One of the most pervasive trends in recent times has been the move to a global economy, and with it an increasing emphasis on efficiency, organisational robustness, sustainability and accountability. But these are hard-edged concepts that impose new demands and require new approaches — particularly for graduates starting out in their careers.

A common theme, though, is the need to be able to  quantify a problem — to model systems and processes in ways that allow us to formulate a question quantitatively, to compute an answer, and to analyse the accuracy and reliability of that answer.

In many cases the questions that arise relate to issues of sustainability, risk assessment and management. Some examples are:

Finance and Insurance Analysts: How much of an investor’s assets do we place at risk by choosing a particular portfolio of investment? How best do we insure against that risk?

Market Researcher: What selection of features will make our product most attractive to the market? What degree of confidence do we have in our answer to that question, and how can we maximise that degree of confidence for a given cost?

Logistics/Production Manager: How can we most efficiently deploy our organisation’s resources  to support the distribution of products or the delivery of services? How can we minimise the consumption of resources  needed to manufacture a given product?

Materials Scientist: How do we characterise the ‘intelligent materials’ needed to drive the next technological revolution? How can we optimise the design of devices made from these materials?

Answering these questions requires broad knowledge and a wide range of skills, combining an understanding of computational modelling, statistical analysis, optimisation techniques, and the underlying mathematical theory. Of course different aspects will appeal to different people, and so we offer a range of degree programs that allows you to focus your studies in a variety of ways and with greater or lesser degrees of specialisation.

Have a look at recently advertised mathematical and statistical jobs at:

• The Statistical Society of Australia

• The Australian Mathematical Society

• The International Centre of Excellence for Education in Mathematics:

• Careers in Mathematics and Statistics website

• Math Ad(d)s booklet (pdf)