<p>There are many “industries” where engineering is not the only way to get to R&D, and where pure math skills are still useful (of course, applied math and statistical skills are more valued than pure math ones). Finance, biopharmaceutical, energy companies, health institutes, governments have tons of data they need to crunch into meaningful numbers and figures, or figure out how to properly measure. There are many pure math problems that come out of this kind of research, which is not just for engineers. My issue is that many students in more theoretical fields don’t realize that there are other options than academia, and that it’s foolish to only look at academia as a career path.</p>