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LenielJerron @lemmy.world
Posts 1
Comments 24
"Gatekeeping" is when you don't think "Dragonfucker" is a gender
  • Yeah. The benefit of the decentralized fediverse is that individual smaller communities can enforce standards like this that may be unreasonable to enforce on something much larger-scale.

    You're allowed to vehemently disagree with my lifestyle choices and think that what I do and say is dumb and stupid. And there are environments where discourse calling me out for what you think is stupid is welcome. But clearly, blahaj is not that space. Most of the internet is a space where those who use neopronouns have to fairly constantly defend their use of them, and blahaj seems to have been created very specifically to be a place where such constant vigilance is unnecessary for their users.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • While this does sound interesting, right now I'm largely asking so that I can formulate a generic backup plan rather than a specific backup plan. If I can avoid having to leave the program I will; and I'll only know if I'm being forced out in either August or September of 2025 (which I think is a little bit later than it sounds like you're looking for). I may reach out again at a later date if that's okay.

    Thanks a ton for letting me know about this though.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • I'll give it a shot. My undergrad's career center was basically worthless for me (the one piece of advice that they would give out is, 'make an account on HandShake', and then they did nothing else productive), but maybe at a larger school it will be better.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • Looking at my calendar from this past semester I was in 3 courses, which each met for 3 hours had 8-10 hours of homework each week. I attended 4 weekly seminars (1 of which I was helping organize; two of which I presented in some weeks). I taught one course which met for 4 hours, double that for class prep. I had 5 hours regularly scheduled in the tutoring center, plus an office hour. I'm slow at grading, so it often took me 4-6 hours per week. Plus an hour a week for my advising meeting, and we're at 60 hours before I even begin talking about when I'm doing my own research - I typically try to devote my weekends and also Thursday afternoons in their entirety to either reading math books of interest to me or papers of interest to me (I do the rest of that stuff MTWF).

    So it's not quite 90 hours a week every week. There are weeks when the tutoring lab was shortstaffed so I needed to pick up an extra three hours there. There were times when I would proctor a 3-hour exam. There were lots of severe injuries in my department this semester so I've covered people's classes too. So there were a lot of 90 hour work weeks just due to the structure of everything, but I guess saying that every week is a 90 hour week is an exaggeration. I don't think I've worked fewer than 75-80 hours a week all semester though.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • Paul Erdos got his PhD in mathematics when he was 20 years old. If you wanted to name a famous academic without a PhD, you should have gone with Freeman Dyson.

    But yes, I need to not starve to death in case I need to leave my program. That's why I mentioned jobs.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • How broadly do you dislike programming?

    After undergrad, it seemed like I had two career paths. I could either apply for PhDs in mathematics, work 90 hours a week for 19k/year in a state a thousand km away from anyone I've ever known; or I could have tried for a cushy entry-level coding job making 6 figures starting salary in an area close to all my friends from undergrad, and working something normal like 40 hours a week. I chose the former.

    I am currently doing what little coding I currently am in an effort to get it over and done with ASAP. My plan is to never write another line of code again once I'm done with my numerical analysis courses.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • In undergrad I did a project on harmonic analysis and wavelets, with some attention having been paid to the signal processing applications. (And by that I mean I learned enough to say 'this has applications in the fields of signal processing and image compression' in the abstract). But at this point it's years ago and I don't remember too much.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • I took seven computer science courses as an undergraduate, including three that were programming courses designed for people who would go on to be professional programmers (intro, intermediate, advanced programming). I also took other CS courses that included programming components. Every single task that was just, "please program tetris" or something of that sort, I loathed every second of it.

    I will not like programming.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • Introductory QM is for undergrads, who also know next to nothing about QM, and I'd bet there are plenty of profs who'd like to unload that job and get back to their desks

    Yes, so the job would be given to physics grad students. Which I do not know enough physics to apply to be.

    If I'm in a position where I'm being thrown out of my grad program with just a masters, I'm not then going to turn around and say, "well, time to do it all over again, this time with a field I'm less passionate about!"

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • I will never work for an insurance company. And just saying "the government" is so vague and nebulous as to be meaningless; at least in the US where I am I think it's mostly either military/'defense' stuff, or essentially spying on people. Neither of which I'm comfortable doing.

    I've never heard of random facilities, but it warrants looking into given all of the things that you've mentioned. I'm not interested in all of these things, but it definitely sounds like it has a lot more to offer than most other "mathy" jobs. You also say "more abstract things like proofs", but proofs are the entirety of what math is if you have a math degree.

    Electrical engineering is its own discipline, separate from math. Unless I go back to undergrad and study EE from scratch, I will never be competitive in that job market against people who have specialized degrees in it.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?
  • I don't know quantum physics though. It involves a lot of math, but it also involves a lot of physics which I don't know. It's something that I'd like to learn at some point, but right now I just don't have the available bandwidth to learn it - and I definitely can't teach something I don't know.

  • What jobs can you get if you dropped out of a PhD in math with an MS?

    Hi,

    I'm a second-year PhD student in mathematics at a large university in the US. I really like the research group that I'll be working with; my advisor is great. The issue is, we have strict requirements for quals, and I'm teetering right on the edge of being forced out of the program. I have two more attempts, but afterwards, that's it. And I'm also really bad at the whole test-taking thing, so I don't like my odds.

    So, as a young person with an MS in mathematics, what exactly would the options be for me outside of academia? If I flunk out, I want to have some idea in mind for what I can do. My interests in math have always tended towards the more abstract (functional analysis and dynamical systems); it's the quals in either PDEs or numerical analysis (the applied subjects) that are messing me up.

    My PhD is stressful and anxiety-inducing, but at least it gives me purpose and direction in life. This time last year after I failed first year PDEs I wound up in a psychiatric ward. So, I want to know what possible options there are so that I don't end up in the same situation. I have issues with a lot of the "standard" options for industry mathematicians though:

    • I utterly despise programming. I can not think of a more miserable, dreary existence than becoming a professional programmer, or working in the tech industry and having to code regularly. I know how to do it. I'm doing as much as I need to to study numerical analysis to get that qual over with so I can go on to things in math that I want to do; and in undergrad I double majored in math and CS. But I just can't do it 8 hours a day every day for the rest of my life, and this is a lot of what people recommend.

    • I don't want to work in one of those white-collar banking stock brokering environments. From undergrad I know the sorts of people that those places are filled with, and they are not really people that I've ever been able to get along with. Even teaching "math for business majors" my students made me feel uncomfortable at times. (Plus, there are people with specialized degrees in these fields who would be better for them; plus, again, those jobs seem to be coding and solving PDEs). In particular I've been personally fucked over by the insurance industry enough that I will never work there.

    • I could try to go into teaching I suppose. I've quite enjoyed it, and I get good reviews. But, aside from my TA duties here, I have no formal qualifications. My understanding is that most places require an advanced degree specific to teaching in order to be a teacher, and I don't think I can put myself through more years of graduate school coursework just to go for my consolation-prize career.

    • I can't easily fall back on my family for support. We are not on speaking terms.

    It's an absolute long-shot, but are there any careers that feel like the research part of grad school, but without the stuff that's miserable about it (the coursework and bureaucracy)? Money is not an issue for me at all. If I can get over the hurdle of early-on coursework and quals, I will live a far more fulfilling life in grad school making 19k/year than I would as a wall-street tech CEO investor. But that's far from a guarantee at this point, and I just don't even know where to begin looking for any jobs at all I would want to do outside of academia.

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