<p>CPU-make sure you check out the degree requirements for Applied Math. My son is a freshman at CWRU and like you he loves math, hates science. He ultimately wants to get an advanced degree in Economics and had considered Applied Math as an undergrad degree. However at CWRU the BS in Applied Mathematics requires quite a bit of science as well as a computer programming class. He ultimately chose a double major pursuing a BA in Economics/BA Mathematics.</p>
<p>As far as not wanting a desk job, I think you might be barking up the wrong tree with an economics degree. Economics majors typically work for businesses, media outlets, or universities and nearly all the jobs are office jobs. An economics degree is pretty versatile but it leads to desk jobs.</p>
<p>BTW-I don’t think you are “giving up”. If you don’t like science then you don’t. You can’t force yourself to like something.</p>
<p>There is a lot to do in the Big Data space now. We hire analysts to analyze large sets of data from many different industries - retail, finance, social media, wireless, government…</p>
<p>There are lots of people at the UN and World Bank who majored in applied math and many of them have the opposite of desk jobs (i.e travel the world monitoring programs, evaluating sub-contractors, analyzing outcomes of their programs, etc.)</p>
<p>Thanks all for your responses! They’re really helpful
Oldfort—thanks for the detailed response. I do like working with my hands, but I would like some variety (as you mentioned, travel, working with people, etc). in school, I prefer projects over exams. I feel that rpojects really allow me to express the extent of my knowledge on the subject more than being worried about remembering something for a test. I don’t mind working with people or on my own, however I slightly prefer working alone because I don’t like the have to rely on others for a project that we are all assessed on. As far as tasks, I’m not sure whether I would choose well-defined or agility. It would depend on the subject; for instance, my writing class is a lot more open/complex in the prompts and it isn’t a well-defined “do this then do that”. Im not sure if I would like that over well-defined. I would say that I prefer some freedom for personal expression. I do work well under pressure; I usually start my assignments within a certain window of when tbey are due because the time constraint let’s me focus without being distracted and I produce better work when under pressure. I will go to the career office to get in contact with some alumni through there.</p>
<p>MyLB- I haven’t taken any statistics classes yet (I will next semester). It is hard to gauge what I will like based off of my high school experience. I hated statistics, largely in part because it was poorly taught. Surprisingly though, I still loved math (calculus, not pre-calculus, geometry, etc) even though that was not well taught either.</p>
<p>Proudpatriot- thank you for mentioning that. That is actually one of the first things I checked. For applied math, I only have to take math courses (with optional CS courses to fulfill the computation breadth requirement, but there are also math classes I can take for that). That is also one reason why I am not really interesting in an economics degree. The way the applied math program works, we take 15 courses required for the major, including 5 courses “from an area of application in which mathematics has been substantively applied, selected to provide a coherent and cumulative introduction to mathematically-oriented aspects of the field.” So I could take economics courses to fulfill the “applied” requirement of the applied math program. I am most interest in game theory.
I have gotten the feeling that I am somehow “giving up”… because I do not want to ‘stick it out’. What’s great about college is that I don’t have to take courses that I do not want to (save for general education/core requirements), but sometimes people make it seem like I should suck it up and get through them. My mother says that I am giving up also; I’ve wanted to be an engineer all my life (I bounced around between specializations, though). But now that I can actually see what it would be like to become/be an engineer, I don’t think that’s what suites me best. My mother says as long as I am able to support myself, she is not worrying. She is worried about job prospects and really wants me to look at expected job growth/demand, etc.</p>