Slashdot Log In
Fun Things To Do With a Math Or Science Degree?
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Nov 15, 2008 11:57 PM
from the its-own-sweet-sake dept.
from the its-own-sweet-sake dept.
bxwatso writes "My niece just took the ACT and got a perfect score on the math section. 25 years ago, when I took the test, the kids who aced the math section were pretty special. Her score, combined with straight A's so far in high school, suggest to me that she might be able to go to a top university (MIT?) based on her math aptitude. The rub is that she doesn't like math or science, even though she finds them easy. She doesn't want to be an engineer or scientist. I thought the folks here would be a great group to ask: What are some creative, not too nerdy professions that nonetheless require a talent for math, engineering, or science?"
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Be a teacher (Score:3, Interesting)
My first girlfriend have like a perfect score (not just math, but 36 composite score) and are ranked in the top 5 in our class across 500+ students. She got a B.A. in elementary education last year. Probably an influence from her pastor.
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
what does "elementary education" have to do with math or science degrees?
in any case, if the ACTs are anything like the SATs then they're more of an indicator of general academic aptitude (including test-taking skills) rather than a measure of math ability, writing ability, etc. that's not to say that getting a perfect SAT/ACT score isn't impressive, and there's certainly a correlation between good students and good SAT/ACT scores. but they're not an indicator of intelligence--though they might be an indicator of college-preparedness. for instance, i have several friends who scored lower than me on the SATs who i know for a fact are much smarter than i am.
also, in my experience maths and sciences don't become very challenging until you get to about college undergraduate level material. and i don't think the SATs/ACTs really test for scholastic aptitude beyond 9th or 10th grade high school course material. a better indicator of whether a student excels at math/science would be the AP exams, which do cover things like calculus and college-level physics.
it's quite easy to excel in high school algebra & geometry, but the learning curve really shoots up once you get to multi-variable calculus/linear algebra or discrete mathematics. so you really shouldn't push a student into a math/science field that they're not interested in just because they find the high school material very easy. because once you get to college level courses, it quickly becomes a completely different story. and at that point it's vital that the student be interested in what he/she is studying, otherwise they won't have the drive to push ahead and will quickly get burnt out.
that said, the reason a student might not be interest in math/science in high school could be due to their high school math & science curricula not being challenging enough to hold their interest. if she isn't in AP classes then perhaps she should try to take some math/science courses at a local community college. that will help to expose her to what college-level maths & sciences are really like, which she might find more interesting. also, i think it's a bad idea to treat college as a trade school or vocational training. students should be free to take classes that pique their interest and follow academic pursuits that they enjoy. once you've found your niche and finish college, you can then decide where best to apply your acquired skills. otherwise you might as well go to a technical school.
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know exactly how it's in the USA, but in my country (Austria, EU ;) ) high school math is like learning how to drive a car and university level math is like learning how to build a car.
You should be able to drive a car when you build one, but beyond that don't expect it to be the same.
I am currently in med school and I am thinking about quitting and doing math instead. (Med school is 6 years here and not like the pro school concept in the USA. So I don't have a BS degree yet)
And I've seen quite a few people who were great at Highschool math but quit the university within a few weeks, months top. It were the kind of people who didn't know what to do with their life, at that point. They thought, well you can earn lots of money with math so go study it.
My point: Don't push her into anything just because of her Highschool grades.
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
I am trundling along. I appear to have the required intelligence in order to complete my degree (or so I hope!) but damn is that learning curve STEEP.
Other than that, it strikes me odd that you can't come up with some viable and interesting options yourself. Basically, unless your daughter wants to be an elementary school maths teacher, she's probably going to be surrounded by it 24/7 for the rest of her life (researcher, anyone?). If she's not going to enjoy it, please, don't make her do it - and that includes cajoling her into believing it's the only thing she's possibly good at.
Instead of asking what you have here, I suggest you ask your daughter what she'd
Good luck.
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Informative)
Excellent point — I myself was pressed into (natural) 'science' because math was easy to me, which in the long run (decades) turned out to be a major desaster that I am still trying to recover from.
CC.
