

Business school will cost you five years. Can you afford to wait? - jaf12duke
http://42floors.com/blog/posts/business-school-will-cost-you-five-years-can-you-afford-to-wait

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joe42
(At risk of hijacking this thread) I'm a first-year physics grad student (so
~5 years to go, for a PhD), and I'm _pretty_ sure what I _want_ to do is
software engineering, SV-type stuff, and I've been seriously considering
quitting the physics thing for most of the past year.

Compared to business school in the post:

* I've got about 5 more years of school,

* school isn't costing me anything (I get a ~$20k/yr stipend; no tuition),

* I'm not enjoying myself at all (lots of hard core classes, required to pass preliminary tests in a limited number of sittings, boring city, boring people, boring school, no friends),

* the payoff is slim-to-none. I can't find evidence that a physics PhD is worth much in, say, software engineering. An MIT PhD student just told me he's heard ~$120k typical-ish starting salary in software engineering with a physics PhD (and he was trying to talk me into _staying_ ). That doesn't sound worth it at all! "Starting" salary!--if you don't count the 5-7 years of school (basically work).

I could go on, but I'm interested if anyone's got an opinion or some advice.
It's a bit similar to the MBA decision.

~~~
ylem
I'm a practicing physicist, so I'll give a bit of advice. The only reason to
go into physics is because you love doing it--but--you have to go into with
your eyes open. The job market is extremely competitive these days for faculty
and national lab positions. Depending on your subfield, there may or may not
be industry jobs. If you're not having fun and you finish, then what are your
options:

1) Medical Physics 2) Wall Street (though I hear that it's getting harder to
go directly from physics phD to wall street and more people are getting a
masters in financial engineering first) 3) Software 4) Management Consulting
5) Science Policy 6) Etc.

While the salary for all of these can be good, you have to look at the
opportunity cost--you're looking at ~6 years for grad. school. Someone else
might be able to tell you if it's worth sticking around to pick up either your
masters in physics (or to take some graduate courses in CS)--but if you don't
love it, my advice is to get out and do something that you're passionate about
--What do you mean by SV type stuff?

Now, with all that having been said--one thing you might want to consider is
that the first year of a typical physics grad. student is fairly hard with
coursework and such and you might want to try to pass quals. and try research
for a year before making your final decision--are you interested in theory or
experiment? Did you do research in undergrad.? Life in a lab can be rather
different from coursework--also, even course work tends to be more interested
in advanced courses such as GR, Quantum Field Theory, etc. than in the typical
Jackson courses....

Good luck!

~~~
joe42
> SV type stuff?

I was being purposefully vague--I just meant the Silicon Valley scene. I have
a college friend who just got a cool job there, and some family friends, too.
It sounds like a fun place from the culture side, but also from the technology
side--specifically, I'm amazed by what a small team can do in a 48-hour
hackathon with today's technology. The one that comes to mind is that
"Infinite Scrabble MMO" from about 18 months ago. 150 man-hours can produce
_that_? Wow.

I did research in undergrad (mostly over the summers, but a bit during the
year). I had a lot of fun, and it was motivating work. But it was programming
work! I wrote a bunch of data analysis code and did a little bit of GEANT
simulation stuff, and it all felt more like programming than physics. And the
"physics research" (experimentalists) that I have seen looks more like
engineering (designing/building some apparatus, then fixing all of the
problems...).

It just seems so slow-moving compared to the software industry. There's a lot
less room for individualism, and it feels like you've got a lot of really
smart people doing a lot of menial, commodity tasks (I'm thinking of every PhD
candidate and postdoc I've ever known).

I'll have to give theory a closer look. It's hard to see myself in it any time
soon, because there's more material I'd need to learn first.

(I think I'm rambling to myself now.) All this, I think, is to say that I'm
pretty sure the physics charm has worn off. Unless there's something really
exciting around the corner, I think I'm over it.

