If you are interested in majoring in biology or math, you might want to know more about what each major has to offer. This post will show you the key facts about each major and help you to decide which would be a better degree for you.
At a glance:
| | Biology | Math |
| Payscale reported average pay | $71,112 | $77,200 |
| Job prospects | Average | Average/Good |
| Types of jobs you can qualify for | Lab assistant Physician assistant Biomedical engineer Nurse Physical therapist Veterinarian Optometrist High school teacher | Data analyst Data scientist Software engineer Math teacher Actuarial analyst Financial analyst |
| Difficulty of the major | Hard | Hard |
| Key things to note | It can be difficult to find a job with just a bachelor’s degree in biology. A master’s degree or PhD is often required. Other easier majors can be better for medical school. The major can become more employable if combined with a more applied minor. It is a major that can give good job satisfaction once you can find a job. | Not a very employable degree by itself if you do not take applied electives. Very employable if you combine it with a more applied minor such as computer science. Also employable if you combine it with data science and machine learning classes and projects. |
Source for math salary and jobs
There are a number of things to consider when choosing between the two degrees. Below, are details about each major, their differences and reasons to choose one or the other.
Details about a biology degree
Below are some of the key details about a degree in biology.
Pay
According to Payscale, the average pay for a person with a degree in biology is $71,112. This is better than the average across all majors. However, something to consider, is that the average will be being increased considerably by people with master’s degrees and PhDs in biology.
Jobs
Biology can be a somewhat general degree that is not specialized towards specific job roles. As a result, it is often necessary to combine biology with a more applied minor or to get an advanced degree after graduating, in order to make the major more employable.
In a ZipRecruiter survey, it was found that 35% of biology graduates regret choosing the major due to difficulty finding a job without an advanced degree.
With that being said, the major can be a gateway towards jobs in a number of different fields, but it will often require some extra studying to become employable in those fields.
According to Payscale, people with a degree in biology often get jobs as:
- Lab assistant
- Physician assistant
- Biomedical engineer
- Nurse
- Physical therapist
- Veterinarian
- Optometrist
- High school teacher
Note that many of these jobs will require at least a master’s degree.
Something to be aware of is that many of the jobs that require advanced degrees do have strong predicted job growth (source). This is encouraging if you are set on getting an advanced degree in biology. However, something to be aware of is that if you change your mind halfway through, it could be difficult to find a job with just a bachelor’s degree in biology.
Difficulty
Biology is a difficult major. The biology classes themselves can be difficult and the major will usually require math, statistics, physics, and chemistry classes. Overall, you should expect to have to put a lot of time into the major. When compared with a math degree, you can expect biology to be slightly easier since math is generally a very hard major.
Classes
Classes you can expect to take in a biology major can include:
- Calculus
- Statistics
- Chemistry
- Introduction to physics
- Introduction to biology
- Molecular biology
- Ecology
- Genetics
You can look here to see an example degree sequence.
Things to consider
Alternative majors can allow you to enter medical school but also have good job opportunities. In fact, because it can be difficult to get a high GPA in biology, alternative majors can actually be better for medical school because having a high GPA can help a lot.
To get the more desirable jobs, in biology, it is often necessary to get a PhD. If you do choose the major, it would help a lot to consider combining it with a more employable minor in order to improve your job prospects after graduation.
When deciding on whether or not you should major in biology, it would help to consider whether or not you are set on going to graduate school as well and the types of jobs you want. If you are set on going to graduate school and you want a job that will require a master’s or PhD then a biology major would become more worthwhile.
Details about a math degree
Below are some key details about the math major.
Current pay
According to Payscale, the average pay for someone with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics is $77,000.
This is higher than the average pay for people with a bachelor of arts degree, across all majors, which is reported as being $64,000 and higher than the average pay for people with a bachelor of science degree which is reported as being $71,000.
However, competing majors such as computer science and the different engineering degrees have significantly higher average pay. For example, the reported pay for someone with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering is $92,000.
Types of jobs the degree will qualify you for
The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the demand for mathematicians will rise by 33% by 2029 compared to 2019. This is mainly due to the surge in data that companies have been receiving in recent years that they need people with mathematical and statistical skills to make sense of.
