I was on a career panel for kids at Math Circle today. I did my best, but it was on Zoom, and I had no idea if the kids had any idea what I was talking about. Some of the kids were really young and asked things like "Who invented math, and why?" Another kid asked "Do you take breaks?"
Everyone on the panel was volunteering their time, so I'm going to look like a dick for criticizing them, but I'm going to do it anyway!
- One guy said "the world would be a better place" if more decisions were made by mathematical modeling. Look around you right now, man!
- There was a guy that was a management consultant. He said that he couldn't talk about anything he did specifically and did not connect anything to math. That is not going to inspire the nine-year-olds.
- Another guy just played a Google promotional video for a product he worked on. Well, that's way more efficient than me spending two hours making a demo that was possibly not understood after wracking my brain trying to think of a work thing I did involving actual math. But just playing a Google ad to the kids just felt slimy.
- Someone from Spotify was there. She's a nice person if you factor out the work she does for a company that is both making life harder for musicians and promoting a lot of disinformation. I highly doubt she doesn't understand that at this point. Anyway, she posted a screenshot of a podcast page in the app and said they love to hire smart people who love math. OK.
- A grad student, who seemed nice, was talking about making robots and drones. The pictures seemed very military.
All of teachers' presentations were cool. And there was a guy who worked on 3D modeling software that is just Classic Software of the kind I wish there was more of. And no A.I. bullshit, shockingly.
There's sort of an implication here that a career in math means either teaching or very likely fucking people over. I think Math Circle should stick to their usual thing of just assuming math is cool for its own sake.
[Positive counterpoint goes here]