High Paying Jobs in Math and Science?

An anonymous reader asks: "Where are the high paying jobs for those who are good in math and science? I've heard about math and science shortages for almost two decades now, and I was wondering what high salary/high demand jobs have resulted from these shortages. Most science majors I know actually make less than teachers (in Texas teachers make $38-40K to start for nine months of work). In terms of money, what career would you pursue coming out of college right now with a math or science degree?"

Scientist

[Stranger4U]

I'm a scientist working for a government subcontractor in Albuquerque (mostly for Sanida Labs and AFRL). Fresh out of school with a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Physics I started making $50K a year plus fringe benefits. To contrast, starting teachers salaries with a Master's degree are ~$30K a year.

Talent goes where the money is

[bcharr2]

Anytime I see American corporations complaining about the need to outsource labor due to a "shortage of qualified American workers" it makes me laugh to myself. It is absolutely hilarious how the same corporations who ceaselessly discuss the virtues of an open market suddenly revert when it comes to the issue of paying high enough salaries to attract qualified candidates.

The talent is always going to go where the money is. If the serious money was in math and science (instead of finance and business) then the brightest young Americans would be pursuing careers in math and science.

The tags say it all

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Get an MBA, then do something in the financial industry, which has a stranglehold on everything else to the extent of destroying progress. American corporations and government no longer care for education or REAL progress, unless it can make a buck, and even then aren't willing to reward the people who actually create that progress.

Re:Talent goes where the money is

[thechao]

I'm not so sure about that. First, I would say that many high-paying jobs in Finance/Accounting actually get a lot of `borderline' mathematicians: mathematically able people who are not interested in `pure mathematics;' the same is true for statistics, actuaries, etc. etc. I distinctly remember being stunned to find out that there were >1000 `math majors' at my undergrad, since all of my courses were invariably attended by the same 8-15 students.

As an answer to his question, I would say `anywhere.' You should start by finding the R&D (or equivalent) positions at medium/large companies. (For instance, try Minute Maid (sp?), Pepsi, etc. My best offers for math-related work came from companies similar to this; they are always looking and will train you on the job for any applied maths/statistics you will need. The cool part is running `small' experiments---say Ohio---to test market penetration models.) If you are unskilled in programming this might complicate things a bit, since most companies are going to be interested in application more than theory.

Although you probably don't want to hear it, an MS in Math would take you a lot further; specifically, if you are interested in pure research, you're going to need a doctorate. I received a surprisingly in-depth undergrad compared to most other Math majors I've met, and yet the number of topics and depth is still astoundingly larger than what I learned.

Re:Nine months... what?

[shaka999]

Yeah sure. I'll give you that the first year a teacher has a class there is extra work getting everything setup but after that things get easier. If you take a look at our local elementary school parking lot after 3 you know they aren't staying late. When I drop my son off in the morning I see them coming in so I know they aren't there early. I don't buy it.

I've also heard the "we have to take classes in the summer". I know teachers and maybe once every 5 years do they take a class.

Don't get me wrong, I value what teachers do immensely but hearing this crap all the time doesn't help the teachers cause. If teachers would ditch the unions and tenure they might start being considered professionals along with doctors/lawywers/engineers. This might allow the good teachers to actually be compensated above the average and get people into the profession.

Re:Teachers

[CastrTroy]

Not only that, but the hours are really good. Find me another job where you have 2 weeks off at Christmas, another week off for march break, and over 2 months off every summer, And you only have to work 8-4. And you get 1 hour lunch break. You also get benefits (all the teachers I know do), and you get to be part of a union, which gives you really good job security. It's a really sweet deal when you think about it. The top end is a little low, but why should experienced teachers get more money than the new teachers. They are doing the same job. They should make a little more because they have more experience, but I don't think they deserve anthing like twice as much. Otherwise you end up with the situation like with city bus drivers, where people are getting paid $70,000 to drive a bus. Sure they've been doing the job for 25 years, but that doesn't mean the are actually worth any more than the guy who's only been driving the bus for 5 years.

