| Topic Name: |
PhD or Work |
| Message Name: |
ex-PhD student |
| Date Posted: |
09/23/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
I want to ask some serious questions here. And I will appreciate very much to some sincere feedbacks or advices, ideally from direct experiences.
I am a finance Phd student in a second tie business school. I am currently interning in a very successful buy side firm, doing some financial modeling work. The company is one of the most sophisticated buyside fixed income houses with a growing AUM of 250 billion. They are very dependent and aggressive on their proprietary valuation/risk management modeling and trading systems, which really distinguishes them from the other beasts in the buyside jungle. My part of the work involves some forefront implementation and innovations on the academic researches in derivatives and valuation on the backbone of the whole integrated system with C .
Like any Finance PhDs who???? determined to progress in wall street, I want to go to the capital market and business side instead of staying in the back office modeling and coding work all my life. My ultimate career goal is to leverage my quant finance skills while building up my market experiences and business skills. And the best way I can think of now, is to go to a sell-side bank working in either derivative structuring job in credit derivative/ or whatever war/terrorism/political derivatives that might be hot now or soon or to go to a derivative strategy group, and get experiences in market. I want to progress my career either inside the sellside up (is it true that PhDs are caped at the SVP level and they will do some of the most boring jobs in Banks?) or go to buyside joining a hedge fund.
Right now, I had some serious career choices. Pretty soon, the head of my company will push me for decision of back to my Finance PhD track or stay for a full time job here perfectionise its modeling and tradign systems coding and implementing, which means I will quit my PhD in finance immediately and I will enter this shitty job market without a decent degree to hedge my career risk.
Should I take this job? Or should I go back to my PhD and finish it? Some people having PhDs in finance actually regretted to have the PhD, because it blocks the way to some of the more junior jobs that leads to a higher potential (sales and trading, etc.). Once you have a big PhD on your resume, people tends to corner you into the back office modeling jobs and the liquidity on your career track is limited to the minimum. If I take this job, I will have to eventually at some stage get a decent degree somewhere, which I don;t have now.
I am not expecting definite answers. Everyone take their own career risks and make decisions themselves, but right now, it???? just that my decision information set is Too limited. I would like to hear from people with all kinds of background on opinions and observations of the value of a second tie finance Phd on wall street. So, I can have a clearer view of the trade-offs of back to PhD or working now as a programmer in this company.
I don;t know if I am short selling myself to this company now. But, people suggest me to ask for a job not less than 150K per year, to me, for now, it is big money now compared with barely survival PhD scholarships.
thanks a lot.
wolawola.
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| Message: |
Hi. I think you may be interested in my experience.
I just left a PhD program in Finance - also from a second tier B-School. I left for many many reasons. However, the main reason was that I was dead set on puruing an "industry" career over an academic career. Furthermore, I know that from my school, the best academic career prospect was not acceptable (which made my decision to enter the work force easier). Also, much of the work done in academia has as huge disconnect from the real work. I find that the majority of the papers are written due to academic politics, and have very little impact on real world issues (which is now my personal focus). Finally, being in a PhD program offers very limited networking opportunity (as the saying goes, "Your network IS your networth!") and career placement services.
Sure, you CAN go into industry after a Fin PhD. HOWEVER, if you are dead set on this right now (which it seems like you are) then you are MUCH better off working for a few years, and getting a top 5 MBA.
I already have a BS in Engineering (from a top 4 school), MS in Math, MS in Actuarial Science, and MS in Finance/Financial Engineering. I think I have a strong background to finish a PhD, but I knew it would take at least 3 more years (prob 4). At this point in my life, it just was not worth the opportunity cost of the experience.
Sure, you may start out at a "lower level," but I would also concur with your assessment of PhD's becoming pigeon holed into specialized roles. Any employer would want to leverage your background, and although you may start out at a higher level with a PhD, don't expect to become the CEO.
It all depends what you want. I want to evolve into a Senior Manager type of role in the future and get away for quant jock types of jobs. I am currently looking at pursuing a career as an actuary and/or getting my MBA from a top school and seeing where life takes me.
If I were you, I would do some soul searching and decide on the career trajectory you would like to embark on. Start with big questions such as do I want to go into Academics, or do I want to work in Industry. Be honest with yourself every step of the way. Once you decide on which path to take, I think your immediate concern of whether to stay in the program will be alleviated (ie Academics = Stay, Industry = Leave).
If you want to chat, don't hesitate to send me a note. I know how frusterating this process can be, since I just left my program 4 weeks ago.
-spp74@yahoo.com
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