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

I started out with English degrees and a career in local journalism and publishing. As my career evolved, I found myself doing more analytical work. The first time I ever used Excel was in my 20s. Remembering things like calculating percentages, simple algebra to figure out the unknown number, how formulas work so you can learn as you go without freaking out, and simple logic equations have helped me massively with getting on in my career.

Even if I had stuck with journalism, being able to competently crunch financial figures helps with business reporting, and understanding science studies and modelling can help massively with health reporting (especially apt this year).

It pisses me off that my 15 year old DSD's math teacher is discouraging her from even taking higher math (which wouldn't be a decision for her to make for another 12 months), because it's "really hard". Not everyone feels motivated to perform when they're told something is hard to do. A lot of girls and women I know take that to mean "it's too hard for you, so don't try".

It pisses me off that my 15 year old DSD's math teacher is discouraging her from even taking higher math (which wouldn't be a decision for her to make for another 12 months), because it's "really hard". Not everyone feels motivated to perform when they're told something is hard to do. A lot of girls and women I know take that to mean "it's too hard for you, so don't try".

God, that would INFURIATE me and if I were your DH I'd be having words with the school. (And I'll eat my hat if they put quite so much emphasis on how haaaaaaaard it is to girls.) What a difference it might make if they phrased it as "it's a challenging course, which is great - lots to learn and get your teeth into". I tend to be a subscriber to the "growth mindset" approach, where the response would be "it's great that you're finding it hard - that shows it's the right level of challenge for you".

I mean I bet they don't emphasise how hard it is to boys above. Bah.

I was told not to take further maths a level because it was hard.

I should have, I would have excelled. I have a first class maths degree, so further maths a level would have been great for me.

@BuffySummersReportingforSanity

It pisses me off that my 15 year old DSD's math teacher is discouraging her from even taking higher math (which wouldn't be a decision for her to make for another 12 months), because it's "really hard". Not everyone feels motivated to perform when they're told something is hard to do. A lot of girls and women I know take that to mean "it's too hard for you, so don't try".

God, that would INFURIATE me and if I were your DH I'd be having words with the school. (And I'll eat my hat if they put quite so much emphasis on how haaaaaaaard it is to girls.) What a difference it might make if they phrased it as "it's a challenging course, which is great - lots to learn and get your teeth into". I tend to be a subscriber to the "growth mindset" approach, where the response would be "it's great that you're finding it hard - that shows it's the right level of challenge for you".

I respond to, and believe in, growth mindset myself too. Not to be unrealistically optimistic and set myself (or my kids) up for disappointment, but because a lot of things worth learning are hard at first. English lit criticism is hard, until you get the hang of it. Learning an instrument is hard, until you get the hang of it.

Granted, I was getting this story from the teen herself, rather than the teacher. But it made me wonder if the adult in the room was more concerned about a final exam grade than about how to encourage a kid who wants to do well, but has had some huge confidence wobbles throughout school.

Apparently, the entire N5 class at her academy is rumoured to be at D working grades this year, but that's not DSD's fault or problem (she's N4 and doing N5 next year).

I'm a crop scientist - my job involves a lot of biology, obviously, but also chemistry, physics, engineering and of course maths. The logical reasoning of maths underpins everything. Some bits from school I've barely used since, but even then, the knowledge that I used to understand it means I know I can again if I have to! I needed to remind myself of a lot of matrix maths and trig to understand a statistical technique recently.

[quote BikeRunSki]@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]
I actually came to the career late and with many things in life I actually just had a little bit of luck to get here!

I’ll share a “normal” journey as I think it’ll be more help.

So in my experience to get on to an actuarial grad scheme you need to have very good uni results (i.e. a first from a good uni like oxbridge or a Russell Group), you also need very good A level results, so 3-4 A*, maybe an A might be ok. So basically excellent academically.

On top of that have some work experience. We take summer students between second and third year of uni, and if we like them we invite them back as grads. So don’t wait until graduating to start applying.

Much as you’d think we just want grads who excel at maths we actually like people who are friendly and personable and well rounded. Make sure she has hobbies to talk about. Being part of a sports club or whatever demonstrates you’re a team player but also not just a “boring actuary”.

So a strong CV will get you to interview, but she’ll need more than that on top.

Other jobs that will earn a lot could be in the investment field if that interests her?

I have a maths degree, and then went into software in the late 80s.
I didn't use the maths per se, but I did very much use the logical ways of thinking, the seeing the whole picture before the details, and then the attention to detail doing a maths degree taught me.

I have also found my confidence in maths has helped a lot guiding my DDs through school, and have done some maths tuition on the side.

I’m a science graduate and joined the Royal Navy after graduating. I was streamed as an Observer in the Fleet Air Arm and had to use mental arithmetic daily and under extreme pressure when navigating or providing information to my crew about fuel states or distances. I then navigated a small ship, again using mental arithmetic and trigonometry for calculating routes and courses. Now I’m a staff officer and drowning in excel worksheets!