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree - my sister was nearly pressured into an engineering route at college by schooling and sponsorship deals but stuck to her guns and has a postgraduate diploma in music performance on two instruments. She's very happy - she can do the music when the work is available for her instruments, and to fill in of the time can get "technical" positions in sales/marketing for engineering companies.
I'm going to get flamed and/or marked as a troll here, but from my observations the American way doesn't cater well for that kind of thinking. Everything appears to be about excelling and celebration of success, even if that means the child has to do something they don't really like doing - as long as they are very good then the praise and peer respect makes up for it.
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no math section on the ACT. It is a computation section that they call math. On the GRE it is called quantitative. University mathematics programs end up with many students who think they are good at math until they hit algebra and analysis and wonder what the hell happened. They tend to go on to become math teachers.
When I was in grad school the best predictor of success in mathematics PhD programs was verbal GRE score, but nobody advises students who score perfect on the English portion of the ACT to think about being a mathematician. I wonder why that is.
She doesn't want to be an engineer or scientist. I thought the folks here would be a great group to ask
You are better off asking her what she wants to do. What is she interested in? If she has no idea then going to a large university where she'll be exposed to a number of different fields and opportunities is not a bad idea.
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who is starting a math grad program next year and got an 800 on the GRE verbal, I can't tell you how happy I am to hear you say that :-) Boasting aside, I have always felt that people miss out on the distinction between mathematics and computation. Performing mathematical operations sequentially to arrive at an answer, a la a computer, is what you do on the SAT (and I assume the ACT as well.) This is a very different feat from sitting down with a math book and trying to wrap your ahead around a theoretical concept. To me, writing a proof has always felt like far more of a right-brained activity
than a left-brained one. When I'm thinking deeply about something mathematical, the feeling I get is akin to what I experience when playing music or drawing--completely different from performing addition and subtraction. I theorize that this is why a lot of math professors are crummy arithmeticians.
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:4, Interesting)
Just because the immigrant students don't have perfect English skills doesn't mean they don't have excellent verbal skills. How they would do on a test in their native language would be more relevant.
Parent
Re:Would have to work for the MRS degree... (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder what they go for on ebay?
Item #xxxxxxxxxx
Matching set of trolls.
Look exactly the same except for hair. (Hair colors: Over Antagonizing Red, and Very Melancholy Blue)
(Bridge not included)
In need of a good home, and a lot of lightening up.
Buy it now?
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, marketing is put forward as a serious alterative to scientific pursuits, and is +4 informative. I never thought I'd see the day slashdot. News for Nerds, Stuff that matters.
Parent
Re:Be a teacher (Score:5, Funny)
With that...she really doesn't need a career...just marry a rich successful guy. Easy street the rest of her life. Higher math skills would just be an added perk.
Hell....wish I didn't have to work, and my main job was shopping. I need to find a sugar momma.
Parent
funs things to do with the degree (Score:5, Funny)
Well you could ball it up and try and shoot it into a waste basket from a distance.
Make it into a paper aeroplane.
Burn it
Origami perhaps..
Yeah, that's all the fun things I can think of doing with a degree...
Re:funs things to do with the degree (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:funs things to do with the degree (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a link my brother sent me awhile back with a guy with an interesting theory about why there are more men than women in advanced sciences:
Because a PhD in science is a really poor career choice, and women are usually smart enough to avoid it, while men are much more likely to be sucked into it.
The fact is that if you have the brains and discipline to get a PhD in science and become a prof at MIT or Harvard, you could probably make a *ton* more money, and quicker, and have much more job security, going into medicine, law, or business. Or you could be slave-labour grad student for 7 years, then serfdom post-doc for 6 years, slave as an untenured professor for 6 years and then be fired... er sorry, "denied tenure" and be looking for a brand new job or an entirely new career at the age of 35.
But back to the question: one really good career path is to study engineering for undergrad because of the analytics and problem-solving skills it gives you, and then go into business or law. A lot of engineers make awesome businessmen because of the way they've been trained to think by their engineering education.
Parent
Re:funs things to do with the degree (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know where you've been working, but I think middle management is full of engineers who were attracted into management by the "career promotion" but ended up sucking because management is all about the "softer" people skills, not analytical ability. Not that analytical ability doesn't hurt, but you need to be interactive, outgoing, etc..
