aphasiac Wrote:All my friends with Maths degrees got crazily high paid jobs either in finance or programming positions.

Also Mathmatics graduates are highly sought after in the games industry; more so than CS graduates in fact. You will need some C++ skillz for that though..

Really? I was interested in that (who isn't) but always assumed that they'd want CS students... I'll look into it^^

I have been learning C++ so I'll go full steam ahead with that.

aphasiac Wrote:Oh and in answer to the original question - yes I dream of one day moving to Japan to be a games programmer there, but for now it's really just a hobby.

What is your game? and can I buy it / download it somewhere?

I am pretty confident that my Japanese will take me exactly nowhere. You have to be good to go anywhere with your Japanese and I don't think I will ever be. I tried and failed with Spanish...what makes me think Japanese will be any different? I am not going to sit around and wait to become better - I am going to work - I just think it won't result in fluency. I don't need to go anywhere with Japanese because I just like Japanese media-related things (anime/manga/games/music).

I think learning Japanese has brought out the best in me and helped me to see that learning things is just a simple matter of making a little progress every day over a long period of time. I know that will take me to new heights in the future as well as bringing a whole lot of things and people into my life.

For the past few years I've been dreaming of getting into robotics engineering. Next year I'm planning to start a maths degree whilst pursuing knowledge in programming and electronics engineering. One day in the future I would be really grateful if I had the opportunity to work in the field of robotics engineering in Japan.

It's a pipe dream but It's the only thing I want to do.

aphasiac Wrote:Also Mathmatics graduates are highly sought after in the games industry; more so than CS graduates in fact. You will need some C++ skillz for that though..

I'm a CS student too (no interest in working in Japan though), and the reason why the game industry might really want math graduates is probably because they all go to work for Accenture/Merrill Lynch/Lockheed Martin/etc. whilst many CS graduates are only just adequate in math and so they can't fill that void of math-y goodness. ;D Now, being a capable CS major with a math minor is likely good enough. Actually, being a CS major with a fine arts minor is handy, too, because there are specific jobs that combine graphics and programming that many CS-, math-, and graphics-only majors will miss out on.

If it's not already obvious, I would suggest getting a job at a US game company before trying to take on Japan, though. It's hard enough to get in here without work experience; I can only imagine it would be even harder in a different country.

Actually, I'm just waiting for Google to open up a video game division. They've done everything else, after all.

I don't think it ever occurs to most mathematics students to learn programming to an advanced level. We have some computational projects at my university but they only use very basic procedural programming concepts. You get some students who learnt it seriously as a hobby though, I kind of wish I picked it up sooner like them. I wonder how much I can catch up in two years. >_>

Quote:the reason why the game industry might really want math graduates is probably because they all go to work for Accenture/Merrill Lynch/Lockheed Martin/etc.

Well, those sorts of companies are all we get at our careers fairs. :/

I'm sure a lot of people know this but, if you know multiple languages to fluency and have a technical skill (specialty field,job,etc). You can get far with knowing languages, such as japanese.Chinese and others.

I'm an electrical engineer working as a simulation engineer. My job requires knowledge of electrical circuits, electronic hardware design, general mechanical concepts, control theory, applied maths (mostly numerical methods), reasonably advanced CS concepts and of course japanese. A lot of our guys are CS-Mechatronics double majors.

Anyway, my point is learn a few seemingly unrelated skills. CS guys are a dime a dozen, maths guys are a dime a dozen, electrical engineers are a dime a dozen. But the more of these you combine, the fewer and fewer people you are competing with for an ever increasing number of jobs.

Well, It seems to take me into a place where everthing makes sense. I am beginning to feel like it's its own little world and when I stop I come back to this world (m/b the english world). It's very metaphysical of me to think that way but it seems to make sense now. Also I seems this topic "Do you think japanese will take you anywhere?" applies to everyone because I did not expect such a responce. Well back to kanji.

It could-- but the time I spend on it could be spent learning a variety of skills that could potentially help me much more.

I'd love to work for a japanese company. I'm learning japanese because I like the language, before I was learning it because I was hooked on jpop, but not anymore. I HAVE to start watching more TV.

I was already offered a job with japanese (even though it's basic). That really motivates me to continue studying. That same person told that it's not hard to find a job if you speak japanese here, at all.

My dream job would be working were I live (we have a few japanese companies here) and going to japan a few times a year and stay there for some short period. That would be awesome!