pr022x

I was wondering if there were any (hopefully well-paying) Careers in Math or Computer Science that involve a minimal amount of statistics. I know i haven't done TOO much research, but most of the math careers i've seen are very statistics heavy.
I guess, for some insight: I enjoy math competitions (USAMO contestant score 14 this year), especially the problem solving aspect.

Note: Although this is the "Science Majors" forum I don't mind if you answer with subsets of engineering if it's your best answer.

Thanks!

terenc

Where did you get the idea that lot's of math jobs involve statistics? I've never heard that.

Also, statistics (at least the introductory type) is simple and almost trivial compared to broader types of math (especially the type of math for USAMO). Since you seem to be excellent at math, stat shouldn't be a problem at all.

Many computer software jobs do not involve statistics, anyway. Those that do deal with relatively simple stat concepts.

b@r!um

How about math-heavy areas of computer science? Computational geometry, graphics, sound, numerical/high speed computing, machine learning (statistical methods are best for some problems but there are definitely non-statistical methods too).

b@r!um

Most math in business and the social sciences is statistics.

terenc

^Those jobs are not necessarily "math" careers. They are "social science" careers.

Statistics is, however, the most useful branch of math in the social sciences.

Mokonon

Much of machine learning is basically applied statistics.

b@r!um

I think that finance people, actuaries and econometrics have more in common with statisticians than with social scientists, but you are free to disagree with me.

csh123

Statisticians receive unwanted hype. There are essentially no jobs for statisticians (look it up on indeed.com). Statistics is basically a tool just like any programming language is a tool.

GLOBALTRAVELER

Hey...embrace statistics.

I was a math/CS major who almost graduated without single stats course. My advisor MADE me take a stats course my last semester saying "I know what the manual says but I am not letting get out of here without a stat course". Stats was not that hard and I ended up taking 4 stats courses for my M.S. Engineering degree.

Still, there are many math/CS jobs that do not involved statistics.

Blobof

Unwanted hype? I believe you meant "undeserved" hype, and you're not thinking very hard if all you're looking for is "statistician" on some job search site (which I had never heard of).

Statistics are tools, but not just like "any programming language", they're tools like "computer programming" in the general sense is a tool. They aren't many jobs for COBOL code-monkeys anymore, but there are plenty of jobs for computer programmers. If you know how to program, the programming language is almost moot. If you know statistics, learning SAS, R, Stata, SPSS or whatever is something minor to figure out.

But anyway, there are still plenty of nonstatistics-heavy computer/math jobs. They're usually in the computationally heavy/numerical modeling realm, doing integrals in low-enough dimensions that it's best done deterministically. Of course, the job title may not be specifically "numerical analyst".

pr022x

b@r!um said: How about math-heavy areas of computer science? Computational geometry, graphics, sound, numerical/high speed computing, machine learning (statistical methods are best for some problems but there are definitely non-statistical methods too).
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Do you have any idea what career that falls under? (And pays well perhaps?)