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I'll offer a perspective on this pertaining to the finance industry, especially regarding what is considered "high finance" or traditional wall street roles (so I'm not talking about accounting or commercial banking etc.). All I say however, is applicable to basically any sort of quantitative major that requires heavy use of mathematics (and in some cases, statistics and programming).
Pre 2007 financial crisis basically what it took for you to get a job on Wall Street was a demonstrated interest and either connections into the industry, or education pedigree. So for example it wasn't uncommon for a liberal arts major from Harvard to at least get interviews for investment banking positions. Nowadays since the crisis the whole market has shrank such that often there is a heavy emphasis on a need for quantitative skills applicable to the industry before even consideration of an interview. Business degrees no longer hold as much water, and its even been considered in many roles that a physics/math/quantitative degree is better than an economics degree.
Currently, within finance the trading role is particularly applicable to undergraduate quantitative majors. Firm often do not expect heavy finance knowledge coming into an entry role, but precisely want the problem solving and applied math abilities these undergrad majors exhibit. To give some examples take Jane Street Capital and DE Shaw (one of the top proprietary trading firm and one of the top quant hedge funds respectively, both extremely well known and respected in finance):
http://www.janestreet.com/apply/trade.php
https://www.deshaw.com/recruit/UnivListing.html
Both are for entry level positions (either internship or post graduation offers), and state that quantitative skills are extremely important but financial knowledge is not required. They understand that if you're a physics whiz you can learn the finance stuff on the job, but you can't teach a business major math or stats very quickly. Obviously these are extreme examples and your average run of the mill physics majors won't be able to get into either (in fact your run of the mill MIT physics major won't even be able to), but the logic extends to smaller and less selective firms.
Even within more traditional large financial institutions (Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Blackrock etc.), while many heavily quantitative roles are reserved for PhD levels, there are definitely roles for undergraduates as well (institutional trading for example). The downside of having a pure physics degree vs an economics degree is that during the application process you will have to demonstrate that you actually are interested in finance (why the hell do you have a physics major and not an econ major etc.) but its really not a big issue if you put in research.
The state of the finance market today is precisely why there's an ongoing debate about how finance is sucking away engineering talent, especially among top US institutions. Top universities' engineering schools heavily feed into wall street. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/brain-drain-college-grads-wall-street_n_1069424.html
It's a whole other debate about whether entering finance as a physics major is good for America on a big picture scale, but from a individual perspective, a job on wall street has great personal incentives. Any physics major who is well connected, intelligent, or well pedigreed has a shot at landing a job in this industry.
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United States24745 Posts
I just want to offer a follow up after keeping track of all 'physics' jobs (keyword searches) being posted in my region (New York City and surrounding areas). For each job I asked myself if someone with a bachelors in physics and no other specialized skills would have a shot at the job.
Almost nothing (reasonable full time jobs). I've literally looked through thousands upon thousands of job listings. They either require a phd, an ms from a prestigious school, tons of experience in a field which a physics graduate obviously won't have, tons of computer/programming experience (most of which a physics degree wouldn't help you get), or some other specialized factor. I found maybe half a dozen listings where I couldn't find any evidence in the job listing that a typical physics candidate wouldn't automatically be rejected on account of not meeting the eligibility requirements.
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Baa?21244 Posts
On March 10 2013 07:32 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On March 10 2013 07:09 Recognizable wrote:On March 10 2013 05:38 farvacola wrote:On March 10 2013 05:26 micronesia wrote:On March 10 2013 04:31 farvacola wrote:On March 10 2013 04:20 micronesia wrote:On March 10 2013 04:06 udgnim wrote:
get into Finance Can you elaborate on this part...? Well, one could take the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination. Even if you only have the "inactive CPA" designation, a CPA with a physics degree would probably find a job in finance fairly quickly. I was just reading through the material covered on that exam... not much of it was covered in my physics degree. How would someone go about passing this test without training? A tremendous amount of self-study? I've heard the exam to become a CPA is not easy; I think a cousin of mine took it several times before he passed (this was many years ago, though). Well I'm not the best authority on test taking, so you may be right. I'm not suggesting that physics degrees confer much knowledge in regards to accounting, rather that they look good in the eyes of employers one might not think of. An individual is still going to need to be rather resourceful and inherently bright to make divergent paths meet in such a way. Isn't this an accountancy test? Yes, 'twas in response to Micronesia's inquiry in regards to how one with a physics background might get into finance. My only point is that employers look favorably on degrees like physics, even in unrelated fields like finance. Now whether or not a holder of a physics degree is actually good at accounting or the like is another question entirely.
