It's fair to say that mathematics wasn't everyone's favorite subject at school. For a lot of people, the whole idea of playing with figures until they made pleasing sums was a torturous process. We've invented calculators after all, why would we need to work out sums by hand? For other people, though, learning math was a pleasure. By applying equations to the world around them, they could make more sense out of it. Math underpinned everything, from the speed of a journey to a budget plan for a vacation.
Those who enjoy mathematics as a subject often go on to pursue it in higher education. They major in it and then obtain a diploma or degree in it. What happens after that, though? After they've obtained a qualification in it, what do they do as a career? If you had a degree in a foreign language, you could go into teaching. If you had a degree in English language or literature, you could pursue a career in journalism. The options for someone who's specialized in maths are - on the surface, at least - less obvious.
Just because something isn't obvious doesn't mean it isn't there, though. You just need to know where to look for it. What you'll definitely have if you take a degree in mathematics is an advantage over many of your peers. Fewer Americans are specializing in math than ever before, and so the ones who do stand head and shoulders above their peers when it comes to their likelihood to find a career in any of the industries we're about to mention below. If you're considering becoming a math specialist, here's where your chosen study area could take you!
Actuary
If you don't immediately recognize the job title, don't worry about it. Actuaries are seldom talked about but highly valued by the people who employ them. The job of an actuary is to advise upon (and sometimes manage) financial risks. Every large corporation has a team of actuaries who help to ensure that the company stays on the right track in terms of profitability, and makes smart investment and spending decisions. The current global economy is a very uncertain one, and that makes people who can spot trends and predict outcomes more essential than ever. Knowledge of business and how the economy works will help a lot, but all an actuary really does is exercise probability theory, and use their skills to evaluate how x will affect y when it comes to spending. In short, it's just maths applied to business. If you can handle statistics and probability - which any mathematician can - you could be an actuary.
Casino Game Designer
Online casinos are among the fastest-growing businesses in the world, and they're crying out for people who can design new games for them. That's something a mathematician can get involved in even if they've never designed a video game in their life, and can't draw. Beneath the surface of every casino game is some incredibly complicated mathematics. Consider how many possible outcomes there are in the average mobile slots game. Someone has to work out the mathematical likelihood of a certain symbol landing on a certain line every time someone spins the reels of a mobile slots game on website like Late Casino. They have to work out the likelihood of the jackpot landing, too. One decimal point in the wrong place and the mobile slots game will pay out too often, and leave the company which operates it making losses. A mathematician works with the programmers of the game to ensure that everything is statistically fair and balanced - and you could be paid the equivalent of a mobile slots jackpot for doing so!
Insurance Underwriter
At one end of the (highly lucrative) insurance marker are the salespeople. They're the ones who'll sell the insurance products to the customers, make all the commission, and live or die by their next deal. At the other end are the underwriters, who assess the likelihood of a claim, and thereby determine whether or not an application for insurance will be approved. Again, a great mind for statistics is essential for this. You'll also need to be able to devise a consistent and fair structure of formulas to determine how much a particular applicant should pay for a particular policy, based on their individual risk. You can often have people's lives and businesses in your hands, so it's a high-pressure role, but it pays handsomely.
Quantity Surveyor
Contrary to popular belief, being a quantity surveyor has nothing to do with counting the number of items on a shelf. Instead, quantity surveyors rely on excellent numerical skills to manage and reduce the cost of business projects. Usually, quantity surveyors work in the fields of civil engineering or construction. Their role encompasses providing estimates, allowing for variations, and factoring in amendments as the job progresses. In practice, it's all about working out the cost to the business and the client of a certain type of material, the risk of the work, the value of the labor, and the complexity of the task in hand. All of that is governed by formulas, and skilled mathematicians can see those formulas where the average person can't.
All of the above are jobs you should be able to gain access to the moment you leave education. You could go further than that, though. Stay in education a little longer and become a physicist or an astrophysicist. At some point in the future, someone's going to work out what's happening at the center of a black hole, and that person will be a mathematician who's built a model to predict and explain it. That person could be you!
Mathematics might be complicated, but it's never boring - and neither are the employment opportunities a qualification in the field can lead to. If you have a love for numbers, indulge it, embrace it, and move forward with it. By doing so, you'll be fluent in a field that very few people can master or even choose to understand - and that will mean you can do the things that they can't. Ultimately, it's the skills that are hard to find that employers pay big money for, and mathematics fits that bill perfectly.
