Thinking of leaving math PhD - do what?

nucl34rgg

You could become an actuary. With your skills, you would probably be a good fit.

seaofghosts

My boyfriend had to quit his PhD in math because he was going through a divorce, and had to find a job, so he went into programming. He found that with a little self-teaching, a lot of programming companies were impressed with a master's in math and were lining up to hire him, even in the rough economy. He also finds it very rewarding and gets excited about learning new languages and moving onto better opportunities and more money.

mSSM

What country are you guys located in?

RollingRust

StatGuy2000: Thanks again. It sounds like something along the lines of either converting my PhD to Stats, or finishing a Math masters and then looking for a Stats PhD might be my best option. I work in a 'probability related field', but I don't have much experience with applied statistics.

If you don't mind, I would be very interested to hear a little bit more about what you do, how you found the work you're involved in etc. Maybe a PM is more appropriate? Sorry if I am asking too much here.

nucl34rgg: Something I've tried looking into. I am a little confused about the process, and to complicate matters it seems the vary a lot country to country. It is however something I would consider, do you have a specific idea of what I would have to do to go in that direction?

seaofghosts: I'm sorry to hear about your boyfriends trouble - but happy to hear he enjoys his work! I guess honestly, I always hoped this would be a backup career for me. Its nice to know that he found himself in hot demand.

I'm sorry if I'm sounding a little difficult in my replies - I really don't intend to me. I'm just a bit down about my situation and quite confused about concrete steps I can take.

nucl34rgg

I can refer you to a site with good information. I am looking into this myself currently. I do not yet know what it fully entails. I do know that there are a lot of exams to pass, and that you must pass some of them to even start work as an actuary. I think you would need to self study some financial mathematics and economics, and review statistics.

http://www.beanactuary.org/

RollingRust

nucl34rgg thanks for that link, looks like a lot of good info there.

It looks like its a pretty long and specialised path to follow, I had better do quite a bit of research before I consider it as a career.

Easy to worry that the job market might be different by the time I'm done though!

StatGuy2000

Hi RollingRust, I sent you a PM yesterday. Feel free to PM me back for further questions.

seaofghosts

We're in the US, Las Vegas.

Chronos

Programming skills are a huge selling point with most companies now. They dont need to hire an IT guy if you can double duty.

hadsed

I'm not meaning to be accusing or critical, but is it possible that maybe you only have some kind of vague image of what these other jobs mean? For example, you say you don't want to be a code monkey (which betrays your perspective on programming work). Certainly there are people who are practically 'code monkeys', but these are people who remain stagnant at entry or intermediate levels, don't do useful work, aren't curious and interested in applying their brains to difficult problems, etc. There is a huge amount that goes into writing high quality, reliable, and efficient software. It requires a lot of practical and logical thinking to figure out how to use proper data structures, how to architect your object hierarchy, how to make it efficient for future revisions and additions to the codebase, logistical issues like making it easiest for lots of people to contribute, etc.

I'm projecting a bit here, of course--I come from a programming background, but having studied physics for two years I'm moving back towards computer science, partly because of the dismal outlook for careers in theoretical physics (and the same can be said for pure math). Computer science, however, is practically applied math (though in a different sense, and with different math). If you enjoy topics like graph theory and general logic for things like building and optimizing networks, working on computer architecture, coming up with more efficient algorithms, applying statistics, probability, and linear algebra in conjunction with artificial intelligence (read: machine learning) to data mining/computer vision/robotics/etc., you'll be very happy with CS.

It took me a long time to get interested in things other than what I had plans for (which was theoretical physics). But the more you read about these other topics, the more you think about them, and the better image you have about the work, all of which of course contributes to building up a sort of passion for doing it. For me, I've realized that I like to solve difficult problems, and some of the most important problems today rely on making computers faster, more reliable, or more efficient.

Also, perhaps you can make the jump a little differently. Say, do a Msc. in mathematics concentrating on.... say, numerical linear algebra. Then go into CS and work in high performance algorithm implementation of your Msc. topics. "Going into" could mean do a Ph.D, or straight into industry. Or, say, you want to work for an aerospace company. So tailor your topic to work on numerical solutions of PDEs that are important in computational fluids research (it gets more specific, for example you can come up with a way to eliminate need for more artificial parameters so that simulations are more accurate and natural). I can't say this would be how you get hired by an aerospace company, but I know the basics of similar paths people have taken.

I'm saying all of this because of your comment earlier talking about when you're reading about cool mathematics, but wondering what the point is. Well it can be applied to lots of really awesome stuff, you just have to know where to look. As a person with lots of interests, I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make the various jumps, from a physics student with heavy computational experience to actual hardcore computer science/engineering. It can be done, but most people don't do it this way which means you'll have to put your brains and social skills to the problem and forge a path on your own (and don't underestimate the social skills, some of the most valuable information I've gotten is from professors in CS departments who I've explained my situation to).