Career Options in Economics/Finance: Salary Expectations

[chound]

What are the career options if I take economics or finance as my major. How much salary can I expect. Will it be atleast 6 digit.

 

[Azrioch]

Hm. There are tons of fields that you could go into with those majors...
Most times, however, unless you have done something exceptional you will probably be placed doing grunt work for a year or two. If you went to some investment firm, you'd probably be doing research until they deem you worthy of doing trading. If you proved yourself there, that is when the money would start flowing in.

I don't have too much information, but I am also interested in mixing Finance and Engineering. So, these answers are just speculations on what I've heard.

As for six figures salaries, I have heard of people coming out of Harvard Business School and going to wall street to be some security analyst and making that much, but other than a situation like that I would doubt that you could make that much money just coming out of college.

You'd probably be making 30-50k coming out of College with a BA unless you went somewhere really fantastic and really did something exceptional. There are always cases where people do come out of college and make six figure salaries, but they are very rare, from what I have heard.

I'd be interested to hear what others have to say about this.

 

[polyb]

If you are presently on a physics track and you want to find out more about the application to finance I would recommend looking into " econophysics".

Here are a couple of links:

http://www.unifr.ch/econophysics/

http://www.econophysics.org/

There is a lot there and believe it or not there are correlations between these two subjects. It was a physicist who helped develop the device known as a derivative or option that set off the CBOE and mutual funds. Look into the Black-Scholes equation of portfolio risk analysis.

It is relevant to remark that the mathematical discipline of physics is very useful in economics.

As for the fabled 6 figure salary, GOOD LUCK!

 

[chound]

I'm not into physics or anyother subject. But I'm interested in doing computers or MBA as minor

 

[franznietzsche]

Mathemiticians make the best economists. After all, Nash won the nobel prize in economics.

I laugh at people who are obsessed with six figure salaries. Its absurd to ever expect that, especailly right out of college. The only people earning six figure salaries (right out of college) are people who do spectaculr things in their field and are worth that kind of money. To expect to be that good is foolish for most people.

 

[chound]

What course should I take for economics? Should I know all kinds of data realating to economy e.g. GDPs, Per capita incomes, etc. And 6 figure salary I expect after some time like 5-6 years

 

[chound]

What course should I take for economics or finance (are they both the same)? Should I know all kinds of data realating to economy e.g. GDPs, Per capita incomes, etc. And 6 figure salary I expect after some time like 5-6 years. Are there enough jobs for people who study finance or economics

 

[chound]

please answer someone!

 

[Artus]

AFAIK Finance is an area of Economics. You could try Economics as major and CS as a minor given you interests:

I'm not into physics or anyother subject. But I'm interested in doing computers or MBA as minor

You can try an MBA after you get your undergraduate degree, but that would be getting into a big debt. I'm also interested in Economics, but if I were you, I'd try a major in Economics and a minor in Mathematics. If you're willing to study an MBA then try the Information Systems area, but that would be better to try a MSc in CS or something like that.

 

[Ryker]

Hopefully, by now, OP is already on his way towards 6 digits and is not contemplating whether to major in Economics or not

 

[gretun]

This thread is like 6 years old lol, I am sure he is very wealthly now

 

[doodle_sack]

Firstly, Economics is not Finance, on the contrary Finance can be called as a sub-field of economics. For those who are looking for 6-digit salary plenty of Universities are offering Financial Engineering/Mathematical Finance/Quantitative Finance/Computational Finance/Finance programs which would place you at some investment banks and the starting salary varies, if you already have some experience in financial sector(even as an intern) you can easily make it up to 60K, but remember it is a very competitive industry and your increase in salary highly depends on your performance. Some are research based and some are professional programs, both will place you in the indistry of high standing, but choose research based if you want to go for a PhD. Harvard, MIT, Princeton, New York Uni and plenty others offer programs in this area but it would cost you a fortune, though it's worth it.

Now, economics is different from the wall street affairs, in the sense that, economists do not do trading instead they analyse the behavior of the markets in conjunction with the economy. If your main interest is in 6-digit salary Financial Engineering is for you, Economists do get 6-digit salary(mostly the phds), but only the elite few. One more thing, Financial Engineering is highly mathematical compared to economics.

franznietzsche: while mathematics is considered to be the language of modern economics, we can never assume that "mathematicians make the best economists". Economics is an independent subject just like mathematics, but math being the universal language is indispensable from anything.

 

[Artus]

Hopefully, by now, OP is already on his way towards 6 digits and is not contemplating whether to major in Economics or not

This thread is like 6 years old lol, I am sure he is very wealthly now

Right. My mistake.

franznietzsche: while mathematics is considered to be the language of modern economics, we can never assume that "mathematicians make the best economists". Economics is an independent subject just like mathematics, but math being the universal language is indispensable from anything.

Yes. But if you're a math student and you really work hard to understand about Economics you're going to have an advantage above the math illiterate.

 

[doodle_sack]

if you work hard, you can pretty much do anything =p