The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.
I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.
The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.
The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.
Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.
She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.
Interesting. What do math students (sans PhD) do these days besides teach? Big data/ information systems?
I'm not sure. I think a lot of them get pulled into consulting. Yes, the natural connection with data is another one, and of course that's big these days.
I'm really talking out of my ass right now, but based on conversations with her, the real split occurs in theoretical vs. applied. She did a post-bacc year in advanced math (also paid by the school - thank you) that is ostensibly there to create more female math PhDs. They don't admit it, but there is a huge bias towards theoretical. They want to reproduce themselves.
One of the hints of this, is the requirement that everyone in this funded program has to take Real Analysis. It may go by other names, and you may know this (I did not), but this is where you write math proofs all day. That's it. An entire semester of doing this. This is the shit where you fill a chalk board (or whatever) with hieroglyphics to prove that 1 + 1 = 2 and that algebra is a real thing ... that kind of abstraction. It is apparently challenging and serves as a good filter to figure out who has the chops to go get a PhD and study the crazy stuff ... knot theory, topology, etc. She did well in that course and the full press was applied. Fortunately she's like her Dad and has a backbone ... she's not nearly perfect (hi @DoogieMcDoogerson ) but she is not afraid of @RaceBannon and said "no" to the people paying for her education. She found that she likes applied, especially probabilistic math and data and said 'fuck it' I'll go to grad school for that instead.
So, back to the original point, as a natural consequence of both her undergraduate majors and what she's studying now, she's heavy in stats and has developed data chops. She can program and knows R, Python, MatLabs, and all that shit very well; though the word "data" won't appear on any of her degrees.
Where I see her going is probably probability modeling ... insurance companies, almost anywhere in healthcare, etc. To do financial modeling, she'd have to add some economis chops. Maybe I'll have her join the Finance Club!
The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.
I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.
The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.
The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.
Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.
She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.
Interesting. What do math students (sans PhD) do these days besides teach? Big data/ information systems?
Not sure if it's still the case, but there used to be huge money in compression algorithms. My former process control engineer recently retired. Before that, he once told me about his older brother. This guy is top-three smartest people I've ever known, and he said he feels like a simpleton next to his brother. Said he's an eccentric mathematician type. Worked for a company that developed a video compression algorithm (I'm guessing h.265). The part that piqued my interest the most was when he said, "Yeah, if he ever fell off his wallet, he'd probably hurt himself."
I have no idea what compression algorithms are, but I'm sure I can't write them.
Our airbnb was right up the little street in that gap between the buildings center right, directly across from the Duomo baptistery
After a little forensic research, I'm almost certain we stayed at the Hotel Villa Elda, just up the hill from St. Catherine's. Was like $120 per night, breakfast was gigantic and amazing, house wines were great, and it had a rooftop terrace with great views. The best part was then when we got there, the receptionist said, "When we saw you were American, we gave you the garden house because it has the best air conditioning." Apparently we?'re notoriously bitchy people, so we've got that going for us. Anyway, this room was its own building right on the ground floor garden, so we had a ton of privacy and space. Huge bang/$.
The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.
I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.
The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.
The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.
Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.
She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.
Interesting. What do math students (sans PhD) do these days besides teach? Big data/ information systems?
Not sure if it's still the case, but there used to be huge money in compression algorithms. My former process control engineer recently retired. Before that, he once told me about his older brother. This guy is top-three smartest people I've ever known, and he said he feels like a simpleton next to his brother. Said he's an eccentric mathematician type. Worked for a company that developed a video compression algorithm (I'm guessing h.265). The part that piqued my interest the most was when he said, "Yeah, if he ever fell off his wallet, he'd probably hurt himself."
At least at one time I heard that Microsoft would rather hire math graduates than computer science grads.
The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.
I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.
The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.
The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.
Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.
She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.
Interesting. What do math students (sans PhD) do these days besides teach? Big data/ information systems?
Not sure if it's still the case, but there used to be huge money in compression algorithms. My former process control engineer recently retired. Before that, he once told me about his older brother. This guy is top-three smartest people I've ever known, and he said he feels like a simpleton next to his brother. Said he's an eccentric mathematician type. Worked for a company that developed a video compression algorithm (I'm guessing h.265). The part that piqued my interest the most was when he said, "Yeah, if he ever fell off his wallet, he'd probably hurt himself."
At least at one time I heard that Microsoft would rather hire math graduates than computer science grads.
