I know three very bright, young graduates who have decided to enter the Financial industry (i.e. Algorithmic Trading). One has a Bachelor's in Physics & CS, another a Bachelor's in Physics & Math, and the other is finishing a PhD in Astrophysics. They view the Financial industry as an intellectually stimulating game (I don't disagree), and an opportunity to make 6-figures in their early 20s.
This really disappoints me. Sure, somebody needs to work in Finance for the sake of liquidity and other things I don't understand. But, 35% or so of my social group that are pursuing degrees in Physics are headed to Finance instead of research. I'd much rather seem them expand human knowledge than profit and live an easy life.
My perspective is that of a Junior CS & Physics major reaching towards grad school and some sort of research be it academia or elsewhere.
>This really disappoints me. Sure, somebody needs to work in Finance for the sake of liquidity and other things I don't understand. But, 35% or so of my social group that are pursuing degrees in Physics are headed to Finance instead of research.
Every cloud has a silver lining, and this one is as bright as it gets. Until the rise of e.g. finance and actuarial science, getting a physics or math degree meant just going into academia. Now, with more demand for math or physics majors, there will be more demand for physics or math professors, which ultimately means more money going into math and physics research.
The existence of the medical and legal professions contributes vastly to the funding of schools of medicine and law, and this is no different. It's good, not bad, that there are other things you can do with a degree in advanced mathematics besides "teach grad students advanced mathematics and vie for increasingly-scarce federal grant money".
>I'd much rather seem them expand human knowledge than profit and live an easy life.
It's too bad we don't live in a country full of self-sacrificing saints, huh?
i turned down my friends' startup offer to go work in finance. 3 years later, they are multi-millionaires and i am not. that doesn't really bother me though. what bothers me is that they are happy and doing exciting work and i am not.
But, but, but... thanks to modern technology, aren't there so many better options for seriously smart folks with physics and math degrees?
The "other" option isn't dusty academia and obscure research anymore. It also doesn't involve being a self-sacrificing saint and giving up any chance of ever having a nice car, though finance may still pay better in some cases than a high-math-content tech career.
>But, but, but... thanks to modern technology, aren't there so many better options for seriously smart folks with physics and math degrees?
If people want to pursue money, who are you to judge?
See, I don't think you quite get how much this sentiment pisses me off. I'm 19. I just got a bachelor's in physics. I've done research in a bunch of fields. And I'm going into graduate school next year.
People who think I'm somehow obligated to pursue anything beyond money can go blow a goat. Am I? You're goddamn right I am. I'm looking at tenure track or something similar because I love the people in academia, and because I love the work that I do. I love the people in academia because they don't think like this. They aren't generally judgmental pricks who will fault someone for pursuing their own interests. "generally".
I've dealt with so much shit from people who treat me like some sort of fucking alien for being good at goddamn math. Every-fucking-body else in this fucking country is more self-centered than a gyroscope. If I could reach you, right now, I'd strangle you. Seriously. God-fucking-damnit.
It's bad enough that I get to watch the ivory tower crumble around me. It's worse when people act like I'm obligated to live there.
In conclusion, go fuck yourself. You have no ground to stand on being 'disappointed' in me or any of my peers.
Sure, spend your life working on whatever you want, even something selfish. It does decrease what you could do elsewhere and as such has opportunity costs, but as you say it's your choice.
But "finance" means theft these days. It's only wildly profitable because our economic/justice system is fundamentally flawed and nobody is allowed to stop playing.
That would be disappointing to see a useful person seduced by. Not because your skills make you a national resource or anything, but because the job is a net negative to society. We'd be better off if you took up mugging.
>But "finance" means theft these days. It's only wildly profitable because our economic/justice system is fundamentally flawed and nobody is allowed to stop playing.
'tis the voters' fault, though, isn't it? The quants didn't ask for the system to be the way it is.
If anything, they, by exploiting this flaw, act to expose it, making it more visible and more likely to be fixed. Imagine if more grad students did this. You'd drive the stock market to collapse so many times -- at least in theory, 'cuz you're basically draining it like a pool, and it's a finite pool -- the government would be -forced- to give up on its newfound policy of Too Big to Fail.
Conversely, the fact that students continue to enter grad school despite the skyrocketing financial inadvisability therein, this only serves to swell what is apparently a labor excess even further. If universities had to compete for grad students on price, stipends would increase! Those who enter grad school out of some sense of altruism actually do their fellow students a disservice.
...so, having read that, what the fuck am I doing, you ask? Well, I'm just avoiding people I can't stand to be around. I like professors; I hate managers. My perceived-value-of-research is skewed. As an added bonus academics posess a level of freedom on par with the super-rich; if some University wants you to immigrate to a country in order to do research, you're waived right in. A PhD carries the sort of international mobility that's I think is kind of useful having been born in a sinking ship. In America it's called the O-1, but most countries have an analog. Paul Erdos was one of the only people who could cross the Iron Curtain unscathed. My aunt and uncle, who inspired me to go into physics, worked whatever hours they felt like and could wear t-shirts and sandals to work -- they were physicists working for the US Navy.
