Applied Mathematics

thrill3rnit3

What are different areas of study in Applied Mathematics?

That's what I'm planning to do in college but I'm trying to figure out which area I'm going to focus on.

maze

The field is huge. A few of the bigger subdisciplines include

Numerical Analysis
PDE
Optimization
Network Theory
Applied Probability

thrill3rnit3

I see. Which is the more popular one?

maze

dont worry about specalizing until you have taken the standard maths for beginning undergraduates (various calc classes, linear algebra, etc)

thrill3rnit3

I already took those classes in a nearby junior college.

so when I hit the university after high school i'd probably be jumping in right into the major requirements.

thrill3rnit3

Also, which specialization offers more opportunities outside research?

maze

Each of these areas is huge in both academic research and industry application. For many positions a masters or phd is necessary, so you may not want to specialize until late undergrad or graduate school, should you decide to do that.

I would recommend studying real analysis and numerical linear algebra next.

thrill3rnit3

I heard real analysis is a hardcore math class. But I'm looking into getting a book and self-studying while I'm still not in college.

Meanwhile, "numerical" linear algebra? What's the difference between regular linear algebra and numerical linear algebra? I already took the linear algebra course offered in the community college so I'm just wondering...

EDIT: Nevermind about the numerical linear alg. question. I did a search on google and found the difference.

What are good institutions/universities for applied mathematics? both undergrad and grad.

maze

Check out Gilbert Strang's linear algebra video lectures (first lecture here) at the MIT OCW site online. It's not numerical linear algebra, but it is probably a more advanced level than you have already seen, and probably a prequisite for understanding numerical linear algebra. Plus the lectures are great. If you already know linear algebra at that level, then I recomment picking up Numerical Linear Algebra by Trefethen and Bau,
http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/nick.trefethen/text.html

thrill3rnit3

What are good institutions/universities for applied mathematics? both undergrad and grad.