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I have a PhD in math, did some successful research, but left math for a variety of personal reasons. My advice: 1. Network, network, network. Get famous or est

I have a PhD in math, did some successful research, but left math for a variety of personal reasons. My advice: 1. Network, network, network. Get famous or established mathematicians interested in your work. 2. Be a minority. Due to the prevailing ideology of academia, it's much easier to be successful if you are a minority. (I am not saying it doesn't take hard work, but the competition is not as extreme due to intense equity measures.) I will laugh if anyone gets mad at this point. Equity rules make this point an incontrovertible fact. 3. Solve problems related to the work of established mathematicians. Interesting or novel problems that are not related to the work of others will be ignored. 4. Forget about being curious. Okay, this one has some dark humour about it...but seriously, if you just explore your curiosity, you might solve cool problems but you won't be "career successful". It's much better just to make useless investigations into ever-more esoteric problems that validate the "successful" work of others which is becoming increasingly technical. A note: this might sound a bit cynical, but I thought I'd give another viewpoint to show a bit more of the balanced reality of the math world.

thoi23u4234324 3y ago
> Be a minority. Won't help if you're Asian IMO.
- nxobject 3y ago
  Well, it just means you're not a minority in the world of mathematics.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  I meant a minority w.r.t. to the current distribution in math.
  - kevinventullo 3y ago
    I’ve found the word “underrepresented” works a little better in this context to avoid misunderstandings.
nxobject 3y ago
I'm curious: what field did you work in? One of my reasons for not pursuing math was going to a summer undergrad research mentoring thing by a well-known-enough American algebraic topologist (the field that Eugenia works in), and finding out that even his students were having problem getting positions in higher ed in the US that weren't temporary – that was simply the state in general academia, with an ageing professoriate. Maybe I should add a 5th point, but I need to phrase it very cautiously. 5. If you're interested in doing mathematics in an institution of higher ed in the US, focus your work on teaching, and be prepared to live in the middle of nowhere.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  I worked in Langlands.
bakuninsbart 3y ago
> Equity rules make this point an incontrovertible fact Seems like flawed reasoning to me. If a group as a whole is underrepresented in a highly competitive environment like academia, then presumably they have a harder time getting in or staying in. Despite equity measures, whites in the us are not underrepresented. It follows that it is not harder for whites, but still more difficult specifically for black and Latino people to make it in academia, no?
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  > If a group as a whole is underrepresented in a highly competitive environment like academia, then presumably they have a harder time getting in or staying in. No, that is fallacious. It could also mean that fewer members of that group try to get in in the first place. That is because there are multiple stages to getting into academia. But the question I was referring to was about the final stage: getting into research math, and then minorities are already under-represented in the pool of people thinking about becoming a research mathematician. To put it simply, IF a person is a minority and is already in grad school, they will have an easier time going further simply because of equity hiring. That's all I meant.

thoi23u4234324 3y ago

> Be a minority. Won't help if you're Asian IMO.

nxobject 3y ago
Well, it just means you're not a minority in the world of mathematics.
vouaobrasil 3y ago
I meant a minority w.r.t. to the current distribution in math.
- kevinventullo 3y ago
  I’ve found the word “underrepresented” works a little better in this context to avoid misunderstandings.

nxobject 3y ago

I'm curious: what field did you work in? One of my reasons for not pursuing math was going to a summer undergrad research mentoring thing by a well-known-enough American algebraic topologist (the field that Eugenia works in), and finding out that even his students were having problem getting positions in higher ed in the US that weren't temporary – that was simply the state in general academia, with an ageing professoriate. Maybe I should add a 5th point, but I need to phrase it very cautiously. 5. If you're interested in doing mathematics in an institution of higher ed in the US, focus your work on teaching, and be prepared to live in the middle of nowhere.

vouaobrasil 3y ago
I worked in Langlands.

bakuninsbart 3y ago

> Equity rules make this point an incontrovertible fact Seems like flawed reasoning to me. If a group as a whole is underrepresented in a highly competitive environment like academia, then presumably they have a harder time getting in or staying in. Despite equity measures, whites in the us are not underrepresented. It follows that it is not harder for whites, but still more difficult specifically for black and Latino people to make it in academia, no?

vouaobrasil 3y ago
> If a group as a whole is underrepresented in a highly competitive environment like academia, then presumably they have a harder time getting in or staying in. No, that is fallacious. It could also mean that fewer members of that group try to get in in the first place. That is because there are multiple stages to getting into academia. But the question I was referring to was about the final stage: getting into research math, and then minorities are already under-represented in the pool of people thinking about becoming a research mathematician. To put it simply, IF a person is a minority and is already in grad school, they will have an easier time going further simply because of equity hiring. That's all I meant.