Photo: Tungsten (Public domain)
Job description
A typical semester means preparing and delivering lectures on topics like linear algebra or differential equations, then writing and grading the exams that test whether it stuck. Professors also maintain student records, revise their courses and materials over time as the field or their own approach evolves, and select textbooks and other materials for their classes. Many split their time between teaching and research, and either way they're expected to stay current by reading new literature, talking with colleagues, and attending professional conferences.
Pros
- Relatively large field with 4,400 positions nationwide, more openings than many academic specialties
- Steady, moderate growth (2.3%) roughly in line with overall job market trends
- Less team-bound work environment, offering more autonomy in course design and research
Cons
- Above-average hours, expect more than a standard 40-hour work week
- Requires a PhD, a lengthy and often low-paid path through graduate school
- Pay tops out around $139k, modest relative to industry roles in quantitative fields
A typical day
The 9am calculus lecture is a performance honed across years: two hundred students, and the professor builds the derivative's chain rule from a story about compound change, cold-calling gently, reading the room's confusion in real time and re-deriving from a different angle when the first bounce fails. Office hours follow — the line is longest before exams — where the real teaching happens one whiteboard misconception at a time. The afternoon splits the professorship's two lives: a research seminar where a colleague presents on stochastic processes (the professor's notebook fills with a question that might become a collaboration), then two hours on the professor's own paper — a proof's middle section that has resisted for a month yields one lemma today, which is a good day. A doctoral student's meeting, a curriculum committee vote on the statistics sequence, and a stack of graded proofs close the schedule. The career's engine is double: the thrill of mathematics itself, and the distinct thrill of watching it land in a mind that came in afraid of it.
Tasks at the job
- Compile, administer, and grade examinations, or assign this work to others.
- Prepare and deliver lectures to undergraduate or graduate students on topics such as linear algebra, differential equations, and discrete mathematics.
- Maintain student attendance records, grades, and other required records.
- Plan, evaluate, and revise curricula, course content, and course materials and methods of instruction.
- Keep abreast of developments and technological advances in the mathematical field by reading current literature, talking with colleagues, and participating in professional conferences.
- Select and obtain materials and supplies, such as textbooks.
Workplace & working conditions
Work happens indoors in a climate-controlled setting.
There's a regular, moderate amount of time pressure, and you're expected to exercise significant independent judgment day to day.
Education necessary or common
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in the relevant field
Common college majors
Licenses & certifications
- PhD in Mathematics or Statistics — the entry requirement
- Postdoctoral research experience for research universities
- No license — the dissertation and publications are the credentials
Career path
Related fields
Courses to take
- AP Calculus BC — then whatever your school offers beyond it
- AP Statistics — the field's applied wing
- AP Physics — mathematics in its natural habitat
- AP Computer Science — computation reaches every mathematical field now
- Dual-enrollment Linear Algebra or Differential Equations if available
Clubs, activities & competitions
- Math team and AMC/AIME competition — the pipeline's traditional entrance
- Math tutoring — teaching is the job; find out if explaining math energizes you
- Math circle or summer math programs (MathCamp, PROMYS, Ross — transformative and selective)
- Science Olympiad math-heavy events
First steps you can take now
- Apply to a summer math program (PROMYS, Ross, MathCamp) — they teach proof-based math and preview the field's real culture
- Tutor math regularly and collect the moments where a new explanation worked
- Learn what a proof actually is via a bridge book or course — school math and mathematicians' math differ
- Ask a college math professor about the path: PhD, postdoc, professorship — and its honest odds
