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Re: I need advice from all you old fogeys
Posted By: Brunnen-G, on host 203.96.111.202
Date: Sunday, March 24, 2002, at 14:38:00
In Reply To: I need advice from all you old fogeys posted by Wes on Saturday, March 23, 2002, at 22:30:34:

> What should I major in in college? I like math, and up until a few weeks ago I was certain I would at least start out majoring in that, but now I'm not sure. It doesn't seem like there are jobs for math majors, and the point of going to college is to be better fit to get a job. I could major in economics, or statistics... those are close to math, and might get me a better chance of finding a job, but I'm still not sure. It's possible that I could do a double major. My college of choice has a 5 year double major program, so if I get in there I might take advantage of that. I basically just want opinions on what you think the best idea would be.

The first thing is to find out whether your assumption is right that there aren't jobs for math majors. I typed in "careers math" in Google and got a *lot* of possibly useful links there. One of them is below. The Mathematical Association careers page is also linked from this page. Do some research into what math majors can end up doing, and you will have a better idea of its potential value to you. It seems they end up doing everything from agricultural economy, whatever that is, to working with NASA.

In general, I always think that if there's something you're good at, and you like doing it, you should go with that. Unless it's something virtually guaranteed to make you unemployable, and maths doesn't seem like that to me, since it has a very wide range of applications.

Also, I would ask for advice from the course planning/careers guidance centre at the college itself, and find out what the possibilities are. You might not even have to make those decisions in your first year anyway.


Link: Site with information about careers for math majors

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