4 ms·

>I never suspected that just digging into questions that were fun and curious and maybe someday somewhat useful, making discoveries, and writing papers could be

>I never suspected that just digging into questions that were fun and curious and maybe someday somewhat useful, making discoveries, and writing papers could be a career that could support a family. I am interested in pursuing a PhD in Pure Mathematics. What are the career prospects for it? Based on what I read academic prospects don't seem too thrilling. It appears you may have to do multiple post-docs at low pay, and still not be able to be hired at a good school. What is the path to becoming a professor and making a livable salary? If that is the case what are the industry prospects? Would whatever software company want to hire you, if your pure math specialization isn't directly applicable to what they're focused on? In turn, it seems better to learn how to code. But will your pure math specialization (as in not applicable to anything anyone is doing) + coding abilities set you apart? I would rather study mathematics, pure mathematics and not be unemployable. But I don't really know what the job prospects are like. Could you speak to that, say, from a realistic perspective?

kevinventullo 8y ago
I did a PhD in pure math and now work for a big tech company. Having the PhD will get your foot in the door basically anywhere, so you'll at least make it to the screen, but ultimately you have to pass the same interview as anyone else. That means doing LeetCode and reading Yegge's stuff etc. If your goal is to maximize lifetime earnings, a PhD is maybe not the right choice, but if you want to spend years studying something you love while financially breaking even then go for it. I definitely don't regret it, even though I would be worth a lot more if I had gone into tech straight out of college. Btw, finance is also a common destination for pure math PhD's looking to leave academia.
- cadeira 8y ago
  Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. I’m more interested in studying math than maximizing my income, but post-graduation opportunities is a concern, since I’m not well off. Your reply gives me the encouragement I was looking for to pursue my passion. Thank you.
  - gautamdivgi 8y ago
    To add to the discussion. I did a CS PhD with a statistical bent. It's served me well. However, I would see if an MS provided you with equivalent benefits from a career standpoint. Very few companies do "research". And if you're in the US, unless you acquire funding with yourself as the PI its going to be impossible to find an academic position.
- soVeryTired 8y ago
  > I definitely don't regret it, even though I would be worth a lot more if I had gone into tech straight out of college. My take is that life is ultimately about taking the chance to do interesting things when they crop up.
soVeryTired 8y ago
Personally I enjoyed my PhD, but I watched others get hurt, so I wanted to add some words of warning. It's a risky choice, unless you're very good. You should go in with your eyes open, knowing that you'll be lucky to get an academic job afterwards, especially if you're in a 'pure' field without many applications. For industrial jobs, you'll probably have to re-train through self-study. After a maths phd, doing so may come easily, but it will also take effort. You'll spend three to seven years (dependent on your location and ability) working on an extremely specialised topic. There is no guarantee that you'll finish: circumstances beyond your control like your relationship with your advisor can derail your progress regardless of your ability. There is also a 'point of no return' after a year or two where it becomes very painful to cut your losses and walk away with nothing. Doing a maths PhD could open some interesting doors. It will improve your employability, but it's an inefficient way to do so. The only good reason to do one is that you really like your research topic and want to spend years immersing yourself in it.
- graycat 8y ago
  Yes, I saw a lot of really good students enter an applied math program when I did. I left with a Ph.D., but nearly all the rest didn't. The flunk out rate was so high that Navy Seal training or Army Ranger training look like fuzzy, bunny play time. The key to my getting my Ph.D. was research, research, and research. The first I did was on a little question that came up in a course. In two weeks I got a surprisingly good answer that was clearly publishable. Later I did publish, no problem, in JOTA. That work gave me a halo in the department and made the rest easier. For my dissertation, I had identified the problem and made good, intuitive progress on it before I entered grad school. In my first summer I turned the intuitive stuff into math, theorems and proofs, wrote an 80 page manuscript, and that was the research for my dissertation. So, I found my own problem, found my own solution, did the work with no direction, and submitted the final work. So, in no meaningful sense did I have any dissertation advisors. So, I didn't have to depend on an advisor.
- cadeira 8y ago
  This is a good addition. Did you do a PhD in Math as well? My idea is to pursue a PhD in CS, but have a very theoretical bent. I was concerned since essentially I am studying pure math, under the CS department I'd have similar prospects as a Math PhD. But my aim is to set myself up for industry skills upon graduation, so I'll ensure I beef up my software and leetcode skills as Kevin recommended.
graycat 8y ago
> What are the career prospects for it? I typed in a comment rejected as too long, clicked on the wrong icon, and lost it. My view of the prospects is, in a word, poor. Others have described the prospects for an academic math career. I would add, should include a lot of politics, friends, alliances, etc. Outside of academics, long the main source of jobs in math was in US national security, with some of the major companies getting money for national security or just lots of smaller opportunities within 100 miles of the Washington Monument. For Wall Street, I still have the letter back from Fisher Black at Goldman Sachs saying that he saw no opportunities for optimization on Wall Street. I sent lots of resume copies, went on a few interviews, had not yet heard of James Simons, and got nothing. I've nearly never seen a business slot wanting a Ph.D. in math. My experience in large organizations is that they want more people very much like the people they already have. What I saw doing math in business, e.g., FedEx, IBM, a staff slot at Georgetown U., is that for any good results there is a LOT of bitter resentment above, below, and from all sides. Math just isn't one of the job titles or descriptions. My view is that mostly a job as an employee is too unstable to be financially responsible. For an exception, get a unionized slot in a monopoly, e.g., an electric utility. Generally it is necessary to start, own, and run a successful business. My view is that computer science has run out of gas, e.g., can no longer extrapolate from what D. Knuth did and wrote about, and doesn't have good enough problems or tools for a good future. My view is that the best future of computer science is to be essentially a branch of applied math, complete with theorems and proofs, but not nearly enough of the computer science profs have sufficient math backgrounds. My view is that practical computing is rapidly becoming routine, Web pages, database transactions, server farm and network system management. My view is that automation is doing so well that we are in line for a huge amount of unemployment. E.g., I saw a lot of people on farms of 50 to 200 acres go very poor as only large operations with fewer people per acre and much more capital equipment did well. E.g., I put together a pizza recipe, a pizza for 1 in 10 minutes. The crust is the star of the show, and it has 9 cents of flour. Some people are making money hiring illegal immigrants as common labor, having them sleep on the floor, a dozen or so to a room, and paying them in cash. After a few years of that, back home in Central America with the cash, they can live much better than before. US citizens can't play that game. That game is from currency exchange rates, and I'm still looking for the causes of such a valuable dollar. My view is that computing and applied math are super tough ways to start a business but about the best there is. So, my startup, a Web site, has some applied math I derived, complete with theorems and proofs, based on some advanced pure math prerequisites; that math is the crucial enabling core of the startup, but users will not be aware of anything mathematical. The math is a secret sauce advantage, without the math, with results difficult to duplicate or equal. I don't know anyone else who has done such a thing. I don't know any one at all close who had done anything at all valuable with math outside of US national security. In simple, first cut terms, I see no careers in math. I've had my resume on Indeed for months with no responses at all. A few years ago I sent 1000+ resume copies with no meaningful responses. As far as I can tell, anyone over 40 years old with a good background in pure and applied math and computing is absolutely, positively, totally unemployable at anything, including minimum wage. The industrialized countries are already so poor that the birth rates are so low they are rapidly going extinct. My view is that, due to automation doing so well, so many people will be left with nothing to do that we are in for massive unemployment.

