Hey. I’m a senior in high school rn and I need some help deciding my major. Idk where I’m applying or anything but I’ve always considered myself to be good at math. Up until a few months ago I was sure I wanted to study math. I realized, however, (and no offense to any math majors), that theoretical math seems pretty much useless. I love calculus but sitting around and writing proofs all day sounds mind-numbingly boring and somewhat pointless. I decided to take AP Computer Science because I’ve heard that mathematicians love CS. I’ve done a little bit of programming in the class but honestly it’s not as captivating as I anticipated. I’m pretty much stuck rn and I’d really appreciate some advice. Thanks.
How much experience do you have with proofs? I wouldn’t recommend a math major to someone who strongly dislikes proofs, but I think you should at least take a discrete math or introduction to proofs class when you get to college, especially since it would probably count toward a CS major as well. Almost all areas of math have been applied to other disciplines, but you might enjoy applied math or statistics if you want to work with real-world problems more directly.
@lhw1998 CS can have a lot of proofs, especially in the more theoretical areas such as algorithms or complexity theory.
There are some areas of math in which I’m still not too sure of the practical applications besides in other areas of pure math, or perhaps theoretical physics or CS. These typically occur in algebra and topology for me. It’s more likely because I haven’t studied these fields enough (I was a math w/ CS major during my undergrad). A lot of problems in number theory (such as the twin primes conjecture) don’t have much real-world application but have led to advances in CS.
Off the top of my head, there’s topological data analysis.
Sounds like Applied Math would suit you well–it’s not “useless theory” by any means and it’s a very employment-friendly, pragmatic major. Mix in some CS and maybe some econ/finance and you’ll be quite employable.