Basically you could drop out of university half way through without taking any particular program, and still be successful in business if you just find the right combination of resources, need, and luck and put it all together at the right time.
Parent
Re:funs things to do with the degree (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, management, entrepreneurship, business development, business strategy... all of these are completely different activities requiring different skill sets. What I was talking about wasn't engineers going into management, so much as engineers using their analytical thinking to optimize business practices, finding the best place / the best way to make money in a particular competitive landscape, making strategic alliances for growth, &c.
Parent
Simple (Score:5, Funny)
With her mathematical/scientific aptitude and overall intellectual capability, there's one very simple and satisfying career choice! [wikipedia.org]
Re:Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
All kidding aside, being proficient in math and science often means that you have a leg up on almost any profession. Certainly there are some fields where it won't help, but the ability to reason and figure out what the numbers are really saying can help anyone from lawyers to doctors to politicians. For the latter, it's sometimes depressing how few understand math and science.
Now I don't know the reasons why the niece doesn't want to pursue a science/math career, but it's likely because the traditionally male dominated careers are from very early on discouraged to females. It's not an overt pressure, just the insinuations from teachers and peers. Girls get oven sets. Boys get chemistry sets.
Parent
How about medicine? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How about medicine? (Score:5, Informative)
Medicine is great if you are prepared for the huge amount of student loan debt that comes with it.
There are a variety of ways to deal with that.
Parent
Don't get too excited. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't get too excited. (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely, and so many people lose perspective on that. My philosophy is to aim for the top, minus one or two "points". In other words people who push themselves to the max seem to end up miserable.
Don't sell yourself short, by any means... Aim high high HIGH -- but be realistic.
Whatever that means!
Parent
Re:Don't get too excited. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Don't get too excited. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Don't get too excited. (Score:5, Interesting)
This, this, this. Though most of the time if she doesn't really want to go there, they'll catch it in the admissions process - but occasionally someone slips through b/c they did a good job of faking it for their parents' sake. I saw one of those people have an honest-to-god breakdown in her advisor's office.
Parent
Re:Don't get too excited. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, no, no. I went to MIT, and had a blast. So did my roommate who majored in Music: the alternative and classical music expertise among a group of such intense people gets weird, but can be an amazing wealth of knowledge, and with Harvard and BU and the other Boston colleges, the music scene is a blast for students.
All the Ivy League schools have great opportunities to meet wonderful, brilliant people and learn from them, or teach them. Writing, art, history, nd even archaeogy can use good math skills. The question shouldn't be 'how do we get her to study science', but 'what does she want to do'.
Parent
It won't always be as easy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Mastering the advanced concepts in Math and science is a lot more involved then High School. So if there is no interest, brilliance now could translate into mediocrity.
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
You could explain to her that neither math nor science in general is a `nerdy' profession, that she will outgrow her adolescence and that she will very soon hardly remember the names of her high school classmates. That there are peers out there to be had that are considerably more valuable than those who might have instilled in her that fear of nerdiness. That, in fact, she should do whatever it is she may want to do.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty good advice. Although I'd had a strong interest in computers from at least the age of 10 (and math since 5), reading those career counseling guides with pictures of nerdy-looking programmers in horn-rimmed glasses made me fear what my life would be like if I followed that path. So, instead, I wandered around in the wilderness for a few years, trying this and that and discovering what I wasn't good at. Finally, I returned to computers and it was quite a revelation.
I've no idea what'd be good in your case. Maybe just encourage her to keep an open mind and explore the possibilities.
Parent
Science isn't always that nerdy... (Score:4, Insightful)
not too nerdy professions that nonetheless require a talent for math, engineering, or science
There are some areas of scientific research that really aren't all that terribly nerdy. What are her hobbies? If there is something that she does for fun, she may be able to find a scientist that works on making it better...
Not all components of scientific research happen in traditional lab environments.
Ask her what she likes to do. (Score:5, Insightful)
You mentioned what she's good at. Try to find out what she likes and see if there's a match there. Sure, she's got the potential, but if she's not happy doing it - even if she follows it through, she's doing it for the wrong reasons. She'll probably not be happy doing it.
