Finance Career: Q&A for Physics PhD Seeking Advice | TwoFishQuant

[Lengalicious]

Ok if possible I would like to direct this at twofishquant, however if you have any experience please do post. I have seen that he has quite a bit of experience in this area and would really like to hear his opinion. I am going onto second year undergrad from September in Physics, I plan on getting a PHD. So here are my questions, with a PHD in physics what areas of finance are open to me? From what I have seen its basically quantitative analysis but I hear this is quite a broad range of jobs, also what area of physics should my PHD be into have the most relevance, I see theoretical physics with heavy programming in C++ seems to be quite hot, but in specific what? My last question, will your career take you as far as an MBA for instance? What is the progression like, can you reach the salary of an investment banker and how does your career develop, you start as some fresh off the boat quant analyst and develop into. . . ? Forgive me if that sounds like nonsense but my current finance knowledge is zero. Oh and one more thing, what is starting salary like? I imagine at the start I would have to commute into London or NYC depending on where I work because to finance in-city living comfortably you need like £90,000 or $180,000 respectively. (That is based purely on forum threads I have read through).

 

[twofish-quant]

Ok if possible I would like to direct this at twofishquant, however if you have any experience please do post. I have seen that he has quite a bit of experience in this area and would really like to hear his opinion. I am going onto second year undergrad from September in Physics, I plan on getting a PHD. So here are my questions, with a PHD in physics what areas of finance are open to me?

I can tell you want positions in finance would likely to be available in finance to a physics Ph.D. graduating in 2012 or 2013. I have no idea at all what (if anything) would be available to someone graduating in 2018.

From what I have seen its basically quantitative analysis but I hear this is quite a broad range of jobs, also what area of physics should my PHD be into have the most relevance

It doesn't matter. No one cares what area of physics your degree was in. What matters is how much computer experience and math ability you have.

My last question, will your career take you as far as an MBA for instance?

If you are trying to decide between an MBA and a physics Ph.D., do the MBA. Getting a physics Ph.D. for career reasons is a stupid idea. I'm pretty sure that had I gotten an MBA and spent the same amount of luck and effort, I would be making a lot more money and be much higher on the corporate ladder than I am now.

I didn't get an MBA because I like physics better than management.

What is the progression like, can you reach the salary of an investment banker and how does your career develop, you start as some fresh off the boat quant analyst and develop into. . . ?

No idea. I can tell you how the career of something that gets hired in 2000 or 2005 has developed. This information is likely to be completely useless to someone getting a job now. Since one thing that I'm pretty sure of is that 2012 is not 2005. As for someone entering the work force in 2018, no clue at all.

Personally my plan is to make as much money as I can, retire as quickly as possible, so that I can get back to doing astrophysics.

One thing about finance is that you have to be able to deal with the unexpected and realize that your ability to predict the future is limited. I could be out on the street and unemployed a month from now, or I could be doing what I'm doing for the next two decades.

I would recommend that you get a good background in the liberal arts. Literature, history, and philosophy. One thing that has helped me a lot was high school Latin. It wasn't so much the Latin that was useful but rather getting very familiar with the history of the Roman Republic.

Forgive me if that sounds like nonsense but my current finance knowledge is zero. Oh and one more thing, what is starting salary like? I imagine at the start I would have to commute into London or NYC depending on where I work because to finance in-city living comfortably you need like £90,000 or $180,000 respectively. (That is based purely on forum threads I have read through).

Total comp (salary + bonus) right now for a physics Ph.D. is about $120K, however this is for jobs right now, and I'm sure that it won't be correct in 2018. Something that is a current trend and is likely to be true for the next few years is that salaries have been trending down.

One thing that I've been wondering is whether or not what I'm doing is socially useful. I wonder this less for moral reasons, but out of pure selfish interest. Suppose investment banking is a scam that drains blood from more productive uses. Then at some point things (probably before 2018) are going to fall apart again. Now if the world falls apart in 2018, I'll take my gold bars (and yes, I keep some gold bars in a safe place) and slip quietly out of the picture. If you just start out in 2018, the lynch mobs will be after you.

On the other hand, maybe all this junk about helping to efficiently allocate resources is true. One thing that you'll find about society is that there are a lot of professional liars. You have lawyers, salesman, and politicians whose job it is to lie to you. Sometimes it's a good thing for people to lie to you. One of the jobs of a President or CEO is to lie and say "everything is going to be all right".

There is an entire *industry* of people devoted to convincing people that what's good for banks is good for you. The complicated thing is that a professional liar sometimes stumbles on the truth. Yes I know you are telling me this stuff so that I had over my wallet. But what it they are right?

 

[twofish-quant]

One other thing. I stumbled into finance. My first job with my Ph.D. was with an oil/gas company during the middle of the dot-com boom. The CEO of that company was a wonderful gifted amazing person, with drive and vision, who was replaced by someone that totally clueless who ran the company into the ground.

I don't think of finance as a "career" more like a temporary job that pays the bills, so that I can eventually do what I'm really interested in.

