What possible careers are there in Mathematics?

[Girly Girl]

I'm really good at Maths and science and I hope to go into that type of field one day. I know there are millions of careers involving Maths but I really don't want to go into finance or IT. A few people have suggested engineering or stats, but what are they REALLY all about? Anything with travel oppurtunities is an absolute bonus!

[its_ramzi]

There is applied mathematics, such as engineering, and that has it's many subfields. Mechanical, electrical, etc. You could do new research in computer science or physics as well.

You could become a cryptologist.

Or you can just do more research or become a professor/teacher.

[Deanna]

You could become an actuary, professor, world best selling author of mathematical books, logician, cryptologist, or a math teacher.

[moblet]

Career opportunities depend not just on your mathematical ability but your interests, social skills and ability to apply what you know. I did a Maths degree and wanted to use it to model industrial and transport processes, and to untangle complex socio-technical systems that aren't working efficiently. I have had a lot of fun doing it, and have made differences of millions of dollars to companies' bottom lines. Most of this kind of work is on an internal or external consulting basis and often involves travel (work travel is not always as exciting as it sounds as you usually end up going back to the same places); the usual names for this field are Operations Research or Management Science. It's a small field where no two jobs, or people looking for them, are the same.

Engineering involves fairly direct application of mathematics and reasoning, in fairly well-defined ways. It ranges from design work to hands-on operational roles. You need to choose a discipline - general branches are mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, and mining. Jobs are more easily defined and the market is big, with opportunities to work in different places by moving from one contract to another.

Stats is a branch of mathematics, with major applications in industry (mostly quality management, also performance measurement and marketing) and scientific and social research. If you're planning on working in industry then knowing some stats is helpful even if you aren't a statistician.

Lastly, mathematics develops your reasoning skills and your ability to deal with complexity rationally and effectively. There is also more emphasis on creativity than in an engineering course. If you are ultimately interested in management roles, especially in operational areas, it's not a bad background to have, although because it's a little-understood one there can be glass ceiling problems in some organisational cultures (e.g. in some places all the managers are engineers and they only promote engineers).

I would also suggest that until you've done a degree in Maths you can't be sure that you wouldn't want to work in, say, finance. You might accidentally find you really like the maths they use and how they use it.

Many university Maths depts survey their graduates to find out what sectors they've gone to; see if you can look at some of their pie charts.

Feel free to email me if you want more detailed info.