Outside of graduate work in the mathematics department, math is usually a tool to achieve an end. In order to get a job building better mathematical tools, you probably need to focus on the types of problems you hope to solve.
It sounds like you would enjoy scientific programming. Getting these types of jobs usually requires graduate work in the specific area you want to master. For example, Onyx Graphics in Midvale has two color scientists on staff. They both had Masters Degrees in Color Science (from here: http://mcsl.rit.edu). We'd write the graphics software and printer drivers, and they would figure out the color models to make everything look just right. It was arcane stuff, but really cool. I have friends who enjoy doing gene folding, propulsion modelling, and remote sensing. These are all very math-intensive programming disciplines. They all require graduate work in the topic in question. The EE department's Remote Sensing Lab (http://www.mers.byu.edu) does very interesting work of this type. Another route is graduate work in computer science. You would probably enjoy the work at the BYU CS Department's Verification and Validation Laboratory. However, lots of programming teams need a good algorithm guy who has a talent for formal analysis. You wouldn't spend all of your on these types of problems, but as people identify it as one of your interests and talents you will find many problems get brought to you. The larger the programming team, the more of these problems you'll find. Hope this helps, Richard Esplin On Tue 10 November 2009 10:16:24 "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: <snip> > In looking for mathematical work, I have several questions I would propose to > PLUG. First, any ideas of what kinds of work I could look for? Second, are > there any other industries I should look into? Third, are there specific > companies I should look into in Utah Valley? (I'll give bonus points for > people I can contact in those companies, unless they are in Human Resources. > :-) <snip> /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