 

[Lengalicious]

Ok thanks a lot for your input, I am in a similar position in that an MBA just seems too bland and simple where as my real interest lies in physics, I would much rather spend 10 years studying physics to get into finance than spend 3 or 4 years studying finance itself. However I find it to be more so a hobby as opposed to a full time career, hell I would happily work as a physicist the rest of my life but if the option is there to work in finance and make a more than mediocre salary, then why not? I'm certainly not uninterested by finance especially if sitting in front of a computer and fixing code is what you do. You say its not a career, I understand your motive but if you really want it to be is it possible? Hypothetically in today's economy, not 2018. Surely having had quant experience behind you for a number of years gives you access to other branches of finance with higher pay? I can't imagine you would be stuck there your whole life (in the case that you weren't made redundant), opportunities must arise?

EDIT: Also I noticed in some of the other threads that you say to others not to get an MBA if they already have a PHD in physics? Why is this? Surely if you just said forget the Physics degree and go for an MBA the MBA must hold some pretty big value in the eyes of the financial employers? I imagine you get quite different jobs from a PHD physicist if you now hold and MBA or MFE? In that sense yeh the Physics degree was pointless, but then surely your opportunities are now DOUBLE as you could potentially make 2 resumes, thus increasing your survivability/stability? AND why would a background in those particular liberal arts be of any use whatsoever? o.0

EDIT: One more thing, I take it you have lived in NYC? Does/did whatever salary you made from this give you a comfortable life style? Or did you commute? I'd like to know someones personal experience, not to be intrusive or anything. .

 

[twofish-quant]

You say its not a career, I understand your motive but if you really want it to be is it possible?

No idea. It depends how history moves.

What I was told when I was an undergraduate was that the world in which you worked for a company for the rest of your life was gone. In the late-1990's, it thought that people would move from company to company and field to field that would be a good thing. The "free market" would make sure that everyone would get the job at which they would be most productive, and we'd all live happily ever after.

The problem was that there was this assumption that if you lost a job in field A, that you'd find one quickly in field B. Since 2008, it's a big question about whether that is going to work.

Hypothetically in today's economy, not 2018. Surely having had quant experience behind you for a number of years gives you access to other branches of finance with higher pay? I can't imagine you would be stuck there your whole life (in the case that you weren't made redundant), opportunities must arise?

If the world blows up, then I'm selling apples, and I saw the world almost blow up.

Imagine waking up one morning, going off to the ATM and finding that didn't work, and all of your credit and debit cards also stopped working. We were probably days maybe even hours away in a situation in which *no one's* ATM's, credit, debit cards would work. There's a reason I keep some of my wealth in physical gold.

The other thing about finance (and physics) is that you end up meeting people who came from countries which *did* blow up. In some cases, very recently.

I made a scary amount of money the last few years. I really don't see much point in making more money. My interest is to keep the job that I have, and learn more about how the world works.

EDIT: Also I noticed in some of the other threads that you say to others not to get an MBA if they already have a PHD in physics? Why is this?

Because there is no marginal use. An MBA is valuable. A Ph.D. is valuable. MBA + Ph.D. doesn't add much value above a Ph.D. and it might have negative value. The big concern for a Ph.D. is that you can't work outside of school, so if you have a Ph.D. and work as a dog groomer that probably has more value than Ph.D. + MBA.

Surely if you just said forget the Physics degree and go for an MBA the MBA must hold some pretty big value in the eyes of the financial employers?

Nope. Think of it this way. You want a box of nails, you go to a hardware store. You want a gallon of milk, you go to a supermarket. You want a bunch of corporate bureaucrats, you go to a "brain store" (i.e. a university). It's not that the gallon of milk you get at a supermarket is better than a gallon of milk you get somewhere else, it's that if you go to the supermarket, you can fill up your shopping cart quickly and easily.

One good thing about getting a Ph.D. over an MBA is that most physics Ph.D.'s don't want to work at an investment bank whereas most MBA's do. So if you get an MBA you are crawling over other MBA's to get a shot at a bank. If you get a Ph.D., you have to offer a lot of incentives to get people to switch. However, if you try to outguess the system, it won't work, because if you try to game the system so will everyone else.

I imagine you get quite different jobs from a PHD physicist if you now hold and MBA or MFE?

If you have an MBA/MFE with no Ph.D., the jobs are different. I think the jobs that you get if you get an MBA are awful. But people are different. I'm pretty sure that there are lot's of MBA's that see me doing math all day and it would be hell for them. People are different.

In that sense yeh the Physics degree was pointless, but then surely your opportunities are now DOUBLE as you could potentially make 2 resumes, thus increasing your survivability/stability?

Nope. If you have too many degrees, people assume that you can't operate outside of school, and your marketability goes *down*. Also I have two resumes. One is my finance resume and one is my computer programmer resume.

The other thing is that if you have a Ph.D. you can get more than the equivalent of an MBA with work experience.

AND why would a background in those particular liberal arts be of any use whatsoever? o.0

What job I will have in 2020 will depend a lot on "future history". Reading "past history" will help you figure out "future history." Also philosophy and literature is useful? What is the meaning of life? Why *do* I want a job? Poetry is useful because it keeps you sane in an insane world.

Looking for a job is a brutal, humiliating experience. Reading Kafka and Tom Stoppard let's you laugh at the situation. The other thing is that doing a job interview is like acting. It helped me a lot to think of an interview as an acting role.

EDIT: One more thing, I take it you have lived in NYC? Does/did whatever salary you made from this give you a comfortable life style?

