Careers Choices for Math and CS Majors
What are the most popular careers?
- computer programmer/analyst
- systems administrator/analyst
- information systems consultant
- engineer
- actuary
- statistician
- operations researcher
- university or high school teacher
- marketing research analyst
What else are our recent graduates doing?
- graduate student
- medical student
- MCC service worker
- patent classifier
- technical editor
- web developer
- sales manager
- carpenter
- small business owner
With their problem solving skills, mathematics majors are valuable to companies and organizations in so many different roles that creating a list of “typical” career choices is difficult.
Career Opportunities in Computer Science
According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s projections, employment in computer technology related fields is one of three groups of professional occupations expected to account for about three-quarters of the job growth over the 2004-2014 period.
The Association for Computing Machinery’s Computing Careers site provides some valuable information about the current computing field.
Career Opportunities in Mathematics
Mathematics is one of the classic liberal arts. Some of our finest math students at EMU have pursued careers in other fields such as peace and justice, music, seminary, business, physical education, psychology, etc. They find that math courses related in interesting tangential ways to those other fields allowing them to bring a fresh perspective to their profession.
In addition to the obvious choices of teaching at the high school level, teaching and research at a college or university, or computer programming, a student majoring in mathematics might choose a second major and work in fields such as biostatistics, bioinformatics, epidemiology, image analysis, and cryptography.
With their problem solving skills, mathematics majors are valuable to companies and organizations in so many different roles that creating a list of “typical” career choices is difficult.
Many mathematicians are employed as actuaries to do mathematical modeling work in major industries (often insurance companies). Actuarial science is a prestigious occupation requiring a strong background in business and mathematics. Actuaries must pass a set of 10 proficiency examinations (typically paid for by their employer) to become a full-fledged actuary.
The broad field known as operations research, operations management, or systems science encompasses many areas of mathematics including optimization, queuing theory, and inventory theory. Most persons practicing in these fields have a bachelor’s degree in mathematics or statistics, some computer science background, and a Master’s degree in operations research.