@TimeToParty, thank you. That’s helpful. She’s only 9/Year 4, so a long way to go yet, but she ticks those things at 9! A long term focus is useful motivation, and obviously we’ll need to start thinking about potential careers in earnest once she’s a few years into High School.

Maths taught at school isn’t related to the world of business and finance. So huge swathes of it is utterly irrelevant

@Sometimesfraught82

And unless you’re talking about complex financial instruments where degree or even PhD level maths is helpful, the maths used in business and finance is pretty basic - if you have a decent gcse then you really shouldn’t find finance maths challenging.

So yes large amounts of school maths not needed in finance as it’s so straightforward, but I hope this thread encourages some girls to look beyond just business and finance where they will get to apply more of their maths knowledge!

* but I hope this thread encourages some girls to look beyond just business and finance where they will get to apply more of their maths knowledge!*

I would be a more than a little disturbed if my child / teen daughter was spending her Saturday on mumsnet!

I studied physics at Uni and have always loved maths. My children are all the same and the older two are now studying maths based courses at Uni and It looks like DC3 will head that way too.
I never felt any barriers to studying maths or physics although came from a fairly traditional background. As a teacher I see parental views holding young people back in feeling confident about their maths skills. I am also amazed by the low level of maths/arithmetic skills in some colleagues.

Law. Needed maths ie arithmetic to calculate market shares, do client bills, sense check figures for turnover and profit provided by business. Exchange rates. Graphs. Excel sheets. My pension. My mortgage. My budget. Really, everything money related for business and in my personal life. Algebra for solving complex problems where you don't know a lot of the facts. You can't do business without understanding figures. You really can't.

@Sometimesfraught82 that is the type of comment that firstly isn’t true and secondly is what damages maths as a choice.

Before starting uni I was briefly giving some A level maths/further maths/physics a go to make sure I was up to it. Part of the A level maths text was to figure out the new centre of gravity of an object after you’ve removed a chunk. A woman at work asked what I was doing, I told her as I have here, she then replied.. ‘see that’s not even relevant?! Maths its just full of stuff you don’t need’ I then went on to ask her how she would figure out the new centre of gravity of a floor if she had, say, removed a rectangle for the stairwell. ‘Oh, yeah, I suppose that particular thing might be useful in one specific circumstance… Blah blah’

It’s all relevant, it all has purpose and just because you don’t know what that is it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Hated maths and arithmetic, I joined the police at 18.5 and my first humiliation was filling in an overtime claim. They were done in thirds... my overtime claim was read out the following day in 'muster' as I had written 26 remainder 2... who know it was to be two thirds???

I loathed maths at secondary school and thought I was terrible at it, although I managed to scrape a B at GCSE. I was completely deterred from a STEM career because of my dislike of maths and did a humanities degree and became a lawyer. In my current job there is the option to do relatively complex maths but equally no-one thinks badly of you if you delegate that to someone else. To my surprise, it turns out I really enjoy the maths. I think my issue at school was that maths is taught in the abstract whereas I need to understand why I’m doing an equation before it makes sense to me, and then I find it really easy. I suspect I’m not alone in that.

[quote FTEngineerM]@Sometimesfraught82 that is the type of comment that firstly isn’t true and secondly is what damages maths as a choice.

Before starting uni I was briefly giving some A level maths/further maths/physics a go to make sure I was up to it. Part of the A level maths text was to figure out the new centre of gravity of an object after you’ve removed a chunk. A woman at work asked what I was doing, I told her as I have here, she then replied.. ‘see that’s not even relevant?! Maths its just full of stuff you don’t need’ I then went on to ask her how she would figure out the new centre of gravity of a floor if she had, say, removed a rectangle for the stairwell. ‘Oh, yeah, I suppose that particular thing might be useful in one specific circumstance… Blah blah’

It’s all relevant, it all has purpose and just because you don’t know what that is it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.[/quote]
I specifically said “business and finance”
Your example - irrelevant to my job in finance.
Relevant to other industries - yes I’m sure.

I personally would like much more direct teaching as to how maths can be useful in business and finance.

So book keeping, investing, pensions, inflation, mortgages, loans, interests rates.

Using the language employed and examples from current business news

@FTEngineerM
You didn’t bother to read my post correctly
I don’t deny how important and relevant maths is

It is the teaching curriculum that I don’t think translates that importance in to the world of work for many

@Sometimesfraught82 god, I know what you said, you said ‘huge swathes of it is utterly irrelevant’ ….. not true. Or are you that small minded you can’t see that maths could be used for things other than business and finance? Because those two areas don’t actually delve too deeply into mathematics at all.

[quote FTEngineerM]@Sometimesfraught82 god, I know what you said, you said ‘huge swathes of it is utterly irrelevant’ ….. not true. Or are you that small minded you can’t see that maths could be used for things other than business and finance? Because those two areas don’t actually delve too deeply into mathematics at all.[/quote]
Maths taught at school isn’t related to the world of business and finance. So huge swathes of it is utterly irrelevant

You cherry picked there.

Missed out an important word

“So”

And name calling is just unpleasant

I’ll leave you to stew

Just seen episode 16 of this is us is available