Yes, but my life wasn't that much different than when I was in graduate school. I

One thing about working in finance, you *will* feel poor. The problem is that if you live in NYC or work in finance, you will be constantly running into people that make more money (and sometimes a *LOT* more money than you do). Once you make it to the 1%, you realize that there is a 0.1% and a 0.01% and a 0.001%.

What I did when I was in graduate school was that I wrote down a number, made a list of things that I wanted to buy, and I promised myself that once I made that salary and could buy everything on the list, I declare victory and consider myself rich.

Comfortable is relative. Anyone that is lucky enough to be a US citizen will live a life that most people in the world would seriously envy. In some ways going into finance will make your life much less comfortable. If you live outside of NYC, you hear about mega-rich people buying stuff that you will never be able to afford, but once you get their, you will *see* it, and you will be at the mercy of people whose job and profession it is to make you miserable so that you hand over money to them.

 

[Lengalicious]

Ok thanks a lot for your replies, this helps a lot. I have one more question I'm guessing you might know a thing or two about, you always hear about physicists being poor because they stay in academia right? So in Industry aside from finance what are CURRENTLY some of the best payed job descriptions for a physics PHD? I'd like to know so I can choose the right modules and plan ahead and do my masters/PHD in something most useful in industry in case my finance goal goes tits-up. I mean from your opinion what do you see as becoming more prevalent and in demand within industry? I'm guessing quantum mechanics will have more applications by 2018, what do you recommend?

 

[intelwanderer]

I thought quantum mechanics already had a lot of applications...The whole semiconductor business being one of them. Maybe semiconductors/solid state stuff? Or you could do policy-see Steven Chu.

There are prediction for certain veins of research(single atom transistors, biotech), expected to make huge gains in the future, or so I've read. But no one knows for sure what will happen. It's research, it wouldn't be research if we knew what would happen.

I'm a new physics major, so feel free to disregard me.

 

[intelwanderer]

Looking for a job is a brutal, humiliating experience.

YES. It's degrading to boot. They almost have you beg for a job, or at least at a couple of the interviews I did this summer. How am I supposed to explain how I'm "passionate" about wiping tables? I wish I could just say-"Look, I need money, you need your tables wiped. So let's get it done so we both end up satisfied." But I know that's impossible considering the multitudes of people applying for the same job.

Sometimes I actually think that employers like the bad economic conditions. Maybe it's just my mood and I'm ignoring bad things that have happened to them, but logically, they can pick and choose more, and pay people less, because people are grateful they "have" a job. They have more power.

At least one good thing that happened to me from all this failure is I'm really not scared of it anymore. So I guess I have learned a lesson this summer(this year, really).

...and you will be at the mercy of people whose job and profession it is to make you miserable so that you hand over money to them.

What people?

 

[twofish-quant]

Ok thanks a lot for your replies, this helps a lot. I have one more question I'm guessing you might know a thing or two about, you always hear about physicists being poor because they stay in academia right?

People that *stay* in academia tend not to be poor. Tenured physics professors make decent amounts of money. Post-docs are highly underpaid, because they are getting killed by supply/demand, but those are temporary jobs.

It's not the salaries that are the problem in academia. It's the lack of permanent jobs.

So in Industry aside from finance what are CURRENTLY some of the best payed job descriptions for a physics PHD? I'd like to know so I can choose the right modules and plan ahead and do my masters/PHD in something most useful in industry in case my finance goal goes tits-up.

This strategy won't work. It's like trying to figure out the winning lottery ticket. Even if I knew the winning number, and even if I told you, it wouldn't do you any good. If you knew tomorrow's winning lottery number, it's reasonable to think that so will everyone else, and if everyone picks the same number, you all are going to lose.

If you can't choose, the take a list of possible classes, tape it to a dart board, and then throw darts at it, and then you have your answer. It turns out that in finance, sometimes doing something *totally random* is the best strategy. If you think about what to do, you'll come up with the same answer as everyone else that thinks, and that will be the wrong answer. If you do something random, you may win, you may lose, but your odds are better than going with the crowd. This is called *index investing* and it works surprisingly well.

The other thing is *fundamental investing*. That's to figure out what fields generate real economic value. This is something that you will have to figure out for yourself. I can't tell you. In order to win at this game, you have to have some information that isn't public. For example, if your parents are Bolivian sugar farmers, and you may see something about sugar farming in Bolivia that no one else does. If I tell you anything, it's public information, and therefore you are at no advantage for listening to me.

I mean from your opinion what do you see as becoming more prevalent and in demand within industry?

I have no opinions on this. I can tell you want is likely to happen in the next year or two, but then you get into Lyapunov exponents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_exponent

The Lyapunov exponent tells you at what point a dynamic system becomes chaotic and which tells you how far in the future you can see. I think that the Lyapunov exponent for finance is about a year. One other way of looking at this is the "billard machine". A billard ball goes in a straight line until it hits something at which point it's direction radically changes. I can be reasonably sure that the world won't hit a bumper tomorrow or next week. If you look ahead a year or two, I can be almost certain that the world is going to hit a bumper that is going to change the path of history.

I'm guessing quantum mechanics will have more applications by 2018, what do you recommend?

Get good at math, physics, and computer programming, and then have a good background in the humanities. Also find some random skill that no one else has.

