In regards to career flexibility, pay, job security, and available jobs out there, what is best, a degree in Pure Maths, Statistics, or Actuarial Science?
>>7717491
Mechanical Engineering
>>7717503
Nice meme!
>>7717510
Don't be a penne.
>>7717491
applied math
>>7717491
Wait, the mods haven't pruned this careers thread?
About fucking time.
It depends what you mean by 'Pure Maths' if you mean "a maths degree that isn't something like 'maths with CS'" then 'Pure Maths' if you mean a degree in pure mathematics, then stats.
Why? Because a maths grad can do anything a stats grad can do (if they took the right modules) and a stats grad can do anything an actuarial science grad can do, provided they do a couple of actuarial exams and maybe grab an actuarial internship.
Also, on the careers prospectus for maths grads, here's my normal posts.
"IT work is a always possibility, but fuck that. I imagine anyone who knows what 4Chan is knows enough about computers to understand why IT work is shit.
Engineering for maths graduates is a myth, I can provide proof upon request, but to make a long story short - YOU CANNOT get into engineering without an engineering degree, so maths students can only get into it by doing a masters in engineering but as someone who wants to do a masters in maths, I can quite confidently say that I don't want to pay those tuition fees, only to go on to compete with people who've done engineering for 3 more years than I have.
General finance (assurance, audit, consulting, tax, etc) - I'd opt for avoiding it like the plague. If you go to any above average uni, you'll see the Big 4 advertising heavily, to the point where they're often voted the best graduate recruiters. It turns out that they're accepting applications from ANY FUCKING DEGREE. Let that sink in for a moment, it'd be hard for you to compete with people with finance degrees, but now you're having to compete basically everyone. Good fucking luck with that. To make matters worse, their intern turnover rates are over 90% and getting the internship is just as impossible as getting the job. So basically, I'm saying that mainstream finance borders on impossible.
cont
>>7717851
Mech and Aero engineering student here, why don't you suggest general finance? A lot of guys seem to get MBA's and go into that. I know IT sucks since it's soul sucking just like accounting. Listen man, I want a job that has flexible hours and isn't soul-sucking whilst paying a high salary.
>>7717851
>>7717491
Note, I've been told that pic related (for this post only) may be bullshit, I'll look into it some time.
Continuing...
It might look like I've only attacked the Big 4, but it's worth remembering that the Big 4 advertise so heavily that finance will be on most people's mind. Not to mention that finance stuff is suggested to maths grads anyway.
Teaching (at, or above college level) - that's a good backup plan, for obvious reasons, but I've heard that a lot of teachers end up spending more time doing admin and planning shit than actually teaching, I screenshoted a few posts on it if anyone's interested.
PhD, and then go into research - either this or actuarial work is what I'm pursuing, but /sci/ will tell you all about the problems pic related, although I'd still like to learn more.
Obscure parts of finance (e.g. actuarial work, insurance shit, analytical work) - that's my main backup plan, I'm looking to learn more (I'm currently reading a book on the actuarial profession), at least I'll only be competing with STEM graduates. What are the good non-mainstream finance jobs anyway?
Statistical work - shit... I need to look more into this, any pointers?
Banking (mostly investment): Long story short, go watch a documentary - the whole sector is corrupt as fuck and it's extremely competitive anyway, while being insanely stressful and long hours. Ask /biz/ for more info, but I'd serious recommend just going and watching a documentary on Enron, Bernie Maddoff or the global financial crisis. Investment banking is corrupt as fuck, and more client-facing stuff and other roles in banking just seem shit tier."
Anyway, for the stuff in the OP pic, I'll talk about them later, I've got to go for now.
>>7717855
You don't know what work is. Every job is competitive and every job has a lot of paperwork.
>>7717854
>Mech and Aero engineering student here, why don't you suggest general finance? A lot of guys seem to get MBA's and go into that.
More or less entirely because of the competition, when I've looked into it, they actually look like good jobs, particularly at the Big 4. If you can get the job then it looks fucking fantastic, but the whole point is that I doubt anyone other than top graduates can get the job.
