leaving PhD program in economics
Hi. Just ran across this website. Hopefully I'm not breaking any rules or annoying anyone too much with this question.
I'm currently in a top-15 PhD program in economics at a school that is top-10 undergrad. After finishing the first year, I'm not sure I want to continue. The PhD is really designed for people who want to be academic researchers and I've realized that I don't want to do that.
I'm trying to figure out what jobs might be available if I left. Banking and consulting both sound interesting. I have absolutely NO professional work experience. (Just a lot of research experience.) I did really well in undergrad and am doing well in my program. If I left I could leave with a masters. I've got a pretty good quantitative and math/stats background, plus most of my work is more applied and less theoretical.
Thanks for any help anyone can give!
could always do a MFE/Fin Math which is seen as an alternative to a finance PhD for kids that want to be in industry.
Is this a year-round program? Do you have the summers off to do internships?
I could probably do a summer internship. This summer we have classes we have to do, but after the 2nd year I'm really at the mercy of what my advisor/department will allow. I think most people are expected to work on their research over the summer, but if I made it clear I wanted to something else I think it'd be okay.
Another thing to consider: when do you earn your masters degree along the way?
edit: reread OP, guess all you need is one year with your program
How many years do you have left? It might be worth staying those few years to have a PhD on your resume.
I mean no disrespect, but this is the type of advice that would only be given by a person who does not fully appreciate the intensity, purpose, and goal of a PhD. A PhD is not something you do for your resume. And the only case where staying in a PhD to get it on your resume would be anywhere near acceptable, is if you were almost done with your dissertation, and decided you didn't enjoy research.
The life of a PhD student is difficult. Little money and living cheaply. With the primary goal of getting a job in the academy. The work is brutal, and it can often take over 5 years, requiring work that only those who truly love it are willing to do. You can't fake your way through a dissertation. For him receiving a masters would be a good choice. But staying in a PhD would not.
I have another four years. I could leave in a couple months with a masters though.
OP, I do have a PhD (though not in Econ) from HYPS, and to contradict the statement above, I feel a PhD is by and large a credential these days. Schools churn out massive numbers of doctorates and the apprenticeship model of old is gone. Everyone comes into doctoral programs thinking that they will become profs, and universities encourage this mindset, but reality starts to set in 3/4/5th year that A) they don’t want to do this research for the rest of their life B) even if they wanted to, getting a good tenure-track position these days is insanely difficult. Good for you for figuring out now that you don’t want to do this, as it allows you to plan ahead.
Since you have no WE (so I’m guessing no professional network), jumping ship this minute and getting a job won’t be so easy, esp since you’ve passed on ugrad OCR. If you don’t like what you are doing or you are not good at it, then yeah, get out, because the next four years will be awful for you. However, it seems like your primary concern (correct me if I’m wrong) is that you don’t want to become a prof. Most PhDs don’t, so I wouldn’t worry about that. If I were you I would hit up the career services at your school and talk to the senior grad students to feel out what the options are. For example, MBB has OCR at target grad schools and PhDs start at the same salary as MBAs. I’ve also seen colleagues in the Econ dept leave with their PhD to land in nice jobs at various consulting firms and banks.
Molecular biology, and completely jumped off.
Well, I am not so sure that molecular biology PhD is comparable to the Econ one because there are position where PhD in economics is considerable advantage (government, central banks, private). There are programs with 60% non-academic placements.
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