I am interesting in switching to pure maths but can’t thinking of any sort of role other than going to graduate school and becoming a professor. I know other math majors go on to work in the applied math industry rather than going to graduate school. Some of the jobs I know math majors work in are the actuarial field, computer science, and finance. What other areas to math majors end up in?
What specific classes would you be taking? My general impression as a math major is that there are lots of career possibilities, but you have to do more than just take math classes. (For example, if you want to be an actuary, you should take actuarial exams, look for internships, and maybe try to fulfill the VEE requirements by taking certain classes in finance, economics, and statistics.)
@halcyonheather well a typical bachelors in math includes courses such as topology, combinatorics, analysis, etc…nothing too applied.
With just those classes, you could go to graduate or professional school, either for math or for something that doesn’t have specific course requirements (like law school). You could get a teaching license by getting a master’s degree in education. You could work in a job that doesn’t require a specific degree.
Math majors go into lots of different careers ([url=<a href=“http://www.maa.org/careers/career-profiles%5Dhere%5B/url”>http://www.maa.org/careers/career-profiles]here[/url] are some math career profiles), but they’re pretty specialized and you need to study other subjects (computer science, statistics, etc.) and ideally seek out work experiences (internships, co-ops) to prepare for them.
You can do pure math to aim for graduate study and later research, but also take some applied courses (e.g. statistics, computer science, economics, etc.) in your free elective space to provide backup options.
Theoretical computer science, physics research and bioinformatics/computational biology are some examples of things you can do. But you should consider going into math as a career…it’s cool.