Re:Scientist

[megaditto]

With a BA/BS in science you can expect to roughly earn as follows fresh out of college:

Biology: $12-14/hr
Chemistry(non-oil): $18-20/hr
Physics: $20-22/hr
Mathematics: $10-12/hr
Geology/Geosci (non-oil): $16/hr
Geosci(oil): $24-40/hr

Note that these are the salaries at the start and will go up quickly if you are worth it, are willing to relocate, and shop around. If you are good but have no "experience", just focus on getting a foot in the door.

Re:Teachers

[CastrTroy]

Answer: Because they do it better

Seniority doesn't equal doing a better job. If they are in fact a better teacher, than they should get paid more. Just as the more experienced developer who's better should get paid more. However, I've seen a lot of mediocre teachers who get paid more just by the fact that they've been there longer, and not because they are any better than any of the other teachers. Just like my example with bus drivers, just because you've been doing it for 25 years, doesn't mean that you're doing it any better. You can only be so good at driving a bus. As long as you stick to the schedule, and are courteous to the riders (something missing from a lot of the older drivers), and obey the traffic laws, you are doing about as good as you can do. I don't think that a developer who's been around for 25 years deserves more than the guy who's been around for 5 if he's never upgraded his skills, and actually does a worse job than the guy who'd only been around for 5 years. I'm not against people getting paid more for doing something better. However I am against people getting paid more just from the virtue of being there a long time.

Re:I could not disagree more

[kabocox]

My next door neighbors are first generation immigrants from El Salvador. They have a three bedroom house which the two parents, three kids, his dad, her mom, share the house with two renters who live in the basement. 9 people in a 1700 square foot house! This is in one of the wealthiest counties in the States. The mom and dad have two jobs. The grandmother has a job, and the dad has occasional work on a third job. These are people who have little education and very poor English skills. They are thrilled to have the opportunity to live in this country, and they are making it happen. It's tough going, but a better deal than in Central America, and they consider it a privilege to have American citizenship. Perhaps we should, too.

Um, we could all live with 8-12 people in what we'd consider a 2-3 bedroom house without a bath. (For bath, you go to a public one down the street.) Yes, we could live like that, but we've chosen not to. I'm married with 2 kids and paying my mortage. Each of my brothers have their own homes that they are paying for each unmarried. My parents have a 4 bedroom house most likely paid for by now. Yes, all of us and some cousins could live in my parents home. That's not how our cutlure is geared for; it is generally looked down on in distaste. If you want to openly live like that, you've got to move into a neighborhood/culture where that's the accepted norm.

Re:I could not disagree more

[Marxist Hacker 42]

If *everyone* would learn to adjust their expectations about what constitutes a minimal acceptable standard of living so that they can live without debt within or - gasp - below their means - our culture would be wealthier, stronger, and better equipped to face challenges.

Exactly right. Instead, we had 20 generations of Americans where EACH GENERATION had a higher standard of living than the previous- up until the elimination of usury laws in the 1980s. Suddenly, the next generation had a lower standard of living than their parents.

Reinstate usury laws maximizing credit card and student debt at 10%, and I'd bet the easy credit would dry up- those currently paying 20% would get a break ont their debt, but they'd also never get a credit card again!

Re:Chemical Engineer, Petroleum Engineer?

[ElGanzoLoco]

Sure, the money's good - but you might end up working in some remote oilfield in the Middle East desert or - worse - offshore.

One of my friends just enrolled for a year work in a gas reprocessing field somewhere in the middle of the desert in Qatar. He's probably making well over 75,000 USD/year (his first job!!) Not hearing much from him again, but the description of the place and living conditions were just... scary.

