wanted to do more of it. I considered a math minor, but software engineering plus a math minor looked a heck of a lot like a computational mathematics major, only with this major I get to have more math. I struggled with the decision to change for a while because I didn’t know if it would be as practical as software engineering. But, ultimately, I decided I wanted to do the thing that I love the most. </p>
<p>Although, I’m not sure that applied and computational mathematics is really what the OP was referring to.</p>
<p>I think that he is justified to feel this way. The economy does suck, no matter what major you choose so I believe that is somewhat of a plausible excuse. Back on topic: Math just seems like a useless major (just like any other science major) by itself (aka just a BA/BS) even though it is more marketable than the others. I think you might have just had bad luck when finding a job (not trying to state the obvious). It should get better, and if it doesnt, just go get a MA in something useful if you can</p>