Theoretical Physics / Financial Engineering

[Raioneru]

Hi, guys need a bit of guidance here
a little bit of background on me: interested in financial engineering and medical physics, but I'm afraid if I go the road of FE (which is not a Physics degree) I won't be able to pursue a PhD in Physics (I'd like to remain a physicist :) )
I don't think pursuing a PhD in Physics part time after earning a MSFE is doable (or even allowed). I would like to commit for 5-6 years, and do something.
I'm thinking about pursuing a PhD in theoretical Physics instead and doing research in a finance related subject. It seems to be the best of both world, what do you think?

has any of you come across a similar situation?

let me know :D

 

[chiro]

Hi, guys need a bit of guidance here
a little bit of background on me: interested in financial engineering and medical physics, but I'm afraid if I go the road of FE (which is not a Physics degree) I won't be able to pursue a PhD in Physics (I'd like to remain a physicist :) )
I don't think pursuing a PhD in Physics part time after earning a MSFE is doable (or even allowed). I would like to commit for 5-6 years, and do something.
I'm thinking about pursuing a PhD in theoretical Physics instead and doing research in a finance related subject. It seems to be the best of both world, what do you think?

has any of you come across a similar situation?

let me know :D

Hello Raioneru and welcome to the forums.

We get this question quite often around here. It might be helpful for you to search the Academic and Career Advice forums as well as looking at say the most 5 recent pages of posts.

Here is a current one for you:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=532100

 

[Raioneru]

will do next time, sorry about that :s

 

[twofish-quant]

I'm thinking about pursuing a PhD in theoretical Physics instead and doing research in a finance related subject. It seems to be the best of both world, what do you think?

One of the paradoxes is that if you want to get a finance related job through the Ph.D. physics route (and this is a bad idea unless you are interested in physics), you are better off focusing on doing research on something in physics than in something financial. The typical research topics that theoretical physicists work on turn out to be more relevant to certain financial jobs than the stuff that people in finance work on (which is why banks hire physicists).

It's also extremely difficult to do research on financial topics part time, because in most situations, you are not going to have access to the raw data. One of the differences between finance and physics is that if you discover some deep secret about how black holes work, you want everyone to know, whereas if you discover some deep secret about how the stock market works, then you want no one else to know.