Last year of my Ph.D studies I am a Ph.D. student in pure mathematics and I am in my final year of graduate studies. I found that academia is not suited for me: unstable job, low salary, and a self-sacrifice culture that it is based on the motto &quot;Publish or Perish&quot;. I want to ask you what are the odds to get a good job with a Ph.D. in pure mathematics? I am truly lost. I consider myself a big failure. I have expended three years of my life in pursuing a thing that it is useless and purely theoretical. Currently, I only want to make some good money in the industry. I want to ask you: what can a pure mathematician do in the real world? Is there any kind of investment banking or hedge funds interested in hiring mathematicians holding a Ph.D. in pure mathematics and a master´s degree in big data and business analytics?
Thank you very much for any response.
Well, I think few people make a lot of money doing mathematics unless they are &quot;quants&quot; in stock investments, or actuaries in the insurance industry. People don't normally go in to mathematics for the money, but, rather are driven to do it by some internal inescapable mechanism.
My advice, such as it is, is to evaluate your options. It may be that finishing is the best option now, as it shouldn't be far off.
Yes, academia is in a bit of a mess now and the post doc merry-go-round is pretty destructive, but many people in the past have also finished their degrees in terrible economic times. My advisor had just started his studies when the Russians came over the border into Czechoslovakia and shut the universities down. He was delayed for years but did well (after escaping later). I graduated into an economy with no jobs for mathematicians. When we landed on the moon, funding for science and math dropped off a cliff after years of growth. More people had already been hired than could be justified in the new world. I had to take a job at a very low level college, though some thought I was one of those &quot;most likely to succeed&quot; types (My mom, anyway). I also had to change fields to CS and was only able to make partial use of my math skills. But I survived and eventually it worked out.
But, someone who can do mathematics can do a lot of things that require analytical skills.
Your advisor seems like a resource. I hope you are using that to advance. She may not need to worry about her own future anymore, but I hope she worries about yours and her other students. I assume that she has a circle of collaborators with whom she is in contact. If you aren't part of that circle, you need to become part of it. Have her, for example, get you invited to give talks at other places. Right now your advisor is your chief mentor, I suspect. But as you move on, look for others willing to help you advance.
Build your own circle.
And, publish or perish isn't universal, though it is at top places. And it isn't so terrible if you really like to write papers. You are down now, but you want to make your trajectory and exponential one. Once it gets better it will continue.