I now live in Dubai (in a business that has nothing to do with oil and doesn't make remotely as much money) and I see these poor souls coming from Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi etc for R&R: nightclub, booze, and cheap Russian hookers (Dubai as an endless supply of all three). Some of them look really traumatized ;)

Quant Finance

[Byrneseyeview]

(Full disclosure: I'm a recruiter for IT/Quant Finance companies): If you're really interested in making money and using advanced scientific/mathematical education and experience, quant finance is definitely one way to do it. Most of the quantitative hedge funds I've worked with are pretty anti-institutional: they're trying to attract PhDs, not MBAs, so they try to run their companies like a grad school (with a seven-figure prize for a good dissertation). Stuff like this [craigslist.org] sounds like exactly what the original poster was asking for.

Unfortunately, C/C++ and (to a lesser extent) Java are the standard languages (although there's one company that uses Ocaml [janestcapital.com]), so a brilliant hacker who happens to love Ruby or Haskell or something less mainstream isn't likely to get a fulfilling role. On the other hand, these companies hire Google-quality people for several times Google's usual salaries, so it's a fair tradeoff; if you can hold onto a quant position for a few years, you'll probably never have to work again.

Re:The one you like

[Sunburnt]

I think we need to stress this point more to undergrads. Once you've made it past your second year, forget about all this literature and polisci crap and go learn something cool.

Unless, of course, you find literature or Poli Sci cool. In that case, it's time to start thinking about grad school. Here's a hint, though: unless you're a bright enough prospect that you get a funded free ride with stipend through grad school, you will not earn any money with your PhD or MA.

It's certainly possible to earn high-five/low-six figures in the humanities or social sciences (except for the truly esoteric, unfunded stuff, like Phoenician Studies), but you have to be brilliant in your field, and that means considerably more than "I know a lot about [insert field of interest here.]

Re:I could not disagree more

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That would absolutely KILL the current housing market. It would put *millions* in the street because they could no longer get credit or find an affordable apartment. I think the country would go bankrupt in short order as 70% (or more?) of the economy is consumer spending.

If we cannot figure out how to live within our means- maybe we need to have EXACTLY that happen.

Furthermore, very few people use cash anymore. All transactions are done on credit cards or similar. If you limit the credit limit to 10% of income, then suddenly credit cards become useless. Remember that in the early 80s almost no one used credit cards.

Usury is about interest rates, not about "percent of income". IF you have good credit, loans of up to 600% of income are common in the United States at high interest rates. Loans of 300% of income are easy to find for under 10% interest.

Removing these laws allowed more freedom for the consumer. It is sad that they have used this freedom to enslave themselves. Maybe it was a mistake to get away with these laws in the 80s. Maybe people in general are not as responsible as some thought :)

So you'd rather leave them in slavery than create laws that fit the responsibility level of the general population? Guess we know which side you're on.

Re:The one you like

[Lost Engineer]

University is not vocational school. Your main goal may be to get a job, but the university does not see it that way. If you graduate school and you do not know what you want to do, then you're just like most everyone else. Even the people who "know" often change their minds a few years out.

Re:Economics

[skwang]

How do you get into the stockmarket/finance line of work?

There isn't a one size fits all solution, but I would tell you to get a PhD in Physics, Math, Computer Science, or Electrical Engineering. Not because those subjects are relevant, but companies such as Goldman Sachs (finance) and McKinsey (consulting) hire PhD graduates because they are smart and can solve problems. McKinsey for instance holds "boot camps" at my university where PhD students near graduating go through rigorous interviews where their problem solving skills are evaluated. Many PhD students do not pass, but those who do are given very lucrative salaries. The major downside is that they are in high stress jobs.

Some anecdotes: 1) A colleague of mine went to McKinsey boot camp where the interviewer basically gave him a bunch of charts, tables, and graphs and asked, "These are financial data about company X. Tell me about A, B, and C." And then, "Okay, can you tell me about foo?" What are A, B, C and foo in this story? It doesn't matter, the idea is that they want people who can quickly analyze information, form conclusions, and then synthesize solutions to problems.

