The average physician makes far less over his lifetime than he could applying the same horsepower and hours worked to, say, finance. It’s a fairly straightforward back-of-the-envelope calculation.
That doesn’t seem obvious to me. Can I see that calculation? I suspect you’re comparing the absolute top-of-the-line financial career trajectory (which is very very hard to achieve) with a typical doctor path.
Attrition rates for investment banking are FAR higher than for medicine. The vast majority of investment bankers don’t make partner, while most good students who go to medical school graduate and earn high incomes as practicing doctors.
Finance does still have higher expected value for those suited to it, but not as large a difference as that suggests.
ETA: you’re right that it’s bogus to compare top-of-the-line finance to average physician. I should have said “The average Stanford-educated physician makes far less over his lifetime than he could applying the same horsepower and hours worked to, say, finance.”
Not sure what to say. There’s finance and there’s finance. HYPS and maybe two or three others have pipelines for pushing kids to the banks and hedge funds at the very top. And yes, I mean undergrad. The fourth or fifth of each class that goes into finance isn’t doing it to sell mutual funds in mid-sized cities. Many bail after a few years, but those who stay in can easily become millionaires, and some do it before their former classmates in med school finish their residencies.
OP is going to Stanford undergrad. You should start calculating your chances of a career at GS around the time you have been accepted to a top-10 MBA school.
According to this page, three graduates with a Mathematical & Computational Sciences degree (an undergraduate degree similar to CS) work at financial institutions: JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Keep in mind that these are graduates from the class of 2011, so they’ve only been out of school for 2 years; and the degree program only has about 15 graduates per year, so three alumni make a sizable fraction.
What I’m trying to say is, it’s probably feasible to get a job in finance with only an undergraduate degree from Stanford.
it’s probably feasible to get a job in finance with only an undergraduate degree from Stanford.
It is, but you’ll get an undergrad kind of a job.
JPMorgan has 260,000 employees. The compensation expense in 2012 was about $30.5 billion which means the average total compensation (including bonuses, etc.) was about $117K per employee.
That’s a nice salary but seems to be roughly similar to what doctors make.
That doesn’t seem obvious to me. Can I see that calculation? I suspect you’re comparing the absolute top-of-the-line financial career trajectory (which is very very hard to achieve) with a typical doctor path.
Attrition rates for investment banking are FAR higher than for medicine. The vast majority of investment bankers don’t make partner, while most good students who go to medical school graduate and earn high incomes as practicing doctors.
Finance does still have higher expected value for those suited to it, but not as large a difference as that suggests.
OP is going to Stanford, so a career at GS, Deutsche Bank, JPM, or Bridgewater is a realistic possiblity in a way it simply isn’t at 99.9% of schools.
ETA: you’re right that it’s bogus to compare top-of-the-line finance to average physician. I should have said “The average Stanford-educated physician makes far less over his lifetime than he could applying the same horsepower and hours worked to, say, finance.”
That still isn’t obvious to me and I still think you’re comparing apples and durians.
Not sure what to say. There’s finance and there’s finance. HYPS and maybe two or three others have pipelines for pushing kids to the banks and hedge funds at the very top. And yes, I mean undergrad. The fourth or fifth of each class that goes into finance isn’t doing it to sell mutual funds in mid-sized cities. Many bail after a few years, but those who stay in can easily become millionaires, and some do it before their former classmates in med school finish their residencies.
OP is going to Stanford undergrad. You should start calculating your chances of a career at GS around the time you have been accepted to a top-10 MBA school.
According to this page, three graduates with a Mathematical & Computational Sciences degree (an undergraduate degree similar to CS) work at financial institutions: JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Keep in mind that these are graduates from the class of 2011, so they’ve only been out of school for 2 years; and the degree program only has about 15 graduates per year, so three alumni make a sizable fraction.
What I’m trying to say is, it’s probably feasible to get a job in finance with only an undergraduate degree from Stanford.
It is, but you’ll get an undergrad kind of a job.
JPMorgan has 260,000 employees. The compensation expense in 2012 was about $30.5 billion which means the average total compensation (including bonuses, etc.) was about $117K per employee.
That’s a nice salary but seems to be roughly similar to what doctors make.
In Australia, a Medicare funded physician makes anywhere between 100k to 150k [1], whereas the avg. finance position pays 88k [2]. So you’re right.
[1] http://www.health.qld.gov.au/hrpolicies/wage_rates/documents/hpeb2-wage-rates.pdf
[2] http://content.mycareer.com.au/salary-centre/financial-services
Sorry that these are Australian wages. I don’t care about U.S. wages.