The other thing is to think deeply about *why* we are in lottery ticket mode. If you were in a society in which 80% of the people ended up doing something decent, then I don't think there would be as much anxiety about making the right choice.

 

[twofish-quant]

YES. It's degrading to boot. They almost have you beg for a job, or at least at a couple of the interviews I did this summer. How am I supposed to explain how I'm "passionate" about wiping tables?

That's why I found drama to be useful. If you think about a job interview as "putting on a show" it makes it less degrading.

I wish I could just say-"Look, I need money, you need your tables wiped. So let's get it done so we both end up satisfied." But I know that's impossible considering the multitudes of people applying for the same job.

One reason that I spend as much time as I do studying "professional liars" is that I'm trying to be one. A lot of modern society depends on "professional lying." Do you think that the person at the counter that gets paid minimum wage really wants you to "have a nice day?" So when I go to a job interview, I'm always lying to a degree. But one thing that you learn in drama is to put on a convincing acting job, it has to be based on some sort of inner truth.

Replace "I'm passionate for this job" with "I'm desperate for this job" and that gets you to the inner truth, and then you change desperation to passion.

Something that's fun is to talk to a politician. If you talk to any competent politician, they will make you feel good. When you take to a politician, they make you feel like you are at the center of the world, and getting your problems fixed is the most important thing in the world. Lawyers are often the same way.

Sometimes I actually think that employers like the bad economic conditions. Maybe it's just my mood and I'm ignoring bad things that have happened to them, but logically, they can pick and choose more, and pay people less, because people are grateful they "have" a job. They have more power.

Both sides in an interview table are lying. Something that the interviewer won't tell you is how much he hates his job and how scare he or she is of losing it. When you are in an interview situation, the interviewer is *GOD*. Once you get hired, you find that the interviewer can be as scared as you are.

One other skill is to be able to read people. For example, you say "This is a *wonderful* job" and then look at the eyes of the interviewers to see whether or not to what extent they are hiding the truth.

What people?

Sales and marketing people. The job of any salesman and any marketer is to make you feel *bad* unless you hand over your money in exchange for some product. This isn't restricted to the business world. Harvard does a *wonderful* job of marketing itself.

 

[NegativeDept]

Personally my plan is to make as much money as I can, retire as quickly as possible, so that I can get back to doing astrophysics.

A friend of mine is doing just that. He's a very skilled programmer who made a bunch of money, then decided to get a PhD in astrophysics. His company then offered him even more money to be Director of Technical something or other, so he went back to work. But when he has enough to retire comfortably, I'll bet that he'll come back to finish his thesis on numerical models of stellar dynamics. It sounds like a pretty good plan if you can pull it off!

 

[twofish-quant]

But when he has enough to retire comfortably, I'll bet that he'll come back to finish his thesis on numerical models of stellar dynamics. It sounds like a pretty good plan if you can pull it off!

If... One thing that always bothered me about that plan was that I didn't know anyone that had actually did this and I've wondered why.

The good news is that the reason seems to be just a matter of time to move out of the tunnel. If it takes you 15-20 years to save up enough to retire early, that means that the people that got their Ph.D.'s in 1995 when physics Ph.D.'s started going into finance in large numbers then you should start seeing people "punch out" around now, and we are starting to see that. If this is the explanation, then you should have a burst of middle aged astrophysicists suddenly appearing in the next few years.

However, what it means for me is also unclear. I figure I'll need another five to ten years to "get to the end of the tunnel" and it's unclear to me whether the world will let me. One reason that I'm telling juniors not to put their hope in working in finance is that I don't know if I'll be working in finance next year. I'd like to. But the world may have other ideas.

Whether this career path will work for people going into physics now is even more murky.

My gut feeling is that it won't, because history just changes in ways that mean that you just can't "follow a cookbook" and expect to get anywhere.

 

[NegativeDept]

If... One thing that always bothered me about that plan was that I didn't know anyone that had actually did this and I've wondered why.

This is obviously an extreme outlier, but... the guitarist from Queen got his astrophysics PhD in 2007 at the age of 60.

The link is an NPR interview where May talks about using prime-number delay spacings to create the stomping noise for We Will Rock You.

 

[Adrenaline_]

If you are planning to go for MBA, There are better sectors in which you can find a slight touch of maths etc.
MBA, Finance if you wish to be a corporate tyrant, it includes: investment,security,market analysis,economics,costing.
MBA, Marketing if you wish to know more about sales,branding,finance,advertisment and managing people.

Finance job especially in investment firms which are directly dictated by market conditions are more risk prone due to fluctuating market conditions
make sure you have some of these:
Clear communication skills
Rigid and most logical decision maker
Reasoning skills.
and most importantly
Positive attitude.

 

[Lostman11]

Hi all,
Lengalicious, hope you don't mind me asking this on your thread but it seemed the most relevant thread and I didn't want to spam the baord and create another one.

I would very much appreciate any advice twofish-quant or anyone else with some experience can provide me with. I am all set to finish my PhD physics sometime next year and I have just begun my job search so I am open to any and all fields. (except academia, have already ruled this out) My area of concentration is semiconductor physics and optics/photonics. I have a lot of publications, conferences etc, but very limited programming skills. (Hardly needed it for my thesis) Also during my PhD I have served as a technical consultant for a big laser company, and received some prestigious fellowships and awards.

