Advice on alternative career paths with B. Comp Sci (Maths)

[Adyssa]

I've just finished my undergraduate degree, and am enjoying a few weeks of complete bliss with no assignment deadlines! I've been thinking a lot about my future career, and I was hoping to gain some insight and advice on possible directions. I have a B. Comp Sci with a major in Computational Maths. My Comp Sci studies have naturally directed me towards a programming career, which is great, I like programming. I don't have a lot of experience with large scale software development, which is a bit of a hurdle I need to get over, but I'm confident I can pursue a programming career.

I chose the maths major for more personal reasons. I like reading lay physics books and I wanted a better maths background so I could understand more technical concepts. My major included basic discrete maths, calc I - III, LA and numerical methods up to finite difference / finite element Methods and a little bit of ANSYS and Matlab software but not as much as I would have liked. I'm wondering if my maths background is suitable to apply for jobs in the science / engineering industry. Obviously I'd be looking for a role that included programming, I have no actual science or engineering expertise, but I'm not really sure where and what to look for, and I'm also not sure if I'd be laughed out of the room! But how knows?! Maybe someone here could offer some insight?

 

[waveandmatter]

I originally studied computer engineering and am now trying to do a PhD in (mostly computational) physics. This might be a possibility for you if you find an advisor who is willing to hire you.
I am doing nanophotonics, but i guess for a computer scientist with a good numerics background any topic involving numerical simulation would make sense, no matter what the actual physics behind it are.

 

[Adyssa]

Thanks for your comment. :)

Further study isn't a priority for me at this stage, I'm too old and too broke and I need a job that pays halfway decent so I can put some money away and sort my life out a bit. I'd love to go back to uni one day but not for at least 5-10 years. Things to do!

I'm interested in numerical computation, I just feel like I lack a lot of background. For example, while I was studying FDM/FEM this past semester, we covered the heat equation, transport equation and various other ones, and I was a bit out of my depth to be honest, I didn't have any intuition for the problems. It was amazingly interesting, but I wonder if I were to approach, say an engineering company for a job would I need a better grounding in the actual physics. I can crunch the numbers ok, I quite enjoyed that part of it!