>>7717862
>Every job is competitive and every job has a lot of paperwork.
I'd agree, every job is competitive, particularly at graduate level but for obvious reasons, all else being equal, it's optimal to aim for the jobs that are easiest to get. For example compare actuarial work to say, mainstream finance at the Big 4. Finance has you competing with graduates from almost any degree background, but mostly STEM (well, maybe not many of the engineers, given that they're much more employable in engineering) and any of the financial degrees, I could almost make the blanket claim of "you're competing with people from any numerate degree" and coupled with how heavily the Big 4 advertise, you're gonna be competing with literally thousands of them even just for an internship. Actuarial work on the other hand, has such a heavily statistical component that you're only really competing with maths grads who did lots of stats, stats grads and actuarial science grads (and rumour has it that some employers don't like actuarial science grads, although I don't recall the reasons), on top of that, a lot of those graduates don't even know what an actuary is and those that do often get intimidated by the difficulty of the exams. In short, actuarial work looks much more promising.
As for the paperwork part, I'd agree. I should probably update my section on teaching, there's a few more issues than what I've covered, pic related, although there's more to it than that but I'm out of space... cont.
>>7717862
>>7717975
cont
To give an example of one of the problems with teaching, suppose you get a fairly good graduate job, I guess I'll take this opportunity to talk about the good parts of mainstream finance so let's suppose that instead of going into teaching, you manage to get a job at the Big 4 or some other reasonably big finance firm, in these firms, every 3-5 years you can expect to be promoted, sometimes even faster than that. Promotion, of course means different work and higher pay. This does not happen in teaching, there's simply not enough positions to go around, which also leads to teachers being stuck on low salaries, which is part of the reason that they strike all the fucking time. Not to mention the fact that teachers plain and simply aren't respected, and get stupid amounts of shit from parents and pupils alike... teaching's fucking shit.
>>7717855
I'm a Math ("math with CS") undergrad student and I want to go work for some obscure futures/options trading firm and make a lot of money. Is this a sound plan?
>>7718019
I honestly don't know too much about them, but it doesn't sound unreasonable.
>>7718019
What uni anyway?
>>7717491
Hey, I'm doing mathematics but I don't know if it is pure or applied. The university simply calls the degree 'Mathematics' and the other alternatives in the math department are 'Teaching Mathematics' and 'Statistics'.
My degree's only non-pure classes are Physics I, Physics II, Programming I and Programming II.
Is this pure or applied? I've seen applied math degrees and they include all sort of stuff like chemistry and biology but certainly my degree is not purely pure.
So if someone in a 'Pure Mathematics' could tell me how my degree compares I would appreciate that.
I'd have to say statistics. Since it's much more versatile and flexible.
Luckily I'm minoring in stats along with my maths degree (pure and applied); hopefully I could get some data analyst/scientist type of job. If I keep my grades up, I'll see if I could sneak to into grad school for pure maths...
>>7718574
There is no way statistics is more versatile and flexible. That is impossible.
I've checked job postings that specify the hours you need in statistics to be eligible for the job and my mathematics degree surpasses them by a couple of hours. That means that with a pure math degree you can also get a job as a statistician, on top of all the things you can already do with a math degree.
>>7718647
In a stats course, you'll learn stochastics, bayesians, processes, data, probability, econometrics, risk calculations, modelling, and some analytic subjects. A lot of these are applicable to the finance realm, but yeah you could lie to your employee's, and tell them that you know them.
>>7718377
I am not an American, I am from a very respected European university.
>>7718428
Are you taking things like Operations Research, Time Series, PDEs and Stats? then it's probably applied
Are you taking things like Abstract Algebra, Real and Complex Analysis, and Set Theory? Then it's probably pure
if you're taking both it's math
>>7719377
This guy gets it... almost. In most generals maths courses, you'll probably have some mandatory stats, analysis and set theory. Heck, at my uni, Complex Analysis is mandatory.
