<p>What jobs does having an abstract knowledge of real analysis, topology, differential geometry, number theory, and set theory qualify you for? I have an A in all of these classes, and a decent GPA overall (3.8) as a mathematics/physics double major, but I am not sure what jobs I am qualified to do other than ditch digging and other general labor jobs that only require a high school diploma. I don't believe I have any employable skills. </p>
<p>I have absolutely no interest in graduate school, and need to pay off my school loans. What other options do I have other than working a ditch-digging job for the next decade to pay it off? </p>
<p>Number theory + abstract algebra + some CS courses => cryptography</p>
<p>With statistics and economics electives, finance and actuarial jobs may be interested.</p>
<p>Some physics majors end up in engineering jobs (the ones not needing a PE license).</p>
<p>Some math majors end up in optimization / operations research type of jobs.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus: Cryptography jobs seem very hard to come by, and I don’t have the required computer science background (also too late to take). I can program well, but that’s about it. For finance, all the quantitative type jobs I see postings for require a PhD. The engineering jobs (particularly EE and opticalE) either want an MS in physics or a minimum of 6 years of experience. The ones I see that do not require that much experience are not at all open to physics graduates.</p>
<p>The optimization/operations research jobs I haven’t looked into much. Where would I go about looking for these kinds of jobs and what kind of skills are they looking for? There are a lot operations research courses at my school, but they are only offered to applied math majors. </p>
<p>What prevents you from taking some of those operations research courses as a non-major?</p>
<p>Those kinds of jobs exist in many types of situations, such as optimizing the routing of shipping and delivery trucks, ships, trains, etc. or optimizing the flow of manufacturing.</p>
<p>As far as CS goes, if you can even take a few of the beginning courses, you can then self-educate from that base. CS is relatively easy to self-educate if you have the motivation and the ability (and people good at math are more likely to have the ability).</p>
<p>Physics Majors can also get into the Radiation Health Physics field. Lots of good jobs there but eventually you will probably need a Masters degree in the field to qualify for professional certification.</p>
<p>Also, there is a growing field of data analytics which physics and math majors are ideally suited for. One of the major companies in this area is “Beyond the Arc, Inc.”</p>
<p>As far as programming. Most physics degrees these days have at least one computational physics course and the same goes for applied mathematics. Having a working knowledge of numerical methods and a programming language can get you started.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus: At my school, the courses are offered mainly to industrial engineering majors by the math department and only the applied math majors have special permission to take them. It’s a weird policy, but the engineering department at my school tends to have these weird, protective policies. </p>
<p>As for CS, I have no doubt I could self-teach myself most of the concepts as I need to. I am just hesitant in taking any courses if employers refuse to recognize anything short of an official major, and that’s been my experience with job market unfortunately. </p>
<p>@xraymancs: I’ve seen job postings for data analytics and I think it’s a possible avenue. I tend to meet all or most of the requirements for most of the job postings I’ve seen, but I have no idea how competitive it is. It seems business majors tend to also be listed as valid qualification, so I’d think a business major here would have the advantage over the generic math/physics major? </p>
<p>I don’t think so. As a physics and math major, you have a better understanding of how to analyze data and how to build models.</p>
<p>Try robotics, in particular computer vision and control theory. Hamiltonian mechanics is basically symplectic geometry, and the mathematical formalism is very useful when you’re designing controllers for robotics with very complicated dynamics. </p>
<p>Classical techniques in computer vision don’t use much modern geometry, mostly projective geometry, but as a math major that should be very easy to pick up, and this skillset is very employable. </p>
<p>For data analysis, there’s quite a bit of buzz around topological data analysis. Persistent homology is pretty well developed nowadays, and there’s a company (Ayasdi) which is based on this. There’s a lot of work done on using sheaf-theoretic methods to fuse local network data together. However, this stuff is more on the research side than something you can get a job doing.</p>
<p>I think the data analytics jobs are favoring the people with the math, applied math and stats backgrounds more. Those skills are scarcer and the trend is toward the more science oriented approach in tech, marketing, finance, as well as science areas. I see jobs where they do ask for advanced degrees but at the same time are encouraging new undergrads to apply. </p>
<p>I did not take Topology or Differential Geometry when I got my BS in Math from CSULA. I had transferred from being a Physics major, so I took 5 general courses in Physics but I did want to finish the last one where we had to experiment with nuclear fission. The dark lab scared me and watching those particles go out in the dark, that really scared me out of that course. Getting all A’s in upper class math courses is actually exceptional assuming the professors was not handing arbitrary grades. I think sometimes they do because I got an A in a physics class and I had hardly understood it. Anyway, back to math. There’s really not a lot of job out there for a B.S. in math, even with an M.S. The government sometimes will hire math graduates; the military will hire any graduate for their officer corps; and the math graduates are actually in demand in high schools. This latter option is where I ended up with because the school district was willing to pay me a teacher salary while getting my teaching certificate.</p>