<p>I'm a prospective math major who will probably be attending Stanford in the Fall (EA admit). I've been told a hundred times that college math is that much harder than in high school, I know the story. I plan on taking it as far as I can, and if/when I hit the proverbial wall, I'll switch over to something else, such as EE or CS or something else.</p>
<p>My question is about what one can do with a pure math degree. What kinds of careers would I be looking at with a math degree? What about salary ranges? I've never really been able to get a solid answer to this question, and I was hoping you guys could help.</p>
<p>What about with a master's degree or a PhD?</p>
<p>My mom got her undergrad. degree in math. This was back in the day though at a small Ohio college. After she graduated she worked at a department store's accounting department. After that, she's been working in telecommunication sales like Southwest Bell, AT&T, Sprint, Worldcom/MCI (um yea), and now Verizon. So, she transitioned her degree into business...</p>
<p>As a pure math major you could work for a very competitive salary on Wall street at a Hedge Fund but provided your competitive enough within Stanford as well.</p>
<p>What would be a competitive salary? And also, is majoring in pure math the only way to get a job at a Hedge Fund? Or would other majors such as Financial engineering be good?</p>
<p>As well as a hedge fund, an investment bank would most likely be interested in math majors. I remember D. E. Shaw gave out free Rubik's cubes at a math camp I went to.
As far as I know, almost ANY firm in engineering or finance has a need for math majors. Having a math degree is not so much about whether you will actually need low-dimensional topology, but simply about an outstanding ability to think rigorously, solve problems, and develop intuitions about quantitative subjects.</p>