MAA Blog: Preparing Math Majors for Careers

By: David Bressoud @dbressoud

David Bressoud is DeWitt Wallace Professor Emeritus at Macalester College and Director of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences

Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics (TPSEMath) has partnered with the Education and Employment Research Center (EERC) at Rutgers to create a series of six reports that describe what departments can do to prepare math majors for careers. One of the perennial problems that math departments face in attracting students, especially those in the first generation to attend college, is a lack of awareness of what can be done with a degree in mathematics. This is especially problematic because most of us who teach in our colleges and universities have little experience in business or industry where most of the jobs for our graduates lie.

Of course, we know that mathematics is excellent preparation for a wide variety of careers that do not specifically advertise for a major in mathematics, but pressed to list them or talk about exactly how a particular course might tie into a student’s future needs, we are often at a loss. There are resources available: MAA’s Career Resource Center, AMS’s Career Information, SIAM’s Career Resources, AWM’s Careers, ASA’s This is Statistics, and INFORMS’s Career FAQs. But attracting students to a career in mathematics requires more than pointing them to a website. There must be intentionality on the part of the department.

To discover what departments are doing, EERC surveyed two- and four-year colleges and universities as well as industries and non-profits, hearing from 219 respondents. They then followed up with 26 phone interviews. The result is six areas for action, resulting in six separate reports plus an Executive Summary that describes the high points of each of these reports. Each report contains a wealth of examples illustrating how specific colleges or universities are implementing these suggestions. The results of the EERC study, which I’ll briefly summarize here, are available at:

https://smlr.rutgers.edu/content/transforming-post-secondary-education-mathematics-research.

Practices and Policies

Foremost among everything the researchers discovered is the importance of a departmental culture that “values career preparation without compromising the academic mission.” How this culture is manifested varies greatly, but it must be recognized as part of the central mission of the department. Among the effective indicators of this culture is a commitment to connecting instruction in mathematics to real-world problems; assistance in enabling students to express an understanding of how their instruction can tie to future employment, thus positioning themselves to advocate for themselves in potential job situations; and encouragement to participate in research opportunities, internships, and conferences.

Curriculum Revision

Bringing real-world problems and connections to potential future careers into the classroom does not happen easily. It requires work from faculty who must be appropriately recognized and rewarded. This can happen at many levels. The report on Curriculum Revision delves separately into career-oriented degree programs, career-focused courses, and career-oriented activities.

Advising Strategies and Practices

Few students arrive in college with a clear idea of what they can do with a major in mathematics. This is especially true of first-generation students and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The difficulties created by this lack of knowledge are compounded by the fact that most advisors have an incomplete grasp of the options that exist in business and industry, or how students can best be prepared to take advantage of them.

One finding from the EERC research is that giving students a variety of means for exploring career options is far more effective than pointing them to a single resource. Similarly, directing students toward resources is not something that is once and done. Career advising must be ongoing. Whether advising is done within the department or in an advising center, faculty must be involved, and this requires communication and collaboration between the math department and the career service center.

Professional Development for Faculty and Staff

Two quotes that EERC gathered sum up the issues here:

It was embarrassing that some of the most exciting and important applied math was better understood by students outside the math department than by math majors. We could not, in good faith, continue to insist that learning about Euclidean domains was more important for students than learning about numerical methods of linear algebra, FFT, wavelets, optimization, probability, optimal control, reinforcement learning, and other fundamental topics of modern applied math.

Modern applied math is more about data and information, and no one was teaching that, but our students obviously need it, and math is moving in that direction.

Certainly, these needs are curricular issues, but they will not be taught without faculty who are conversant with them, and this requires opportunities and support for professional development. Interdepartmental workshops can be one vehicle for broadening faculty awareness of what is needed in other disciplines. EERC also recommends hiring faculty with experience in business or industry. My own experience is that this must be done with care. Just because someone has extensive industry experience does not necessarily mean that they know how to be an effective teacher or recognize how much effort this will take. But the right people, properly supported and encouraged, can transform a department.

Working with Alumni

This should be obvious, yet it is discouraging how poorly departments even track what happens to their alumni, much less take advantage of the ways they can support the departmental program. Again, a quote:

Tracking alumni can have huge payoffs. Bringing alumni back to campus and having them talk to students can yield job referrals. They can tell you what helped them succeed and what didn’t work in their education. Someone that is three to five years out of school can have more perspective on the job market and trends in industry than prominent faculty at a research one university. Making those connections and keeping them strong can have enormous benefits for your department.

Among the suggestions for maintaining contact with and building on the opportunities alumni provide, the report suggests alumni surveys, newsletters, faculty meetings with groups of alumni when they travel, use of social media, and events that bring alumni back to campus for panels and other forms of interaction.

Partnering with Industry

This is particularly difficult for faculty members who have no experience working in industry. Among the suggestions that arose from the EERC survey were to identify one person for whom part of the job is the creation and maintenance of ties with local industries. Joining industry professional associations can be a route in. They also suggest forming an advisory board. Again, alumni are an invaluable resource in this process. The report emphasizes that both starting and maintaining the conversation are difficult, and whoever takes this on must be suitably rewarded.

One respondent shared thoughts about how one might start:

Let’s say I’ve been dropped into a liberal arts college in, say, Ohio, where I don’t know anyone. What would I do? I might start trying to identify companies that are hiring within 100 miles and find alumni there. I can do this all through LinkedIn. The contacts are out there, it just takes the effort. And effort takes incentives. So that is where departments come in. Figure out the incentive model. Set modest goals. Do an alumni pizza lunch. Bring alumni to the career fair, reach out to students. Get them into a course that aims at math majors and have them talk to students about developing their resumes. Have them do mock interviews. Students eat it up. It empowers them.

This is just a sampling of the insights, examples, and recommendations available in these reports. This is an extremely rich resource for any department seeking to attract students and to prepare them for the workplace they will face.

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