Career options in Math?

[lewelma]

My ds is a mathy kid. I have thought for years that he would be a scientist or an engineer, but this weekend he told me that actually he wants to be a mathematician. He plans to start "weekend math" studying AoPS number theory in addition to AoPS geometry during the week. He would quite happily do math all day if I let him, but I told him that he does have to learn to write past a 6th grade level.:001_smile:

 

What career options are available to him? I have come up with:

Cryptography

High Finance (he does not like this idea)

Stock market analysis (not this one either, working with $ appears to be icky to him)

Theoretical Physics (very interested in this)

Statistician (he does not like this option either see below)

The mathematical type of engineer (I have no idea what I am talking about, help me here)

Math Research (I understand he is possibly not smart enough for this, (just being realistic, not trying to squash self-esteem)).

 

Please help me flesh out this list. He wants to do MATH. all day. He is happy to work in a group and do the math for the group. He wants decent pay (so not a math teacher). He wants a holistic project he would work on, not bits and pieces like helping others with statistics for their projects. Obviously, lots of science has a mathematical component to it, but any suggestions would need to require 80% of his time actually doing mathematical calculations or thinking.

 

Thanks for your ideas,

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited June 15, 2012 by lewelma

[quark]

Mine wants to be mathematician + actor. I joke that in 20 years, he could be Charlie Eppes in a remake of NUMB3RS.

 

Here's one for your list:

Game Theorist

 

:bigear: for ideas from others!

[lewelma]

Mine wants to be mathematician + actor. I joke that in 20 years, he could be Charlie Eppes in a remake of NUMB3RS.

This is quite cute.

 

Here's one for your list:

Game Theorist

Ok, I'm game. :001_smile: What does a game theorist do? I have a vague memory from my biology days about game theory and how it applies to animal behavior. But what government department/ industry/ univerisity department is this job in? And what exactly do they do?

 

Thanks

 

 

ETA. did some research

 

Insurance: As a Game Theory Specialist in the Research and Development department of Personal Markets Claims, you will collaborate with a diverse group of experts to develop strategies and tactics to optimize claim handling processes. Frequent interaction with senior claims management, claims field operations, and other quantitative and technical insurance professionals will support your efforts to build optimized processes for continuous improvement of the claims organization.

 

Here is some more on Financial options (which my son is not interested in right now): Within investment banks, credit derivatives departments are a natural destination for quant talent. There is wide agreement that their products, math-intensive by nature, remain the fastest-growing area of Wall Street. Other quant-friendly fields include risk management, mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities, equity derivatives and model-based proprietary trading.

Edited June 15, 2012 by lewelma

[quark]

I consulted Wikipedia! Apart from math and being in the limelight, kiddo also enjoys psychology so it could be a possible career choice after mathematician or number theorist/ researcher. He is reading his dad's copy of this book to see if he'd like this job.

 

Kiddo isn't a chess player by any stretch of the imagination so I'm not sure if he will be good at it though. Anyway, he has time to decide.

 

I can really relate to these quotes, especially the bolded:

He would quite happily do math all day if I let him, but I told him that he does have to learn to write past a 6th grade level.

He wants to do MATH. all day. He is happy to work in a group and do the math for the group.

 

"Math" and "all day". So familiar! :001_smile:

Mine isn't a finance or stats guy either.

Glad you asked the question!

[quark]

Careers in Mathematics:

Haven't checked all the links but at a glance, I prefer this list to this.

 

ETA: Coursera's Intro to Cryptography will give him a quick understanding of what's required in Cryptography, network security etc.

There's also a game theory course.

Edited June 15, 2012 by quark

[lewelma]

Those links are great! Thanks. My dh just spent 45 minutes with ds discussing all these different career options. They were trying to categorize the different careers into mathematical thinking, and here is what they came up with:

 

1. working with numbers (acounting, libraries)

2. making sense out of large datasets (health, marketing)

3. complex flows (transportation, information flows, optimization)

4. relationships between things, complex algorithms (sensors, engineering)

 

I see things more in terms of math classes you can take:

Calculus vs statistics vs number theory etc

 

or topical areas

physics vs engineering vs population dynamics etc

 

or workplace

research university vs industry vs knowledge economy vs government policy

 

How do others sort math careers into categories? I am all :bigear:

 

Thanks,

 

Ruth in NZ

Edited June 15, 2012 by lewelma

[quark]

Cool categories!

