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So here is a little bit of back story for all you wonderful readers. I've lived in Scotland all my life and have been playing games since I was young, As such I had the typical dream of wanting to work in the games sector and make games. I have held this belief for 15 years. I'm going to be 19 in a few months time. So I am studying a degree in Computer games development at a University called Abertay. This would seem like it is a logical thing no? Well it was...until recently.
On the way to university I did a year at college grabbing a supplementary year of coding experience by doing a software development HNC (Oh I have no idea how to convert any of this to relevant American and/or foreign qualifications, sorry guys you'll just have to bear with me) this brought me back my doubts that I've had ever since I began coding in High School Computing. It is soul destroying to sit there in front of a computer screen that may or may not be blank and stare at something that isn't working but should be. It compiles right? Well why doesn't it DO anything!?
Complimentary image: + Show Spoiler +
But I held to my convictions and started my degree. I'm almost at the end of the first year of said course and I hate it. It is definitely NOT what I want to do anymore. So something has come to mind.
I have always loved math, I liked how everything revolved around math and could be explained via math (or physics, but I'm not going to study that). Any question you have could be explained somewhere somehow by a mathematical representation. But studying maths isn't going to net me anything more exciting than a teaching job and as I wish to get out of this slowly degenerating, collapsing country, also doesn't lead to international opportunities. So I have been left with one thought. I could become an accountant.
It may not be the most glamorous job in the world but someone has to do it and it pays well. It involves math (although maybe not much diverse math) and it can be challenging. Best of all I could potentially get a job outside of the EU, which is indeed what I want.
The only thing is because I was so focused on computing before I neglected my high school grades so I will have to go back to college to get an HNC in accounting before I can apply to the other university in Dundee (Abertay doesn't do accounting) and start my degree and potentially study a MSc for it.
I never appreciated how much life needs to be worked at. As a teen I just shrugged it off and said I'll be fine, when in reality I managed to screw up massively. Curse you past self! I should have kept my self open to other things.
Time to man up, take responsibility and work at this. If I don't it may backfire and I may never progress anywhere.
 
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Have you considered becoming an actuary? The income and career opportunities may be greater than a standard accountant. The most difficult part of it seems to be qualification, but I think it would be worth it if it's something you enjoy.
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if you get a math degree imo you have a wide range of options but if you trully love maths I would think you would want to go into academia? If not you could also go into various applicable fields of maths such as cryptography, finance, etc.
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Studying math generally has a lot of applications in the workforce, but the amount of positions and odds for employment is questionable. Teaching is obviously one route to satisfy your interest, if you think you can make it exciting for yourself. Outside of that, staying in academia as research-type might be another route.
As a note, my father is an accountant, and your love of math certainly will not be satiated in such a position. The money definitely becomes a bonus for the work you're doing, but I think you might want to aspire for something else.
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I do love maths but that doesn't mean I am good at it in any sense. Hence accounting.
Thanks for the suggestion Chocolate I'm looking in to that and what it entails.
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holy shit dude, i'm currently majoring in mathematics right now (i'm 20) and then wanted to change to accounting but decided not to, and now i was looking into maybe getting a computer science degree. are you my long lost brother?
right now i'm almost done with the qualifications for a 2yr mathematics degree, but not sure if i want to go the full 4yr or change to something else.
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On March 04 2012 13:55 Silidons wrote:
holy shit dude, i'm currently majoring in mathematics right now (i'm 20) and then wanted to change to accounting but decided not to, and now i was looking into maybe getting a computer science degree. are you my long lost brother?
right now i'm almost done with the qualifications for a 2yr mathematics degree, but not sure if i want to go the full 4yr or change to something else.
I think you should evaluate your enjoyment of your mathematics course. If you are enjoying it and could see yourself continuing to enjoy it then you have a strong argument for finishing it. Else you may want to change. Maybe you should complete it and then do another course straight after in something else? Then again I hear education is expensive in the US so I don't know if that's viable for you.
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I am an accountant and I love math as well. Most of the math in accounting is adding. If you like math I would suggest something different. I like my job but there is hardly any math at all. Check into finance or statistics since they are definitely more math oriented.
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Have you considered studying some type of engineering? they use quite a bit of math/physics as well, from my perspective accounting sounds more "soul destroying" than programming. I've started to like math and physics again since i decided to go to college(been a while since high school), i like to think of the future applications of those 2 subjects  .
I been teaching myself programming for a few months, i rather enjoy it and i'm going to school in a few months but i been debating if i should study Electrical Engineering instead. I still want to be able to code well so, i have no clue yet .
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change if you enjoy it more, ive probably changed what i wanted to do with myself half a dozen times since starting university. Think i might actually be locked in this time
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The most important thing in life is that you do stuff that you love. Don't become someone that will hate his job so yea, switch 
Other possiblity is specialicing in math for in programming. There is probably a way 
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EPT
