QuoteOriginally posted by: ArthurDentFor the same reason that you do not outsource your blog posts production to India.Or why you wouldn't want to outsource plumbing to India. When something breaks, you want the person that coded the system, who knows the code better than anyone else, right in front of you *NOW* so that you can figure out what is going on. The other thing is that people go to India to save money. If you have to hire firefighters to keep your house from burning down, this is something you don't want to skimp money on.QuoteOtherwise the specification of the output has to be so detailed, that the time and cost overruns are huge.And if you have written a detailed and unambiguous specification, you might as well just feed that directly into the machine.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ArthurDent If you cannot function in a hierarchy, it'll be tough to work in a bank.This is definitely something I need to consider. For the most part, in my current situation, I am given a lot of leeway to pursue my own research agenda. Intellectual freedom, as well as being in control of my time, are two of the things I most enjoy about academia. It may be difficult to give them up.

QuoteOriginally posted by: psyduckThis is definitely something I need to consider. For the most part, in my current situation, I am given a lot of leeway to pursue my own research agenda. Intellectual freedom, as well as being in control of my time, are two of the things I most enjoy about academia. It may be difficult to give them up.My observation is that the amount of real freedom that you have working in a corporation isn't hugely less than what you'd get as a post-doc or junior faculty. As a Ph.D. student, the supervisor shields you a lot from academic politics, but once you are responsible for your own research program, and a lot of the freedom that you have as a Ph.D. disappears.It usually doesn't work well to say "I will or won't study X." However what works for me is to have a list of about six or seven things that I'm interested in, and usually one of those things will happen to be something profitable. In some ways, I feel that I have more freedom in the corporate world. In academia, if you are a mathematician that suddenly has an interest on something that's totally non-mathematical, then you are hosed, whereas in the corporate world, you can usually find some sort of excuse to study something totally out of field.

The politics in academia can be pretty nasty. They fight the biggest battles over the most insignificant things. The recruitment cycle occurs only once per year and typically spans several months. So it is not so easy to say "FU, I don't need this job.". Then after six years, if you don't get tenure, you have to go to some low-ranked teaching school or come to Wall Street and find a job.In industry, politics is actually much less. Hiring and firing and switching jobs is much easier and much more fluid. No one needs to stay in a job with a bad boss.

QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976 The politics in academia can be pretty nasty. They fight the biggest battles over the most insignificant things. The recruitment cycle occurs only once per year and typically spans several months. So it is not so easy to say "FU, I don't need this job.". Then after six years, if you don't get tenure, you have to go to some low-ranked teaching school or come to Wall Street and find a job.In industry, politics is actually much less. Hiring and firing and switching jobs is much easier and much more fluid. No one needs to stay in a job with a bad boss.Maybe I have a total lack of imagination ... but I just have a difficult time imagining how I could get super pissed at my superiors if I am an asst prof or postdoc at a university. I suppose there would be battles over who teaches what classes and who serves on which committees. But, as far as research goes, I can't see how the associate and full profs could somehow dictate my research. Though, I guess if they are going to be the ones judging my tenure status, then it would behoove me to do research that they find acceptable in some sense.On the other hand, my father is president of a company of about 100 people. When I visit him it seems like he is constantly stressed about all of the egos and petty personal battles people have with each other in his office. It seems much worse than anything I've seen in academia. And, when everyone's bonus is on the line (as is the case at banks), I would imagine this sort of thing gets much worse.In any case, I'm sure this all varies from company to company and from department to department (in the case of academia).

QuoteOriginally posted by: psyduckMaybe I have a total lack of imagination ... but I just have a difficult time imagining how I could get super pissed at my superiors if I am an asst prof or postdoc at a university. I suppose there would be battles over who teaches what classes and who serves on which committees. But, as far as research goes, I can't see how the associate and full profs could somehow dictate my research. Though, I guess if they are going to be the ones judging my tenure status, then it would behoove me to do research that they find acceptable in some sense.Funding.How are you going to get enough money to pay your summer salary and to support/attract grad students, travel to conferences around the world, and other academic trappings. To get funding, you have run a conference/journal publication factory. It's an assembly line. Without that, your academic career is toast.When you consider the salary in academia per hour worked, it is laughable until you get tenure. Once you get tenure, you can stop working as you have an annuity for life.QuoteOn the other hand, my father is president of a company of about 100 people. When I visit him it seems like he is constantly stressed about all of the egos and petty personal battles people have with each other in his office. It seems much worse than anything I've seen in academia. And, when everyone's bonus is on the line (as is the case at banks), I would imagine this sort of thing gets much worse.My experience is the opposite. I found academia the worst (petty with zero stakes, everyone thinks they are working for honor and glory), non-financial companies bad (petty with miniscule stakes, power/money are taboo topics), and finance the best (money and power are just two more metrics that are on the table for negotiation).

