dark_angel said:
lol...btw superpig, what type of career are u going to go for once u complete your degree?
I have been thinking about that for quite some time. My official majors are maths and stats, although I could also claim financial maths or computational science as my major. Maths is truly universal (the same may be said of physics), so there are vastly different paths you can follow after graduation. Here are some possibilities I have been considering.
Finance - Firms and banks are looking for ppl with strong numerial background to correctly evaluate the fast growing zoo of financial products. The quantitative skills required are beyond the reach of most commerce students. My financial maths lecturer said that you don't need a great deal of commerce knowledge to work in the coporate world. A bit of coursework should be sufficient.
IT - some professional commented that some of the recent corporate and bank collapses were partly due to their IT ppl failing to recognise the statistical flaws in their databases. So graduates with expertise in both IT and stats will be in high demand. There is also increasing need for reliable finance software.
Biotech - there are currently some 6000 science and technology PhD students in Australian unis, a large fraction of them doing biomedical research. But only 200 of these 6000 ppl are doing maths/stats, and not all of them are focusing on statistical research. There is a serious national shortage of statisticians, who are needed to analyse the vast volume of biomedical data. Again, you don't need a great deal of biology or medicine in order to do the job. A few biostats courses would do.
Apart from these three, of course there is the honours -> PhD path which is quite traditional for maths graduates. And any other area where modelling skills are in high regard (government jobs, telecom, etc etc).
