<p>Lots of national security stuff.</p>
<p>“^Not in this economy”</p>
<p>OP says their kid is considering a major. I read that as they won’t be graduating till spring 2013. So even if no grad school, will be hitting at least a somewhat different job market.</p>
<p>In answer to Sylvan:</p>
<p>My son LOVES proof and theories, and acts like everything else is “not really math”. Loved proofs since high school geometry.</p>
<p>[Career</a> Paths at the National Security Agency (NSA) - Mathmatics](<a href=“http://www.nsa.gov/careers/career_fields/mathematics.shtml]Career”>National Security Agency Careers | Apply Now)</p>
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One of those, eh? Probably looking at grad school. With a master’s, there are plenty of different things. One girl who got her MA when I did (1998?) got a job in Boston for $50K starting, and she had no “skill” whatsoever other than being good at math stuffs. Some sort of security analyst. </p>
<p>If “the rest” is extranious, then physics probably isn’t a good minor. :)</p>
<p>Brooklyborndad,
You are much more optimistic than I am. That explains difference in our opinion. I love math myself, have nothing against it…but job market is something that I do not believe in for many years ahead of us. Send kids to anything medicine related, otherwise, it is tough.</p>
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<p>Ah, nope. My H is a math professor at USC, which is a research university. He has managed to land research grants every summer. He definitely teaches classes!</p>
<p>I should clarify that my son doesn’t mind teaching at tertiary levels, he’s just not interested in teaching high school and thus doesn’t want to get a teaching degree. </p>
<p>But I’m not sure it’s realistic to aim to be a math professor especially if he’s doing undergrad at UW. There’d be lots of competition for graduate school, and he’d be competing against similar math-types from universities with stronger math departments.</p>
<p>I sure would prefer if he was in a major that can land him a job upon graduation, like engineering, rather than push that expectation till after graduate school. Lots of law graduates are now desperately looking for work.</p>
<p>Again, actuaries are never desperately looking for work. No grad school required either.</p>
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Udub is actually a very good school for math. He might want to look into some of the funded summer REUs if he has what it takes and is interested in academia.</p>
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<p>Those are all introductory courses. He will find what he wants to do in pure math after taking upper classes of analysis, algebra and number theory, and geometry and topology. He would change him mind to Applied Math by then.</p>
<p>If he’s into pure math, I would not suggest a career as an actuary. It’s extremely applied in nature, unless you’re in the really small group of individuals who are actually doing research in actuarial science. Everyone I know doing that is teaching at a university anyway. I’d let him major in math and assume he’s going to graduate school, probably through a PhD. (And of course statistics has just as theoretical a background as other math. ) (And FWIW, back in the day the pure math majors I knew were going to places like NSA, CIA, . . .)</p>
<p>My son plans to major in math, along with economics. He needs as much math as possible for a doctoral program in economics. His goal is either to teach at the college level or work with the government in the Treasury/State Departments or the Office of Management and Budget. My husband has degrees in applied statistics and economics. He works in professional baseball. There are lots of jobs in pro sports for math types, especially in the front office.</p>
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<p>This is not something one hears every day!! Thanks for the heads up.</p>
<p>That’s not something one hears every day, because it’s not true. Yes, pro sports teams do employ math types. No, there are not “lots of jobs” in pro sports for math types, and what jobs there are require fierce competition to obtain.</p>
<p>Really matters how “good” he is. </p>
<p>If he’s taking honors/ theory heavy classes and kicking ass, then the question should be more of which problems he is interested in, not what jobs exist. Posititions strictly in research exist. </p>
<p>If he likes math, but not at the top of his class, then he should probably view his ungrad in math as getting a grounding in something awesome that he would probably otherwise never learn and then simply be realistic about taking a job. People who can do math are needed in most fields.</p>
<p>I myself am a math major in college right now. I think it’ll be hard to find a job in pure math that’s not research or teaching, though the link to the National Security Agency website someone posted before looks interesting. It’s just that, if I’m not mistaken, there really aren’t jobs where you’re going to have to know things like abstract algebra (rings, groups, etc.). Nobody just sits around proving theorems anymore. From what I’ve read, the job market for university teaching is tight, so I myself don’t know if I want to go to grad school, since it might not be worth it. I have taken the most advanced statistics courses offered at my college, and since I like it, I’ll probably look into being an actuary for a few years to be more financially secure, and then consider grad school. It seems like the best area for math majors is in statistics-related fields, since there’s a huge demand but not so much supply. You might want to look into mathematical biology as an option–I don’t know much about it. I’m sure some math jobs are more on the theory side of things, but I don’t know what they are.</p>
<p>oops, I realized this is the parents forum. Well, I hope this still has good info.</p>
<p>I work with lots of folks who have heavy duty math backgrounds. They work on developing and applying models of the real world to help people make business decisions. They work inside major corporations and for firms that consult on business problems. But many of these people have advanced degrees in math, not just an undergrad. So, your son should consider going for a Masters or even a PhD.</p>
<p>Here is a career listing from one of the consulting firms I know about:</p>
<p>[ZS</a> Associates: Careers: Working at ZS: ZS Career Paths: Position Profiles](<a href=“http://www.zsassociates.com/careers/working_at_zs/zs_career_paths/position_profiles/]ZS”>http://www.zsassociates.com/careers/working_at_zs/zs_career_paths/position_profiles/)</p>
<p>There are many other firms like that one.</p>
<p>The broader term for this is called datamining - they are always looking for people with strong quant backgrounds. Here is a link to the wikipedia article about it.</p>
<p>[Data</a> mining - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining]Data”>Data mining - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Another thought, you said he loves proofs and theorums. How much of a creative thinker is he? Does he like to come up with new ways to approach things? Does he get excited when he comes up with ideas? If so, despite having some B’s on his transcript, he could have a future in pure math. Almost all advances in mathematical theory have been made by people (mostly men) in their 20’s. </p>
<p>There are a lot of unsolved problems in math - wikipedia has an entry on this too</p>
<p>[List</a> of unsolved problems in mathematics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolved_problems_in_mathematics]List”>List of unsolved problems in mathematics - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Ask him if he would like to give some thought to working on a unsolved problem. Even if he doesn’t come up with anything, his professors ought to be impressed if he tries it and he could make it the basis of a successful application to graduate school.</p>
<p>I was in a similar situation as your S when I was in college (no dates, but platform shoes were all the rage). I loved pure math and I didn’t want to be a teacher. I decided to combine it with another major that would lead to a career. I ended up choosing Computer Science and studied Decision Analysis and Discrete Mathematics and took very little programming. I did look at Actuary work, but it seemed incredibly boring (no offense to the actuaries on the board)</p>
<p>This approach worked well for me. I was able to study what I loved, and have a career in a related field that uses some of the same skills.</p>