Math majors

College Majors Math/Computer Science Majors
1

I’ve been looking around and I’ve noticed that many people are selecting math as their major. Anyways, does a math major have to be specific, like Economy, or Stats, or is it just general math? Like, is there a major called General Math, or is it always under a concentration. I like math, but I wouldn’t be interested in Economy in four years…

2

Every college has different programs. For example, my university has majors called Mathematics, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, and Mathematics and Physics. (Many schools have separate departments for statistics.) Some math departments offer several majors related to math, and some universities offer “concentrations” within a single math major. You can usually concentrate in general or theoretical math without having to specialize in an outside field.

3

Commonly, there are various possible emphases or concentrations (although a student can take course work in more than one emphasis or concentration):

  • Pure math (preparation for PhD study in math).
  • Preparation for teaching high school math.
  • Applied math in various fields (e.g. actuarial/finance, economics, statistics, computer science, operations research, etc.).
4

Here’s an example of what a major in math looks like:

http://www.haverford.edu/mathematics/academic_programs/major.php

I’d reccomend Googling each of the course topics to see what they entail in more detail.

5

Here is another example:

Pure math: https://math.berkeley.edu/programs/undergraduate/major/pure
Applied math: https://math.berkeley.edu/programs/undergraduate/major/applied
Math for high school teachers: https://math.berkeley.edu/programs/undergraduate/major/teaching