I seem to have written this comment as if there's some point I'm trying to
prove. Habit. Sorry about that! Thanks for the advice and encouragement, and
I'll keep my eyes open!

~~~
ylem
Hi Joe,

In general, there's a certain amount of tedium in any endeavor. During my PhD,
I did some work on synthesis--it was fun to try to figure out how to realize
some properties in a new material--to try to figure out synthesis challenges--
the actual sitting down and grinding with a mortar and pestle was meditative,
but tedious. The same thing happens with coding--there are parts that are
exciting, but there's (at least to me) a certain tedium that comes with
testing, engineering, etc (if I want to write code that other people use,
instead of one-off pieces for my own use). Even on the analysis side, there
are exciting bits where I try to see if I understand why a material has a
given set of properties, but there's a certain tedium in writing portions of
the analysis code--the question is whether or not the exciting bits outweigh
the tedious ones...One of my students (undergrad) was a double major between
physics and computer engineering and has decided that he wants to go on to do
robotics in grad. school--physics wasn't fun for him--another one went on to
grad. school in physics--you just have to see what you have fun with--not just
with classes, but in the actual doing. If you decide to stick it out and pass
prelims/first year courses and get your masters and are still not happy, then
definitely get out--opportunity costs will outweigh your sunk costs ;> At your
university, do the theorists give trial projects? In terms of just variety and
fun, have you looked at any of Nigel Goldenfeld's work?
<http://guava.physics.uiuc.edu/>

If you do decide to leave (and it seems like that's the direction you're
going), then I suggest that you get an offer somewhere, spend some time
working on your own project, or taking some CS courses before leaving...

Good luck!

~~~
joe42
> there's a certain amount of tedium in any endeavor.

Yes, I'm cherry picking a bit here :)

I think I was a bit too hard on physics in my previous comment. I've
definitely loved it before, and I still do occasionally. I think the
frustration I feel is partly due to school's tendency to suck the fun out of
any subject (computers, too--I never really liked any of the
programming/algorithms classes I took, but I enjoy learning a new language or
algorithm on my own time). And once I'm done with my problem sets and things,
I can't think of my physics books as being "leisure" reading (like I do with
programming books). It would be just my luck, if I switch careers, to fall out
of love with computers and end up courting Jackson on the sly!

I think I'm _most_ dissatisfied, right now, with the school/city/people.
There's nothing interesting within a 6 hour drive, and I haven't made any
friends--I've _met_ a lot of people, so it's not for a huge lack of trying,
but I don't really _like_ any of them as much as I liked my friends in
undergrad. I've thought about switching schools, but with all the hassle of
re-applying and somehow explaining "I don't like anything about this place--
would you write me a letter of recommendation?" _coupled_ with my other
reservations, I feel more inclined toward a career switch.

It sounds like we have, at least, narrowed it down to a decision of personal
preference. Which puts a lot of pressure on me! But still, progress.

Thanks again!

------
PabloOsinaga
I am the guy profiled in that article. I spent 5 years in "business school"
before doing my startup. (1 year prep, 2 years of b-school and 2 years at
McKinsey)

I have to say, though, that the overall experience is being very useful to me
and my startup. I believe this is in big part because Kormox is an enterprise-
software startup (pg says they are all about sales, and I kind of agree) -
I've learned how to navigate corporate bureaucracies, I've built a huge
network in corporate america.

I believe I can execute on this contrarian play - (all the cool hackers are
doing consumer-oriented startups nowadays), with an experience/background that
is helpful.

So while I believe that if you have a rush for an opportunity you should go
for it no matter what, any experience is very helpful to build up unique paths
for executing on plays that make the most sense for you.

~~~
beatle
Techies love to downplay the value of an MBA because they are insecure. Just
because Jobs, Zuckerberg, Gates, Ellison, Page/Brin, etc. created world-class
companies they think MBAs are worthless.

MBAs are indeed worthless if you're Jobs, Zuckerberg, Gates, etc.

BUT YOU'RE NOT.

There are thousands of world-class companies (Fortune 1000, small businesses,
start-ups, etc.) that were founded/run by MBAs. the VCs, Investors, etc. who
funded your worthless start-ups have MBAs.

Every Arrogant techie should remember this: For every successful start-up,
there are 1000's other start-ups that failed because the techie founders did
not have the business knowledge or experience to execute, manage and lead
their companies.

