July 17th, 2008, 7:42 am
Although my intuition is that a "hard science" PhD is "harder" than a Finance PhD, I do not see this as a scientific statement.Have we taken randomly selected people of comparable talent, and observed who succeeds or fails ?No we have not.Also, it is the case that there is no generally accepted standard for awarding PhDs, I even know people who engaged in PhD in Media Studies.I do not believe any subject is inherently "easier" than any other, if you are genuinely trying to do something new, which is supposed to be a key aspect of a PhD.For instance, even in media studies there is intensely analytical work to be done, some of which would be very lucrative.There is optimisation of portfolios in the creation of a major film. Which is optimal :$ 20M for Keanu Reevesor$10M in extra special FX and $10 M more in marketing ?If you could reliably predict TV show audiences, from inputs available at the time of the pilot episode, you would make so much money.On the other hand, the stuff I put in the guide about some PhDs in physics being essentially the role of maintenance mechanic for a strange piece of equipment is drawn from the experiences of many I talk to.But as a pimp, my advice is to do "hard science" because that is easy for me to sell, assuming everything else to be equal.I must add a disclaimer here of course. My evidence is historical, but if you are choosing a PhD now, you are interested in the labour market of 5 years from now, and on from that.My intuition is that the gap between the career utility of physical sciences vs finance will decline, but remain for many years to come.