dm.aelis

I suspect that the "Applied" side of things would appeal much more to me; but obviously there is a lot of mathematics I have to study before I can form more definite preferences. I have many friends who pursued "post-baccalaureate" pre-med programs to fill out their coursework with required chemistry, physics, biology, and similar courses for medical school admission when they didn't study those courses in college. Do any universities offer a similar program in mathematics?

Hello everyone, New member. Just wanted to ask for some perspective and advice. I wasn't able to search the information I was looking for elsewhere, so bear with me if this kind of question has been asked before. My background: graduated a couple years ago from Ivy League college, graduating with degree concentration in Economics along with a wide variety of liberal arts courses. 3.6 GPA. I really enjoyed my liberal arts education, and found a balance between athletics, academics, and other extra-curriculars that I was satisfied with. In high school I was really into mathematics, like many kids I aced the mathematics portions of standardized testing and AP calculus tests, etc. In college, however, I didn't step foot inside the mathematics department. I was interested in the humanities and social sciences and focused on them in college. Fast forward, I am now serving with the Marine Corps. I am interested in continuing my education as a Marine, and ideally I would like to prepare myself for graduate school when my time in the Marines is over (I anticipate <6 years of remaining service). Why graduate school? It's something I've always wanted for as long as I can remember, along with military service. Why mathematics? Well, I'd like to achieve something academically/intellectually and contribute to science and society somehow...not suck the life from it as a lawyer or doctor (zing!). In all seriousness, it is an academic itch that I would like to scratch and could be a versatile PhD to have if I pursued employment outside of academia. Seeing as I have *zero* mathematics study at the undergraduate level I am obviously not a candidate right now for a PhD program or even a master's program (though I did well in my Econ courses, I doubt they would qualify). I am looking for some guidance in regards to the following questions: (1) As a non-mathematics-student graduate, what's the laundry list of things I would need that I do not have? (2) During my career as a Marine Corps Officer, can you think of ways to attain the laundry list of Question (1)? (3) Do you know of any Mathematics graduate students from "non-traditional" academic backgrounds? (4) New and innovative online education resources, such as MIT and Harvard's edX collaboration <http://www.edxonline.org/> or Coursera (and others soon I am sure) will offer high quality mathematics course content online and on demand. Would you recommend this kind of exploration as a good start to evaluating future careers in mathematics? (5) Are there any books I can read or kinds of study I can do in my spare time to give me an idea of my future in mathematics? As an equivalent analogy, if I handed a non-Econ major a copy of "Freakonomics" and they hated it or didn't understand it, I'm not sure they should waste time with the questions of Economics. Thanks for the help and advice of the GradCafe community.