There are still firms that see things that way. McKinsey is known to hire people with those general "tough" degrees that are not necessarily professional or directed. Math, Physics, etc. Goldman hires kids with applied math degrees who otherwise don't know shit about markets and corp. fin. But the pendulum has swung hard toward pre-professional studies unless you're at a tippy top school, in which case they don't seem to care what you majored in.
Our airbnb was right up the little street in that gap between the buildings center right, directly across from the Duomo baptistery
After a little forensic research, I'm almost certain we stayed at the Hotel Villa Elda, just up the hill from St. Catherine's. Was like $120 per night, breakfast was gigantic and amazing, house wines were great, and it had a rooftop terrace with great views. The best part was then when we got there, the receptionist said, "When we saw you were American, we gave you the garden house because it has the best air conditioning." Apparently we?'re notoriously bitchy people, so we've got that going for us. Anyway, this room was its own building right on the ground floor garden, so we had a ton of privacy and space. Huge bang/$.
The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.
I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.
The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.
The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.
Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.
She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.
Interesting. What do math students (sans PhD) do these days besides teach? Big data/ information systems?
Not sure if it's still the case, but there used to be huge money in compression algorithms. My former process control engineer recently retired. Before that, he once told me about his older brother. This guy is top-three smartest people I've ever known, and he said he feels like a simpleton next to his brother. Said he's an eccentric mathematician type. Worked for a company that developed a video compression algorithm (I'm guessing h.265). The part that piqued my interest the most was when he said, "Yeah, if he ever fell off his wallet, he'd probably hurt himself."
The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.
I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.
The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.
The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.
Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.
She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.
Interesting. What do math students (sans PhD) do these days besides teach? Big data/ information systems?
Not sure if it's still the case, but there used to be huge money in compression algorithms. My former process control engineer recently retired. Before that, he once told me about his older brother. This guy is top-three smartest people I've ever known, and he said he feels like a simpleton next to his brother. Said he's an eccentric mathematician type. Worked for a company that developed a video compression algorithm (I'm guessing h.265). The part that piqued my interest the most was when he said, "Yeah, if he ever fell off his wallet, he'd probably hurt himself."
At least at one time I heard that Microsoft would rather hire math graduates than computer science grads.
There are still firms that see things that way. McKinsey is known to hire people with those general "tough" degrees that are not necessarily professional or directed. Math, Physics, etc. Goldman hires kids with applied math degrees who otherwise don't know shit about markets and corp. fin. But the pendulum has swung hard toward pre-professional studies unless you're at a tippy top school, in which case they don't seem to care what you majored in.
A good chunk of my grad school class went straight to consulting. It was kinda frightening actually...all these people get trained by the top technical university around and immediately ditch technical work for consulting/business. I know a lot of the quant firms use to hire PHD ChemEs who specialized in Fluid Dynamics...intense math skills that they would use for all sorts of (non-ChemE) purposes.
Its funny because when I was working in Japan a good while back one of the higher ups at Mitsubishi Chemical told me they had all kinds of trouble hiring Chemical Engineers there because the banks were hiring them straight out of school.
Kinda sad really if you look at it from a 10,000 foot level...
The main indulgence, however, was college for three kids. We paid for them to go where they got in and wanted to go and didn't insist on an in-state ROI discussions and all that. One kid got into UW honors college and wound up going to the most expensive school of her choices. That has entailed sacrifice. In one case, did it benefit the kid really? No, I don't think so. In another, it was clearly a good investment. And I think in this last one, it will prove to have been, but that story isn't entirely yet written.
I have drawn the line. The oldest came out talking about law school, and I figured she'd profile for one of the NW privates or public OOS, and I don't think her toolkit sets her up to be good lawyer. I told her that while both her sisters were in private college that there wasn't an extra $40k / yr. in the budget for her, so she'd have to borrow, and that I thought it was a risk for her at that time in her life. She needed to live a little off the family tit. She'd be ready for it now, but I think that moment has passed.
The second got into fully funded PhD programs in math and decided beyond the last minute she wanted a masters and will "think about a PhD". Masters are typically not funded. She miraculously found one that is close to fully funded, and we're helping with rent but I made her borrow a small amount for the balance. She's one who gets these opportunities people dream about and tends to take them for granted, so I thought she needed some skin in the game going forward.
The last one wants to get her PhD and be a practicing clinician. We shall see where that goes. Talking about a PhD is fun. Getting one is another matter.
Friendly reminder to your daughter that quants make at least 10x more than teachers.
