<p>Hey guys!</p>
<p>So I am currently studying Biochemistry at UC Berkeley, and I was pre-med, but I have decided that I don't want to be a physician based on the extreme regulations and pay decrease they will endure over the coming years. </p>
<p>Right now, I really like chemistry and biology, but I have a real passion for finance and venture capital firms, and really want to have a high profile career in finance. I read that getting a science PhD is a good idea because some banks like Morgan Stanley and GS are looking to higher PhD's in certain fields to offer more perspectives on equity markets, derivatives, the debt market etc.</p>
<p>However, I would not be interested at all in a career in Academia, because I wouldn't like doing bench research and making less than $200k for the rest of my life.</p>
<p>Should i get a chemistry PhD?</p>
<p>No. You should try to get an MBA from an elite business school and pray that you can get a Wall Street job. The Chem PhD will do nothing for you.</p>
<p>Agreed, that is not a good reason to get a Ph.D. </p>
<p>Noooooo, do not do a PhD in chemistry for that reason. PhDs in the sciences who go into banking do so because they either realized midway through that they didn’t want to be in academia anymore, or because they were unable to find an academic job that suited their needs. Furthermore, in order to be recruited by a top bank or consulting firm with a PhD, you need to 1) go to an Ivy League or other highly recruited school, like MIT or Stanford, for your PhD and 2) try to find the time to get internships in the banking field while you are doing the PhD, which is difficult to impossible.</p>
<p>If you really wanted to get a PhD and parlay it into the big bucks, the ones right now that seem to garner that are computer science, statistics, applied math, and economics. But given that it takes around 6 years to get one, you could probably do much better with a master’s + 4 years of work experience. And if you don’t like research, definitely don’t do a PhD - you’ll be miserable.</p>
<p>If you really want to make $200K+, you should try to get some internships in banking/finance/big data/tech/consulting. Add some programming classes and/or higher-level math classes to your field of study. Then after college, try to get one of those prestigious banking/finance jobs or tech/big data/consulting jobs. Work for 3-5 years and get an MBA at a top, prestigious program.</p>
<p>Or, if you are interested in parlaying your knowledge of biochemistry into medically-related Big Data, that’s an option too. You could study statistics & computer science and go into genomics, bioinformatics, that kind of thing. I don’t think it pays nearly as much as the financial industry, so it will take you longer to get to $200K - if you ever do - but it’s an option.</p>
<p>@juillet</p>
<p>Thank you for the response! My goal income is s a high as possible in any specific job, but coming from a family who was very poor, I would have a tough time taking a career option that could never make at least $200k</p>
<p>I come from a working class family, so I know about not wanting to struggle. I also don’t see anything wrong with wanting to make $200K+ per year, knowing that from the outset, and planning your career around it.</p>
<p>But I do want to say that individuals that make $200,000+ are in the top 2% of earners in the United States - and thus, there’s no way to guarantee that you’ll make more than that in most fields. Only physicians can be reasonably assured of making more than $200,000 since virtually everyone in the field starts out pretty close to that, but even in business and corporate law, you generally start out lower and have to work your way there.</p>
<p>I also want to add that you don’t need $200K+ to live very comfortably, although it depends on where you want to live. I know myself that coming from a working-class family, I was really unfamiliar with the level of money that equated different kind of lifestyles (e.g., I had no idea of the difference between “big house in the suburbs money”, “country club membership money” and “yacht money” or how much money you’d have to make to be able to reasonably afford these things). I don’t know if that’s the case for you, but in the majority of places in U.S. $200K is way more than enough to survive comfortably.</p>
<p>Again, though, I see nothing wrong with having that as a goal, so long as you realize that it’s not easily attainable (and that you will probably work 60-80+ hours a week to maintain that level of pay).</p>
<p>Good points, but my dream place to live is in the heart of a big west coast city, either San Francisco or Los Angeles, so I guess for a family with two kids you could be comfortable with less than $200k, but if you want to own a 3 bedroom house in San Francisco, I think $200k is the right amount to feel really secured. But if I decide to live in a non-HCOL area then ill keep that advice in mind.</p>
<p>@Jweinst1 - just remember, the wage scale that you are describing is rare in almost any field, with the exception of medicine. Most lawyers don’t make that much, most MBA’s don’t make that much, most people in finance or engineering or accounting don’t make that much. You can get there from any of those fields, but on raw probability it just isn’t likely. Getting there is going to take a ton of dedication, effort, and no small amount of both talent and luck.</p>
<p>So bearing that in mind, which field do you want to live and breathe for the next decade while you pursue that high salary? What is your backup plan if it turns out that you can’t be part of that 1%? I know the money sounds good, but pegging everything on reaching an arbitrary salary is a great way to make sure that you are to busy and miserable to spend it.</p>
