Career path advice for an incoming college student?

[ProgressiveModerate]

In just a few weeks I will be starting college. At my school, I have a lot of freedom and don't need to choose a major until the start of Junior year (I'm going in undeclared). I know I have ability and interests in different areas of mathematics and am generally just more of a STEM person. I also know that economic stability and ideally, economic freedom is important to me; if I ever have kids I feel it is my duty to offer them economic stability before I bring them into the world.

I know there are a lot of discussions around doing what you love for work vs doing something that will give you the money to do what you love outside of work. There are also discussions around if AI threatens to replace or at least consolidate STEM jobs that were previously seen as irreplaceable.

Part of my conflict is that a lot of the jobs that are the most well-paying (anything related to finance) are often discussed as being particularly cutthroat, boring, and toxic. I know for myself, I have a strong work ethnic and as an autistic person often enjoy monolithic "boring" things, however, I also don't want my work to surround me in a toxic culture, especially one where I may be at a disadvantaged or "used" become I'm autistic.

How would you recommend I go about exploring different career paths at college and how should I evaluate "economic opportunity" different paths present? What is the balance between enjoying work and making money; can you have both?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Wow, thank you for all the responses! The general sense I get from this is that the major itself isn't as important as who you are and what you want to do (unless it's smtg where you need a specific degree like doctor). I feel a lot less pressure to "figure myself out" my Freshman year.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I find your posts invariably polite and sensitive and well considered. So in that sense, at least in the written word, you are sensitive to others, so I would work on your self confidence to work well with others, through therapy or otherwise, because on that front I think you might be selling yourself short.

All the best. i am rooting for you. You have earned it, in all ways, from my perspective.

Thankl you man. Def been trying to work on my confidence irl and have seen improvements, though i think it's a process that takes a while but once you're confident, it's easier to stay confident. I think confidence deep down is mostly just how you see your self; the more I am happy of and sure of myself, the more confident I will be. Ofc, you want to be careful not to become arrogant, but I right now don't think that's really my problem.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Take time off if you're still not sure of what to study after your first year. The college experience is an infantilizing one for many students, and you may need to look elsewhere to learn what you thrive on as adult.

Don't take anything that your professors tell you about career paths on trust. It's good to spend some time with them, but not too much. Many will be out of touch with the realities of work for recent graduates.¹ It's better to hear from practitioners firsthand, and it's especially useful to hear from people at various career stages.

Also be careful about trusting graduates who show up for department events, if that's something that happens at your school. Many of them will be there because they view these occasions as professional networking opportunities, and they won't necessarily answer your questions honestly in this context. That's not to say that you can't gain anything from the exchange, but they are there to sell something.

Above all else, be brutally honest with yourself. Recognize your strengths and weaknesses. There can be a huge difference in what makes sense for a median student compared to a 90th percentile student, let alone a 99th or 99.9th percentile one.

My experience with people on the spectrum is that they are either uncannily good at playing organization politics or extremely bad at it. Know which kind you are. If you are in the latter category, know how to make yourself useful to people who can protect you. This is the reality of a diminishing white collar job market. It's not enough to know how to build things, you also need to know how to protect yourself.

¹This is another reason why broader, intellectually challenging majors like math are better than narrower, intellectually diluted majors with a career focus. There is a clearer divide between clergy and laity.

Thank you for this response! This is interesting because a lot of what I hear is about how it's important to develop close relationships with professors in college and network, but ig you're saying to not over-do it and be more skeptical and ideally selective with who can actually add potential value to your network.

I'd say for myself, I've always been relatively good at communicating with people below me and people above me, but struggle with people at my level.

In school for instance, I was never that great at socializing with peers in my grade (though I'd say decent for an autistic person), but I was selected by my teachers to receive scholarships despite not even having the best grades and was often used as the "example" in class (basically a teachers pet), and was also very good at interacting with people a few grades below me in tutoring them and stuff. Many people have said I should become a teacher lol.

Obv HS isn't going to be representative of an actual job I could see myself doing a good job at pleasuring my superiors and those below me even as the rest of my team thinks I'm a bit awkward.

