if you want to be a quant, you have to realize that you are up against people who are literally geniuses and even have more than one PhD. though it may be a waste of money, you need it to get your foot in the door. my 4.5 cents
From what I have been told by other Phd… Only do it if you have a subject in mind and are obessed about it… dont do it if you are only looking for the prestige… and a PhD in Finance will not get you a job as a quant… they are more likely to hire a guy with a Phd in physics who topped it up with a MSc in Finance Engineering… Yes there are many of those on earth…
Thanks for all the posts…and I agree with the majority of you (except for the recommendation of an online phD post lol…get serious) But yeah, the lifestyle of a tenured professor may be worth the reduced salary…I want to have a work-life balance (if possible in finance field)… But in terms of going for phD, let alone the difficulty, I can’t imagine spending another 4-5 years isolated from society (in the books with lots of pressure)… I’m considering working in the industry for a few years to pay off my loans, while passing the CFA exams, then eventually applying to top MBA programs… I feel as though I could get in to half decent MBA program somewhere, but am more interested in whether I could get a huge scholarship (based on academic merit)… Ahhhh, decisions, decisions…Can’t make up my mind…I constantly fluctuate from the thought “phD is calling my name”, to “NO way for phD”…
I have friends who graduated from Canadian business and they are competing against finance PhDs for jobs. The MBAs almost always get the positions. its cause they at least have work experience and social skills. PhDs are smart theoretically, no practical experience.
Just follow sublimity’s posts. He spent 4-5 years on a phd and he’s unemployed.
Dude, if you have any doubt whatsoever about doing the PhD, don’t do it. You probably shouldn’t count on a significant MBA scholarship from a good university. Most people just accumulate massive debt.
Sublimity: Wow, that came off meaner than I intended. I just wanted to remind the OP that a PhD and great skills doesn’t guarantee a job. sorry
joemontana Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Sublimity: > > Wow, that came off meaner than I intended. I just > wanted to remind the OP that a PhD and great > skills doesn’t guarantee a job. > > sorry hahahaha. great post.
MFIN— Wrote: > But in terms of going for phD, let alone the > difficulty, I can’t imagine spending another 4-5 > years isolated from society (in the books with > lots of pressure)… I have talked to quite a few PhD and Finance students. The first two years are challenging (especially, the first one) but then life gets easier. You won’t have to sacrifice social life completely. > I’m considering working in the industry for a few > years to pay off my loans, while passing the CFA > exams, then eventually applying to top MBA > programs… There is no comparison between MBA and PhD. If you are interested in research, MBA wouldn’t help at all.
I’m gonna fail level III because Sublimity wasn’t there to tell me that I am gonna fail, like he did for level II and I passed because of him.
Ph.D.s are smart and have zero practical experience. We know because all the MBAs say so.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ph.D.s are smart and have zero practical > experience. We know because all the MBAs say so. Sorry Dr.Chadwick, I take it back
I know there’s HUGE difference between MBA and phD…I just don’t know what route I want to take! The MFin program really made me enjoy the research side and I would love it since it’s neverending (I really enjoy learning finance/econometrics as well)…and where eventually I can simply relax and teach when I am old and falling apart from all the research haha… BUT another side of me really wants to APPLY my knowledge of being an analyst/portfolio manager and hence a practitioner rather than an academic (more money too)… I think becoming a CFA charterholder can lead to a great life and money with an eventual career as a portfolio manager (ideally)…I’m sure many of you in the forum share the same goal Maybe I’m just young, inexperienced and naive…but hey you’ve got to do what you love…and I hope I can figure out my decision eventually…!!
I want to point out that your masters GPA is not an indication of how well you will do in a Ph.D. program. Masters programs are a joke compared to the Ph.D. It also depends on how competitive the program is. You say 4-5 years (did you mean in addition to or including your masters?) I heard that for sciences, average years for Ph.D. program is like 2-3 years, but for humanities, it’s like 8 years. Because of this, the “average” Ph.D. program is about 5 years. From the Ph.D. people I’ve met, they were either 1) Geniuses or 2) Relatively smart and completely devoted to the field The generalization that Ph.D.'s aren’t practical is true to a certain extent, but less true when it comes to fields like business / applied science. I’ve seen a myriad of Ph.D.'s ranging from ones that seemed like they were never let out of the laboratory, to ones that own a practice. I have loosely considered the Ph.D. route (among others), and was urged by several professors & peers to pursue it but decided it was not for me at this point. For one thing, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll be one and you’re foregoing at least 5 years worth of income. Also, there are many unemployed Ph.D.'s… I mean, are you in it for the money? If you are, you should know that only a few Ph.D.'s are raking in serious dough - others make a decent amount but not “rich” (comfortable, yes, but rich = no). I know a sizable amount of people that were in Ph.D. programs and dropped out. Some could not pass the qual exams, others quit after being there for 5+ years and realizing that it “was not worth it.” If you’re stuck with an adviser that enjoys making your life miserable, good luck.
