4321234

dude, go back to school and get a certificate or degree in CS then. maybe your local community college can start you off or something.

silverbullet

goto your school's career management center. My friend is a major in Mathematics with a decent GPA at a 3rd tier school. Locheed Martin offered him a 4 year internship and co-op with decent pay.

poubelle

I know someone who went to a very good school, got a Ph.D. in math, and makes a fair amount of money programming. The Ph.D. was definitely unnecessary for what he does - so there are jobs out there!

Similarly, my dad majored in Math and programs now - though he did minor in Computer Science.

Moire

E-mail your friend a link to this thread. I'd love to chat with him.

Moire

csprof2000, I was reading your answers, and was wondering why are you so biased against math majors?

csprof2000

I don't consider myself biased against math majors, but against those members of academia who have bungled the US undergraduate mathematics curriculum, who have no intention of fixing anything, and have continued to perpetrate the myth that a degree in math is a ticket to a good paying job.

I actually rather like math majors. They are generally very bright, very creative, and genuinely love learning. The problem is that these bright students naively believe the mathematics propaganda, and are either drawn into the "more intellectual than thou" mentality (these are usually the same ones who remain in academia and continue propagating the system) or resist it, and then go into the job market (often, with mixed results).

My advice to prospective mathematics majors is this: unless you are sure you want to do research or teach, and only if there is absolutely no other way to study the sorts of things that interest you, choose another major; if you decide later that you really must change, it's normally easy to switch to a mathematics major, and if after graduation you decide you really want to do research in mathematics, go to graduate school in the subject. The way undergraduate mathematics programs are run here, I would almost say that it's dangerous and irresponsible to draw such talented students away from disciplines with more direct applications to industry.

Moire

I can see a "pure math" major with no career choice besides teaching or doing research. But what about the "applied math" major? Doesn't he have more options?

BerkeleySenior

A bachelor's degree is pretty much worthless unless you majored in engineering.

By the way one of my parents majored in math (with a minor in CS)....and is now working in business.

What about working for the NSA? Or do they look more for engineers?

Math, like biology, is somewhat useless on the undergrad level. It is one of the most difficult majors but unless you want to go to academia, it doesn't really help.

csprof2000

The "pure" versus "applied" dichotomy is something that academics like to debate, but that industry almost completely dismisses as irrelevant.

Even the most applied mathematics is less applicable than the most theoretical areas of many other quantitative disciplines... theoretical physics, theoretical computer science, etc. That's the problem... mathematics is too general, not too abstract, to be worth anything to most industry applications.

csprof2000

There are options for math majors, including government work and research. However, these options are relatively limited, and are certainly not limited to mathematics majors. The real issue is that the overwhelming majority of "quantitative" jobs are out of reach to many undergraduate mathematics majors... not due to lack of skill or ability or poor decisions, but because they just chose the wrong major.

Moire

Please read reply number 23!

Were you a math a major before you became a "cs prof"?

pearlygate

wow your story reminds me of myself 2 years ago, so I can totally relate to your experience. I graduated college with a pretty good GPA (3.8) from a pretty good school. But I majored in bio sciences. I had a tough time finding a job, I ended up getting a job 3 months after graduation which pays about $14/hour (so you're better than me actually). My friends who are in CS with GPA less than 3.0 got a job 1 week after graduation with salary around $60k/year. Man I was jealous, questioned where's the fairness in all these but it made me realize life is not fair. You gotta game the system, don't be a naive idealist. You gotta grow up. Then I decided to go to school again but this time I decided to study CS. The result is pure awesomeness, I was able to get jobs easily, for this summer I have multiple offers for internship and decided to work for Google. I am pretty sure the job outlook is quite bright in the future. So my advice to you is go to school, major in CS. You're a pretty smart guy so I'm sure you can get better jobs later.

Good luck.

Moire

pearlygate, I've also thought about going back to school. But what I want to know is, how does a math major, or a bio sciences major in your case, goes back to school to study CS?

Is it a matter of going to undergraduate/graduate school to get a bachelor's/master's degree in CS? If it's the latter, what are the prerequisites? Or are we talking about taking night classes at the local state university/community college?

If you don't me asking, what school did you go to? If you don't want to say the name just say something like 'top20'.

Columbia_Student

Lots of school do not require an ug in CS for you to get a MS in CS and MS in Engineering. It may take you a little while longer to graduate than the people with UG in CS but it's possible. Please do some research.

Here is one example for CMU:

Admission - Requirements

icanread

Go to grad school and get into accounting.
Go to law school (you have a 4.0; if you get a high LSAT, I'm sure you'll get into great law schools). I heard lawyers get paid well.