[ProgressiveModerate]

If you don't know what you want to do and you like math, then major in math. A math major is as strong a signal of general aptitude as you can get from a college major. Also study other things in college if you want (personally I had a couple other majors in addition), but taking that step will do a lot to make you employable without committing yourself in any particular direction.

This is good advice, but as a person who ended up with a math degree for this reason, I'll add that you should be ready for math classes that at some point depart very seriously from what you learned in high school. Specifically, one or both of abstract algebra or elementary analysis. Even before then, whatever your introductory class in constructing proofs may be difficult. Of course it's always possible that it comes naturally to you, but these classes are notoriously difficult because they reach levels of abstraction that undergrads have likely never seen before. It's a true trial by fire and it can do serious damage to your self-esteem if you are used to cruising through calculus based on intuition or having quick mental math skills.

In general I'll add that a math professor told me once "you typically don't truly understand what was going on in a math class until the semester after you take it." I had a number of classes like this and it's a philosophy I adopted whenever I've had to work with non-statisticians on their statistical techniques. Often you'll get a working understanding of what you're doing that is sufficient to pass the class but won't really be able to do it until you've had more than a semester's worth of practice.

Haven't checked this thread in a while but I def resonate with this so far.

For my first semester, I'm taking an advanced number theory class where we have to do all these abstract sorts of proofs using mods, fibonnacci numbers, polynomials, ect, ect, though it's quite interesting. I think the difference is HS math is mostly close-ended using formulas to get one right answer whereas there are many ways you can prove something and you have to be somewhat creative. Def more work than any HS class and probably the most demanding of all my current college classes, but I enjoy it quite a bit and got a 28/30 on the midterm!

Right now I'm stuck on a problem where we have to prove the double angle formula using Fibonacci numbers and I'm mad confused, but what's nice is the professor grades the homework based on if you did work that at least shows you were seriously considering the problem even if it's ultimately incorrect, and then we review some of them in class.

I would say generally I've gotten a bit of a self-esteem hit academically across the board in college, but not catastrophic rn.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Remember to have fun, too. Usually undergraduate years are the best time for it

Def something I struggled with in HS, though I often think the mainstream college culture of getting black out drunk and just doing crazy stuff all the time isn't good, but I've def been able to find some nice people at college.

Still though, the fact you're seen as "less than" by such a large subset of students just because I don't want to do illegal things.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Update:

I'm almost done with my first semester, and so far with the classes I've been exposed to def still leaning towards a math major. The courseload was tricky but at least for this class the homework was at least somewhat interesting. Next it's what time of math; pure, applied, or stats (or a combo). I would prolly be more inclined towards applied or stats but I want to take more classes to find out.

I plan on taking Modern Algebra next semester which should be fun.

[ProgressiveModerate]

From what I've heard a job that lets you make the world a better place/help people is often more meaningful than one with a lot of money.

Gonna push back on this one a bit.

Only take jobs that "make the world a better place" if that is truly where your heart is. Many of those jobs entail poor pay and high levels of stress/frustration, if not both.

There's no shame in getting a job that is just your 9-5 and pays the bills. You can make the world a better place and help people with the time, money, and stability that your boring job provides you.

For example, I'm an accountant at a bank. There's absolutely nothing sexy about this. Nobody tells their parents that they want to be an accountant when they are a child. Accounting is pretty dry and not very exciting, but it's something I am good at, I can tolerate it, and it pays me well. I make well above the median personal income and have a very high degree of job security and financial stability. It's this stability that gives me the peace of mind, free time, and money that allows me to volunteer at a homeless shelter and food bank, be active in a political party, partake in a neighborhoods activism group, and donate time, money, food/clothing, materials, and effort to various causes.

I know a lot of good people who went into careers like journalism, public policy, academia, nonprofits, psychology, healthcare, politics, etc. that entail making the world a better place, helping people, steering society, etc. to various degrees and many of them are honestly miserable. It's your life, day and night, and you have no break from it. You cannot escape it.

This is why I am fine with my life choice as an accountant. It's a 9-5 that pays the bills and enables me to do what I want outside of work, and gives me stability. There are days when I hate it, but when I sit back and think about my life, I am satisfied that I can do what I want with my life outside of work and get involved in things that interest me without it burning me out or me resenting my own passions.

