You might want to read this post by takchek first.
So what is the point of a general degree? Since my academic program can be considered a "general degree" program, I thought of the various paths which my fellow classmates have taken or will be taking. So, what are my fellow (honors) math majors doing/going to do, other than math graduate school?
On the job market: Actuary, investment banking, computer science-y thing
Grad school: Physics, biophysics, economics, statistics, piano performance.
Professional school: Medicine, law.
Notice none are teachers?
By "honors" math majors I mean those who are taking/have taken the advanced pure and/or "classical" applied math classes - I'm not counting those in the more specialized programs such as actuarial science or teacher certification, since they aren't exactly "general degree" programs. Since most people I know are from the previous and current graduating batch, and I don't know everyone, and the honors math community is very small, we're looking at a sample size of about 20 here.
Now that I'm more inclined to going into the job market than grad school, I've been thinking of how to bullshit market my skills effectively. Between my academic program and research experience, I've been able flesh out examples and write convincing arguments that I have the skills required/preferred for actuarial and finance type positions, as stated on the job ads.
In particular, I realized that after taking many pure math classes, my writing skills improved tremendously (although it is not necessarily evident on the blog since this is generally stream of consciousness writing). A lot more so than after taking humanities type classes. Recently I had a career counselor look over some cover letters I wrote, and he commented, "I must say something: you write very well. You have a way of being very concise, but yet very descriptive."
My thoughts: Isn't that what a math proof supposed to be?
I used to take forever to get to the point, now I can pack a whole lot of information into a few sentences. Having to write 7 or 8 convincing, logical and oftentimes complex arguments a week (last semester it was more like 25/week) probably helped too - lots of practice!
