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sz | 15 years ago

I was surprised to see Mathematician as #2. That contradicts everything I've read about math careers on HN.

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lmkg|15 years ago

This would make sense if they're counting Operations Research as a type of Mathematician. Those are the people who design the algorithms (not necessarily write the code) for air flight planning, supply-network chains, personnel scheduling, and most forms of resource allocation. Lots of applications in resource extraction, manufacturing, transportation, military, and infrastructure design.

This assumes that they're talking about "Mathematician" as a career, and not just what you can expect with a Math major. If you have a degree in math, you can get quite a high-paying job in a broad range of other industries (like programming and finance, also on the list) because people will just assume you're the smartest person they've ever met.

Natsu|15 years ago

> If you have a degree in math, you can get quite a high-paying job in a broad range of other industries (like programming and finance, also on the list) because people will just assume you're the smartest person they've ever met.

I do get people who assume that, especially when they hear what a CMS degree consists of, but I have yet to work out the high-paying job bit.

At work, I mostly only get to do 2D Euclidean geometry, where people seem amazed that you can find mutually tangent circles to make windows look nice.