[Vergobretus]

Hello everybody, and thank you for taking the time to read my threat.

A bit about myself: I'm an 18 year old British male in his second year of university studies in Mathematics and Its Applications. I have a personality type on an ENTJ and my tritype is 6w5, 1w2, 3w2.

The reason I have chosen to pursue Mathematics is because it was only of the only two subjects at school that I both enjoyed and was good at, naturally at first then through study. I find it easy to study and learn things I am interested in. The other subject is Chemistry and I have some regrets of not pursuing that, however this would have happened in either case.

The reason I have made this thread is because I have such a lack of knowledge of what I can do with my life! It's ridiculous, I'm taking a course at university with no career or future to strive towards and it's hindering my motivation. I feel like if I had a set of goals other than "Get a degree", such as "Start a promising career in X" (Where X is my job) then I would be even more motivated to achieve a successful life.

Is there anybody out there with knowledge in the field of Mathematics (or otherwise!) who can help me to brainstorm ideas and get the ball rolling in choosing a career path.

Thus far I have ruled out:

- Teaching at a primary and secondary level. (On the fence about university teaching)

- A few jobs on the financial side of Mathematics (Anything that include i.e. Statement of Financial Position, Income Statements, Cash Flow Statements and Statements of Changes in Equity). The line of work was not entirely interesting to my personal interests in Maths, however I am still good at this side of things.

Thus far I'm currently considering:

- A job in Statistical Analysis (i.e. Receiving information about a brand new drug and being asked "Is this drug safe/can it be used" then taking the statistical data and using different Stats formulae to determine the probability of success Vs. probability of side effects)

- Theoretical Maths (Dealing with and researching Maths that does not currently exist. Discovering a formula that makes people's lives in the field easier would be a tremendous accomplishment. I could name it and everything! )

So in essence, what sort of careers are you involved in now, or wish to be involved in, in the future. Also what jobs have you ruled out? I'm generally looking for inspiration to hear about careers I'd never thought of or heard of before. Thanks again for your time!

Scott Burns

 

[xisnotx]

actuary? risk assessment/pension management...but really, if you get certified, you easily make a lot of money. it's a series of tests you take to get certified. unfortunately, in the real world...what you want to do doesn't come into it as much as what you can do does. if you were an actuary, you'd be on the fast track to corporate ceo type work.

what you want doesn't really matter. you're limited to certain industries, as that is how the economy has been set up. you have business, academia, law, healthcare, media&entertainment...and not much else. you choose from those industries and you move up the ranks. there's really not that much room for innovative approaches to a career, unfortunately. as you move up the ranks, it becomes more about management and all those jobs more or less function the same way. what you want to be doing is what you'll end up doing. you'll do what you have to. you function for the economy, the economy doesn't function for you. welcome to the matrix. it'll all be over in 45 years.

 

[Vergobretus]

actuary? ... if you were an actuary, you'd be on the fast track to corporate ceo type work.

Hi, xisnotx. Thanks for your response.

That sounds like a very interesting career path, I would definitely be interested in CEO type work, but as an eighteen year old with no business background I am starting a little later than my competitors and thus am at a disadvantage. My degree in maths will entail no business related experience or knowledge and thus I'd have to pick that up as I go along - However eyes on the more present future, still got to pass my degree. A career in Actuary has crossed my mind before, however I attempted to do Accounting as a side module. Although I scraped a pass, the reason I done so poorly was due to the fact I just did not find it interesting (I mentioned before I find it easy to learn things I'm interested in, the opposite can be said - I find it difficult to learn things I have no interest in). However at my university Accounting and Finance are two separate schools in which you can learn, so you specifically mentioned Finance as opposed to Accounting.

The question I would put forward, is that if I were to pursue a career, beginning with an Actuary position, would I be dealing with Accounts, as opposed to Finance. For example, does Finance deal with Accounting statements: Statement of Financial Position, Income Statements, Cash Flow Statements and Statements of Changes in Equity. Learning this and how to use them correctly was the base of our Accounting module and as I have mentioned, I fail to hold interest in the subject. Perhaps if I look over it again I can look at it in a different aspect to find interest in the subject, but I guess that will take time.

Thanks again for your time,

Scott

 

[sniderlayne]

Its better you don't get depressed and just do introspection of yourself as it will really help you and i would suggest you to take help of any expert counselor who can help you out and will really helped you to see and achieve your goal clearly.

 

[iemanja]

Well I'm only 1 year older than I can throw in my 2 cents to help you brainstorm.

Actually, if you're really bright at maths doesn't that mean you're more wanted in the business world?
Like, I know engineers who switched careers to really high paying business jobs (not sure of the details, but it's much more common than I thought). And like many of the workers in finance, risk management and trading are math savvy too, and that makes a lot of money.
So I don't think you need to worry about the degree background. Having said that are business minors available at the university you're studying in? Just so you can get a better knowhow of business, if that's what you want to get into.

 

[StElmosDream]

Two students on my MSc Psychology course actually come from maths degree background, making statistics a fairly easy module to learn for them with so much of Psychology research involving stats.

From what I have heard physics and applied mathematics seem to be desirable areas for engineering courses as well for those with strong math skills.

 

[Vertigo]

Multidisciplinary fields, such as StElmosDream mentioned in psychology. Go ask one of those expert counselors of what possibilities you have in post-graduate degrees. They should know a plethora of different paths and check out various other universities degree offerings. This of course requires you to spend more years studying in universities and personally, I myself am considering to study multiple degrees.