Blog #1

Math has always been my favorite subject. Growing up, I had always believed that I would be a math teacher in the future. However, once I got into my second year of college, I interacted a lot with students and faculty of the math department. I knew that it was an option for a student to major in mathematics but I never knew what someone could do with a degree in math. Faculty and friends peaked me interest in higher mathematics and encouraged me to switch majors. So, now I am a mathematics major, planning to graduate December 2020. While I have found a new passion for higher mathematics, I am not completely certain on what I want to do with my career after college. I have found a few jobs that I think may suit me well but I’m more of a hands-on kind of person, so I worry that I may not like it once I see what the job actually entails. I have also considered attending graduate school and becoming a college professor, which is a job that I think I would enjoy, however I have done little to no research thus far in my mathematics career, and I don’t foresee that I would enjoy that enough to make it through a graduate program and land a position in a college. In October 2019, I had an amazing opportunity to attend the Careers in Mathematics Conference, here at KU, where people from different discipline spoke about their jobs and how they use math in their daily routines. Due to attending that conference, I sparked a major interest in joining supply chain management. It’s all about optimization of products. As the professional put it, he is “a weather forecaster but for groceries.” I think that sounds like a really fun job, and would be something that I’d love to do, so that’s what I hope to go into once I get out of college. However, I have no experience supply chain and I’m having difficulties finding mathematical internships of any kind, let alone ones that are supply chain related, so I worry about landing a job after I graduate.