Ocean Mist, I think your post was probably the most informative and accurate. I would only add that in top schools very rarely PhD in Finance or Economics can be obtained in less than 4 years.
phD’s in Finance are typically 4-5 years…I didn’t include my Masters…i’m done that in 2 months… You mention GPA in a Masters degree isn’t indicative of how well you would do in a phD program?? How does this make any sense… MFin is a degree very closely related to all the course work in phD, atleast preparing you with the background necessary… I wouldn’t call myself a genius by any means (far from it), but I am the in the very top of my program in the MFin, so how would this not be helpful in phD? I may lack the math background compared to engineering master students/physics etc…but I mean MFin is definitly quantitative…as well as my undergraduate studies in Economics & Finance… Someone also mentioned if the quantitative requirements are overwhelming in Finance, they suggested doing phD in Economics…???..economics is MUCH MORE QUANTITATIVE than Finance at this level…atleast from every school i’ve looked into and from all the professors I’ve talked to…1st year coursework may be similar in requirements between the two, but the second year courses (seminars in theoretical corporate finance, theoretical asset pricing models etc) is much less quantitative than economics,… anyway, thanks for everyones posts on this subject… I keep leaning towards the industry and focusing on the CFA exams…but time will tell! Many professors are pushing me to go to phD in a year or two from now…but I lack the confidence…with reason by the sounds of it on this forum…!
MFIN— Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Someone also mentioned if the quantitative > requirements are overwhelming in Finance, they > suggested doing phD in > Economics…???..economics is MUCH MORE > QUANTITATIVE than Finance at this level…atleast > from every school i’ve looked into and from all > the professors I’ve talked to…1st year > coursework may be similar in requirements between > the two, but the second year courses (seminars in > theoretical corporate finance, theoretical asset > pricing models etc) is much less quantitative than > economics,… Agreed, I think the guy who said that is totally clueless…
i said it. i knew a whole buncha econ zombies will pop out trying to convince the world how insanely quantitative economics is, and i’m surprised only two voiced their opinion yet. you think every econ phd does advanced econometrics? you can focus on government policy and regulation, internation trade, and a whole buncha macro issues that dont require any quantitative knowledge. you think adding 3 more variables to your regression makes you quantiative? econ professors can get by without knowing any math depenidng on the focus of their research, and a lot of them do. you guys are clueless
Part of the issue is that for traditional macroeconomics, we don’t have all that much data, maybe 50 years of data in advanced economies, much of it annual, some of it quarterly, most of it extremely noisy. This limits how complex you can realistically make your models and expect to get a plausible answer at an acceptable level of significance. We have lots and lots of financial data, however, daily closes and even tick data for hundreds or thousands of companies, plus options data on many. This means you can do many more econometric tricks. Traditional economics gets a little more complex in terms of the abstract math, as you are spending more time deriving the theoretical consequences of your assumptions. There is an assumption among many economists that if you can do math, you can do any kind of economics, and some have a worship of mathematics similar to what you see with physicists. Unfortunately, this devalues the role of insight and recognition of the inquantifiability of many aspects of human and economic behavior. This is one reason I really like Joe Stiglitz, who has both the math and the non-math parts nicely integrated together.
Agree with bchadwick. I think it depends on the program, but the econ courses in my school was practically all abstract, quant math. However, I know of a few other schools, usually non-competitive schools, in which econ was more qualitative. Many of my professors were into “neo-classical” econ, and one Keynesian. We were expected to learn and apply pretty complex models. It was definitely not like the econ section of any CFA / CPA / CFP exam in which it’s just memorization of key concepts and understanding only the supply and demand curve. And to reiterate my point - No, your GPA is not an indication of how well you will do in a Ph.D. program. For one thing, all of the students that enter the program have a high GPA. Secondly, Ph.D. is more about publishing and coming up with new ideas, not learning old ones which is something you do in a masters. Thirdly, I have met plenty of students that had high GPAs, but are not that smart in the workplace as well as academia. I have also met the opposite in which their GPAs were less-than-stellar, but they were really smart. I do say this with some experience because I am in several different masters programs currently (while working 50+ hours a week) and the workload and standards are a joke compared to my undergrad that actively wanted to weed people out. Undergrad was like survival of the fittest.