Hi,
I’m a second-year PhD student in mathematics at a large university in the US. I really like the research group that I’ll be working with; my advisor is great. The issue is, we have strict requirements for quals, and I’m teetering right on the edge of being forced out of the program. I have two more attempts, but afterwards, that’s it. And I’m also really bad at the whole test-taking thing, so I don’t like my odds.
So, as a young person with an MS in mathematics, what exactly would the options be for me outside of academia? If I flunk out, I want to have some idea in mind for what I can do. My interests in math have always tended towards the more abstract (functional analysis and dynamical systems); it’s the quals in either PDEs or numerical analysis (the applied subjects) that are messing me up.
My PhD is stressful and anxiety-inducing, but at least it gives me purpose and direction in life. This time last year after I failed first year PDEs I wound up in a psychiatric ward. So, I want to know what possible options there are so that I don’t end up in the same situation. I have issues with a lot of the “standard” options for industry mathematicians though:
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I utterly despise programming. I can not think of a more miserable, dreary existence than becoming a professional programmer, or working in the tech industry and having to code regularly. I know how to do it. I’m doing as much as I need to to study numerical analysis to get that qual over with so I can go on to things in math that I want to do; and in undergrad I double majored in math and CS. But I just can’t do it 8 hours a day every day for the rest of my life, and this is a lot of what people recommend.
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I don’t want to work in one of those white-collar banking stock brokering environments. From undergrad I know the sorts of people that those places are filled with, and they are not really people that I’ve ever been able to get along with. Even teaching “math for business majors” my students made me feel uncomfortable at times. (Plus, there are people with specialized degrees in these fields who would be better for them; plus, again, those jobs seem to be coding and solving PDEs). In particular I’ve been personally fucked over by the insurance industry enough that I will never work there.
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I could try to go into teaching I suppose. I’ve quite enjoyed it, and I get good reviews. But, aside from my TA duties here, I have no formal qualifications. My understanding is that most places require an advanced degree specific to teaching in order to be a teacher, and I don’t think I can put myself through more years of graduate school coursework just to go for my consolation-prize career.
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I can’t easily fall back on my family for support. We are not on speaking terms.
It’s an absolute long-shot, but are there any careers that feel like the research part of grad school, but without the stuff that’s miserable about it (the coursework and bureaucracy)? Money is not an issue for me at all. If I can get over the hurdle of early-on coursework and quals, I will live a far more fulfilling life in grad school making 19k/year than I would as a wall-street tech CEO investor. But that’s far from a guarantee at this point, and I just don’t even know where to begin looking for any jobs at all I would want to do outside of academia.
Bureau of labor stats is a good resource for seeing which careers require which degree, and where people with different credentials are getting hired.
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/field-of-degree/mathematics/mathematics-field-of-degree.htm
As an algebraic topologist who did not even touch anything less “pure” than PDE during my master’s degree, I would say the following: You have many possibilities, but you might have to rebrand yourself a little.
I went into a government job (DM me for details as I am already too identifiable). I was really unsure about going the PhD route or not, and ultimately opted for what I thought would make me the most happy. I am pretty sure it was right for me, though it is a little bittersweet in retrospect.
In my opinion the people matter more than the place, and with sufficient freedom and autonomy a mathematician can make any task interesting. Think about how you can make your skills useful for other things than pure maths (in a manner you could also enjoy) and sell yourself to an employer on that premise.
Quantitative finance. They want people with a math background to model the market.
You could also teach, either at the high school level or community college.
You need a proper teaching certification to teach, don’t you? Typically something like a master’s degree in education.
I don’t think you need a teaching certification to teach at community college. A master’s is probably all you need.
Initially, it depends on the state, afaik eventually you’ll need some kind of teaching degree or the like, but a lot of states are so desperate for math and science teachers they will let you teach with just a subject area degree (but a lot of those states are awful to teach in, like Florida).
I utterly despise programming. I can not think of a more miserable, dreary existence than becoming a professional programmer
That’s hilarious to me because I feel the exact opposite way. Love programming except when it involves heavy math (e.g. lighting). Saps all the enthusiasm out of me. I hope you find the right career path for you because from reading your comments you seem super stressed and overworked!
I’m glad there are people who like programming more than I do! Thanks for the support.
Start bulking up by eating well, solid exercise routine, a bit of help from anabolic steroids. Pose with a formula-filled blackboard background shirtless while flexing your biceps for Instagram and Twitter. Become the math bodybuilding icon. Make jokes like “my muscles are not differentially equal to yours”. You should build an audience, and after that you’ll be able to expand into sponsorships, and OnlyFans. You can also do IRL prostitution, and earn thousands of $ per night. The key is to target either old hags, or rich homosexuals.
Good luck. Let your biceps look like the bell curve of a Gaussian distribution
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Your MS degree already puts you ahead of 95% of everyone else, all the PhD would do is add 4%. :)
I gotta be honest though, I don’t know what jobs require a math degree, maybe something in aerospace? Could be a good gig under a new Trump/Musk administration, lots of money going to SpaceForce I expect.
Maybe? With the recent DOGE stuff I’m not convinced that the NASA budget will do anything but shrink, and if I were to do aerospace I would probably want to do it under NASA. (I’m a pacifist, and don’t think I can work for the militarized SpaceForce nor contractors like Boeing while still maintaining my personal code of ethics).
But, I will definitely look into it as a possibility.
Oh, not NASA, the MONEY is in private industry. Boeing, Northrup, JPL, etc. etc. etc.
https://mckelveyconnect.washu.edu/blog/2022/02/04/top-10-aerospace-companies/
Huh, Honeywell, they could be a good choice. GE Aviation too… I’m mostly aware of GE engineering from their medical equipment division.
Isn’t JPL NASA?
Huh, apparently so! TIL!
Again, I don’t think I can personally work for military contractor companies like Boeing, Northrup, etc.
All of them except the licensed trades. You can get any of those jobs by undergoing the proper training.
But basically go on indeed and browse the list of jobs. You can have any one of those jobs, in principle.
What about the public service? I don’t know about where you live, but in my country the public service doesn’t care what degree you have, just that you have one. Look into the graduate programs of your local/state/federal governments.
I know a little about the academic system. it’s not an easy market to succeed in. but if you do it’s a wonderful life. you’re free to work on problems you find interesting, without worrying about whether or not they are profitable.
sounds like you genuinely love doing research in math, given that you put in a lot of time and voluntarily turned down a cushy job.
my suggestion is to put your nose to the grindstone and pass your quals. it’s not easy and not everyone makes it… but it sounds like the path to the career you want is this way.
AI is currently all the rage. I know a guy who does neural networks training, and it’s the closest job to Pokemon trainer that you can have. He does not know any programming language, it’s all purely data processing, and it requires a heavy math background. It’s still an 8 hours per day job in a corporate environment, and a half of it is fixing his computing farm, because there’s no dedicated sysadmin for replacing burned videocards.
Another math-heavy option is signal processing. I’ve worked in a company which produces wireless communication hardware, it’s like 200 people, and there were two signal processing guys who patented an algorithm which increases data throughput by something like 0.5% in some specific high-noise scenarios, they are listed together with CEO on their website About page. That said, all the easier tasks for signal processing are already done, we’re already at the theoretical limit of Shannon theorem, so you’ll only be making gradual improvements.
I would also recommend cryptography research, but it requires a lot of coding knowledge, even if you’re not writing any actual code, and paranoia is pretty much a requirement.
Do you want fries with that?