Please note that finance and accounting are very very different, unless you just want to do some generic balance sheet analysis grind at a non-finance firm. "Going into finance" has nothing to do with getting a CPA.
As for getting into finance, go on a job search site like LinkedIn and look for jobs in the "financial services" industry, and look for all the entry-level jobs that want "quantitative degree" in the requirements. That should give you a good idea of what kind of skills they want from a physics grad. Programming knowledge always helps, but if you demonstrate that you can do math, it's usually not too convoluted to get a quantitative finance position as long as you know the basics of finance.
Then again it's a competitive field so it sitll might be harder than expected.
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Yeah finance/accounting are distinct and considered different as a matter of terminology. CSheep sounds like he really knows what he's saying, the advice about going and being a quant makes sense as that's where your physics degree sounds pretty solid. But yeah it's definitely a very competitive and oftentimes crowded field :/
You also might go to grad school not necessarily to go the academia route but for an engineering degree if you're interested in that. As a physics major, you might go into all sorts of engineering routes like EE or mech if you're into that. You mentioned how engineers with strong physics can be useful, but you can also do a masters in a specific engineering field because physics provides you with a strong base.
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On March 10 2013 03:26 jrkirby wrote:
You can also go into computer science with physics degrees. Many good jobs for those people.
Hah! I wanted to post something similar. I have no idea what you do with just a physics degree, but I believe you be able to specialize into anything you like with hard work and dedication. Seems to me to be a matter of figuring out what you want to do in that respect.
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As a former physics major, I swapped to CS because I felt like my knowledge in physics would get me enough from an intellectual standpoint, but probably wouldn't be enough professionally, due to the fact that physics majors aren't generally taught how to code or apply their knowledge unless they are in grad school (and even so, they are probably still not taught/encouraged to do so.)
Studying CS has made me realize fully how much I would have hated actually doing research or pure physics day in and day out. I love physics, but I think of it more as a hobby and interest than anything else, which is why for me I'd rather work in a programming field, where my skills can be applied to a plethora of subjects. Learning to code/program allows you to do whatever you want regardless of your actual interests IMO.
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This thread makes me hopeful that not all is lost.
I have physics BS, MS and PhD with highest marks from world top 20 physics schools and a big heap of academic awards, but with soaring academic unemployment a career in university ceases to be a viable option.
Some of my friends with similar education and experience find landing a job outside of academia extremely difficult. A few physics PhDs that I know have been unemployed for a while.
I guess I should try volunteering and getting more education in different fields before my postdoc contract runs out...
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On September 07 2013 09:40 Alex1Sun wrote:
This thread makes me hopeful that not all is lost.
I have physics BS, MS and PhD with highest marks from world top 20 physics schools and a big heap of academic awards, but with soaring academic unemployment a career in university ceases to be a viable option.
Some of my friends with similar education and experience find landing a job outside of academia extremely difficult. A few physics PhDs that I know have been unemployed for a while.
I guess I should try volunteering and getting more education in different fields before my postdoc contract runs out...
This is the general result I have found from friends of mine who have physics degrees (though they are limited to specific locations). Can I ask what kind of research you are doing in your postdoc?
I am a biophysicist/microscopist, but I have a lot of friends in different subdisciplines of physics. To address the question of this blog, I would recommend you pursue a masters if you just want to find a job in physics. Usually you can get paid to do it if you TA classes, and it gives you a chance to see a different part of the USA for cheap (in other countries you might have to pay to get your masters). Right now the following fields are pretty hot in physics (as far as industry jobs go):
Photonics - Telecom (nothing transmits data faster than an optical fiber)
Microfabrication - Large and growing industry in aerospace, cell phones, computers, and biomedical devices (honestly, if I could respecialize, it would be in microfabrication)
Energy - Better usage, synthesis, and storage of energy
These are the non-research "hot fields" that I know of. You might also have some luck with national defense or NASA. Just remember, when you're doing the "job searches," don't worry about filling all the requirements listed. Tell your students to apply anyways, they might actually hear back.
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EPT