2) Another friend went to a Credit Suisse interview where they basically had a written exam; math, computer programming, finance. And then an oral exam where the interviewer asked brain teasers. Again, the idea is that financial companies are hiring smart people, not skilled people.

3) I went to a colloquium where a gentleman from wall street talked about options pricing and modeling said options in order to make money. He mentioned that today people with Physics, Math, and EE PhDs are in demand on wall street because they can do the complex math involved to model stock/options/commodities markets. (Interestingly, business oriented degrees such as finance and accounting are not considered for these type of jobs.) Theoretical physics winds up being preferred because Mathematicians are rarely interested in "getting their hands dirty" with real world applications.

So to answer your question, if you really want to get into this line of work, prove to companies that you are smart and a problem solver. Get a PhD in a mathematical rigorous field. But be aware that these types of profession are very high pressure. These people work long hours with short deadlines. Burn-out rates can be pretty high. Some people say you're trading a couple of years (the best years) of your life for a six-figure salary.

Re:Only a shortage for the brilliant

[ThousandStars]

There is no shortage of math and science majors. I'm nearing completion of a PhD in science, and if I could go back 6 years, I would go to law school instead.

Reading comments like this frustrates me. I attended a year of law school before realizing what apparently took you six years in getting a Ph.D. There actually *aren't* as many law jobs as you seem to think; consider this [careerjournal.com] article from the Wall Street Journal. From the article:

The legal profession is really two professions: the elite lawyers and everyone else. Most of the former start out at big law firms. Many of the latter never find gainful legal employment. Instead, they work at jobs that might be characterized as "quasi-legal": paralegals, clerks, administrators, doing work for which they probably never needed a J.D.

Although hard data about the nature of these jobs are difficult to come by (and rely on self-reporting, which is inherently unreliable), the mean salary for graduates of top 10 law schools is $135,000 while it is $60,000 for "tier three" schools. It's certainly possible that tier-three graduates tend to gravitate toward lower-paying public-interest and government jobs, but this lower salary may also reflect the nonlegal nature of many of these jobs and the fact that these graduates are settling for anything that will pay the bills.

Consider also this article [bls.gov] from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It says: "Competition for job openings should be keen because of the large number of students graduating from law school each year."

The point I'm trying to make is that there is no shortage of lawyers; there is a shortage of brilliant lawyers. For that matter, there's a shortage of brilliance in just about every field conceivable. Do you really think it's easy to go into $100K of debt to go to three additional years of school with a rapacious, hard-working group just to graduate into a profession where 60+ hour weeks is the norm, not the anomaly? Too many of the recent law grads I know tell me they wish they'd done the same thing I do.

The real truth is that the brilliant people in any field -- law, science, math -- are the ones who love their job and hence it doesn't seem like work to them and hence they're willing to go mentally further than the drudges.

All you people who are grousing at the recommendations that people do what they love should keep this in mind when you're telling people to go to law school and the like.

To the OP: This isn't directed exclusively against you, although I think you'll benefit from realizing that you're experiencing a lot of the "grass is greener on the other side" effect. Were you quitting a job in the firm rat race, you might have the same opinion about law as you presently do about your Ph.D. But maybe not -- you could always go to law school; patent lawyers genuinely are in short supply, so you could always try that. Granted, being in school till you're 35 may not appeal, but I saw people doing it. This assumes you think you'll be passionate about the law, because if you aren't, the same burnout factors affecting you today will affect you tomorrow.

Re:Economics

[daniel_mcl]

Here's my story: I am a math / English double major, and I interviewed with a trading firm at the recommendation of a friend. They asked me various questions about probability and some somewhat relevant brain-teasers -- nothing at all about the market, which at the time I knew nothing about -- and ended up offering me a job with a six-figure first year salary (that is, if I count bonuses.)

I will definitely enjoy it, but I'm only doing it because I decided that I don't really have the full complement of skills it would take to be a good mathematician -- otherwise I'd happily be entering grad school and making slave wages for next several years.