 

I think of it as pure and applied.

But I also believe the lines between the two could be blurring.

When I say my son does math all the time, I'm referring to the pure math sorta stuff.

OK, off to bed. I love your question Ruth! Can't wait to read more responses.

[LNC]

Actuary - actuarial science... Lots of job possibilities...

[jennynd]

The mathematical type of engineer (I have no idea what I am talking about, help me here)

 

this will be very close to statistician. Probability analysis/Optimization/game theory.i

I do want to add that is is for more pure math in engineering.. without much engineering.

 

If you want engineering heavy in math. Mechaincal/Aerospace Engineering is heavy in math in general. as well as civil. I think. I only speak of Aero and Mech because I am one. Mechanical usually have 4 big area. 1. structure - heaving in math. 2. Aero/Fluid/Heat transfer - Super duper heavy in math. 3. Control/robotic - heavy in math 4. Material/manufacture.. not so much math.

 

I know a guy with a PhD in math works for CIA. Not sure what he does

Edited June 15, 2012 by jennynd

[Kathy in Richmond]

I'm an applied mathematician with engineering interests (dual degrees in math and chem eng and doctorate in applied math). I love modelling real world situations with mathematics. I'm trained in fields like real and complex analysis, ordinary & partial differential equations, etc, the realm of continuous mathematics.

 

I knew from late elementary school that I needed math in my life. Along the way, I've enjoyed a few different careers:

 

1)math professor at an engineering university: teaching undergrad/grad classes and doing research of my choice.

 

2)research mathematician in industry: I worked for a scientific company in a group of mathematicians and computer scientists. We did projects for different parts of the company/product lines that required math modelling work. Some of the projects that I worked on included modeling safe ways to pump waste into underground injection wells, using composite materials to build a better airplane wing, drawing plastic fibers into better toothbrush bristles :). I loved the variety and the chance to combine math with my scientific interests.

 

3)teaching math to gifted kids through CTY

 

4)running a summer math camp for profoundly gifted math kids

 

My children, on the other hand, love discrete math:combinatorics, number theory, graph theory, logic, algorithms; this sort of stuff) as opposed to calculus, differential equations, analysis, etc.

 

My son now works in theoretical computer science, which is math-heavy, and my daughter is now leaning that way, too. My son had no trouble getting a good job, great pay, even in these economic times.

 

I've met mathematicians employed by the NSA (National Security Agency) who do pure number theory work there.

 

This page from the American Mathematical Society's website contains lots of math career links you might want to explore.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Kathy in Richmond

[Sebastian (a lady)]

DH worked with for a while with someone who had a symbolic systems degree from Stanford. What was cool is that he not only had studied math, but also languages and how information is conveyed.

 

He did some great work with a database they had. He was able to take a lot of raw information and tweak the database to present information that was open to analysis.

[fractalgal]

Actuary - actuarial science... Lots of job possibilities...

 

:iagree: This is what my husband does. I think an actuary is a good career in that you can begin studying for exams right away and can get a job as an actuary after you have a bachelor's degree. Often companies will give paid study time for actuarial analysts to study for higher level exams. Because of this you may have little debt up front to get in the door (as opposed to other professional careers), and as you pass exams your salary goes up quite a bit. It can take several years to reach the fellowship level as an actuary.

 

My husband and I both have graduate degrees in math; and I turned down a software engineering job offer to pursue my doctorate in math. So even with a bachelor's in mathematics alone, I had job offers in computer science.

 

Also, for me, my graduate level mathematics program paid my tuition and gave me a salary to teach two college level math courses (College Algebra and Calculus.) My point is that certain graduate level fields will pay you to go there, as opposed to other fields where you may end up going into debt.

