What Has Worse Job Market: Ph.d.'s or J.D.'s? ..or BA/BS's? Forum

[HankBashir]

After looking up my high school's website, it actually wasn't a PhD in Home Economics; the teacher in quesiton has a Ed.D in Occupational Studies and a BSED, M.Ed, and a Ed.S in Home Economics. The school she got it from (my alma mater) does offer a PhD in "Housing and Consumer Economics" however.

[dallasstar]

I'm not sure about PhDs in general, but a PhD in STEM who is genuinely smart can make a killing on Wall St. I know a few who pull in $1mm+/year. The ones who become successful portfolio managers at hedge funds can pull in several times that, even. The types of investment strategies that PhD STEM graduates employ are usually beyond the grasp of non-PhDs without that level of expertise.

That said, those jobs are competitive. Also, this is just one example. There is a need for PhDs in all kinds of places. I know Microsoft and Google even have higher starting salaries for PhDs, and bonuses, too. My current company has plenty of PhDs as well. Not all PhDs go into academia, and the ones who go into industry aren't necessarily too far removed from academia. Many of the PhDs who join some of the companies I've been involved with spend most of their time doing research and coming up with new products. In some ways, the lack of grant proposals can make such a path even more rewarding than academia.

[jwinaz]

I'm not sure about PhDs in general, but a PhD in STEM who is genuinely smart can make a killing on Wall St. I know a few who pull in $1mm+/year. The ones who become successful portfolio managers at hedge funds can pull in several times that, even. The types of investment strategies that PhD STEM graduates employ are usually beyond the grasp of non-PhDs without that level of expertise.

That said, those jobs are competitive. Also, this is just one example. There is a need for PhDs in all kinds of places. I know Microsoft and Google even have higher starting salaries for PhDs, and bonuses, too. My current company has plenty of PhDs as well. Not all PhDs go into academia, and the ones who go into industry aren't necessarily too far removed from academia. Many of the PhDs who join some of the companies I've been involved with spend most of their time doing research and coming up with new products. In some ways, the lack of grant proposals can make such a path even more rewarding than academia.

Are you talking about "quants" in your first paragraph above? If so, I think you'd need a Ph.D. in physics or math or, at least, the requisite mathematical coursework (most often found in those two fields). I'm not sure bio, chem., geology, etc. would allow you to become a Wall Street quant. But I could be wrong!!

[dallasstar]

I'm not sure about PhDs in general, but a PhD in STEM who is genuinely smart can make a killing on Wall St. I know a few who pull in $1mm+/year. The ones who become successful portfolio managers at hedge funds can pull in several times that, even. The types of investment strategies that PhD STEM graduates employ are usually beyond the grasp of non-PhDs without that level of expertise.

That said, those jobs are competitive. Also, this is just one example. There is a need for PhDs in all kinds of places. I know Microsoft and Google even have higher starting salaries for PhDs, and bonuses, too. My current company has plenty of PhDs as well. Not all PhDs go into academia, and the ones who go into industry aren't necessarily too far removed from academia. Many of the PhDs who join some of the companies I've been involved with spend most of their time doing research and coming up with new products. In some ways, the lack of grant proposals can make such a path even more rewarding than academia.

Are you talking about "quants" in your first paragraph above? If so, I think you'd need a Ph.D. in physics or math or, at least, the requisite mathematical coursework (most often found in those two fields). I'm not sure bio, chem., geology, etc. would allow you to become a Wall Street quant. But I could be wrong!!

Yes, I was referring to quants, but a few talented computer scientists focused on computer architecture and design issues can also do that well in the right places. Also, I know at least a handful of people with nothing more than a bachelors who are quants, but these people are very bright and truly rare. Anyway, my point wasn't that everyone can be a quant. What I was getting at is that a PhD doesn't somehow fail if they don't work in academia. The world is a huge place full of opportunity. I think half the reason people remain unemployed is that they don't understand this concept and narrow down their focus too much. This thread keeps talking about the percentages of PhDs outside academia as if they're unemployed or underemployed, but imo, working at NASA or even Wall St is hardly underemployed.

Even humanities ppl can get jobs at think tanks or magazines that make use of their training.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Even humanities ppl can get jobs at think tanks or magazines that make use of their training.

Humanities Ph.D.s do usually eventually find jobs. Getting that first job is frequently miserable. And they are rarely jobs that require anything close to a Ph.D. to do.

(Magazines? What magazines actually make use of a humanities Ph.D.?)

[haus]

Even humanities ppl can get jobs at think tanks or magazines that make use of their training.

Humanities Ph.D.s do usually eventually find jobs. Getting that first job is frequently miserable. And they are rarely jobs that require anything close to a Ph.D. to do.

(Magazines? What magazines actually make use of a humanities Ph.D.?)