Since mathematics is used in many different fields, a math degree should open you up to many different job opportunities.
According to Payscale, the most common reported jobs people, with a math degree, report having are:
Software engineer
Data analyst
Data scientist
Math teacher
Actuary
Financial analyst
Data engineer
However, a math degree is a somewhat general degree that is not specific to a certain type of job in the way something such as computer science is to software engineering.
If you do end up choosing a math major, this means that you should take courses from the field that you want to enter, do summer internships and to complete projects related that field as well in order to be competitive when seeking a job.
It also means that alternative majors such as computer science or the different engineering degrees are likely to give you an easier time when looking for a job after graduating.
This is also shown in the data, since computer science and engineering both report having higher average pay than mathematics.
Many math majors go into software engineering after graduation.
If you want to qualify for software engineering jobs then it would help to make sure to take a data structures and algorithms class since the material from that class gets tested heavily in software engineering interviews.
It would also help to try to get some internships as a software engineer while in college and to complete software engineering projects as an undergrad.
The three most common reported jobs for people with a math degree are software engineer, data analyst and data scientist.
All three of them involve the use of programming, so it would help to make sure to learn to program regardless.
Currently, data science is becoming a very popular career path among math majors.
To qualify for data science jobs, it would help to make sure to learn Python programming, data analysis using the Pandas library, machine learning and to complete data science projects as an undergrad and to try to get data science internships.
A math degree by itself is not very employable. However, it is a lot more employable when combined with classes from computer science, statistics, data science and machine learning, and personal projects in software engineering, data science and machine learning.
Types of classes you will study
As a math major you can expect to take the following classes:
Differential calculus
Integral calculus
Multivariate calculus
Differential equations
Linear algebra
Discrete math
Abstract algebra
Real analysis
Number theory
You can also expect to have the option to select from a range of other advanced math classes or related classes from other disciplines such as statistics, computer science, physics and engineering.
How difficult it is as a major
The math major is generally considered as being one of the hardest undergraduate degrees available. It becomes especially hard when you enter your junior year since most of your classes will be proof-based which tend to be much harder than the more computational classes.
Some things to consider about the major
A math degree can open up many different possible avenues for yourself and can be a very good degree when combined with a more applied minor. This is because the mathematics taught in a math major is useful in a wide variety of fields but you will need to supplement it with some field-specific coursework.
A very good combination would be to major in mathematics and to minor in computer science. Doing this would open you up to job roles such as data science, machine learning engineer, data analysis and software engineering. Alternatively, majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics is also a very good combination.
If you want to go down the data science or machine learning route, it would also help to make sure to take some statistics and data analysis classes. However, in this case, it would likely be better to major in statistics and to minor in CS or minor in stats and major in CS.
More details about the math major
I have written more about how to do well in a math major here and I have written more about whether or not a math degree is worth it here.
Reasons to choose a math degree
While a math degree by itself is not very employable, it can be very employable if you combine it with something such as computer science and statistics. It can also be employable if you combine it with data science and machine learning classes and complete data science and machine learning projects.
Also, math can be very useful when applying to graduate school as it is a lack of math classes that often makes students less competitive. Although, again, it will still be important to take classes related to the discipline that you are interested in.
If you do choose to get a math degree, it would help a lot to consider what you would like to do after graduating and to make sure to take classes related to that. It would also help to try to complete projects and to do summer internships related to a job you are interested in to make your job search much easier after graduation.
Also, I would recommend choosing applied mathematics over pure mathematics because applied mathematics tends to be the more employable of the two.
Reasons to choose biology
While it can be difficult to find jobs with just a bachelor’s degree in biology, there are still some reasons why you might want to get a biology degree.
The first reason is if you want to get a job that requires a master’s or doctoral degree in biology. If you do, then a bachelor’s degree in biology would be more worthwhile.
Also, if you have a very strong interest in the subject, it would also make it more worthwhile for you to major in biology. However, it would also help to minor in something that is employable at the bachelor’s degree level.
