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Explaining what your goal is, is a good place to start when you someone wants to you explain what your goals are. Also have you actually worked in industry. If you did work in industry and had a bad experience, that is also something to mention in your statement of purpose. What you want in a good statement of purpose is something personal. You have a stack of papers, and after reading fifty of them, most of them start sounding the same, so anything you can do to make your statement different from the next guy is useful.QuoteI am of an academic type and never wanted an industry job. But at the same time, I was clear to me that a tenure track in physics in any semi decent school was impossible to get.I hate to tell you this but getting a tenure track position in any economics or business related field is probably much harder than getting a tenure track position in physics. The reason you need to know what your goals are is that Plan A won't work. Plan B also won't work. It's only when you get to Plan's Q and R that you might have a decent chance of getting something that works. My main ambition was to be a starship captain, but I have this problem of being born a few centuries too early and that my ambition may violate several laws of physics. Working in a financial firm is the closest thing I've been able to find to being a starship captain.Also my own experience is that industry has been closer to my ideal of academia than academia has been. This is different for different people.QuoteDid anyone read Derman's book?Yes. However, the problem with Derman's book is that it is an interesting piece of historical work, and finance has changed quite a bit. There really isn't that much demand for Derman-style quants now, which is something that Derman himself mentions.

I second Twofish: a tenure-track position in Economics is REALLY hard to get.Can I ask you something? If you want to have a quiet academic life why don't you try applying for a teaching position in physics in a liberal arts college; or a community college?------------In case you still want an Economics PhD:There is a big difference with British universities compared to the US. You do not spend the first years taking courses to broaden your knowledge. This is supposed to have happened during your previous education (MSc). In practice this means that you may specialise right away but nevertheless they will admit you only with the certainty that you already know the core areas (macro, micro, econometrics). But I insist. What you have to do is convince a professor to take you as a student. He/she will convince the admissions committee.Have you thought about applying to other European (non-British) universities? In many countries they don't charge tuition fees and the average age for finishing PhDs is around early to mid 30's (compared to Britain where the average is mid to late 20's!). You could choose a city with a big industry so that you can work to supplement your income (Zurich, Paris, Munich, ...)

The present CEO of Citibank,Vikram Pandit who did his PhD in Finance from Columbia university got a tenure at Indiana Bloomington University.So you can guess the level of competetion.

Age?Brian May took his Phd in physics some months ago... and he is not young

Anyway ... you 've studied a lot.What makes you to prefer academy to industry (beside of bad job market)?

I should have mentioned, that I need H-visa to work in US . That cuts my chances greatly. As for my skills, I am well versed in stochastic calc (beyond Shreve's book) and can program in C++, Matlab, R/Splus. Not a developer, but I enjoy programming and comfortable with Joshi's design patterns. Not a big fan of excel, but can do it if needed. I can probably do some nontrivial things with PDEs as well. My resume (multiple version of it to be exact) should be OK, because I keep tweaking it all the time and had it checked by folks from the career services. If I don't get Ph.D scholarship or a job soon, STL, boost and maybe Quantlib (not sure if this one is worth the effort though, can someone illuminate me on this?) are on my highest priority list. That is my plan B. There are of course plans C, D, E etc, but those don’t deserve to be mentioned here. I will go ahead with my application, even if my chances are slim. Wring essays and SOPs is a good practice in presenting oneself.Derman might be an old fashioned quant, but his point is still valid - a tenure track in theoretical physics is very tough to get.Regards and thank you for cheering me up,Kevin.

QuoteOriginally posted by: TopologistI second Twofish: a tenure-track position in Economics is REALLY hard to get.Can I ask you something? If you want to have a quiet academic life why don't you try applying for a teaching position in physics in a liberal arts college; or a community college?------------In case you still want an Economics PhD:There is a big difference with British universities compared to the US. You do not spend the first years taking courses to broaden your knowledge. This is supposed to have happened during your previous education (MSc). In practice this means that you may specialise right away but nevertheless they will admit you only with the certainty that you already know the core areas (macro, micro, econometrics). But I insist. What you have to do is convince a professor to take you as a student. He/she will convince the admissions committee.Have you thought about applying to other European (non-British) universities? In many countries they don't charge tuition fees and the average age for finishing PhDs is around early to mid 30's (compared to Britain where the average is mid to late 20's!). You could choose a city with a big industry so that you can work to supplement your income (Zurich, Paris, Munich, ...)No, I don't won't a quite life in some community college. But your point about econ tenure track is valid and I considered that possibility too.My goal is to get a decent job in academia, but if it doesn't workout that way, then there are still many econ opportunities outside academia. Maybe I am wrong, who knows. That is why I post here. Even if I get accepted, there is still almost a year before the term begins. Plenty of time to call it off safely,in case I change my mind. I have a good grasp (read some grad level textbooks) of econometrics, time-series and financial economics. I got my master's degree in May and about the time my status in US and my chances of getting a job went bad (couldn't get OPT). Since May I was studying both econometrics and c++, because I wanted to target risk jobs as well. But a burden of h-visa seems to be too heavy at this time. My stay in US must end soon if I don't want face any consequences. In this situation going to UK is a better option than going back home. I think my knowledge of econ basics is good enough to get started with my research from day one. If I get an offer from Oxford or Cambridge, then I won't wait until October, but start working on possible publishable problems right the way. People practice medicine over internet these days. Two phds should be able work together without being in the same room, i guess. If I get an offer but no funding, I could go home and talk to someone from British council. As someone said, even if the council doesn't provide enough funding, the university might find me lucrative enough and agree to pay the rest.Hope it explains a bit.

QuoteOriginally posted by: theitalianjobAge?Brian May took his Phd in physics some months ago... and he is not young :-)I wish I were a rockstar with tons of money like Brian or at least like these guyshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNaKWXqXkhwMaybe one day I will become a rockstat too, not in music but in something else Well, maybe not as big as Queen, but you know that some dose of ambition never hurts.

QuoteMe research focus was in a quantitative area and it involves numerical solutions of PDE’sThat's an area where you are in a small community (most MFEs don't do PDE), so that in combination with C++ would be advantageous. BTW maybe you can help us with some threads in Numerical Methods

Quote We have a surprising number of people on our database who have 3 masters degrees.One explanation is not being able to secure full-time employment. Rather than do nothing, it would be something to show on the CV to account for the time. However, I am rather surprised there are quite a few with three masters since the cost of doing one is not cheap unless through sponsorship. Any with four or more ?SG