>> [broken economy, can't stop playing]
> 'tis the voters' fault, though, isn't it? The quants didn't ask for the system to be the way it is.
Not the voters. Voting can't fix anything because politicians can't be held to their campaign promises.
But it is the citizens' fault in that we don't do something about the existing laws that cover this malfeasance that aren't being used to stop it, or more importantly, about how voting doesn't work.
> If anything, they, by exploiting this flaw, act to expose it, making it more visible and more likely to be fixed.
That line of reasoning is only valid if those same quants would accept me emptying out their bank accounts by exploiting some bank vulnerability. (Such as your birthday and mother's maiden name always being used as the master identity check.)
> the government would be -forced- to give up on its newfound policy of Too Big to Fail.
Reality based government. Sigh. That would be nice. I thought they always had that policy where banks were concerned though?
> Imagine if more grad students did this.
If they were trying to bring it down, like exploiting a security flaw to get it fixed, it would only take one.
> academics posess a level of freedom on par with the super-rich; if some University wants you to immigrate to a country in order to do research, you're waived right in.
Good point, freedom and a license for eccentricity in one package. Very helpful in a world quickly stuffing air-travelers into terrorist/not-terrorist boxes based on your sense of humor inside the airport, etc.
> A PhD carries the sort of international mobility that's I think is kind of useful having been born in a sinking ship.
Makes me think of the Titanic, too big to sink!
Got any idea where to go? Start a hacker/scientist enclave in an abandoned mine?
Probably half of my friends earning physics graduate degrees are not continuing in academic physics, with most of them going into something like quant finance or quant insurance.
The reason for this is primarily that there are simply not enough jobs right now for them in academia.
When I was an idealistic undergrad physics major I honestly never once thought about the job market. I assumed that you'd just go get your PhD and you'd become a physics professor, sort of like going to med school and getting a job as a doctor. You'd follow all of the steps and you'd be set...
Now being on the verge of finishing my PhD, I have a very different perspective and am fortunately in a decent position with employment options. Some of my friends are only now scrambling to make sense of their options.
"But, 35% or so of my social group that are pursuing degrees in Physics are headed to Finance instead of research. I'd much rather seem them expand human knowledge than profit and live an easy life."
Are there enough research positions to employ the majority of current physics and math students? I doubt it.
If you choose Finance as your desired profession, and Finance sees physics and math as a good source of new talent, then it's very rational to choose a physics or math major to get into Finance. As pointed out in a sibling comment, upside to physics and math departments is demand that wouldn't otherwise be there.
Research is only possible because of the economic surpluses made possible because of, among other things, liquid capital markets. Who do you think pays for CERN, the LHC, et al? Ordinary taxpayers doing those jobs you think are "disappointing". Maybe if scientists disparage them enough, they'll stop paying...
Most of finance these days is finding ways to subvert actual trading of value and dilution of risk, instead attacking (in the security sense) currencies and markets.
While markets and liquidity are helpful to the world the finance workers don't deserve credit for it - they're just workers in someone else's system for one, and usually predators at that.
I am working in finance because the professors I knew were not salty enough. I have to do a lot of scut work, and I really am not on an impressive salary, but I see massive real-world problems on a daily basis and get a live view of the things that really matter in the world economy.
Running trading algorithms would be pretty pants, but managing risk is not quite so ignoble.
Not Salty - lacking in flavour, meaning lacking life experience, naive, uninteresting.
scut work: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/scut+work
Noun 1. scut work - trivial, unrewarding, tedious, dirty, and disagreeable chores; "the hospital hired him to do scut work"
shitwork
chore, job, task - a specific piece of work required to be done as a duty or for a specific fee; "estimates of the city's loss on that job ranged as high as a million dollars"; "the job of repairing the engine took several hours"; "the endless task of classifying the samples"; "the farmer's morning chores"
To be fair, the tools they develop to understand a chaotic system like the stock market might be interesting outside of the field of algorithmic trading.
> My perspective is that of a Junior CS & Physics major reaching towards grad school and some sort of research
Your friends are smart enough to know that grad school in Physics is a blackhole. Once you finish the PhD, it becomes an endless round of hunting for poorly pair post-doc jobs.
This really disappoints me. Sure, somebody needs to work in Finance for the sake of liquidity and other things I don't understand. But, 35% or so of my social group that are pursuing degrees in Physics are headed to Finance instead of research. I'd much rather seem them expand human knowledge than profit and live an easy life.
My perspective is that of a Junior CS & Physics major reaching towards grad school and some sort of research be it academia or elsewhere.