...if she has any clue (Score:5, Insightful)
The tough thing for high schoolers trying to choose a college, major, FUTURE, etc. is that they usually have no *clue* what they'd like to do in the real world, because they haven't had much contact with it.
The vast majority of science and math education for a high schooler is learning how to jump through mental hoops and regurgitate information to pass exams. There's a big gap between studying a subject in school and *using* the skills related to a subject in a job somewhere.
A lot of job satisfaction lies in working with people you respect, who respect you for playing an important role in fulfilling whatever goal the company has. The tasks you perform should also ideally fall into a comfort zone where you're using your talents without being in way over your head.
I tend to think most kids will do best with a broad education with as many internships, etc. as possible, so they can try out different kinds of work environments.
The highschooler in question might end up using math in her job -- if she's good at it, that part will go easily -- and may well be extremely interested if she's interested in the goal she's actually accomplishing. Why would she need to be interested in jumping through hoops?
Parent
Women is science and games industry (Score:5, Insightful)
As do most women in programming and the games industry which is why I find it ridiculous to pander to all this women in the games industry bullshit.
Let her do what she wants.
Re:Women is science and games industry (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. If she wants to not use her math skills, that is entirely up to her. Why do you want to push her? One of my best friends took part in math olympiads and won - these days, she does fashion designing, and is quite happy doing that.
That's entirely her choice, and why not?
Parent
Re:Women is science and games industry (Score:5, Interesting)
That is always good advice, but remember, at that age it is difficult to see the value of science. It is difficult to understand, even for college seniors in technical majors (math, natural sciences, comp.sci..etc), the immense benefit of being someone who understands how the world works. It usually takes a little sit-back and thinking to come to grips with the fact that you are proving things about the very nature of logic itself, or modelling the universe at levels the human mind did not really evolve to deal with. Anybody capable of doing science(esp at a high level), and enjoying this incredible meaningfulness and understanding (read:enlightenment) that comes as a result.. those people should be at least encouraged to pursue it. No harm could come from an honest suggestion. She may owe him so much for it later.
Parent
psychology (Score:5, Insightful)
Digital Signal Processing? (Score:4, Interesting)
I was pretty gifted in mathematics when I was young, to the point I would easily win school-wide maths competitions despite not working and having skipped a grade. I never worked much on it anymore until my natural aptitudes weren't enough to keep up during high school (I must point out that I'm French and not American), and I got to college (CS) without even knowing what a complex number was or what the sigma sign represented. Then I dropped out of high school for numerous reasons, one being that I performed too poorly due to my lack of interest and investment, particularly in mathematics.
However at that time I had an idea which sounded pretty damn exciting, namely a spectrograph and spectrogram synthesiser, so I started this project [sf.net] and picked up C and digital signal processing, which progressively involved more and more mathematics until I would know everything about complex numbers, Fourier transforms and negative frequencies and would start scratching maddeningly long equations on sheets of paper.
Before I picked that up I thought maths were some sort of pointless intellectual masturbation that only really served mad scientists who write papers about crap like string theory, but when I found out how it relates to all that is multimedia, and even to our senses of sight and audition, it all became very alive and interesting, and the point is, with that sort of stuff you can do anything you want. You can make your own synthesiser and make music out of it, you can create your own visual effects, or you can work for a space agency's contractor and work on systems that will be sent in space, probably a handful of other stuff that could be "creative and not too nerdy". Not too sure what "not too nerdy" involves..
Is that the right question? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the question to ask is what would bring her the most joy, which might be the thing that challenges her. She should try a little of everything, and find the thing that engages her, makes her feel alive and driven.
I'd suggest looking into Howard Gardeners Multiple Intelligences writing to get an idea of the scope of the situation.
Whatever she wants as long as it pays the bills (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously. It's her life. As long as it's legal, ethical, and either it pays the bills, it doesn't matter if she's a garbage collector or a business tycoon. Yes, it may be better for society if she were to somehow use her talents, but if her interests lie elsewhere support her in her chosen path.
Give her your love, your emotional support, and to the extent you can and she needs it, practical/cash support.
