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Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

By mathematicians, do you mean the tiny fraction of people with math PhD's employed as math profs, quants or "the machine learning guy"?

Or do you include the much larger set of mathematicians who couldn't find a job as mathematicians, and now work as high school math teachers, community college adjuncts or business analysts?

I'm a member of the former set. Most of the people I went to school with are members of the latter. School was fun, but no one is under the illusion it was a good career move.

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Are you saying mathematics teachers shouldn't require a degree in math in teach high school mathematics? That a student who have recently graduated is qualified enough to teach the year below him? That a business analyst would do a better job without a major in statistics? Community college adjuncts who teach math don't need anything beyond high school math classes? If not then I think you were beside the point.

University is definitely useful for at least some subset of the population.

You don't need a PhD or even an MS in math to teach high school/CC math. The business analyst, for the most part, doesn't need to know math beyond means and standard deviations. Note: I'm interpreting "mathematician" to mean "math Ph.D." or "person who does/did research in math", which is typically the way the term is used.

Most people with a math degree don't use even a small fraction of their training. I do, but I'm in the minority. (Also worth noting that most of what I use I didn't learn in school.)

  I'm interpreting "mathematician" to mean "math Ph.D." or 
  "person who does/did research in math", which is typically 
  the way the term is used.

Ahh, okay then. I just thought it meant someone with a bachelor degree in mathematics.

FWIW almost all of the applied math majors I know are going into IB or trading, which is most certainly a good career move.

Are you saying moving into academia isn't a good career move? Because that's probably true with every technical profession.

As a math major that makes me worry a little bit.

How tiny is the fraction?

We started with 11. One left in the first year. 3 more failed to graduate after 4-7 years. 5 people got postdocs. Of the 5 with postdocs, 2 left the country (one involuntarily), I left academia to work in the private sector, and one I haven't kept in touch with. So at most, 2 are on the tenure track in the US [1].

This was Rutgers - at Princeton, the ratio would be a bit better, at NJIT it would be worse. Don't even ask about podunk state.

It's a shitty career path. Unless you are fantastically good, don't waste your time.

[1] My adviser told me I could have been on the tenure track if I wanted to. Since I didn't put it to the test by applying for such jobs, I won't claim it as true.

I'm guessing indicators of "fantastically good" at undergrad level are things like winning the Putnam and original research contributions right?

I don't suppose physics would be any better?

Physics is probably worse. In math, you are either in the game or eliminated. In physics, you can eliminated but still doing grunt work for low pay in someone's lab.

Putnam is less relevant than original research.

No degree will guarantee you a job. Professional degrees (law, engn, accounting, medicine etc) will come close, if you want to work in a profession.

Every other course will just give you a better chance of getting a job, and help you perform better once you get there. A math grad can solve all kinds of problems that other people will just shrug their shoulders at. That's always useful.

Academia in general is a dangerous career path though. Too many people on the ground floor (i.e. every undergrad who can't think of a better thing than grad school), too much glamor keeping them there, very bureaucratic organizations, and a complete mismatch between work (research) and funding (students).

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