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Is FE one of the most money making careers?

EugeneT

Joined
5/4/08
Messages
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Basically my question is, what are the top money making careers(realistically) in terms of salary growth potential and opportunities. Something one can get an education in and be well on his way. Is FE such a career?
 
EugeneT said:
Basically my question is, what are the top money making careers(realistically) in terms of salary growth potential and opportunities. Something one can get an education in and be well on his way. Is FE such a career?
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IMO, Medicine and Dentistry... that's about it. In this country, everybody needs doctors and dentists. You will get a good salary that will only go up. You won't become millionaire overnight but you will get an steady income and will be able to accumulate.

Also, these professions are not cyclical. You will make money regardless if the market is up or down.
 
This reminds of Taleb's "Fooled By Randomness" when he makes the argument of who is richer: the dentist or the trader.

If you want to look at this question from an interesting perspective, EugueneT, read the first few chapters of "Fooled By Randomess."
 
I think Taleb talks about a dentist in his book. I have seen both professions (medicine and dentistry) at work... and they make money... slowly but surely. Even better, depending of which specialty you pick, you will be able to, technically, "mint money".

On another note, it won't matter which school you are coming from or what your grades are or whatever you are worrying about now. As I have said before, I haven't seen a poor doctor or dentist in my life.
 
The top paid career is programming.
There are more billionaires who can debug code than solve PDEs, or who trade any type of financial instrument.

I cite Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Ziff, et al, and of course a respectable number of traders can do serious programming.

Next after programming is murder. Mugabe, Putin, Saddam, Suharto, and some respectable number of the PRC Chinese leadership have killed impressive numbers of people in order to get rich and retain/gain power.

Of course that's not the average...
Most programmers do not get very rich, and most murderers die broke and young.
 
EugeneT said:
Basically my question is, what are the top money making careers(realistically) in terms of salary growth potential and opportunities. Something one can get an education in and be well on his way. Is FE such a career?
Click to expand...

There are trade-offs: areas which are lucrative are intensely competitive, there are bars to entry, and it tends to be a winner-take-all scenario. And anywhere where there is serious money, we don't talk of careers anymore. It always was a petty bourgoisie thing, and today it's an archaic, if not obsolete, idea. FE is about getting rich fast; it's not about some humdrum career path. And in FE, many are called but few are chosen. If you want security, look for something like medicine, law, or business administration.
 
DominiConnor said:
... and some respectable number of the PRC Chinese leadership have killed impressive numbers of people in order to get rich and retain/gain power.
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HOW DARE YOU!!! :D :D

BTW, you missed a few from my country
 
I am not interested in medicine at all. Plus i feel like it is too slow of a process. It is stable but not enough potential to really make money. I am not looking for stability, i am looking to use my brain to make money. I have no desire to spend 6 years after graduation being abused and unpaid in medical school.

Plus like i said, i meant a realistic job, not top1% type of job that i am not likely to get. I am smart, but not that smart. When i get my education, i want the effort to be worth it, and no medicine.
 
There is actually plenty of money is medicine, but it depends largely on what field you decide to pursue. My uncle, for example, is a pulmonologist, sleep specialist, and ICU specialist and pulls in close to $400K. I'd say that's not too shabby...
 
Medicine might be slow at getting wealthy (well, it depends of the specialty you picked) but it will be much faster than you think.... and regarding potential, it depends on how savvy of a businessman you are. That includes to use your brain to make money. It's true that the first X years (again, depending on the specialty you picked) will be slavery but after that, you will be like a GOD.

BTW, I have first hand experience regarding medicine. All my family is in the medical business one way or another except me and my father. So you might be mistaken in your view about making money in the medical field.

However, if you dislike medicine (like I do). There are other choices but the risk is usually higher to put it mildly.
 
I suppose it is more pre-med program that i hate more then medical school, especially chemistry. That crap is BORING!
 
I guess we're looking more at the $100 Meg level then.

There is of course nothing with a prior probability of >1% for this. I guess that's the % of MFEs that will hit that net value.

However, there is a line of work that in the next decade will produce more than 1% 10^8 ers.

In most of history and across the world this has always been true is, but in my observation, it will never be obvious in advance.
That is close to inevitable, since of course if it were that easy to predict, lots of people would pile in and reduce each others chances.
 
Dentistry and medicine (don't include primary care) are high paying careers with stable incomes with the doctor in total control of his/her practice (except of course for goverment regulation and steadily increasing control by insurance). Still not a bad field from my own personal knowledge (Alain, I am surrounded by a medical family as well and I am the only black sheep :>).

Why don't we get back to FE and its potential. What are the low/high and average expectations for different types of quant careers with 2-5 years of experience?
 
Is 200K-300K after 2,3 years for a fresh MFE grad reasonable?
I guess it's pretty much where s/he ends up but to get a piece of P&L, you most definitely will have to be somewhere near the trading desk or FO. I also read somewhere that quants in rating agencies (Moodys, SP, Fitch) got lower pay than other quants.
How are the compensation level for other quants?
 
DominiConnor said:
I guess we're looking more at the $100 Meg level then.
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James Petras has written a section, titled "How to Become a Billionaire," in his book, "Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire." In brief, it depends crucially on state support and co-opting of government officials. Much of it is criminal, and if not outright criminal, definitely murky and questionable. This is true in Latin America, Russia, China, India, and -- dare I say it? -- the United States. The money of rich people ends up in tax havens, equity funds, and hedge funds, where quants -- essentially being hired hands, running dogs, lackeys -- are employed to conserve and increase it. The use of abstruse math and complex computer code shouldn't camouflage this essential fact. Indeed, a US Government Accounting Office report in 1995 stated that Citibank was the world's largest money-laundering organisation.
 
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