Republic of Mathematics blog

The 4! = 24 distinct fractions whose base 4 representation consists of permutations of the digits (0, look 1,2,3) repeated:

These are all fractions of the form , namely those fractions  with numerators 9, 10, 13, 15, 18, 19, 25, 26, 33, 36 ,38, 40, 45, 47 ,49 ,52, 59 ,60 66, 67, 70, 72, 75 and 76.

Below is a post on College Confidential, posted by mathematik on May 24, 2010:

“Math majors beware: most of you are wasting time and money

Here’s a story for all the math majors and future math majors reading this:

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in math 6 years ago. I graduated with honors and a good GPA from a good college. My current job prospects are horrible. I am stuck at a dead end programming job where I earn less than $40,000 per year even though I live close to a major US city and have over 5 years of work experience. I make less money than my “dumb” friends from high school currently make.

Perhaps I’m to blame for thinking that being good at math meant I was intelligent, but I feel morally obliged to warn people reading this who might be on the same boat. My honest suggestion to you is to major in something else. Unless you want to be a math teacher or an actuary, I implore you not to listen to anyone who tells you that you can do a million things with a math degree and that you should major in anything you want and the money will follow. Those are cliches and empty promises that don’t mean anything in the real world.

You could argue that you could major in math and possibly end up with a programming job, since I did it, but don’t expect to get hired to work as a software engineer unless you have additional qualifications, expect to work doing quality assurance or fixing code. It doesn’t matter how smart you think your degree in math makes you, you can’t compete with the millions of computer science majors in this country when it comes to programming jobs.

If you like finance, accounting, science, engineering, or some other subject, why not major in that subject? Why waste your time and money learning math formulas that will be of no use to you in the real world? If you major in math, and end up working as an accountant, don’t you think you would be a more competitive candidate for accounting jobs if you had majored in accounting?

That’s my advice to you guys. Do whatever you want with your lives but if you end up like me don’t say that you were not warned.”

What do you think BA/BS mathematics graduates?

Does your experience match that of mathematik?

Or have you had more career success with your mathematics degree?