SUBJECT: MNHQ here: How has maths helped your career?

[AnnaCMumsnet]

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and maths careers. The ratio of men vs women working in STEM has stalled at 74:26

There are lots of possible explanations for this, but the stats seem to show that disparities start fairly early. Girls are substantially less likely to take scientific, numerical and technical subjects at A Level, and an study from a few years ago showed that across OECD countries, girls are more likely than boys to express a lack of self-confidence when tackling maths and science problems - even though girls often outperform boys at GCSE level in these subjects.

We’ve been talking to Maths4Girls, who are trying to redress the balance. They say:

“We seek to dispel gender stereotypes and inspire more girls to pursue maths and the opportunities it can bring. We do this by introducing female role models to young girls aged 11 - 14 so they can share their inspirational career journey, and give insight into their amazing career.”

Some of the workshops Maths4Girls have run (for free) include using maths to solve crimes, to persuade people, and to save the world (by tackling the really big global challenges such as climate change).

We know from thousands of conversations on Mumsnet over the years that we have many brilliant women here who excel in maths and maths-related fields, so to support Maths4Girls in their mission we thought we’d try to find a few role models of our own.

How has maths helped your career? How do you use maths, from day to day, in your job - and what sort of difference does your job make in the world? Do you have any thoughts about what might have helped you when you were studying or breaking into your chosen field - or do you have any tips for the upcoming generations of girls and young women thinking about building a career in STEM?

(Feel free to namechange if your story is too identifying!)

Thanks
MNHQ

[quote FTEngineerM]@Suzi888 do you feel, maybe, that physics is a sort of applied mathematics so rather than being dry unrelatable symbols it has meaning?

I find that some super complex things just don’t go in, I can perform the calculation but I dunno what the hells going on. THEN they apply it to a situation like waves and bam.. those boundary conditions make sense now.[/quote]
@FTEngineerM I’m not sure, possibly.
My maths teacher was awful, uninterested, he didn’t teach he just sat there and told us to shush. The physics teacher was amazing. That said I would have still struggled with numbers even if the teacher had been brilliant.

I am an actuary like a couple of others on here.

I love maths. If they’d have paid me well to do a pure maths PhD I’d have done it!

For me the best thing about being an actuary is that a large chunk of my job is enjoyable, yet I get paid a very good wage to do it. I read a few years back that most actuaries work nice hours for the wage vs other professions.

I’d say actuaries are almost a hidden role. No one told me at school or even university that it was a job I should aim for, I ended up finding out about it all myself. And no one in my life now really knows what I do either!

@TimeToParty, can you summarise a little about your career path please. My 9 year old DD wants to be an actuary because she loves maths (and is excellent at it) and wants to be rich! I only know one actuary and she seems to fit the bill(ish).

[quote SingleModeFibre]@Chemenger

I will have driven over your Dad’s roads many times!!

And now I’m wondering if he had anything to do with this road?? (photo attached)[/quote]
Not one of his, although I have a feeling he may have done something on the low level long way round. He built all the roads on the Kishorn oil platform construction site though, which is near there, I think?

Senior software engineer. I have a maths A-Level and studied a few maths modules at uni.

You don’t need to be a maths genius in my line of work but a logical, enquiring mind is useful.

There’s a definite hierarchy that plays out in my line of work based on gender and ethnicity.

My experience as a white woman was that when I was young and attractive about fifty percent of the blokes want to shag you, a few are genuinely supportive and the rest ignore you.

As you get more senior you have to fight to be seen and really prove yourself a lot more than your male counterparts.

I think a lot of companies are trying their best to change it and it’s getting better but it’s going to take time.

@BikeRunSki I have a friend who is an actuary . If you send me a list of questions I can send them to her

Industrial researcher using maths most every day

My research is about finding ways to help our industry reduce its carbon footprint

It's a great role , challenging , worthwhile , creative , varied , fun

I get a lot of flexibility to direct what I do, to work in a way to suit me

There have been times when I have felt alone in all male teams

There have been times when I have been ignored , talked over because I am female

But I have just carried on anyway , because what I do matters and I have the way of thinking and working , a breadth of knowledge, that others don't .

And the logic and clarity of the science is a great contrast to the difficulties of working with people

And the fact that it hasn't always been. Easy to get heard had helped me develop a stubborn streak that was useful in the early days promoting sustainability, before it was popular

I make the internet work 😬

I didn’t intend to end up here and at school I didn’t feel engaged about maths particularly.

However in context I now love it. I wish my education tapped into maths in the right way.

The internet works by digital signals and the conversion of light into X’s and O’s. And electrically I have to calculate the loss of signal over distance. You know - if I scream in your ear it’s deafening. But if I scream from the end of the garden it isn’t. That’s loss over distance and it’s all stuff I have to work out every day. Lots of maths!

