Very few people seem to know the type of work mathematicians do in government and industry, and therefore most people do not realize that mathematicians have wide employment opportunities beyond teaching. In fact, at the University of New Mexico, a large percentage of mathematics graduates go into government or industry, whereas the remaining percentage is evenly split between graduate school and teaching. Our students are hired to do applied mathematics. This applied mathematics is sometimes called engineering, sometimes called computer science, sometimes called actuarial science, etc. In fact, the resulting job title may not even mention mathematics. Every task, however, that you may encounter in a scientific career can be attacked in a mathematical manner? an approach that requires both mathematical competence and perspective. Companies and agencies know this to be true, and place considerable value on having employees who can master this approach.

Companies hire mathematicians as well as particular types of scientists because both groups have something important to contribute. Typically, companies will have people of various backgrounds (engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, etc.) grouped together to work on pertinent problems. These real-world problems are "word problems," e.g., the group leader wants a quantitative analysis to streamline a procedure, to make it more cost- efficient, etc. This is the type of analysis that must precede actual computation, i.e., the group must determine formulas and equations that accurately describe the actual phenomena being analyzed. Clearly, if a formula for the solution already existed, it would be already programmed on the computer, and there would be no need to hire an engineer or a mathematician to punch a button and retrieve the answer.