Careers

Links

Math majors can choose from a wide range of careers. These include teaching, research, software engineering, statistics, operations research, finance, and many others. In addition, law schools, medical schools, and other professional schools look favorably on math majors.

Here are some links with detailed information.

Here is information about becoming a math teacher, thanks to the Warner School.

If you envision a career involving computers, the web site or ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) has lots of useful information at http://www.acm.org.

The Department Career Planning Guide

This guide contains information helpful towards discovering career possibilities in business, industry, and government where mathematics is an essential part of ones competence. You can get a free printed copy of the guide from the Mathematics Department (Hylan 917). It is divided into several sections:

Section 1

Mathematicians. This is an article from the U.S. government Dept. of Labor statistics. It gives an overall, general view.

Section 2

Career profiles. This information comes from the American Mathematical Society. It gives brief profiles of careers followed by people and is grouped according to last degree obtained.

Section 3

Mathematics That Counts. This is a reprint of titles from SIAM articles. This section lists a number of mathematical methods of present day use in industry. All of them are treated in our undergraduate course offerings. The mathematical applications index is a guide to further information.

Section 4

On line-information and listing services. This is a reprint of information at the American Mathematical Society web site.

General remark. All of the above information is of use in planning your elective course work.

Section 5

Constructing your resume. The information here can be of help in getting started.

First of all:

  1. The goal of the resume is to obtain a job interview, not to receive an offer.
  2. The burden is on you to persuade a potential employer that you have something of value to offer.
  3. Computing skills of all levels are essential.

The guide below gives information about organizing your resume to make it more attractive to its readers. In view of point (2) above, it is especially important that your resume contain concise and forceful language, highlighting your skills. Two possible activities to highlight are summer work in the area where you are seeking a job or a computer simulation, including graphics, or a problem, which you know is of interest to the potential employer.

Section (3) above can be consulted for topics.

If further information is desired on careers in math, please contact the Mathematics Department at 275-4411 or e-mail to: office (at) math (dot) rochester (dot) edu