 

When I was working on my doctorate and studying for my PhD qualifying exams in Real and Complex Analysis, Applied Mathematics and Numerical Analysis, we would sometimes spend up to six hours a day at the library studying mathematics. My husband would study for his actuary exams a similar amount of time. We were together at least. :)

 

You can share that with your son, because that is a reality for someone who would like to do graduate level mathematics. The qualifying exams can be difficult, and you must be prepared before you attempt them. But if he likes to study math all day, he will fit right it. ;)

[Julie in MN]

My husband and I both have graduate degrees in math;

 

That's what I was going to mention -- you can get a degree in mathematics. Some of my family members have done well with that, always having a job available in any city especially in the retail world, from comptroller to buyer.

 

And of course a CPA degree will get you a job any day as an accountant, although the hours from January to April are killers unless you work for a company whose sole business isn't taxes.

 

Julie

[quark]

My children, on the other hand, love discrete math:combinatorics, number theory, graph theory, logic, algorithms; this sort of stuff) as opposed to calculus, differential equations, analysis, etc.

 

This page from the American Mathematical Society's website contains lots of math career links you might want to explore.

 

Thank you for these great links Kathy!

[lewelma]

Thank you so much everyone. This gives me a lot to think about and talk to my ds about. The links help a lot.

 

Ruth in NZ

[rlugbill]

Actuary is a good one. Good pay and in demand, partiularly in insurance industry. You figure out the risk involved in various things.

 

Also, mathematical modeling. This is big also.

[lewelma]

I knew from late elementary school that I needed math in my life.

This struck me. I think I was just not seeing it develop over the last few years. But last week, he told me that he wanted to be a mathematician. And truly I was stunned.

 

I have done my fair share of math in my day, my doctorate research being in population dynamics, but for me the passion was for biology and math was a way to solve a problem I wanted to solve.

 

I think that he wants to do what you have done -- learn many tools to put into his math tool box and use them to solve problems. But his heart would be wedded to math, not to the problems he was trying to solve.

 

He has asked to start his new AoPS books when we are vacationing in the USA. He told me that his great grandmothers' houses are boring, and he would love to do math on his holiday. He has also told me that he will use the geometry book for his main course this year and Number Theory will be his "weekend math."

 

How do I support this kid? He is not interested in competitions, and as far as I know there are no math clubs here in NZ. The math curriculum here is very weak compared to AoPS, more of a survey of many topics, so he can't really get together with some high school kids and "do math." Does he need people on this endeavor? Do I look for adults interested in mentoring a 11 year old? or do I wait until he is older? He does TALK about his math problems in AoPS all the time and wants to show me, his father, some adult friends what he has found. So obviously there is some need for camaraderie.

 

Thanks for any advice you can give,

 

Ruth in NZ

[Kathy in Richmond]

Ruth, I was the kid who brought along math books on holiday, too. Heck, I still do. Haha, everyone is finally used to it, though. It's just how I relax.

FWIW, here are my two cents. You are a wonderful homeschooling mother. Supporting your son's passion is absolutely great. But if he's been bitten by the math bug (and it sure sounds like he has), it's unlikely that anything you do/don't do will stop him.

[My story: In the third grade, my teacher let us practice writing business letters by sending for a free book from a list she had. I chose "Fun with Mathematics", and though she tried to talk me out of it, I was a very determined little child. The material was mostly over my head, but I was thirsty for the challenge after sitting through boring school math; this stuff was intriguing. I taught myself the basics of number theory, pi, imaginary numbers, logarithms,... I was hooked forever. Without a lot of support (my parents were working class; we had few books at home; it was all about sports and TV and food; my parents were nice, but not academic in.the.least.), I still found ways to feed my math appetite. I had plenty of time after schoolwork was done to think: at the library I devoured every book on cryptography (so I learned some more number theory), and I read the old Martin Gardner column in Scientific American magazine. My high school precalculus teacher loaned me books, taught me the basics of higher math one-on-one, and enrolled me in the American Math Competitions. The practice tests he sent home with me were treasure troves full of new topics to explore in math. I then won a subscription to the MAA's Mathematics Magazine through the AMC contests, and that give me further reading. In college, I majored in chemical engineering to please my folks, who hoped that I'd do 'something practical'...but I eventually added a double major in mathematics and found my way back to my first love for graduate school. It was inevitable.]