Would someone of my background still be of use in finance/business?
If so, how can I spin my background to match what people are looking for? I assume PhD physics would carry some weight but I really don't know? It seems programming is requirement for most places I had seen.

Thanks guys.

 

[cearl]

Thank you twofish-quant and others for some great posts, really answered some questions that I have had for a decent amount of time.

I am just about to start my final year of High School, and am in the same position as many of you guys (would not prefer to go into academia, would like to get a higher paying job) however I do not really know what I would like to go into.

I have an interest in both Physics, Astrophysics, and a small amount of interest in business, and I would really like it if I could make a lot of money, and then go back to school.

I made a scary amount of money the last few years. I really don't see much point in making more money. My interest is to keep the job that I have, and learn more about how the world works.

This is pretty much what I am looking to do.

 

[H2Bro]

I enjoy reading how many people want to follow in twofish's footsteps, juxtaposed with how cynical and bitter-sounding twofish is. I liken it to:

"When I grow up, I want to be an old man."

Not saying your old, or anything disparaging for that matter, twofish (love your posts, btw), but certainly you would agree that when it comes to physics PhD's entering finance, the mean path is atypical, and many people are looking for a roadmap that doesn't exist.

I'm speaking as someone who drastically redesigned their life to pursue physics (after various stints in various jobs and background in humanities), naturally drawn to the holy grail of astrophysics, but realizing that "going into finance" is an incredibly crap-shoot fallback plan for when I get denied tenure along with 99% of my graduating cohort.

And you know, I must agree on one point: learn philosophy, theories of language and mind, society, anthropology - all of it. It has helped immensely in formulating what I see as a worthy life, and might make you pause to spend your time chasing money so you can do what you *really* want when your 60 - after all, you might die at the age of 40.

 

[StatGuy2000]

I enjoy reading how many people want to follow in twofish's footsteps, juxtaposed with how cynical and bitter-sounding twofish is. I liken it to:

"When I grow up, I want to be an old man."

Not saying your old, or anything disparaging for that matter, twofish (love your posts, btw), but certainly you would agree that when it comes to physics PhD's entering finance, the mean path is atypical, and many people are looking for a roadmap that doesn't exist.

I'm speaking as someone who drastically redesigned their life to pursue physics (after various stints in various jobs and background in humanities), naturally drawn to the holy grail of astrophysics, but realizing that "going into finance" is an incredibly crap-shoot fallback plan for when I get denied tenure along with 99% of my graduating cohort.

And you know, I must agree on one point: learn philosophy, theories of language and mind, society, anthropology - all of it. It has helped immensely in formulating what I see as a worthy life, and might make you pause to spend your time chasing money so you can do what you *really* want when your 60 - after all, you might die at the age of 40.

I have spent a fair amount of time on the boards here, and am often quite astounded by the degree of cynicism and bitterness of the people who have completed a physics PhD, of which twofish-quant is probably among the most blatant.

While I'm certain that the sample of posters here are not necessarily representative of those who have studied physics, one can be forgiven for thinking that physics graduates (unless they are either tenured professors, or on tenure track) are among the unhappiest people on the planet

 

[ParticleGrl]

I have spent a fair amount of time on the boards here, and am often quite astounded by the degree of cynicism and bitterness of the people who have completed a physics PhD... one can be forgiven for thinking that physics graduates (unless they are either tenured professors, or on tenure track) are among the unhappiest people on the planet

Cynical doesn't necessarily mean unhappy. I rather like my current job, and overall enjoy my life however I've become incredibly cynical. Why? Throughout the academic science process, people I trusted to give me good advice implicitly and explicitly lied to me in order to further their own career goals. I think most idealistic people who are exploited like rubes fresh off the train end up a bit cynical- and that's what science is built on.

 

[intelwanderer]

Sometimes cynicism is healthy(I prefer the term "realistic").

My freshman year at college, and my high school experiences have made me cynical, and I don't really have any problem with that. I planned and fixed and did all through high school, only to have everything crushed. All I can do is pick myself up and move on. In fact, it's probably better prepared me for life.

Of course, I'm not jaded enough to not choose physics(over engineering), so I have a little ways to go.Physics graduates are unhappy depending on what their goals are, from my observation. I just want to learn physics and do some research for a few years, so I guess I'm not unhappy for now. I know I'm not going to become a professor even if I lived, breathed, and ate physics(and I don't), thanks to this site really. And that's OK. There are other interesting(sometimes more interesting) things to do. After that(assuming I don't go for a Phd in physics or materials science or MSEE or whatever, and if I do, the same argument applies), I'd love to do something physics/technical related in industry/government lab, but I'm OK with doing something else as well, be it joining the NSA or teaching English in Shenzhen or becoming a wanderer. Just so long as my life isn't boring. And if I can't get hired at a fast food job or anything like that, than it's likely that everyone else in my generation is screwed, so at least I got to be happy for a few years.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Cynical doesn't necessarily mean unhappy. I rather like my current job, and overall enjoy my life however I've become incredibly cynical. Why? Throughout the academic science process, people I trusted to give me good advice implicitly and explicitly lied to me in order to further their own career goals. I think most idealistic people who are exploited like rubes fresh off the train end up a bit cynical- and that's what science is built on.