She actually wants to go to industry ... the question is whether it will help her to have the PhD or if it's overkill. She has a nice internship in Cambridge this summer, which will be her first real work experience outside of academic research. If I had to guess, she'll move on to the PhD. IDC because those are paid by the school.
Interesting. What do math students (sans PhD) do these days besides teach? Big data/ information systems?
Not sure if it's still the case, but there used to be huge money in compression algorithms. My former process control engineer recently retired. Before that, he once told me about his older brother. This guy is top-three smartest people I've ever known, and he said he feels like a simpleton next to his brother. Said he's an eccentric mathematician type. Worked for a company that developed a video compression algorithm (I'm guessing h.265). The part that piqued my interest the most was when he said, "Yeah, if he ever fell off his wallet, he'd probably hurt himself."
At least at one time I heard that Microsoft would rather hire math graduates than computer science grads.
There are still firms that see things that way. McKinsey is known to hire people with those general "tough" degrees that are not necessarily professional or directed. Math, Physics, etc. Goldman hires kids with applied math degrees who otherwise don't know shit about markets and corp. fin. But the pendulum has swung hard toward pre-professional studies unless you're at a tippy top school, in which case they don't seem to care what you majored in.
A good chunk of my grad school class went straight to consulting. It was kinda frightening actually...all these people get trained by the top technical university around and immediately ditch technical work for consulting/business. I know a lot of the quant firms use to hire PHD ChemEs who specialized in Fluid Dynamics...intense math skills that they would use for all sorts of (non-ChemE) purposes.
Its funny because when I was working in Japan a good while back one of the higher ups at Mitsubishi Chemical told me they had all kinds of trouble hiring Chemical Engineers there because the banks were hiring them straight out of school.
Kinda sad really if you look at it from a 10,000 foot level...
Agreed. That's a lot of smarts, and they are leaving a lot of intellect on the table helping the bankers cook up their trickerations. But as they say, no bucks, no Buck Rodgers.
As you can probably appreciate, getting a PhD in really anything isn't easy. And getting one in anything quant or hard science is especially difficult. I have a lot of respect for those folks, and in a way I like the thought of a good number of them getting their pay day instead of some guido Wall Street character who doesn't have 1/10th the smarts but knows the lingo and how to act. Soooooo much of Wall Street firm placement is like Frat House recruiting.
Comments
I'm really talking out of my ass right now, but based on conversations with her, the real split occurs in theoretical vs. applied. She did a post-bacc year in advanced math (also paid by the school - thank you) that is ostensibly there to create more female math PhDs. They don't admit it, but there is a huge bias towards theoretical. They want to reproduce themselves.
One of the hints of this, is the requirement that everyone in this funded program has to take Real Analysis. It may go by other names, and you may know this (I did not), but this is where you write math proofs all day. That's it. An entire semester of doing this. This is the shit where you fill a chalk board (or whatever) with hieroglyphics to prove that 1 + 1 = 2 and that algebra is a real thing ... that kind of abstraction. It is apparently challenging and serves as a good filter to figure out who has the chops to go get a PhD and study the crazy stuff ... knot theory, topology, etc. She did well in that course and the full press was applied. Fortunately she's like her Dad and has a backbone ... she's not nearly perfect (hi @DoogieMcDoogerson ) but she is not afraid of @RaceBannon and said "no" to the people paying for her education. She found that she likes applied, especially probabilistic math and data and said 'fuck it' I'll go to grad school for that instead.
So, back to the original point, as a natural consequence of both her undergraduate majors and what she's studying now, she's heavy in stats and has developed data chops. She can program and knows R, Python, MatLabs, and all that shit very well; though the word "data" won't appear on any of her degrees.
Where I see her going is probably probability modeling ... insurance companies, almost anywhere in healthcare, etc. To do financial modeling, she'd have to add some economis chops. Maybe I'll have her join the Finance Club!
Its funny because when I was working in Japan a good while back one of the higher ups at Mitsubishi Chemical told me they had all kinds of trouble hiring Chemical Engineers there because the banks were hiring them straight out of school.
Kinda sad really if you look at it from a 10,000 foot level...
As you can probably appreciate, getting a PhD in really anything isn't easy. And getting one in anything quant or hard science is especially difficult. I have a lot of respect for those folks, and in a way I like the thought of a good number of them getting their pay day instead of some guido Wall Street character who doesn't have 1/10th the smarts but knows the lingo and how to act. Soooooo much of Wall Street firm placement is like Frat House recruiting.