>>10892161I don't think math is that difficult, I have friends who had mediocre grades throughout high-school and got good marks in undergrad (mostly due to grade inflation) with no publications and then they still somehow got into top math schools including ETH Zurich and Princeton for their PhDs. I've taken postgraduate math courses myself and I didn't find it more difficult than say, postgrad control engineering at a MIMO level.
One thing about math is that it's harder to stand out with good research breakthroughs. Getting faculty in Math is extremely impressive.
The larger problem is that the reputation of pure fields are cyclical. For example when Feynman graduated he couldn't find work anywhere. Imagine not being able to find a R&D position with a physics PhD from a top university. Then the bomb dropped and suddenly everyone was employing physicists for anything because they were seen as "smart". And then slowly people realised that most physicists can't apply what they learned to anything practical and Aerospace engineers became hot shit. Then the cold war ended and suddenly Aero was dirt again.
Math and Physics has a good reputation at the moment, but it is not guaranteed to last. Because here's another thing to consider: Operations research (a big employer for maths and engineering PhDs) also cycles between colossal salaries and slumps. In the slump math PhDs have to hope can find associate positions in academia (doing the same boring industry work, for a pittance of a wage at a university), but engineers can easily market their practical skills in other economic sectors.
So the point is to just study something you think you'd find interesting, not something you think will get you a job in [current hot trendy field] because that's supposed to be a fallback to begin with. You're mostly not gonna get to work on what you want past your PhD anyway. Make sure you can handle to boring parts of your field.
