How hard is it to switch fields?

[Vanadium 50]

Postdocs are much, much harder to get than high paying industry jobs.

That's not what the latest AIP initial employment statistics say. 56% of freshly minted PhDs took postdocs and 20% (62% x 33%) took jobs in industry (at ~2x what postdocs made).

 

[twofish-quant]

That's not what the latest AIP initial employment statistics say. 56% of freshly minted PhDs took postdocs and 20% (62% x 33%) took jobs in industry (at ~2x what postdocs made).

Yes, I'm aware of that, but the OP was talking about getting a post-doc in a different field from his Ph.D. and I started my response with "You are much more likely to find a high paying job in industry than a post-doc in a different field."

The statement about post-docs being much more difficult to get than a high paying job needs to be qualified with "post-docs in a different field than your Ph.D," and thanks for the correction. I've changed the post.

 

[twofish-quant]

Also, I was looking over old papers, and one thing that is interesting was that there was in fact a burst of astronomy faculty hiring in the 1980's that petered out in the early 1990's.

http://www.as.utexas.edu/astronomy/people/dinerstein/talk.html

I have to thank Prof. Dinerstein, because I think she noticed the hiring trends and gave us all "advanced warning."

 

[Mépris]

And if you want to get a job in our group, don't get a Ph.D. in finance. Most finance Ph.D.'s don't study the type of things we are interested in. Now there are lots of jobs for finance Ph.D.'s, but they just don't involve crunching PDE's.

What kind jobs do Finance PhDs? My understanding is that they are in much, much fewer numbers than even Economics PhDs, who are in turn, are fewer in numbers than science PhDs. That's just based on what I've read on other forums and judging from what I also read on the websites of a few Finance departments, which stated that they only take 2-3 students every year. So, no specific numbers. At any rate, what do Finance PhDs do, that Economics/Finance BS people can't do? Do their jobs involve the same kind of work they did in graduate school, like with physics PhDs?

 

[SophusLies]

I can feel your pain Diracula (cool name by the way). Like me, you sound torn between doing what you're interested in and doing what will most likely get you a decent job. I'm currently in my 4th semester of my physics PhD (theory) and by the end of this semester I need to pick an adviser. I have a lot of options but ultimately I know for a fact I don't want to be in academia after I'm done. I'm an industry cat all the way. In my current search for an adviser, I've found some advisers that will consistently turn out research like industry workers (titles include: photonics researcher, various principal scientists, research engineer, CFD engineer, quants) mostly because of their networking through previous students. Other advisers more or less have a track record of turning out postdoc treadmill runners, which in most cases sound like they eventually lost contact.

So far, my hunch is that the adviser is going to be the key to doing what I'm interested in but grabbing enough skills and contacts to still end up with a good job. Are you applying for a PhD or currenly in one? If you're currently in a program, then I would start hounding everyone you can about what the previous students are doing now.

 

[Dr Transport]

If your advisor is smart and they know you want to go into industry, they will help you get the skills to succeed in industry. My advisor told me about 6 months after I started working for him that I cold make it as a faculty member in a liberal arts school with a masters program as the highest degree or as an industrial researcher. He has revised his thoughts and has told me that I could be a faculty member guiding PhD students, but he still believes that I should be in industry because I have too much fun running from project to project over the course of a year or two.

 

[twofish-quant]

What kind jobs do Finance PhDs?

Strangely enough, I've never met a non-mathematical finance Ph.D. in a professional capacity. I hear they exist. The mathematical people that I know with Ph.D.'s from finance departments are essentially applied statisticians that work on time series data, and are wizards with Matlab and R.

So, no specific numbers. At any rate, what do Finance PhDs do, that Economics/Finance BS people can't do?

People with bachelors degrees plug numbers into spreadsheets. People with masters degrees write the spreadsheets. People with Ph.D.'s write the formulas that get put into the spreadsheets.

Do their jobs involve the same kind of work they did in graduate school, like with physics PhDs?

If I meet one, I'll ask. The fact that I've never run into a non-geek finance Ph.D. in a professional capacity (and I'm not sure what they do) illustrates the point that I don't have a finance job, I have a science/engineering job that happens to be in a financial firm.

 

[twofish-quant]

Also adviser attitude matters a lot. I didn't get much in the way of practical advice in going into industry from my adviser, but I got a lot of moral support which was really important. If your adviser thinks less of you as a human being if you go into industry (mine didn't, but some do), then it's going to be very uncomfortable for you.