Now, if you'd said she's trying to make up her mind between a math/engineering profession and one that doesn't require those skills, then I would strongly recommend steering her in the direction that her talents lie. But from your submission, it sounds like she's made up her mind.
I'm good at math, but don't like it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty good at math, but don't particularly like it. Also, science is cool and I like reading about it, but it has always looked like a pretty dreary profession.
Basically, though, math skills are indicative of structured, logical thought. That is useful everywhere.
Don't push her into something just because she's good at it. Let her do whatever she wants. If she's smart, she'll probably be fine.
Sounds like me (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a woman who aced the math ACT but didn't feel like studying math or science. I was into foreign languages. So now I have a bachelor's in Spanish and a master's in French literature, and I'm a web developer. Go figure.
What might have convinced me to study one of the hard sciences is seeing people actually at work using them. If I had met any pharmaceutical researchers or civil engineers or software developers and seen what they do at work every day, I might have found it more interesting. As it was, I had no frame of reference for working with math or science, and therefore no interest.
How does she know? (Score:4, Insightful)
Her school experience with math is probably limited to figuring (arithmetic, algebra, calculus), which is nothing like what real mathematicians do (geometrical proofs are closer-- if geometry was her favorite math class then she is fonder of "real mathematics" than figuring, a good sign). Similarly, a career in the sciences is hard to extrapolate from a typical high school science course. In both cases, she has probably yet to see the creative side of science and math, which is where all the fun is. I'm a bit too tired to think of concrete demonstrations for her, but I might say to her, "Look, you have a talent, and life is smoother if you're working in a field in which you have talent. Of course, if you don't actually like the field then talent won't help, but try it and keep an open mind." You might try arranging a meeting with a research scientist, mathematician, or engineer. (There are also high school level competitions which could be fun, although they do look geeky.)
Of course, if she doesn't like it, she doesn't like it-- but I hear a lot about the subtle pressures which keep the male-female ratios in physics and engineering high, and so I wonder if her reluctance is due to personal taste or peer pressure (or maybe even some teacher one time told her she was bad at math, and it stuck with her regardless of current successes).
stewarts "letters to a mathematician" (Score:4, Informative)
Learning is fundamental (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Learning is fundamental (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea what current philosophy academics are interested in, so I can't accuse them of not keeping up. But if they aren't keeping up with AI, the Simulation Argument [simulation-argument.com], Bayesian theory and other such statistical things, QM's implications for the many-worlds hypothesis, and computer science research into semantics, just to pull a few things off the top of my head, they are wasting their time in several fields traditionally included under the rubric of "philosophy" (epistemology, ethics, etc.).
We still have no rock-solid answers to speak of to the old questions, but for the first time in millennia, we actually have some data for some of them... and we're only going to be collecting more. And even what little data we have has opened up more questions; "what does it mean to be human?" will begin to take on new overtones when we start asking just exactly how augmented does an ape have to be before it is "human", just how smart does an AI have to be, and, of course, is a binary definition of "human" even feasible, and if not, what is? And so on.
(I know for a fact there are philosophers interested in this. I simply don't know if they are in or out of the mainstream. Certainly they will eventually be in the mainstream.)
Parent
Re:MIT (Score:4, Funny)
(Bernake and many federal reserve bank chiefs hail from MIT)
Wait, I thought you said you had a stellar economics program...
Parent
Re:Econ (Score:5, Insightful)
Graduate level economics is almost indistinguishable from graduate level math (or physics)
This is not true (and fortunately, thank god, functional analysis while applicable in theory, has little to say about relevant real world economics). People who say econ is no different from math, obviously haven't taken a serious pure math course. Graduate economics is somewhat technical and quantitative but is not rigorous or formal enough to be confused with a branch of mathematics (unless you take an advanced theory course, which is not representative of the field as a whole). At the same time, there is not enough dynamical systems in it to be confused with physics (I took a bunch of econ courses, and didn't have to solve one differential equation). But yes, econ a very quantitative, and so math,stat, or physics majors could feel at very comfortable in an econ program.
Parent
Re:Econ (Score:5, Funny)
Economists exist only to make meteorologists look good.
Parent