A beautiful mind.

[Terry Wilson]

just saw the movie and I thought it was great. It was especially emotional
watching him struggle through his illness through out the movie. I remember
the beginning of the movie when the professor speaks to his students at
Princeton and tells them "Mathematicians won the war(World war II) and now
we are looking for the next generation to help America in the war against
communism" or something to that effect.

What is the career potential for a science job in Mathematics?? I mean what
is the opportunities for these guys who graduate with PhD's in Mathematics?
They can not make that much. I remember a post from a math group 3 years ago
where the poster said one would starve to death with a graduate math degree
especially if that person does not want to teach. Can one find employment
outside academia? Is there any real mathematical research being done in
Academia?

I am just curious what is going on in this career field. Now even more
because my son wants to be a mathematician after watching the movie with me
:)
Is there any career Mathematicians that can shed some light?

Sincerely

Terry

[Zachary Turner]

Hi Terry,

I live in Houston and attend University of Houston going for a BS. A
friend of mine graduated from UH about 3 years ago with a BS in
Mathematics. He did not go for a graduate degree, just a BS. During
the time he was in school he was working an internship at Enron (small
company, probably never heard of em ;-)). When he graduated they
brought him on full time making about $65k. He was doing some risk
analysis and financial modelling and forecasting. Anyway, we lost
touch and I didn't see him again until about 2 weeks ago. He's
obviously out of a job now, but when he was laid off he was making a
whopping $170k. Granted, he had moved up in rank a bit but he started
out with nothing but a math degree doing math related stuff. I think
at the time he was laid off he was managing some or all of the
department that handles their forecasting, risk analysis, etc. Bottom
line is, you can make alot with a math degree. In a research
position? Probably not. Having a math degree says alot about a
person, however. Alot of companies would love to have people with BS
or MS in math in positions that don't require alot of math, simply
because people who are excellent mathematicians are also excellent
problem solvers. People who are able to come up with complex proofs
of abstract mathematical ideas are generally experts at thinking
outside the box, and they are generally the type of people that not
only don't back down from a challenge, but actually enjoy a challenge.
These are exactly the type of people that fit perfectly into some of
the high paying positions.

Also, although it's a fairly small niche, there are a few companies
that develop mathematical software. Things like Mathematica, Matlab,
etc. If you are a mathematician AND you are good at software
development, I would suspect you could get a fairly high paying job at
one of these companies. If all you're interested in is a strictly
research position then I'd say you probably won't find any real high
paying jobs.

BTW, just out of curiosity how much do professors generally earn?
Let's say a professor from a regular state university compared with a
professor from an upper tier university like Harvard. I've always
found the idea to be rather compelling but never heard anything about
salaries.

Thanks

"Terry Wilson" <TW...@hotrmail.com> wrote in message news:<8bFb8.3748$tu6.4...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...