So first and foremost your son needs time to think. He doesn't need lots and lots of stuff, just a few good ideas or books to chew on. Keep the joy alive. :001_smile:

He should have time for learning by himself and/or with a community of like-minded math-lovers. Ideally, he should have both. I could have just had my kids do math at home with me, and you could, too. But they got to a stage around 12 years old where they thrived on bouncing ideas off other kids, sharing the excitement of working with others, and having other adults advising and taking an interest in guiding them.

Possible sources to pursue: (way too many :D)

AoPS texts, of course, since they're working. Your ds might enjoy trying an online AoPS course sometime, not because he can't learn it on his own, but because he might enjoy connecting with the other students. Not sure how the times work out for you on the other side of the world, but maybe? It was invaluable for my girl, & the source of some lasting friendships. She started out by posting on the middle school forums, writing a blog onsite, and taking a course online. That led to friendships with AoPSers, an invitation to moderate the middle school forum, and eventually to travelling math teams and IRL friendships at camps and in college. Now she works part-time for AoPS.

Book/idea lists: When he wants to learn something new, let him have a look at these sites:

AoPS bookstore
Mathcamp resource page
MAA bookstore (the Spectrum Series was especially enjoyed here)
AMS bookstore (he might like Mathematical Circles if he likes AoPS)
AMC reading list
Paul Zeitz: The Art and Craft of Problem Solving the next step in problem-solving after AoPS
Countdown by Steve Olson and In Code by Sarah Flannery for inspiring biographies of modern teenage mathematicians
Martin Gardner - anything, including Aha!Gotcha! and Insight!
Journey Through Genius by Dunham
What is Mathematics? by Courant, Robbins, Stewart
other stuff by Ian Stewart,.. these are books my kids liked at your son's age.

Journals/magazines that might appeal to a young mathematicians:
Mathematics Magazine
Math Horizons

Math Camps: (list of reputable camps in the US, sorry) I know that these would be a stretch from New Zealand, but international kids attend every year, and MathPath(ages 11 to 14) is generous with financial aid these days. Camps were totally worth the sacrifice for us, for both my introverted son who was fine w/o much outside interaction, and for my very extraverted daughter, who absolutely required it. The monetary sacrifice at the time paid off many times over for us, since both kids finally got to be part of a whole in-real-life community of similar people. It was the first time in their lives when they truly fit in with their peers. I believe it led indirectly (through mentorship and friends with similar goals) to their being in very 'happy' circumstances today.

Contests: Don't discount math contests, nor think that they're all about speed, memorization of a bag of tricks, and one-upmanship. My children aren't particularly competitive (my son is absolutely not.at.all.competitive), but they enjoyed math competitions tremendously for the learning of new topics, the chance to experience and sometimes overcome REALLY difficult problems, and the camaraderie of meeting & teaming up with peers. Math contests attract lots of young math talent. I was always happy at math meets (whether MathCounts or ARML or Math Prize for Girls) to see the level of cooperative, not competitive, behaviors. Contests vary from those like the faster-paced AMC (or whatever the olympiad is called in your country) written tests, to math meets where teams compete together, to proof-writing contests like USAMTS which give kids over a month to solve 4 or 5 problems at a time and to formulate well-written proofs. [i know that most of these don't apply to your son, but the websites are worth bookmarking for the remarkable store of old tests & solutions and learning resourses online].

I googled New Zealand and found their Math Olympiad website. Obviously there are some kids working at high math levels in your country, and somebody is leading them there. I love their stated philosophy and goals on this page. Maybe you could hook up with this group if you're nearby, even if you don't choose to pursue Olympiad math, since it might be a good way to find local friends and mentors. The Activities page states that they sponsor regular meeting nights for high school math students at local universities. It sounds Math Circle-like (for an awesome example of a math circle, check out the Boston Math Circle )

There is so much more; just off the top of my head:

I really like this site: cut-the-knot

Some interests that I've seen over and over again among groups of young math kids whom I've met:
Rubik's Cube (group theory)
origami (geometry)
math education (my dd has been into math ed reform since high school)
computer programming (discrete math); have a look at MIT OCW or Stanford CS 103 and USACO training (free online; you don't have to compete or be in the US to learn)
NACLO - lots of math kids seem to be attracted to computational linguistics.

Enjoy!

