Career Opportunities
Marketability
Students are sometimes tempted to think that taking a math major means they'll be teaching long division for the rest of their lives-just how many job options could someone with a math degree actually have? To begin with, don't short-change the challenging but infinitely rewarding profession of teaching mathematics. But many people don't realize that a math major can take you just about anywhere you want to go in life. That's because studying mathematics strengthens your ability to work logically, clarify concepts, solve problems, and apply analytical tools, and employers pay very good money for these abilities. Whether you dream of working for NASA, Microsoft, Wall Street, or the New York Times, choosing a math degree is one of the best career moves you can make.
A mathematics major can enable one's career as a:
- Mathematician
- Statistician
- Mathematics teacher
- Computer Scientist
- Engineer
- Financial analyst
- Actuary
- Accountant
- Economist
- Systems Analyst
- Consultant
- Cartographer
- Software Analyst
- Physicist
- Chemist
- Biologist
- Environmental Scientist
- Astronaut
- Architect
- Modeling and Simulation Analyst
Salary
You'll be happy to learn that, upon graduation, you'll be well compensated should you choose a math-related career. According to the most recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report, the average annual salary for all mathematicians was $76,471, with the top 10% of mathematicians earning more than $112,780 annually (www.bls.gov). Math specialists who move into other disciplines, like physics, finance, or engineering, also earn salaries that are well above the annual average, thanks largely to their mathematical expertise. Manufacturers, financial firms, and government agencies and laboratories, like the Center for Naval Analysis or Federal Reserve Bank offer high-paying jobs for people with extensive mathematical training.
Preparation for Graduate School
If you're thinking about continuing your education after college, a math major can be your ticket to the grad school or professional program of your choice. It proves to medical and law schools, as well as graduate programs in physics, engineering, chemistry, or biology, that you have the mental facility, work ethic, abstract reasoning ability, and foundational knowledge necessary to succeed as a graduate student. Students with math majors have a very high acceptance rate in all types of graduate programs.
For more information about math-enabled careers, check out the following books, both published by the Mathematical Association of America and available in libraries and bookstores: 101 Careers in Mathematics (Andrew Sterrett, ed) and She Does Math (Marla Parker, ed).
In these books you'll find career sketches of:
- A NASA mathematician who programs and models spacecraft trajectories, develops computer simulations of equations, algorithms for spacecraft tools, programs for optimizing ambulance deployment, and mirrors for the world's largest telescope (the Keck).
- A mathematical consultant who performs industrial engineering in a manufacturing plant, coordinates a project to integrate several software systems in a large bank, and works on nuclear and chemical contamination problems.
- An engineer who feels that her mathematical training, together with her knowledge of computer science and her good communication skills, provided an ideal base for her studies in digital communications.
- A mathematician responsible for manufacturing x-ray, CT, nuclear, ultrasound, and MRI equipment.
- The director of a large academic library who majored first in mathematics and computer science before taking a library science degree.
- A sculptor who uses mathematics in developing his art.