I suspect that the largest use of PhDs at magazines is to man the subscription cancelation line trying to talk people out of ending their subscriptions to magizines they no longer read.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Even humanities ppl can get jobs at think tanks or magazines that make use of their training.

Humanities Ph.D.s do usually eventually find jobs. Getting that first job is frequently miserable. And they are rarely jobs that require anything close to a Ph.D. to do.

(Magazines? What magazines actually make use of a humanities Ph.D.?)

I suspect that the largest use of PhDs at magazines is to man the subscription cancelation line trying to talk people out of ending their subscriptions to magizines they no longer read.

awesome.

[Void]

(Magazines? What magazines actually make use of a humanities Ph.D.?)

My question was: "Magazines? What magazine actually makes enough money to give anyone a job anymore?"

But I was preempted by haus's better comment.

[jtabustos]

http://theivylie.wordpress.com/

This is a little weird, but there might be an Ivy League Scam movement rising up.

This is one page that reflects some of the content that's similar to the whole law school scam thing.

[jtabustos]

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/opinio ... 0f31a.html

Check out this article too...it features maybe the Scott Bullock of the Ivy League Scam world? Her name is Nikki Muller with PRinceton and Harvard degrees and cannot make more than $14/hour.

[A. Nony Mouse]

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/opinio ... 0f31a.html

Check out this article too...it features maybe the Scott Bullock of the Ivy League Scam world? Her name is Nikki Muller with PRinceton and Harvard degrees and cannot make more than $14/hour.

Well, to be fair, her BA is in Comp Lit (with a certificate in poetry writing) and she went directly to an MFA in theater and is working as an actor/artist. That's not to let the Ivy League schools off the hook, but it's not like even people who go to Juilliard walk out of school into fame and fortune. She might as well be trying to be a pro athlete.

[jtabustos]

--LinkRemoved--

College Grads May Be Stuck in Low-Skill Jobs
The recession left millions of college-educated Americans working in coffee shops and retail stores. Now, new research suggests their job prospects may not improve much when the economy rebounds.

Underemployment—skilled workers doing jobs that don't require their level of education—has been one of the hallmarks of the slow recovery. By some measures, nearly half of employed college graduates are in jobs that don't traditionally require a college degree.

Economists have generally assumed the problem was temporary: As the economy improved, companies would need more highly educated employees. But in a paper released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a team of Canadian economists argues that the U.S. faces a longer-term problem.


Saw this today.

[scifiguy]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/college-g ... 00908.html

College Grads May Be Stuck in Low-Skill Jobs
The recession left millions of college-educated Americans working in coffee shops and retail stores. Now, new research suggests their job prospects may not improve much when the economy rebounds.

Underemployment—skilled workers doing jobs that don't require their level of education—has been one of the hallmarks of the slow recovery. By some measures, nearly half of employed college graduates are in jobs that don't traditionally require a college degree.

Economists have generally assumed the problem was temporary: As the economy improved, companies would need more highly educated employees. But in a paper released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a team of Canadian economists argues that the U.S. faces a longer-term problem.


Saw this today.

Dude!

Brian Hackett, who graduated with honors from the College of New Jersey in 2010 with a political-science degree, is among those who haven't found full-time work. Instead, the 25 year old works part-time doing clerical work and conducting phone interviews—and he is hardly the only one at his company with advanced credentials.

"There are people with master's degrees and bachelor's degrees and even people with law degrees applying to work for $10 an hour," Mr. Hackett said.

[ksllaw]

I'll stand by what I said in another thread: PhDs in the humanities are an infinitely worse idea than a T14 JD. You might not have to deal with debt, but you'll lose 6-9 years of your twenties with abysmal job prospects. A PhD in biostatistics is probably a different story, though.

Disagree. If you're clever about it, you should get your PhD done in 4 years. That's nothing if you're debt free.

But I'll tell a story since I'm here. A friend of mine has a PhD in mathematics from an unprestigious state school, and he's currently employed as an adjunct there. He's been looking for two years for anything else, but no one wants a pure math PhD, there are no practical applications for him. So now he's looking into teaching high school. Which is actually pretty decent if he finds a job in a public school, and of course he has no debt.

4 years would be a rarity.

At least in the humanities and social sciences, four years is quite rare.

This is an interesting topic in and of itself and a good number of theories exist as to the differences in time it takes to complete a Ph.D. across disciplines. But, cinephile, is mostly correct, I believe, when it comes to mathematics (and possibly a few other fields).

There're sometimes even jokes about mathematicians being over-the-hill by age 35.

http://www.westmont.edu/~howell/courses ... prime.html
This is an interesting and sometimes humorous article by Lila Guterman on the topic (with discussion of why mathematicians can often complete Ph.D.s in just a few years). ...I'm not sure that the vast majority of mathematicians can be done with their doctoral programs within a few years, but it seems that many more do finish within 4 or 5 years compared to those laboring in other fields that can take up to 8-10 years (such as the case in many humanities disciplines).