Best phd area for a quant

[TableChair]

I'm considering applying for a phd, however I am not 100% sure that I will want to pursue an academic career, so I am trying to work out which areas would be best to work in such that I am employable afterwards.

Specifically I have been looking at possibly becoming a quant, and I was wondering which areas would be best. I imagine staying away from things like particle physics and cosmology is a good move, and trying to do something that would involve a reasonable amout of programming might help. However beyond that I am not really sure and would appreciate some help.

[nbo10]

Statistical Physics with some MBA courses.

[Cygni]

Hi TableChair,

Some people that i met when i was doing research in uni went to work in financial sector and they told me that the primary focus for quants modelling i.e. one must have a good knowledge in programming(obviously :smile: ), fluid mechanics, statistical mechanics and MC. The work is hard though, very competitive and stressful, but the salary is very high. You probably know that.

Those guys who went to work as quants had phds in astrophysics. I suppose any field that has relations with simulation and programming would be suitable eg Lattice QCD, computational fluid dynamics.

[TableChair]

Right, well I was thinking of applying for phds in theory of condensed matter, so as long as it involved a significant amount of computation, it should be ok?

[twofish-quant]

Anything that will get you in front of a computer. Cosmology. Condensed matter. Astrophysics. Mechanical engineering. Whatever. Particle physics and cosmology have a lot of computer intensive areas, which will work for quant jobs. The thing that you want to stay away from are "pencil and paper" jobs where you don't do programming.

Also anything that gets you involved in statistical analysis will be really useful, since this is a weak area for most physics Ph.D.

Also try to program in C++.

As far as hard, competitive and stressful. Yes, but no where near as hard, competitive and stressful as being junior faculty.