[JennW in SoCal]

So first and foremost your son needs time to think. He doesn't need lots and lots of stuff, just a few good ideas or books to chew on. Keep the joy alive.:001_smile:

 

Thank you Kathy for sharing your story and all those links and ideas. My brief story is that I didn't see the math passion in my ds until he started taking pre-calc and calculus at the local community college. He LOVES calculus, spent his free time working on extra-credit problems, was the student all the others turned to for homework help, even though he was only 16 and they were all 19 or 20 or older. He also loves economics and is fascinated by applying calculus to it. He is heading to a 4 year college this fall and plans on majoring in math. Or physics. Or economics possibly. Just something very mathy.

 

I thought we'd have an artist or writer on our hands as he was always reading or building legos or drawing. He wasn't a stand out in math by any means. I asked him recently what it is that prepared him for doing so well in calculus since I don't feel I really did anything or used any special programs for developing math thinking skills. His reply is that he had time to think and explore, that he used it to study patterns, something that really fascinated him. He studied his rubik's cube for months, for instance. Took it apart to see how it works. The engineering fascinated him but the way the pattern of colors work mesmerized him. He also loved logic books and puzzles.

 

No real point to this post other than to share and to agree wholeheartedly with what I quoted above. The one thing I know I did right was to give my son tons of time to think and made sure he had interesting materials around to ponder.

[Tattarrattat]

Thank you Kathy for sharing with us your own story, very inspiring. After reading your recommendations from a previous thread, we bought the Aha and Gotcha books (separate volumes) around Christmas and DS devoured them. Thank you!

This career discussion is interesting. All the ideas are good to consider. DS has wanted to be a mathematician too since he was little(recent interests also included programming). So it's good to know about various options.

[PhotoGal]

I just wanted to applaud you for researching this on behalf of your son. I was a math lover back in the day, but had no idea what careers that could lead to. Someone told me when I was a teenager that graduate school level math was all "hand wavy" (in other words all theoretical and kind of made up). So I majored in chemical engineering instead because I did well in chemistry. I really hated it (I'm actually not really comfortable around chemicals lol!). I tutored calculus in college and loved it. I graduated with my cheme degree and later went into teaching, but neither field was right for me. I wish I had had some guidance in high school to set me on the right path!

 

My kids are still quite young, but both say that math is their favorite subject. Ds says he wants to be a mathematician when he grows up. This is the first future career he has ever mentioned (other than "daddy"). :) Of course things could change in the next ten years!

 

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread. This is one I will save and continue to reference over the years.

[quark]

Kathy, your thoughts are always a gift to any math thread. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

We have many of the books Kathy has recommended in the past and they are all wonderful suggestions. Paul Zeitz's problem solving lectures are quite good too (the first 9-10 lectures were quite accessible when DS was 8).

 

I thought we'd have an artist or writer on our hands as he was always reading or building legos or drawing. He wasn't a stand out in math by any means. I asked him recently what it is that prepared him for doing so well in calculus since I don't feel I really did anything or used any special programs for developing math thinking skills. His reply is that he had time to think and explore, that he used it to study patterns, something that really fascinated him. He studied his rubik's cube for months, for instance. Took it apart to see how it works. The engineering fascinated him but the way the pattern of colors work mesmerized him. He also loved logic books and puzzles.

 

:iagree: Toys and craft materials make great pattern recognition tools. For example, he uses these as fidget toys while I read aloud: When I'm done reading, I look around and see various colored tile patterns using colored wood blocks, or origami creations or misc. solids using buckyballs (I attached a pix of one of these below), or he would practice his geometrical proofs using toothpicks, dowels, craft sticks etc.

 

I have nothing else very useful to add other than to suggest having lots of graph paper notebooks for recording ideas and if possible, a bigger whiteboard to see the math that is happening in your son's head or to write down problems to solve later etc. Having long-term problems (from various books) up on the board have helped my son to mature and overcome his impatience/ impulsiveness.

[lewelma]

Thanks Kathy and everyone else! I have just skimmed over all these wonderful ideas because I have to catch a flight to the USA in 4 hours!!!! So I will come back and really ponder and dig in when I get internet connection again. It might be 2 weeks. :glare: So expect a few questions then!

 

Ruth in NZ