Perhaps the problem is that people should not be so idealistic to begin with, or not to be so trusting of people who, either unwittingly through lack of current knowledge or perhaps knowingly, may be creating a distorted view of the prospects for academia for those with graduate degrees in physics.

I am not denying that there are serious problems with the excess supply of physics PhDs relative to tenure-track academic positions. My contention is that for those who are pursuing a PhD program, one should recognize that your supervising professor has a great deal of knowledge of his/her area of research, as well as his/her experiences in academia, but he/she may not be qualified to advise you on what your prospects once you complete your doctorate.

But then again, perhaps I'm not the best to speak about this, as maybe I'm not capable of being idealistic. As long as I am employed and earn enough to survive and maybe enjoy my life a little, not much else really matters to me.

 

[mayonaise]

Perhaps the problem is that people should not be so idealistic to begin with, or not to be so trusting of people who, either unwittingly through lack of current knowledge or perhaps knowingly, may be creating a distorted view of the prospects for academia for those with graduate degrees in physics.

Saying this to a disillusioned physics grad does nothing but add insult to injury. I DO agree that we should not be so idealistic and trusting. But I did grow up with parents and professors who preach this exact distorted view, so if you told me I shouldn't have trusted the only people I was supposed to trust, I'm going to stab you. I was betrayed and you just have to call me a fool on top of that.

Now the best that I can do is tell my child not to trust authority figures too much, including myself, BEFORE he's chewed up and spitted out by academia (or Goldman Sachs).

 

[intelwanderer]

Question: Is it a bad idea to do the Phd, if you don't want to go into academia? Maybe an industry research job or a government lab? Are those jobs just as competitive?

 

[AKing2713]

So, i know I'm new here but am I missing something? Why get a physics/mathmatics/MBA degree if you want to be a quant? Why not just take the direct appraoch and get a Master of Quantitative Finance degree(or something similar)? Is it because it's to direct and people want something else to fall back on if they can't get a job at a bank? I am just kind of confused. How would a Phd in physics give you an edge as a quant compared to someone who took a specialized course specifically dealing with the needs and requirments of being a quant?

I ask this because I want to go into finance as well but not sure whether to do something like a phd in physics or do something like a major in math with some computer science skills as well. As twofish said employers don't care what area of physics you specialized in apart from the math and computer skills you have. Or would the direct route that I have mentioned be better?

 

[StatGuy2000]

Saying this to a disillusioned physics grad does nothing but add insult to injury. I DO agree that we should not be so idealistic and trusting. But I did grow up with parents and professors who preach this exact distorted view, so if you told me I shouldn't have trusted the only people I was supposed to trust, I'm going to stab you. I was betrayed and you just have to call me a fool on top of that.

Now the best that I can do is tell my child not to trust authority figures too much, including myself, BEFORE he's chewed up and spitted out by academia (or Goldman Sachs).

You misunderstand me here. The main point I was trying to get across earlier was that by the time we are in college/university (certainly by the time we are in graduate school in any time, including physics), it is up to us as individuals to ensure we are fully informed on the realistic prospects of academic and non-academic employment opportunities, as well as what general skills can best allow us to be flexible in our choices.

An important component of a higher education, in my opinion, is to learn to be skeptical and questioning, and that includes questioning statements about career prospects in our respective fields. The impression I get (which may be mistaken) is that physics graduate students were told by their professors that there are great opportunities in physics research and they simply accepted this assertion without questioning whether this is still valid in the present day (and thus did not make adequate preparation to develop skills that could make them more widely employable).

 

[mdxyz]

If... One thing that always bothered me about that plan was that I didn't know anyone that had actually did this and I've wondered why.

Brian May.

He got richer than you are maybe thinking, though.

 

[Moppy]

Wow, you're really planning ahead a long way!

I don't think you're an i-banker in waiting. Your questions and uncertaincies do not point to you being an aggressive risk taker.

Analysis is a big field. Maths, physics and comp-sci can get you in.

Salary depends on a great many factors. Which uni are you at? Big money finance jobs in London are very slanted towards Oxbridge grads. Going straight in at UKP 90K with an MSc is possible but that's not common.

I recommend you choose to do something you love, or something that pays well, because you're a very lucky fellow if you can find one that ticks both boxes.

Also paragraphs! Effective communication skills will greatly boost your employment chances.

Ok if possible I would like to direct this at twofishquant, however if you have any experience please do post. I have seen that he has quite a bit of experience in this area and would really like to hear his opinion. I am going onto second year undergrad from September in Physics, I plan on getting a PHD. So here are my questions, with a PHD in physics what areas of finance are open to me? From what I have seen its basically quantitative analysis but I hear this is quite a broad range of jobs, also what area of physics should my PHD be into have the most relevance, I see theoretical physics with heavy programming in C++ seems to be quite hot, but in specific what? My last question, will your career take you as far as an MBA for instance? What is the progression like, can you reach the salary of an investment banker and how does your career develop, you start as some fresh off the boat quant analyst and develop into. . . ? Forgive me if that sounds like nonsense but my current finance knowledge is zero. Oh and one more thing, what is starting salary like? I imagine at the start I would have to commute into London or NYC depending on where I work because to finance in-city living comfortably you need like £90,000 or $180,000 respectively. (That is based purely on forum threads I have read through).

