<p>Alright, I’ll give you the perspective from a math major who is graduating this spring (yay!).</p>
<p>When I was first starting college, I was incredibly in love with physics. Like, I thought we would be together forever. I changed my mind after one semester simply by taking mathematics classes. I hadn’t even taken a physics class yet. Once I had, I still liked physics. I’m one class away from a minor in it, but it’s too late to grab it. I ended up taking Quantum Physics I and II and Mathematical Physics, which don’t count for anything towards my degree. I took them simply because I liked the material. Now, am I ever going to use this stuff? It’s probably an emphatic no. I wouldn’t major in it. It’s pretty useless to major in unless you go to graduate school. This is even the advice of my physics professors. They assume you will be getting a PhD.</p>
<p>As an applied math major, I’ve sampled a lot of areas. There are parts where it’s pretty boring, there are parts that are just awesome, and there are parts where you are indifferent. To me, Operations Research I and II were the most boring subjects anyone has put before me. However, I loved Partial Differential Equations. I also loved Set Theory. I didn’t think Real Analysis was too bad and I never questioned the importance of it. I had always wanted to study it at this level of rigor. Abstract Algebra is something I always wanted to study as a teenager, but now that I’m finishing it I feel like it is a complete and utter waste of my time. No one’s ever going to ask you what the definition of a ring is as an employer.</p>
<p>Discrete math isn’t pure math. That’s child’s play and it is a joke for any good Applied Math major. I think most of the math majors I know thought the lower-division curriculum was a pretty easy. Figure out if you like pure math after you take Real Analysis. That’s really the only way I feel like you’ll know whether you really like it or not and whether you are actually talented in it. I don’t know what kind of curving goes on at your university, but it was a very tough time for most of our undergraduates. There was a curve already in place for that class and 75% of the class was still failing. The teacher had to curve a bit more and 50% ended up failing. Abstract Algebra isn’t as bad and I don’t study particularly hard for it. It’s more intuitive to come up with the proofs. I think with reasonable work ethic or just natural talent you’ll get by. I put some effort into learning the class, but it’s way more intuitive to me than Real Analysis. Although, I am currently hating it as it is pointless to me. I plan on going into an engineering career. </p>
<p>The typical destination for a pure math major at my university is going back at home and working a crap job because they couldn’t do anything useful, teaching (extremely common), and graduate school. I don’t know any pure math major that did well at the career fair we just had. I had job interviews offered the day of and had them the next day. You can do a lot with an applied math major. If you add in CS, you’ll be a golden child. I hate programming, but it is very important to be able to do it if you want to do anything useful or be taken seriously when getting a job.</p>