Without me doing this you wouldn’t have internet. I’ve been in my role for 27 years and have designed services to quite literally millions of homes. I’m now I’m a very senior leadership role.

I’m also now a STEM ambassador, member of ‘women in communications technology, I’ve been to many careers events and have memberships of several bodies associated with my field. Couldn’t have done any of it without maths.

@Mykittensmittens your role sounds amazing can I DM you 😂

Mykittensmittens we probably know each other

I did maths all the way into my post grad (accounting and finance). And now do a role in supply chain that's reliant on complex data analysis and financial modelling. I think it's helped change the way my mind works because as a child I was more inherently drawn to humanities and creative thinking.

But my parents insisted I do maths alongside humanities and I'm very grateful to them. Because it opened up a lot of career options to me and I'm very success in a male dominated field. It gives me the confidence to speak up and challenge decisions and get financing, because I always have numbers as hard evidence to back up my opinions.

I think young women should push themselves to study subjects like maths and science even if they aren't naturally good at it. Because it's an aptitude that can be learnt but is harder to pick up as an adult in the work place. I can read a book on the tube and learn about history. But you'd probably struggle to learn how to calculate percentages (for determining revenue or profits) of understand ratios with some formal instruction.

*without some formal instruction

Didn't read the whole thread, so apologies if this is repeating loads of previous posts.

I had to work extremely hard just to get a pass grade at GCSE maths. I found maths as a subject to be impenetrably abstract. Upon going to uni, it became apparent that math is just a toolbox. The bits I needed I figured out how to use. The rest of it is irrelevant. I feel confident that this will be true for everyone.

I really don't understand why it's treated as a stand alone subject. It's useful in philosophy. Different aspects of it are of use in a variety of other disciplines with real world applications. My personal perspective is that it should just be thought of a a set of tools to be applied or not depending on the situation. If the situation requires it, you learn to use it. It shouldn't be a discipline that you can fail at.

My maths teacher told me I could never understand physics, because I did so poorly in his class. I worked hard to understand what I needed to in that situation, and I got a perfectly creditable C grade in physics A level, despite his belief that it would be impossible for me. I dropped maths like a hot brick, because my math teacher was a dick, but my fellow students and my physics teacher showed me how to apply maths and then it became useful.

Maths has never helped my career, and its my personal opinion that the mythology about math being so important scares a lot of gifted people away from doing good work. If you want to work in most science based fields you can manage perfectly well with a basic working knowledge of stats. If you want to get by in real life, everything you get taught in the math curriculum outside the four basic functions is pointless.

I would love at this point to hear from any lay person about how linear or quadratic equations have come up in real life. Or when you last used algebra, or applied pythagoras.

It's a special language, for specific situations. And yet we torment children with five compulsory years of it. And then test them on it. And then they can comfortably forget it forever BECAUSE IT WAS POINTLESS.

Before I leave, I want to point out that I don't have a specific beef with maths ( kind of I do really, but not as much as.....!)

Maths is important. History is important. So is art. Music is the food of love. Man cannot live by bread alone. Its an illusion that the sciences are at war with the arts. Scientists are constantly inspired by pop culture. I've fallen in rabbit hole
. Sorry

I can read a book on the tube and learn about history

My first real use of IT was using census databases as part of my history degree. There can be a lot of maths in history, especially if you're looking at things like economic history. Having a background in maths is useful for everything. But I reckon I use the analytical skills I gained from history at least as much as the IT from my computer science degree. Maths is important, but so is the ability to write and communicate.

I work in tv with a few different roles. The main one I use a lot of maths for is production secretary roles. During filming there’s a lot of budget calculations, floats and expenses, working out exchange rates and taxes in different countries may need splitting, dealing with multiple time zones. Then the post production side is more to do with time, calculating frames with certain frame rates, track lengths and matching up to EDLs (Edit Decision Lists), timecoding.

As a Researcher, I have used it to calculate timings of cctv, calculate food per portion on cooking shows, calculate the differences in car engine performance (less fun job 😂) etc. No where near as much but also it is useful to help with the logistical thinking sometimes required so you are not just thinking creatively.

I use maths in:

Research - analyzing data on illness and cancer
Public Health - the pandemic! Being able to understand what exponential growth really means, how to read graphs and analyse whether someone is talking nonsense or actually making sense.
Epidemiology -as above, it is like being a health detective, where is the outbreak coming from? How fast is it moving? What are the factors helping it spread? Who is being most affected and why?

It’s amazing how many so called experts actually haven’t grasped the basics of epidemiology and how to read health statistics and use it in a meaningful, useful way. It saves lives.

@Ozymandias101

Didn't read the whole thread, so apologies if this is repeating loads of previous posts.

