Mathematics is the study of structures, patterns, and the use of formal reasoning to enrich our understanding of the world. It can be is used to predict patterns of societal behaviour, design immense structures, analyze disease transmission and build models of national economies. Mathematicians contribute to the formulation and solution of problems in diverse fields such as medicine, economics, computer science and engineering.
Studying mathematics will teach you how to think critically and use logic to solve a surprisingly wide variety of problems in fields such as the physical sciences, economics, biology and many others. You will learn to reason about numbers, shapes, and relations. Using these ideas you will model features of the world with the aid of tools such as differential equations, networks, algebraic structures and much more.
Some career opportunities include:
Mathematical and/or theoretical physics research-stream professor at a university
Mathematical and/or theoretical physics researcher at a research institute (e.g. Perimeter Institute, AT&T Bell Labs, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Los Alamos National Lab, CERN)
Applied mathematician or physicist in industry
Data analyst for large or small software firms (e.g. Google, Facebook, Apple, startups) or government agencies
Quantum computing/quantum information researcher in academia or industry
Quantitative analyst for financial firms or government agencies
Industrial or government analyst using mathematical modelling to understand economic and labour trends, social networks, transportation systems, agricultural production, etc.
Science policy maker for government
University instructor or high-school teacher