Before we begin the process of outlining each of the four paths and the jobs they contain, we want to offer one particular piece of advice that many of our clients have told us was immensely helpful. It is based on an important distinction between contextual skills and portable skills. Contextual skills are those that are particular to the industry in which you are working. For example, if you are an operations research analyst working in aircraft production, you can't help but learn a tremendous amount about how aircraft are built. That information is part of the context of your employment. But, consider the limitations of that knowledge, for example, if you change jobs and move to a job for a manufacturer of small motor equipment (snow blowers, chain saws, lawnmowers, etc.). You can't do much with that contextual information about aircraft.
What you can take with you to your new employer are your portable skills. Portable skills would include your critical thinking skills and your ability to diagnose problems, "What's wrong with this assembly line production setup?" Your ability to conduct a needs assessment is a portable skill. "Tell me about what happens when the production line goes down and what you have to do to bring it back up." Your abilities to listen, design new systems, test prototypes, or build feedback systems are all examples of portable skills. It's these portable skills that you'll be able to bring to any new job you may taken the future.
Take advantage of the opportunities your employer gives you to learn portable skills. If computer training is offered, take it. If there's a chance to learn a new job through cross training, grab it. Think about your resume right now. Think about taking one of the many jobs in any of the chapters that follow and working at that job for a year or two or three. How will your resume change? What new talents will you be able to document? How will new employer be able to measure your success in your previous job?
The Math Job You Know Best: Teaching
If you love your math studies, it's probably going to happen (if it hasn't happened already) that at some time during your college career you are going to ask yourself, "Could I teach mathematics?" Your math teachers have obviously played an important role in stimulating your interest and enthusiasm for math over your years of schooling, and many of those teachers probably conveyed to you some of their excitement about the possibilities and rewards of a teaching career.
If you could return and talk to some of those teachers, you find they'd tell you that good teaching (math or anything else) is about communicating to your students. Wave all had teachers who knew their subject but somehow couldn't get it across. It's the "getting it across" part that will be your challenge in this career. Some of the ingredients for success will be genuinely appreciating your students and understanding where they are and what they need right now Creativity is also important, if you are to engage your students' imagination and sense of fun and adventure as they explore new math concepts. Planning is also a critical skill. If students are going to succeed after they leave your class that means you have to accomplish certain goals. If you're teaching Algebra I, you need to cover everything students will need before they enrol in Algebra II with a different teacher. That takes many hours of planning, mapping out your lesson plan strategy to get from September to June and not leave anything out!
Please don't fool yourself into thinking that a teaching career is static, you'll see that a career teaching mathematics is vital, ever changing, and newsworthy. Right now, the country is very concerned with the sharp drop off in math and science interest among young women during the junior high school years. There have been some exciting new initiatives in curriculum, schools, and teaching interventions to correct this problem, but there are still lots to do. You could be part of that change.
The Jobs That Can't Be Done Without A Math Degree; Math As A Primary Job Skill
This article is a look at four possible career paths that require math as a primary job skill: actuary, mathematician, statistician, and operations research analyst. All four of these paths and the many jobs each path represents will not only use every bit of the math you've acquired thus far, but demand more and more of you. If that's an exciting prospect, then you'll want to give this article a close reading and then follow up by investigating both the jobs that we cite and the sources of information listed for each career.
Overhand over, you'll see that each of the four paths emphasizes working with teams, collaboration, and a need for the ability to explain and teach things to those who don't have a math background or vocabulary.
In fact, superb communication skills surface again and again. It's funny, many people don't associate being an accomplished mathematician or scientist with being a skilled communicator. Think of the physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking, or the late Dr. Carl Sagan, who have done so much to help us understand the mysteries of math and science. Dr. Alexander Wiles of Princeton University, whose quest to solve Pierre de Fermat's notoriously difficult formula has become popular reading and TV fare for many who otherwise would not approach the subject of prime numbers, or, if they did, would not expect that they could understand it in the way these books and films help us to.
