CS PhD

[phynance_newb]

I'm about to start the CS PhD program at Stanford; and am increasingly interested in finance (the most interesting things being (1) immediate marked feedback vs waiting months for conferences and (2) highly objective standard -- does it make money?)



Two questions:

1) Should I go through with the PhD; or drop out and hit wall street?

2) If I do the CS PhD, what should I do it on to optimize for a future wall street career?



Thanks!

[hector]

Will Wall Street take you?

[JoeC]

CS = Computer Science (?)

1. What was your background before you started the program?
2. Seems like a long road to go down if you're not that set in finishing it (let's put that aside for the moment).
3. "Hitting Wall St" is pretty wide target - do you have a sense of what area/s interest you?
4. As far as optimizing success on Wall St having a general direction (or having it narrowed it down to a few will help narrow the list of skills to increase the probability/pace of success  
5. One thing you may want to factor is what you want to do vs where you want to live - it helps to build a career in a place that has a larger presense in that sector.
6. Regardless - no matter how brilliant your ideas, working on the St. will likely be grunt work at first - make it point to gather all the skills you need to take your ideas through to completion.
   
   • Be able to implement your own models
   • Mine your own data
   • Be able to interact with an Ops group (PB etc) to trouble shoot trade breaks, PnL issues
   • etc......
7. Feel free to email me if you have additional questions - journey on