There's absolutely no shame in doing the same for yourself.

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer on work life balance. For some people, it's worth it to take a less appealing job to make more money to have more financial stability and better experiences outside of work. For others, it's more worth it to enjoy work at the possible expense of other life experiences. To be honest, it probably takes a few years of actually having a job and living an independent life to figure this out for oneself. Furthermore, it could change throughout life depending on circumstances (i.e. getting married, having children).

But also these things aren't necessarily always mutually exclusive; there def are some cases where pursuing what you love does actually lead to very good money. If you enjoy the work your doing, chances are you'll be more effective/better than average at that thing because it's not a burden and you enjoy learning more about it.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Update: Semester is almost over; 2 finals left.

I mentioned this in another thread but I did get some funding for doing research actually on some election related stuff which is p cool.

I’m also currently looking at internships for this summer. From what I’ve heard though, it’s generally p hard to get internships as a college Freshman and generally it doesn’t matter if you get an internship this summer - worst case I’ll make some money off of tutoring.

Def strongly leaning towards (applied) math major. Rlly like the teachers I’ve met so far and generally a degree that allows you to persue a wide range of careers.

Two of the biggest things I want to work on next semester are joining more campus clubs and start building a relationship with my schools career office.

Over winter break, I want to set up a Roth IRA and a Fidelity Account. Since money compounds, saving one or two grand now can be very powerful in the future. Also allows me to have a rainy day backup especially if the job market is rough when I leave college. And while I did get good aid, I know I will still have some student loans, so paying those off (especially any high interest ones) as soon as possible is going to be important to me.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Provided you're high-speed, most college internships will almost assuredly snag you a job after you graduate.   I don't know where I'd be today without my internship during my undergrad years.

Ye, but I still have 3 summers. From what I've heard in modern times it's basically impossible for Freshman to get good internships unless you are very well connected and/or a genuine genius. This is because internships are often attempt by companies to get those folks to work for them after college, so upperclassmen are far more desireable.

If I don't get an internship this summer, I will do tutoring to make some money as well as work on research project, which will still contribute to my resume

[ProgressiveModerate]

Provided you're high-speed, most college internships will almost assuredly snag you a job after you graduate.   I don't know where I'd be today without my internship during my undergrad years.

Ye, but I still have 3 summers. From what I've heard in modern times it's basically impossible for Freshman to get good internships unless you are very well connected and/or a genuine genius. This is because internships are often attempt by companies to get those folks to work for them after college, so upperclassmen are far more desireable.

If I don't get an internship this summer, I will do tutoring to make some money as well as work on research project, which will still contribute to my resume

Don't know how it's like in the private sector, since my internship was in the federal guvmint (If I recall, you have to be at least a junior to be considered for a paid STEP, or whatever they're called now)

The only downside about interning with the federal government is that there is no such thing as a "fast-track" to a job upon graduation, so it literally takes MONTHS after graduation to find out if you snagged a full-time position--because you had to compete with every single Tom, Dick, and Harry in the general public for an entry-level GS-9 even at an agency where you worked at for 9-12 months in college.

I spent many sleepless nights applying for grad school or gay stuff like the FBI (things I really didn't want to do), because of that state of uncertainty.  But yes, the moment I received that tentative offer, I got down on my knees and thanked Mormon Space Jeebus.

Ik my parents have mentioned I consider working in the federal government for something like CIA or FBI. They argue that Government jobs generally provide a better sense of long-run stability than the private sector, and you're also less likely to encounter some of the nastier forms of office politics. However, the downside is often these jobs don't pay as much as private sector jobs of simillar skill demands. From your experience would you say this is true?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'd be curious if anyone on here is or has experience with Quants?

Given math tends to be my strong point, at face value this seems like an interesting career path since from my understanding, it's basically using high level math to optimize the financial market.

I know it's a career that is often very, very well compensated, however, actually becoming a Quant is extremely difficult, and even once you are a Quant, it sounds like there isn't always great career stability. Furthermore, being a Quant can be quite taxing with places like Citadel and Jane St often having a very competitive workplace culture. Still, if being a Quant doesn't work out, it's usually easy to transfer to adjacent fields like CompSci, Data Science, and Accounting.

Thoughts on Quants?