 

[twofish-quant]

So, i know I'm new here but am I missing something? Why get a physics/mathmatics/MBA degree if you want to be a quant? Why not just take the direct appraoch and get a Master of Quantitative Finance degree(or something similar)?

Because an MQF doesn't provide the skills that you need to do quant work. These degrees are very new, and they were something of an experiment and one which I think hasn't worked pretty well.

The problem with a masters degree is that the finance environment changes too quickly for the degree to be useful. I can take a quantitative finance textbook that is a year old, and most of it is either wrong or irrelevant. The really interesting problems are those that no one has written a textbook for, and no one quite has defined the problem.

The other issue is that it's not like engineering where people can talk about what they are doing. I'm working on something that's massively cool. I just can't talk about it, and in the three months it takes for what I'm doing to filter to a university, it will be out of date.

This is the type of thing that people with physics and math Ph.D.'s just eat up.

I am just kind of confused. How would a Phd in physics give you an edge as a quant compared to someone who took a specialized course specifically dealing with the needs and requirments of being a quant?

You learn an equation in class. Now something happens, and the equation stops working. You are going to have to come up with new equations that describe how the market behaves. What are the new equations. No clue, You figure them out. How do you figure them out, again, your problem...

Now what? Most people with masters degrees are just dead in the water, because they haven't been trained to deal with situations in which what they are taught just doesn't work.

I ask this because I want to go into finance as well but not sure whether to do something like a phd in physics or do something like a major in math with some computer science skills as well.

1) If you want to go into finance, don't get a Ph.D. in physics. Most jobs in finance have nothing to do with quantitative finance.

2) Be clear about what you really want. Are you willing to go into finance if there is no money in finance? Salaries in finance are going down. It's still good right now, but who knows what will happen in five years.

Also, the "cowboy" days are over. For the next decade, finance is largely going to be about how to comply with government regulation. Fortunately for me, there are a lot of interesting math problems involved in making the government regulators happy.

As twofish said employers don't care what area of physics you specialized in apart from the math and computer skills you have. Or would the direct route that I have mentioned be better?

It's a bad idea to be too focused.

 

[Moppy]

Twofish, you are based in London?

I think the cowboy days ended years ago when they stopped recruiting quick-witted East End barrow boys for traders, and switched to grads with math degrees.

 

[twofish-quant]

Question: Is it a bad idea to do the Phd, if you don't want to go into academia?

I ended up a lot happier once I realized that going into academia was somewhat of a hopeless quest. As long as I felt that the "normal" thing to do was to get into academia, I ended up beating myself up. Once I realized that it was "normal" not to go into academia after I got my Ph.D., I felt like much less of a failure.

Maybe an industry research job or a government lab? Are those jobs just as competitive?

Or maybe just become a beach bum. One of the very good things about a physics Ph.D., is that you end up with almost no debt, and so if after you get your degree and you feel like being a beach bum, you can.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't think you're an i-banker in waiting. Your questions and uncertaincies do not point to you being an aggressive risk taker.

Risk taking is out. The future of banking is of being a regulated utility, and "aggressive risk takers" really should look at doing something other than investment banking, because the government will not let you take aggressive risks. Everything you do nowadays has to be checked and double checked by a dozen risk managers and government regulators.

Which is an interesting mathematical challenge. Essentially the problem is how do you quickly and efficiently show people that you aren't going to blow up the world (again).

Government regulator meets with your bosses, bosses, bosses, boss and asks, suppose the stock market drops by 50%, what happens? I don't know is an unacceptable answer. We can get you the answer in two months, is a bad answer. What your 5x boss wants to have happen is that when the government asks "what happens if", he can smile and tell said regulator that the numbers will be on his desk by close of business, and if the regulator asks for the assumptions that went into those numbers, that that's also in the report.

So that's the set of problems that people are working on now. How do you generate risk measurements that will make government regulators smile at you is not going to be in any textbook, because it's something that people really didn't have to worry about before 2005 or so.

 

[twofish-quant]

It is up to us as individuals to ensure we are fully informed on the realistic prospects of academic and non-academic employment opportunities, as well as what general skills can best allow us to be flexible in our choices.

But by what basis are we able to make these decisions?

Maybe it's easier for young-uns, because they can google for the data on the internet. I went to college before the world wide web was invented, so there wasn't anywhere I could google for employment information.

Also, it's kind of convenient for someone to take your money, give you bad advice, and then keep your money. The trouble with universities saying "caveat emptor" it's up to you to figure things out, is that at that point people wonder what's the point of paying money to a university at all. If it's up to me to figure things out, then why am I paying you $$$$$$.

An important component of a higher education, in my opinion, is to learn to be skeptical and questioning, and that includes questioning statements about career prospects in our respective fields.

However, once you start questioning, then you come up with some very interesting questions like "so why am I paying your salary?" and "why am *I* the one that is unemployed?" Having people take a skeptical view toward authority leads into a lot of directions with lots of disturbing questions. Why do *you* have job security when I don't?

And it's bad for society. Personally, I think that the US is going to have deep, deep problems because the nation is just not spending enough on science. However, if academics take the view "screw you, you are idiots for trusting us" then why should anyone trust them with tax dollars. Going up to the American people with tin cup in hand and saying "please give me money, you'll be glad in two decades when you have all of these jobs" requires a lot of trust.

