{"id":2833,"date":"2017-05-15T07:00:21","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/?p=2833"},"modified":"2017-05-10T10:06:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-10T14:06:22","slug":"what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/blogonmathblogs\/2017\/05\/15\/what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that\/","title":{"rendered":"What Are You Going to Do with That?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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That feeling when you just can’t decide what mathematical career is right for you. Image: “A Rose” by Thomas Anshutz. Public domain, via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.<\/p><\/div>\n

For people in graduate school for math, the question, \u201cWhat are you going to do with that?\u201d often seems to have\u00a0a clear, easy answer: \u201cI\u2019m going to be a math professor.\u201d In grad school, our role models are the professors in our departments and others we meet at research conferences, who all went through graduate school, probably did a postdoc or two, and found a tenure-track job at a university. We\u2019ve heard whispered stories of the students who left \u201cfor industry,\u201d but industry can seem like kind of a mysterious black hole or a career of last resort.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s fine to have a goal of becoming a math professor. But many of us find during graduate school that our desires for our lives don\u2019t fit well with the academic model. Beyond that, the job market is tough. Not everyone who wants a postdoc or tenure-track job can have one. Thinking of a tenured job in a math department as the only true mathematical success story is a corrosive myth. I know it took me a long time to throw myself fully into my career as a math and science writer even though a university position wasn\u2019t making the most of my creativity and skills because part of me was holding on to the idea that if I did something other than get a tenure-track job at a university, I would be throwing away my PhD.<\/span><\/p>\n

I believe and hope that the idea that success must take the form of university jobs is dying. I know many math professors who want to make sure their students understand the careers available to mathematicians and how to get and thrive in those jobs. I am on the record in favor of encouraging people to go to graduate school<\/span><\/a> in spite of the tough academic job prospects, and I believe that another side of that coin is that we need to see non-academic jobs as success stories, not failures, and know how to prepare students for those as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fortunately, there are a lot of resources out there for mathematicians and students who are interested in non-academic employment. One I found recently is the BIG Math Network, which helps connect academic mathematicians with business, industry, and government (hence BIG). The BIG Math Network blog<\/span><\/a> has information about internships and other opportunities for people who want to know more about what goes on outside of the ivory tower as well as guest posts from mathematicians who work in business, industry, and government, like this one from my grad school buddy Peter Horn about his career switch<\/span><\/a> from a tenure-track job in academia to being a data scientist at a research and development nonprofit.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen a few other posts around the blogosphere about leaving math academia for other jobs. Jesse Johnson has written a few posts (1<\/span><\/a>, 2<\/span><\/a>, 3<\/span><\/a>) for the Low Dimensional Topology blog<\/span><\/a> about his move from Oklahoma State to Google. Yen Duong of Baking and Math has written about how she decided to leave academia<\/span><\/a> and how she\u2019s started her job search<\/span><\/a>. Sarah Rich recently wrote about moving from math to data science<\/span><\/a> on Jordan Ellenberg\u2019s blog Quomodocumque<\/span><\/a>. And earlier this month Cathy O\u2019Neil had a guest post on her blog Mathbabe<\/a>\u00a0from Phil Goff called Justice Needs Nerds<\/span><\/a> about doing data science to analyze biases and brutality in policing and hopefully work to mitigate them. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got a math degree but aren\u2019t quite sure what you want to do with it, or if you\u2019re a professor who wants to help your students know what\u2019s out there and how they can prepare, I hope you\u2019ll find some useful information about the many different mathematical careers that exist. Let me know about other related resources in the comments!<\/span><\/p>\n

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For people in graduate school for math, the question, \u201cWhat are you going to do with that?\u201d often seems to have\u00a0a clear, easy answer: \u201cI\u2019m going to be a math professor.\u201d In grad school, our role models are the professors … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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