Choosing a Major
Numerical & Computational Science
Careers in numerical & computational science
There is a severe worldwide shortage of well qualified IT people. Both BSc and BSc (Hons) UCT graduates are snapped up each year by local and international business and industry.
In the computing profession graduates will find themselves designing solutions to problems, programming, planning, and in management. A variety of IT careers offers stimulating work and excellent prospects for continued development:
- Researchers
- Programmers
- Systems analyst
- Systems engineers
- IT consultants and specialists (in computer graphics, GIS, etc)
- Educators
- Entrepreneurs
- Computer systems, network or database administrators
Employers include software development and consulting companies, the insurance, oil, manufacturing and distribution industries, computer hardware and software companies, banks, Government and local authorities, private and state-funded research institutes, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Medical Research Council, technikons, universities and private training institutions. No organisation can survive today without a substantial investment in IT.
Mathematicians, Physicists and Statisticians find careers wherever quantification, and the language of mathematics, is required. Graduates with good Bachelors or postgraduate degrees in these fields are all too rare, so their skills are in great demand.
Depending on the field, opportunities include:
- Research scientists, as mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, astronomers, cosmologists, demographers
- Teachers of mathematics and physics
- Quantitative specialists in business and industry - in insurance and banking institutions, life assurance, manufacturing industries, market research, investment, and the public service
- Scientific computation
- Strategic planners in business and industry
- Investment analysts
- Operations researchers - as consultants to industry, government and environmental groups
- Geostatisticians - especially in the mining industry
- Biostatisticians, epidemiologists and demographers
- Financial statisticians, econometricians in large financial houses and investment companies
- Solid state, laser and optics research and development physicists in industry (mining, electronics, telecommunications) and parastatals
- Medical physicists (hospitals)
- Geophysicists in the mining and energy industries
- Nuclear, theoretical and applied radiation physicists in the National Research Laboratories and Government (Energy Affairs, Council for Nuclear Safety).
Mathematical, Physical & Statistical Sciences (MPSS)
Careers in MPSS
Mathematicians, Physicists and Statisticians find careers wherever quantification, and the language of mathematics, is required. Graduates with good Bachelors or postgraduate degrees in these fields are all too rare, so their skills are in great demand.
Depending on the field, opportunities include:
- Research scientists, as mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, astronomers, cosmologists, demographers
- Teachers of mathematics and physics
- Quantitative specialists in business and industry - in insurance and banking institutions, life assurance, manufacturing industries, market research, investment, and the public service
- Scientific computation
- Strategic planners in business and industry
- Investment analysts
- Operations researchers - as consultants to industry, government and environmental groups
- Geostatisticians - especially in the mining industry
- Biostatisticians, epidemiologists and demographers
- Financial statisticians, econometricians in large financial houses and investment companies
- Solid state, laser and optics research and development physicists in industry (mining, electronics, telecommunications) and parastatals
- Medical physicists (hospitals)
- Geophysicists in the mining and energy industries
- Nuclear, theoretical and applied radiation physicists in the National Research Laboratories and Government (Energy Affairs, Council for Nuclear Safety).