I had to work extremely hard just to get a pass grade at GCSE maths. I found maths as a subject to be impenetrably abstract. Upon going to uni, it became apparent that math is just a toolbox. The bits I needed I figured out how to use. The rest of it is irrelevant. I feel confident that this will be true for everyone.

I really don't understand why it's treated as a stand alone subject. It's useful in philosophy. Different aspects of it are of use in a variety of other disciplines with real world applications. My personal perspective is that it should just be thought of a a set of tools to be applied or not depending on the situation. If the situation requires it, you learn to use it. It shouldn't be a discipline that you can fail at.

My maths teacher told me I could never understand physics, because I did so poorly in his class. I worked hard to understand what I needed to in that situation, and I got a perfectly creditable C grade in physics A level, despite his belief that it would be impossible for me. I dropped maths like a hot brick, because my math teacher was a dick, but my fellow students and my physics teacher showed me how to apply maths and then it became useful.

Maths has never helped my career, and its my personal opinion that the mythology about math being so important scares a lot of gifted people away from doing good work. If you want to work in most science based fields you can manage perfectly well with a basic working knowledge of stats. If you want to get by in real life, everything you get taught in the math curriculum outside the four basic functions is pointless.

I would love at this point to hear from any lay person about how linear or quadratic equations have come up in real life. Or when you last used algebra, or applied pythagoras.

It's a special language, for specific situations. And yet we torment children with five compulsory years of it. And then test them on it. And then they can comfortably forget it forever BECAUSE IT WAS POINTLESS.

Before I leave, I want to point out that I don't have a specific beef with maths ( kind of I do really, but not as much as.....!)

Maths is important. History is important. So is art. Music is the food of love. Man cannot live by bread alone. Its an illusion that the sciences are at war with the arts. Scientists are constantly inspired by pop culture. I've fallen in rabbit hole
. Sorry

I’m sorry you had such crappy maths teaching, you really don’t have a clue about the subject at all.

I took maths to Higher level although I didn't enjoy it much. I then did an ecology degree and a Masters in survey and assessment where I learnt sampling and statistical analysis.

I now work for an environmental consultancy and day to day use maths to manage projects by costing proposals, tracking spend against forecasts and reporting these both internally and to my clients.

I also work closely with engineers and use scale to read engineering drawings.

I use maths to calculate impacts to species and habitats to give accurate results.

I also use, but don't fully understand the background of, pro-forma excel spreadsheets to calculate risks to ecology and biodiversity net gain.

I was in top set Maths but I never felt good at Maths. I found mental arithmetics hard, I had to really think about sums, it didn't come naturally. However, I like the simplicity of Maths, it is a logical subject with right or wrong answers as opposed to English or the humanities.
I did ok at GCSE and got a C. I fell into an accounts job after leaving school and I'm still working in Accounts 20 years later and now I'm training to be a chartered accountant. Maths is a small part of job but I use it every day, percentages and balancing accounts, formulas on excel.

I’m a transport modeller. I have built and applied computer mathematical models of big complex transport systems, and am part way through a part time related PhD. I couldn’t do this without the degree in maths I have.

I’ve worked on interesting high profile projects, and things that have affected the trains I use to get to work, and met senior civil servants and MPs and one minister.

I love my job, work with a fun team, and am respected for how I work. It’s also reasonably well-paid, and even as a single parent I will be (in northern England) mortgage free before I’m 40.

But in terms of what degree class I got I’m not that “stand out” - there is just such a need for people with deep mathematical skills that we can pick and choose what field to work in and still get paid.

Singlemodefibre I showed her post to Ds1 who is intent on having such a job.

I don't have dd's, only ds's, but I'm very interested is supporting girls more in maths, more in addressing this imbalance both in maths, and also top positions in companies, for women.

I failed A level maths quite thoroughly, but used it constantly afterwards. In studying archaeology it was there in everything - statistical analysis, accurate measuring of artefacts in 3D, generating accurate drawings to scale. Somehow I ended up in the NHS as field work was physically not possible for me and landed myself in data and performance management - LOTS of maths! I still do that kind of work, with some project management alongside, budget projections etc. Maths is everywhere.

I have two DDs who did well at maths at GCSE and still find it useful. I started very young by having them work out in the supermarket which item was better value for money based on unit cost and it's gone on from there.

'I'm bad at maths' as a badge of honour needs to be tackled - it's ridiculous.

Without a doubt
By going down maths route has enabled a great work/home life balance

Reading this thread has made me so happy. I did my maths degree with the OU and trained as a maths teacher - I now run the maths department at a large FE college - the main barrier we face is the I can't do maths mental block - this is with adults and teenagers - once they get out of that mindset many do find the joy of learning and doing maths.
It really does change lives.

I have an O level in maths. Hated maths, really struggled to get a C. At uni I had to take statistics as a compulsory part of my course. Now I do risk calculations daily as part of my job. I am not a mathematician, but I can accurately do the maths that is required of me.