~~~
randomdata
> There are thousands of world-class companies (Fortune 1000, small
> businesses, start-ups, etc.) that were founded/run by MBAs.

There are _hundreds of thousands_ graduating with MBAs each and every year.
You are not going to be the guy running a world class company any more than
you are going to be Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

I don't think an MBA is worthless, but it seems a little foolish to think that
it is going to change your life. There is no such thing as a magical formula
you can follow to success. While an MBA might lead you to that million dollar
job, taking time to do an MBA can just as easily take you away from a million
dollar job.

All you can really do is focus on what you think is right. If that's an MBA,
do it. If not, don't.

------
goatcurious
The post is spot on but it skips a few considerations which must be
highlighted. Specially if you are already in an MBA, like I was.

\- I just was not sure what I wanted to do in life when I signed up for the
MBA. The time away from active professional life at business school allowed me
to figure out what really matters to me. Yes, I did get time outside of
classes, recruitment, and parties for this self discovery. The exposure to
some great entrepreneurs who came to speak at campus definitely helped.

\- Once I had figured I wanted to be an entrepreneur, business school was
actually not a bad place to get started. Stressing on the assumption that I
was motivated enough to be focused - the support system for starting up does
exist, and it’s not bad. My school had a program modeled after the YC program.
I was still clueless so I helped a friend who was in the program: he is
running his startup full time now, and is profitable too.

\- Now on not losing the last 2 years part. My MBA was sponsored by my
consulting employers but I broke the contract. I knew I won't be able to find
any time to work on my startup while doing consulting. But this also meant I
suddenly had a loan of the entire school fees. I cut down on my lifestyle, and
I'm well on track to completely pay off the loan within 1 year (8 months since
school, and I’m 70% done). And yes, my corporate job allowed me time to find
an idea and actively work on it: I code with my partners; talk to customers;
develop content; and we successfully tested out the demo experiment (and now
dreaming of getting into YC).

So all in all, MBA can be helpful or can be made irrelevant. You don’t always
have to wait.

~~~
throwaway1979
Congrats on being almost done with the student loan payments! Was the debt in
the six figure range? Curious if you have any strategies to share. My fiance
has a boatload of student debt that keeps me awake at night :(

~~~
goatcurious
Hey thanks! Yes close to that. I threw in my entire joining & relocation
bonus. Had also worked part time in the last semester, that went in too. And
now, I have cut down all expenses apart from rent and food (I cook a lot,
don't go out drinking).

------
suyash
Is it even worth getting an MBA now if you're a developer in silicon valley.
I'm talking in terms of putting so much money out there for MBA and then is
there a big difference in salary afterwards?

~~~
michaelochurch
Not sure, but to play devil's advocate, most people here have put far more
than 5 years into technical talent. The problem is that the real world runs on
connections, not capability. I don't think it's unreasonable to dedicate 5
years to networking and become more "well-rounded". The open question is
whether those connections are going to be worth anything in a decade, or
whether it will be better to be "connected" to some other set of people.
Completely unpredictable.

I don't think you learn how to run startups in an MBA program, but top MBAs
are the only way to get into top VC firms under 30, and that will help you a
lot in the fundraising process. People are less likely to throw multiple
liquidation preferences at people they personally know and consider "one of
us".

What I will say is that it's probably not worth into pursue an MBA at a non-
top school. You know law school's "top 14"? For MBA programs, there are 3 or
4. If their graduates aren't getting into top venture capital firms, don't
apply.

~~~
ctingom
How does ambition fall into the connections and capability mix?

~~~
philwelch
You use ambition to build connections and capability.

------
rdl
Not to detract from your central point, but someone is a native or fluent
English speaker and can't get >700 on the GMAT with a week (or less) of
review, that person is probably not going to be a very successful startup
founder, either.

Even 2 year opportunity cost makes an MBA a bad idea for a startup founder in
a normal market, although doing one in a time like 2001-2003 or 2008-2010
seems like it would be defensible.

