Presentation Outline

At this stage, my research has been within my own major. I have looked around in my field to find things that interest me, and jobs that hire math majors. I do not yet have specific sources for my evidence, as my research has mostly been questioning my peers, but, I do have a better idea now, of what I want to do with my degree than I have all the way up to this point. Here is my preparation outline:

Preparation Outline

Topic: Math as a major, what to do with it?

Purpose: To inform audience of the many ways that math affects current events, and their everyday lives.

I-Introduction: Story of how people react when I share with them that I am a math major. Include
short humorous imitation of the questions I am always asked, including: “Are you going to be a
teacher?” and inevitably, “What do you want to do with that?”

A-Statement of Topic: In fact there are a lot of things that I can do with a degree in math. Math
is all over, we encounter it every day. After all, math is just manipulating numbers, and there are many careers that could use someone skilled in such things.

B-Signposts: Although I have not yet decided exactly what I want to be when I grow up, there
are three different areas of emphasis I can choose from. Each of these areas would manifest themselves in current events in different ways. I am going to tell you a little about each of these areas, and answer the question; “What can you do with a math major?” once and for all.


Transition: There are three different areas of focus within the math major, that I have considered, the first area of emphasis, is finance. How greatly this area of the math major is affecting all of us right now is unbelievable.


II-Body

A- The area of finance is on everyone’s mind right now. We cannot always predict the overall market, but we can protect ourselves through sound financial planning. This is what I would want to do.
1- Transition: Protecting ourselves financially can be something a math graduate can help us with, another way we can protect ourselves is through insurance. Life insurance companies are another area that looks for math majors.
B- Statistics majors can often find jobs working for ins. companies assessing risk, and determining the amount to charge in order to cover the pay out. This is something I would find interesting.
1- Transition: Statistics is a large field within math, and Ins. companies widely use graduates in this area, another field in which math majors are widely used is computer programming.
C- Computer programming is not always done by computer science majors. This area also hires and uses math majors. Math majors can emphasize in computer science and gain some of the same education in technology as computer science majors do, in addition to their math background.
1- Transition: Programming is only one of the other fields that math majors can enter.

III-Conclusion: Finance, statistics and computer science are three areas that I have considered within the math major. However, these are only three small examples of jobs or fields that are available to me as a math graduate. So to answer the forever question; yes, there are many careers that look for math majors, and no, I am not going to be a teacher. There is a lot more out there for math majors than teaching; many jobs, that affect each one of us, are being performed by mathematicians. Including financial planners, ins. statisticians, and computer programming.