PhD in Physics to Management: What's the Best Path?

[sequence]

I'm current a PhD student in physics with an emphasis in computational biophysics. However, I'm not sure a long, boring career in academia is for me. I'm thinking industry when I'm done but even then, I don't want to necessarily be stuck in a research scientist role for the rest of my life either. I would like to be able to transition more into a management role eventually and then on up (hopefully a high paying one at that too).

I was looking at options available to me here. I would think maybe an MBA is the most obvious choice, but god, the classes look boring and simple. There is also a combined physics phd/finance master's I'm looking into. However, this is generally for people wanting to transition purely to Wall Street whereas I'd still like to be involved in a science-related field.

So does anyone have experience with this? What's the best preparation to eventually make the jump from pure research to a management-level position?

 

[ktpr2]

MBA without a doubt. The boring simple classes will pay themselves off when you're managing a science-related company. The other trick to do is to somehow get management experience on your own, which will be really hard since you're a PhD student. I'd go for the MBA.

 

[jai6638]

am still in high school and was hoping to do my undergrad in some type of engineering ( mostly mechanical ) and then do my MBA... However, won't MBA be hard without doing BBA?

thanks