kevinventullo 8y ago

I did a PhD in pure math and now work for a big tech company. Having the PhD will get your foot in the door basically anywhere, so you'll at least make it to the screen, but ultimately you have to pass the same interview as anyone else. That means doing LeetCode and reading Yegge's stuff etc. If your goal is to maximize lifetime earnings, a PhD is maybe not the right choice, but if you want to spend years studying something you love while financially breaking even then go for it. I definitely don't regret it, even though I would be worth a lot more if I had gone into tech straight out of college. Btw, finance is also a common destination for pure math PhD's looking to leave academia.

cadeira 8y ago
Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. I’m more interested in studying math than maximizing my income, but post-graduation opportunities is a concern, since I’m not well off. Your reply gives me the encouragement I was looking for to pursue my passion. Thank you.
- gautamdivgi 8y ago
  To add to the discussion. I did a CS PhD with a statistical bent. It's served me well. However, I would see if an MS provided you with equivalent benefits from a career standpoint. Very few companies do "research". And if you're in the US, unless you acquire funding with yourself as the PI its going to be impossible to find an academic position.
soVeryTired 8y ago
> I definitely don't regret it, even though I would be worth a lot more if I had gone into tech straight out of college. My take is that life is ultimately about taking the chance to do interesting things when they crop up.

soVeryTired 8y ago

Personally I enjoyed my PhD, but I watched others get hurt, so I wanted to add some words of warning. It's a risky choice, unless you're very good. You should go in with your eyes open, knowing that you'll be lucky to get an academic job afterwards, especially if you're in a 'pure' field without many applications. For industrial jobs, you'll probably have to re-train through self-study. After a maths phd, doing so may come easily, but it will also take effort. You'll spend three to seven years (dependent on your location and ability) working on an extremely specialised topic. There is no guarantee that you'll finish: circumstances beyond your control like your relationship with your advisor can derail your progress regardless of your ability. There is also a 'point of no return' after a year or two where it becomes very painful to cut your losses and walk away with nothing. Doing a maths PhD could open some interesting doors. It will improve your employability, but it's an inefficient way to do so. The only good reason to do one is that you really like your research topic and want to spend years immersing yourself in it.

