this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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math students are usually pretty intense, but i think it would be unfair to lump them in with the rest of the stem majors. way lower proportion of "utilitymaxxing" chuds because pure math is fucking useless for the century you're developing it in (usually (at this point in history anyway)). on the other hand, i'd add philosophy to the skip list. lot of debate perverts and analytical philosophy wankery at the upper levels. taking intro philosophy courses is very fun though. you are correct about physics being a pretty chuddy/liberal program usually. although the grad students are a mix of interesting weirdos and future war criminals.
source: math and physics bachelors, most of a philosophy minor, most of a physics phd
For sure, I agree that mathematicians in my experience have been significantly less annoying than the other male dominated STEM majors but still annoying since some of them had an intelligence superiority complex for studying maths over CS/eng. Also tbh there was still a lot of issues with hygiene and misogyny with lots of the math students I met, and given that I'm still dealing with those issues in the professional workplace of fully grown adult software engineers, I'd like to avoid that for the rest of my life after I leave the industry
I studied undergrad CS at a school with very rigorous maths/cs and engineering
I don't doubt this is partially because my program was lower-tier but other than a professor making an offhand comment about the chemistry department's funding once I don't remember ever having a conversation that suggested a rivalry with other disciplines. Doing a phd was so much more fun than undergrad because the other students were all very passionate about math. There's something really magical about getting to nerd out in a group on a regular basis and I still miss that tbh.
That's really nice. My school was a particular intense type of toxic because the CS and eng students are one of the most coveted for top jobs in silicon valley and hedge funds, and is by far the most well known thing about the school, so that really warps the environment for related majors like math and non software/computer related eng
And yea I agree, discussing math with somebody is magical because there's so few that can speak the language
might i ask why you intend to leave the tech industry, and what you plan on doing after that?
I just don't enjoy software engineering as a job anymore
I plan on restarting my life from scratch. No goals, just seeing where life takes me. If I ever run out of money I'll just lie on my resume (which I'm great at) and get back into tech
Similar boat. CS jobs were imploding and it seemed like the job itself was getting shittier and more tied up in reactionary politics over time so I moved back home and saved up to go back to school. Now I'm doing CivE so I can be the train man.
fair enough, i kinda did the same thing except i'm dumb and uncreative so i'm trying to get into a different area of tech (IT/network engineering)
well i wish you luck and stand by my assertion that you should be asking yourself that question instead, because if it were me i'd be miserable studying something i'm not interested in just because internet people said it had cool people. after all you can socialize with people outside your major
this isn't really and answer because idk if it has cool people, i'm just choosing it because i like it, but if i were to go back to college i'd study anthropology
I plan to do both. I've learned that I am not the type of person to enjoy life if I have to suffer through hours of it in an environment I hate (software engineering environment) and then spend the rest of my free time in environments I like
oh 100%, if you don't like that kind of weirdo math monk, definitely not your people. they're not that much better than STEM chuds, just generally less interested in money.
haha yes, I genuinely love math (and it's derivatives like physics, eng, cs) way more than any other subject but personality wise I relate to the arts and humanities vibes and also the slightly crazy party blonde girl stereotypes way more and it's such a struggle since the personalities of my peers are the complete opposite typically minus the wooky drug abusers in math/SWE lmao
Depends heavily on the program tbh