Well, at least in Finance field, it is extremely easy to get an academic position because they are only able to produce about one-third of the PhDs which are required to fill the available positions. The real difficult part is keeping the academic position. To do this you have to publish the equivalent of one JF article every year, which is extremely difficult to do and keeps you working 80 hours a week desperately trying to get the research done.The conference papers are worthless and the publications in the lower-ranked journals count AGAINST you as they perceive that you are not able to do high quality research.All the senior profs want to work with you because they know that you are the ticket for them to get the JF publications. They need these publications to maintain their reputation even though their jobs are secure.Then, there is the three year review when they may get rid of a few people if you have managed to piss off a couple of the senior profs.Then, there is the six year tenure review when they get rid of 70% - 80% of the Assistant Profs. Then, you have to make a decision whether to go to a low-ranked teaching school and teach three sections a semester for the next forty years or come to Wall Street and make some decent cash.

QuoteOriginally posted by: psyduckMaybe I have a total lack of imagination ... but I just have a difficult time imagining how I could get super pissed at my superiors if I am an asst prof or postdoc at a university. I suppose there would be battles over who teaches what classes and who serves on which committees. But, as far as research goes, I can't see how the associate and full profs could somehow dictate my research.Time and money. One reason fights over committee positions and who teaches what get really nasty is that they are often actually fights over time and money. The committees allocate money, and if you get assigned a "graduate research class" rather than "intro physics 101" you can avoid doing lectures. Also the big gatekeepers are journal editors and grant committees. If you don't do any research that the grant committees think should be done, and you can't get your papers published you are pretty much dead.QuoteOn the other hand, my father is president of a company of about 100 people. When I visit him it seems like he is constantly stressed about all of the egos and petty personal battles people have with each other in his office. It seems much worse than anything I've seen in academia.That's often because you have a good dissertation advisor that keeps you in the dark about what is going on. This also happens in companies, when one of the big jobs of a manager prevent politics from interfering from his group.QuoteAnd, when everyone's bonus is on the line (as is the case at banks), I would imagine this sort of thing gets much worse.It's actually not. Part of it is that everyone realizes that we are in the same boat, so part of my job is to help the guy next to me get a big bonus, and part of his job is to help me get a big bonus. The reason this works is that it's believed that if we all do our jobs and help each other, the company makes more money, and we all win. This tends not to be the case in academia, where there aren't enough spots to have everyone win so in order to get ahead, you have to sabotage the person next to you.

QuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976All the senior profs want to work with you because they know that you are the ticket for them to get the JF publications. They need these publications to maintain their reputation even though their jobs are secure.And they there is the question of whether any of this really matters. I've worked in finance for several years, and I have yet to meet anyone outside of academia that actually *reads* anything written in the financial journals. Whenever I've come across a finance journal paper, they are absurd and ridiculous and written by people that obviously have never seen an actual market.

QuoteOriginally posted by: twofishQuoteOriginally posted by: traderjoe1976All the senior profs want to work with you because they know that you are the ticket for them to get the JF publications. They need these publications to maintain their reputation even though their jobs are secure.And they there is the question of whether any of this really matters. I've worked in finance for several years, and I have yet to meet anyone outside of academia that actually *reads* anything written in the financial journals. Whenever I've come across a finance journal paper, they are absurd and ridiculous and written by people that obviously have never seen an actual market.Actually, I disagree. I follow few financial journals (ok, I read just names of the articles), and I used few ideas already.

Hmm...it doesn't sound like anybody here would encourage me to stay in academia. Would any of you guys mind telling me how far you went in academia before deciding to go work at a bank? i.e. right out of grad school, after a postdoc, after a few years as an assistant prof, etc. I'm not asking you to tell me if you failed to get tenure. I just want to have an idea of how much time you spend in academia before you decided it was better to go to industry. Obviously, this has an affect on how I weight your thoughts. To be clear, I think you comments have value regardless of how much time you spent in academia.Also, I wanted to just mention that, if I continue on in academia, it will be in a math or stats department (continuing to do research in mathematical finance/stochastic processes). My PhD will not be in finance from a business school. So, I doubt I would ever have a chance to land a job in a business school.