<p>That having been said, I think you will do better on the business side than you will on the engineering side.</p>
<p>@cosmicfish </p>
<p>I only gave the example of $200k because I wouldn’t want a career where it is essentially impossible to reach that no matter how much you love your career and how good you are at it. Examples of what I am thinking of are Nursing, Zoologists, air traffic controllers, and most academic professors. I was trying to convey that I want a career where, your own results and performance dictate your salary, not someone else’s decisions. The reason I became disinterested in medicine is because, a doctor’s compensation is determined by an accountant in an insurance company, not the physician. There other reasons I don’t care for medicine though, such as the movement towards a socialized healthcare system. But yes, I understand what your saying.</p>
<p>Also, it might be underestimated when it is said that making 200k is rare in finance, why do you think occupy wall street called themselves occupy “wall street”. Most investment banking associates commonly make $200k in their second or third year including a bonus. Vice presidents and managing directors often make over half a million with partners reaching 7 digits if they have carried interest tied to their compensation. In private equity, the partners their can make in the tens of millions. Although investment bankers are a very small proportion of the overall population Now obviously, it is extremely difficult to achieve these positions, and it is highly unlikely, which I understand. But, I honestly believe if one makes the choice to really pursue their dreams then they can accomplish anything they want. The mind is the most powerful tool we have to use.</p>
<p>
About a decade ago, I was selling cars for a living. I had two engineering professors from a large public university (top-20ish in engineering) come in to buy new cars, during which I had the opportunity to see their financials. Between them, they were making $600k. Some of that was university salary, some of that was businesses they had on the side as consultants or to commercialize their own inventions. I understand that this is not a reasonable expectation in, for example, philosophy, but engineering professors can make some very nice money.</p>
<p>
Every career is bounded somewhat by someone else’s decisions (and by luck). Every single one.</p>
<p>
Because that is where the top-level decisions are made. Most of the people working in finance don’t work on Wall Street, or don’t for very long before they get the boot, or work there doing much more modest work than they thought their Ivy-League MBA would net them. According to the Bureau of Labor And Statistics, working off of IRS data, the mean wage for “financial services sales agents” is ~$103k, the highest non-management profession listed in finance, but still less than the mean wage of several engineering professions and not much higher than most of the rest. And when you consider that there are a relative few people in finance making astronomical salaries, the great majority of people working in finance aren’t doing that hot.</p>
<p>And that is what the finance industry is really like - a small number of people making obscene money, and a whole lot of hopefuls grinding it out for salaries and working conditions that most engineers would refuse to touch. And all of them going in thought that they would be the ones taking money baths, and the vast majority were wrong. The wages you are talking about represent maybe a few thousand jobs in the whole world, for which hundreds of thousands or even millions are competing. And they are the kind of jobs where you can go from the penthouse to the street in a single day. If that is what you want, go for it, but don’t go in thinking that a finance degree equals even a decent chance at riches.</p>
<p><a href=“May 2022 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates”>May 2022 National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates;
<p>I came here to say the same thing as cosmicfish…every single career’s salary is in part determined by your own drive and ambition and in part determined by someone else. If you go to work for a huge bank, hedge fund, etc., your salary will be set by the bank you work for. It won’t go up and up and up based upon solely your performance; a lot of salary decisions are also based partially on politics and networking, and your salary will be set by your company.</p>
<p>Actually, I would argue that your salary will have more external control on it than a physician in private practice. Accountants at insurance companies do not independently set physician salaries - physicians charge a price for their services; insurance companies bargain with them; it’s a mutual process.</p>
<p>I think our point is only to warn you that $200,000 per year is a very lofty goal. You’re unlikely to make it early in your career, and even if you go into a high-flying finance career, you probably won’t hit it until your mid-30s at best. You also may find your career and lifestyle goals change as you age - I too thought I wanted to live in the heart of a city when I was 18, but 10 years later I really want to live in a McMansion in a stereotypical bucolic suburb and raise whiny spoiled upper-middle-class children, lol. Part of that comes from having lived in a large, expensive city (New York) for the past 6 years and becoming disillusioned with how much money I shell out to live here.</p>