<p>What kind of careers in business such as at Wall Street, or any other field not involving with purely business would be available to someone that has a PhD in statistics or physics?</p>
<p>Management consulting
Pharmaceutical research, depending on the degree
Investment banking (especially with the statistics)
Finance (with the statistics)
Military researcher (medical physicist)
R&D at a corporation (would depend on the degree)</p>
<p>
A fair number of PhD physicists end up as quants.</p>
<p>Do more physics PhDs or stats PhDs become quants?</p>
<p>Good question - one would expect the latter, but perhaps the number of Physics PhDs doing physics is that incredibly low that the question even arises. Bottom line is that if you want to be a quant, you can definitely do it with either background, but it is probably a bad idea to pursue a physics PhD <em>mainly</em> with the aim of being a quant.</p>
<p>If you want to learn more about that, go to physicsforums.com and search for posts by twofish-quant.</p>
<p>Go to the Wall st. You will find **** load of people working in the Financial sector with degrees in math, physics and other hardcore science. They make very good money.</p>
<p>I will note that davexuke is right, and further, these people do *not * necessarily have PhDs. There are some jobs that want PhDs, but not many. The math required to do finance is exceptionally basic as compared to what a major learns in a majority of cases. The job has its own twists sure, and it’s a lot of work, but it’s different.</p>
<p>Doing a PhD in science without a fairly exceptional interest in science seems like a bad idea, because nearly always, there is a better option.</p>
<p>Forgive my ignorance, but:</p>
<p>1) What exactly is a “quant”?
2) How are Physics PhDs able to get Finance jobs? (In reference, specifically, to davexuke’s post)</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>