graycat 8y ago
Yes, I saw a lot of really good students enter an applied math program when I did. I left with a Ph.D., but nearly all the rest didn't. The flunk out rate was so high that Navy Seal training or Army Ranger training look like fuzzy, bunny play time. The key to my getting my Ph.D. was research, research, and research. The first I did was on a little question that came up in a course. In two weeks I got a surprisingly good answer that was clearly publishable. Later I did publish, no problem, in JOTA. That work gave me a halo in the department and made the rest easier. For my dissertation, I had identified the problem and made good, intuitive progress on it before I entered grad school. In my first summer I turned the intuitive stuff into math, theorems and proofs, wrote an 80 page manuscript, and that was the research for my dissertation. So, I found my own problem, found my own solution, did the work with no direction, and submitted the final work. So, in no meaningful sense did I have any dissertation advisors. So, I didn't have to depend on an advisor.
cadeira 8y ago
This is a good addition. Did you do a PhD in Math as well? My idea is to pursue a PhD in CS, but have a very theoretical bent. I was concerned since essentially I am studying pure math, under the CS department I'd have similar prospects as a Math PhD. But my aim is to set myself up for industry skills upon graduation, so I'll ensure I beef up my software and leetcode skills as Kevin recommended.

graycat 8y ago

> What are the career prospects for it? I typed in a comment rejected as too long, clicked on the wrong icon, and lost it. My view of the prospects is, in a word, poor. Others have described the prospects for an academic math career. I would add, should include a lot of politics, friends, alliances, etc. Outside of academics, long the main source of jobs in math was in US national security, with some of the major companies getting money for national security or just lots of smaller opportunities within 100 miles of the Washington Monument. For Wall Street, I still have the letter back from Fisher Black at Goldman Sachs saying that he saw no opportunities for optimization on Wall Street. I sent lots of resume copies, went on a few interviews, had not yet heard of James Simons, and got nothing. I've nearly never seen a business slot wanting a Ph.D. in math. My experience in large organizations is that they want more people very much like the people they already have. What I saw doing math in business, e.g., FedEx, IBM, a staff slot at Georgetown U., is that for any good results there is a LOT of bitter resentment above, below, and from all sides. Math just isn't one of the job titles or descriptions. My view is that mostly a job as an employee is too unstable to be financially responsible. For an exception, get a unionized slot in a monopoly, e.g., an electric utility. Generally it is necessary to start, own, and run a successful business. My view is that computer science has run out of gas, e.g., can no longer extrapolate from what D. Knuth did and wrote about, and doesn't have good enough problems or tools for a good future. My view is that the best future of computer science is to be essentially a branch of applied math, complete with theorems and proofs, but not nearly enough of the computer science profs have sufficient math backgrounds. My view is that practical computing is rapidly becoming routine, Web pages, database transactions, server farm and network system management. My view is that automation is doing so well that we are in line for a huge amount of unemployment. E.g., I saw a lot of people on farms of 50 to 200 acres go very poor as only large operations with fewer people per acre and much more capital equipment did well. E.g., I put together a pizza recipe, a pizza for 1 in 10 minutes. The crust is the star of the show, and it has 9 cents of flour. Some people are making money hiring illegal immigrants as common labor, having them sleep on the floor, a dozen or so to a room, and paying them in cash. After a few years of that, back home in Central America with the cash, they can live much better than before. US citizens can't play that game. That game is from currency exchange rates, and I'm still looking for the causes of such a valuable dollar. My view is that computing and applied math are super tough ways to start a business but about the best there is. So, my startup, a Web site, has some applied math I derived, complete with theorems and proofs, based on some advanced pure math prerequisites; that math is the crucial enabling core of the startup, but users will not be aware of anything mathematical. The math is a secret sauce advantage, without the math, with results difficult to duplicate or equal. I don't know anyone else who has done such a thing. I don't know any one at all close who had done anything at all valuable with math outside of US national security. In simple, first cut terms, I see no careers in math. I've had my resume on Indeed for months with no responses at all. A few years ago I sent 1000+ resume copies with no meaningful responses. As far as I can tell, anyone over 40 years old with a good background in pure and applied math and computing is absolutely, positively, totally unemployable at anything, including minimum wage. The industrialized countries are already so poor that the birth rates are so low they are rapidly going extinct. My view is that, due to automation doing so well, so many people will be left with nothing to do that we are in for massive unemployment.