need advice to become a mathematician

Question

I am currently working on my associates with a designation in math, and my overall goal is to get a PhD and become a mathematician. I would like some advice on how to get there and the likelihood of it happening. I am 23 and female and I know the ratio of females in the STEM field's are low. I think I am good at math but I am struggling with physics and application problems. I would like to know how important it is to have a good understanding of physics and applications in order to get a good job (or be good at) being a mathematician. I would also like to know if there are likely options getting a job where I can do math for the sake of math.. This is the first forum I've signed up for because I am having trouble finding advice, so if anyone knows any better forums that offer this kind of advice, that would also be helpful. Anything is appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

Think more about building your mathematical base than about proving big theorems right now. I'm sure 99% of math grads wish they could go back to some point in their college career and redo something, or study something more. I don't know what level math you're at, but really make your algebra and trigonometry bases solid. Solve as many problems as you can, even if it's repetitive, and more importantly, learn as many theorems and tricks as you can! They'll come in handy at the strangest times later.

BTW, there's plenty of women in mathematics, the field with a "lack of women" is mainly in engineering. As far as that's concerned, there's nothing barring you from areas of research as a woman, but from my experience, there's far a far higher number of women doing research in discrete mathematics, especially Graph Theory, so that's a place you can look if you're wanting to associate with more women in the field. That being said, I have had women professors for numerical analysis, differential geometry, and quantum mechanics.

Speaking of graph theory, and discrete maths in general, it's not really a problem if you're having a problem with the physical intuition behind physics. Most of discrete math falls under "pure mathematics", and the applications are often not on the minds of the researchers - math for the sake of math, as you say.

The fields I'd look into preparing for in this case: Graph theory, Enumerative Combinatorics, Number theory, etc.