Traditionally, math majors pursue careers in industry or within the academic setting. They teach, conduct research, or do both, working for schools, colleges, universities, high-technology companies, or research agencies such as NASA, the National Security Agency, or Bell Labs. With appropriate additional study, other avenues for the math major include operations research, computation, statistics, information sciences, actuarial science, government work in statistics, computation, and modeling at the federal, state, and local levels, and interdisciplinary work in medicine, biological sciences, social sciences, business, and economics. The Department of Mathematics at UAB offers a complete range of courses in both pure and applied mathematics at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels. Many Birmingham-area students come to UAB for advanced courses not available at their own institutions.
Some advanced students take courses on a part-time basis while still enrolled in high school.
The majority of the more than twenty full-time faculty members in the department are practicing research mathematicians, many of whom are nationally and internationally known and respected for their work. These faculty are all involved in undergraduate teaching. The B.S. degree in mathematics is the minimal entry requirement for most careers in mathematics. In addition, it provides easy access to careers in health, science, and engineering. Accelerated programs are available for especially gifted students.