Most Valuable College Majors? Think MATH!!

Forbes, the American magazine of all things business, has just published a listing of the top 15 most valuable college majors.  The listing comes from the PayScale's massive compensation database and job growth projections through 2020 from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Majors are ranked in terms of salary and career prospects. Indeed, rankings are by median starting pay, median mid-career pay (at least 10 years experience), percentage growth in pay and projected growth of job opportunities.  See  here:

15 Most Valuable College Majors 

And lo and behold?  Check out number's 10 and 11, respectively Applied Mathematics and Mathematics. Median starting salaries fresh out of college are $52,600 and $47,000, and mid-career $89,900 and $96,000, again both respectively.

Of course, at least from my perspective, Biomedical Engineering tops the list, as do a few other engineering fields.

But can you imagine the market value of an engineering or natural science degree AND a math degree? The sky's the limit, no?

Talk to me if interested....

Math in the Media - A matter of motivation, not IQ?

I am and have always been convinced that ANYONE can do mathematics if they have the proper motivation, interest, and access to good mentors and training material, at least to the levels found up to and including the first year in college.  I believe that ineffective education and cultural and societal biases are reasons why mathematics education has a mystique about is as something less than the primer coat of all higher level thinking.

So articles on studies like that mentioned here in a Scientific American article

Like Math?  Thank Your Motivation, Not IQ, 

by Tia Ghose and Live Science, are quite refreshing to read.   

To me, the findings are not surprising.  It just seems perfectly natural that a person's motivation to learn a skill is extremely important to their ability to master it.  More important than intelligence?  Ahhh....  Read the article.    

Math in the Media - Cowlicks and Hurricane Eyes

Ever wonder why babies have cowlicks (that spot on their head where the hair just doesn't want to follow any particular direction)?  If the time of the day depends on your time zone, then how does one determine the time at the North Pole?  How come hurricanes have "eyes"?

The answer, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) is mathematical in nature.  More specifically topology.  For a glimpse of why, read today's New York Times article:

Singular Sensations

by Steven Strogatz.  A fun article, with the promise of a lot more in the future.  Give it a read.

One thing you will start to find.  We as mathematicians see our craft everywhere, in basically ALL places.  Math really is the exposure of logical structure, regardless of the context.  But it takes talent to expose that math in an engaging way to someone not trained to see it.  Mr. Strogatz has talent.

Happy reading.   

Rest in Peace, Bill Thurston....

A great mathematician, and my professional grandfather (he was the thesis advisor of my thesis advisor), died some days ago.  William Thurston, a pioneering mathematician is many areas, whose contributions not only spanned many areas of mathematics but tied disparate topics together through geometry, fell to cancer at the age of 65.

I only met him and saw him speak a few times, but all of my work is to be considered "thurston-esque" in that it plays on the tools and ideas he exposed and developed.  I remember distinctly early on in my thesis research struggling to understand what was going on in one of his papers, yet feeling the fascination and joy in the slow but steady comprehension.  Every mathematician, like every writer and artist, has a style about them.  Not just a style in the way they write but a style in the way they think, perceive, and present.  I see that style in the "children" of Bill Thurston, people like Benson Farb, Richard Canany, Lee Mosher, Yair Minsky, Martin Bridgeman, and my advisor Bill Goldman.  They seem to see mathematics the way a child views a carnival: full of wonder and joy, fasinated with each new discovery, and simply happy to be a part of the whole scene.

Of course, this is a huge loss for the mathematics world.  But his contributions even up to now will continue to percolate through the outer edges of what is known and what is yet to be discovered.  And his attitude, his style, as seen through his descendents, will certainly live on.

Rest in Peace, Bill Thurston.  The community will miss you.  And we thank you dearly for your thoughts.

Wikipedia entry 

Christian Perfect's Aperiodical Blog Entry

Math in the Media: Math Food?

One of the more basic and interesting shapes (spaces) in mathematics is the torus.  We typically describe is as the surface of a doughnut or bagel.  That it is mathematically different from the surface of a ball is a good entry point for a lay explanation of some fun higher mathematics. 

Speaking of a bagel, here is an interesting video on a way to mathematically play with your food:

A Mathematically Correct Breakfast

Buon appetito!!!

A Find: In Praise of Lectures

Currently vogue in internal university discussions involving education is the idea that the standard lecture format for a course is not the most effective means to educate students.  We here at Hopkins are quite interested in understanding better how serve our entering students in the large-lecture courses we call Gateway Science courses (Our study of this issue here at Hopkins is appropriately called the Gateway Science Initiative.  Also, you can read a JHU-centric white paper on this issue).  I am on the Steering Committee studying this issue.  There is a lot of talk about active learning, and other alternatives to inspire students who do not benefit from the simple instructor-led lectures.

I definitely agree with the idea that the classroom experience could benefit from a purposeful study of how our students acquire knowledge and an active design approach to how we teach.  However, I was always a bit troubled by some of the criticism leveled at the standard lecture format.  I love lecturing, feel comfortable in leading a classroom this way, and see great value in the experience.

It turns out I am not alone.  Thomas Korner, a mathematician in Trinity College at Cambridge University, has written a defense of the lecture format:

In Praise of Lectures

 I find this essay particularly inspiring.  Give it a read.  It definitely says things that I strongly agree with.

Math in the Media: To save this math class, we must destroy it!

Words failed me (mostly) when I read this article today in the Washington Post:

At Virginia Tech,  Computers Help Solve a Math Class Problem

It is a common problem that the transition from high school mathematics courses to those at university can be quite difficult to make.  Even in courses whose content is basically the same, like Calculus AB in the AP system and what most universities call Calculus I, the treatment of that content is much different here at the university.  Of course, students sometimes do not do well.  And I am sure that sub-standard teaching from some of us up here may be a part of it.  We need very much to analyze how we teach and learn to do a better job!  And many of us are.  IN fact, here at Hopkins, we are devoting a LOT of resources precisely to this problem of how to better and more comprehensively educate our incoming students.

But to help cure the "problem" of not-high-enough passing rates by essentially removing instructor face-time from teaching!?!  That is patently absurd in my book.

Mathematics is absolutely NOT about learning a few techniques to apply to standard problems set up to test those techniques, which is exactly what many unit-based, worksheet driven, math courses seem to be like pre-college level.  Porting that type of course to the university level may in fact raise passing rates.  But without the ability to study nuanced mathematical ideas and relationships via discussion and debate (think Socrates), one never learns how to THINK mathematically.  Only to calculate.

Maybe that is what VTech is looking for.  I, for one, am not.