Much Ado About a Math Degree
So I have two more finals Tuesday afternoon and then I’m done for this semester. I really am glad. While I love my major and can’t get enough math, I fear my brain may be near it’s breaking point. If I have to spend one more hour sitting in front of a blank page just thinking about how I’m going to go about the problem at hand without actually writing a single thing, I think my cranium may have a small explosion that will send numbers, functions, derivatives, and integrals across the room.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately, now that I’m only a year away from my graduation, about what the hell I’m actually going to do with my degree. Though I’ve been trying to avoid even thinking about it since I became a math major, it seems being an actuary may not be so bad. It’s consistently rated as one of the top 10 best jobs in America (Link 1, Link 2), with a median salary of about $75K (more than an engineer, according to USNews) that often reaches six figures. If there’s one thing I know about my future job, it’s that I want it to be challenging, without being stressful. I don’t want to go into work everyday feeling like zombie.
So we’ll see. I’ll have to do some more looking into it and talk to an advisor.
I’m also going to take a class on cryptography next semester, see how I like that. ASU offers a “Cryptology Program”, though there is no official title like “B.S. in Mathematics with a concentration in Cryptology.”
That’s all for this update. I have to go eat the delicious dinner Sue just slaved away over.
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