The impression I get (which may be mistaken) is that physics graduate students were told by their professors that there are great opportunities in physics research and they simply accepted this assertion without questioning whether this is still valid in the present day (and thus did not make adequate preparation to develop skills that could make them more widely employable).

It's more subtle. One thing that you'll find is that direct lectures don't work. If you sit someone in a chair and tell them "buy Fuzz Cola" they are going to get annoyed at you. If you want people to buy Fuzz Cola, you put signs with Fuzz Cola, you put pictures of happy people drinking Fuzz Cola. You create an environment in which people just unconsciously assume that they should be drinking Fuzz. That's how you create a multi-billlion dollar company based on sugar water.

So what happens in a academic environment is the same sort of subtle influence. People don't say *you must be a professor*. You end up selling a dream. One thing that happens in academia is that you have experts with power. People's power comes from their expertise. This is why it's really, really hard for some professors to say "I just don't know, you know more about this topic then I do." Once you say that, then the question comes up, why are you giving the lectures and making the money, and it's a valid question.

 

[Moppy]

Risk taking is out. The future of banking is of being a regulated utility, and "aggressive risk takers" really should look at doing something other than investment banking, because the government will not let you take aggressive risks. Everything you do nowadays has to be checked and double checked by a dozen risk managers and government regulators.

Which country is this?

He was asking about London.

 

[StatGuy2000]

But by what basis are we able to make these decisions?

Maybe it's easier for young-uns, because they can google for the data on the internet. I went to college before the world wide web was invented, so there wasn't anywhere I could google for employment information.

Also, it's kind of convenient for someone to take your money, give you bad advice, and then keep your money. The trouble with universities saying "caveat emptor" it's up to you to figure things out, is that at that point people wonder what's the point of paying money to a university at all. If it's up to me to figure things out, then why am I paying you $$$$$$.

I agree that in the pre-Internet age, it was much, much more difficult for the individual student to come up with independent information (although not impossible, just very time-consuming as they would have to find this information through a combination of libraries, public archives, newspapers, etc.) That is not an excuse in 2012 with the existence of Google.

Now as for your point regarding universities, I think it is preferable for universities to simply say "caveat emptor" rather than give bad advice which would have negative consequences to the students involved. It is also worth keeping in mind that universities serve at least two functions: (1) to provide the student with further education to expand their horizons, and (2) to provide skills and training to prepare them for the workforce. Functions (1) and (2) are competing interests that can at times work in cross-purposes, as you are no doubt aware. Further, students technically do not pay the university for advice, they pay for the privilege of being provided an advanced education. Whether that investment is actually worth it for the student is an important matter of debate.

In my own personal opinion, while I am naturally inclined to support higher education, there are students in universities in the US and Canada today who really are not well-served there. I often wonder to myself if some of these students may well be better off to pursue more vocational or technical training, through community colleges and the like.

However, once you start questioning, then you come up with some very interesting questions like "so why am I paying your salary?" and "why am *I* the one that is unemployed?" Having people take a skeptical view toward authority leads into a lot of directions with lots of disturbing questions. Why do *you* have job security when I don't?

And it's bad for society. Personally, I think that the US is going to have deep, deep problems because the nation is just not spending enough on science. However, if academics take the view "screw you, you are idiots for trusting us" then why should anyone trust them with tax dollars. Going up to the American people with tin cup in hand and saying "please give me money, you'll be glad in two decades when you have all of these jobs" requires a lot of trust.

I actually think that such a skeptical approach to authority in general is healthy for a liberal democracy, as it is through this very questioning that changes and reforms take place, and I do not think that academia should be beyond such questioning as well. If academia feel somehow threatened by this, then it is up to them to provide an appropriate defence on the merits of academia.

At the very least, I would hope that such questioning will serve as a means for reforms to the way education in general, including higher education, is being delivered to the American public.

And it's bad for society. Personally, I think that the US is going to have deep, deep problems because the nation is just not spending enough on science. However, if academics take the view "screw you, you are idiots for trusting us" then why should anyone trust them with tax dollars. Going up to the American people with tin cup in hand and saying "please give me money, you'll be glad in two decades when you have all of these jobs" requires a lot of trust.

Here I agree with you -- the US does not spend enough on science and technology, at least in comparison to its share of GDP (although this is hardly an issue that is unique to the US -- here in Canada where I live, researchers often have to make do with the most limited forms of funding, and I'm always quite amazed at how much they are able to punch well above their weight given the limitations involved).

 

[twofish-quant]

Which country is this?

It's happening everywhere.

One thing that I find cool about finance is that it's global. The world is sufficiently interconnected so that you just can't think of countries as separate entities. If the US tightens regulations, and the UK doesn't, then everything will just move to the UK.

However, the notion that more regulation is necessary and that bankers need to be put on a tight leash is global. In 2005, if the US regulators were putting in too many rules, then you can threaten to move to UK and vice versa. This doesn't work any more because the regulators are putting together a united front through the Basel Committee. Since the regulators are coordinating with each other, then if the FED orders you to do something, you'll likely find that the SFC in London will order you to do the same thing.

The fact that the regulators are coordinating with each other is something that is very new.

Now there are still a few country-specific quirks (for example the US seems obsessed with gambling and Iran, and the fact that the UK doesn't want to lose control of London to the French and the Germans), but those are minor in the grand scheme of things.