Considering 2 Routes, Which is more viable?

juillet
Thu, 26 Apr 2018 01:42:36 +0000

If your background is in finance, you are not competitive for PhD programs in sociology, psychology or education - unless you’ve got some significant coursework in those areas that we don’t know about. Generally, PhD programs prefer applicants with the equivalent of an undergrad major in their field; otherwise outstanding applicants with the equivalent of a strong minor are sometimes competitive. But if you have no coursework in those fields, you are unlikely to be admitted.

(Also, psychology is not really the right field for this kind of question. Maybe a behavioral economics program.)

And if the only math you have taken so far is college algebra, you are not competitive for economics PhD programs either. Usually those programs like to see 2-3 semesters of calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, and often real analysis. (There are econ people more knowledgeable than me here and I learned from them.) Economics at the PhD level is a highly quantitative field.

With a bachelor’s in finance, why would you not want to get a PhD in finance? You can study social capital from a finance program. PhD programs are pretty flexible, so at the right university you could take relevant classes in economics and sociology. Frankly, a PhD in finance also gives you the best job prospects: you can do research and teach finance at a university as an academic, which is one of the few fields where there are more openings than applicants, or you could enter industry as a researcher or in another role.

Quite frankly, though, I would also expect a finance PhD to be highly quantitative and to want you to have more math than you plan to take. Stanford, for example, asks students to have three semesters of calculus (MATH 51 on their list is essentially multivariable calculus and linear algebra in one class), linear algebra, and two semesters of calculus-based statistics (usually offered in the math or statistics department).

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/programs/phd/fields/finance/requirements

These programs also usually require or expect to see a couple years of experience assisting professors in research. A business PhD may expect less, but the social science programs will certainly expect to see ~2-3 or more.

Why would you get an MAT? Do you want to teach? If you want to go to an economics program, I would recommend getting an MA in economics and take some math and computer programming classes while you are there. If you wanted a sociology program, I’d say get an MA in sociology. And if you wanted the PhD in finance, I’d say get an MS in finance (or an MBA, but the MS will be more academic/research-focused).