Ok

I live in the Czech republic, wanna stay here. Im second year student in decent school (well, there are two better schools and they are both fairly small+ Im not gonna compete with most of their alumnis, since they are more research oriented, plus one of them is pretty much pure math/physics). But then again, a looot of student finish my uni (~1k?/year (instead of ~250 in both previously mentioned "better unis" combined)+ edge against other unis is very marginal (employers supposedly dont care about your uni that much)

Goals...I wanna be in private sector + teaching couple courses in universities (Idk, Im prob narcissist, but I feel that a lot of young people have absolutely messed up worldview and I'd like the chance to influence them).

Around here Masters is standard, basically everyone does it (BSc students are autoadmitted into Masters programs). I'd need masters to get into PhD (there is no going straight for Phd). School is free. MFE...I feel that it would widen my career choices (It should be fairly strong combo with Master in Econ) and I think its interesting.

I prefer MFE to Masters in Finance because MFE has pretty much all interesting Finance courses + some relevant/useful stuff instead of boring courses that I dont care about (advanced accounting, taxes etc..plus I can selflearn that easily). I think that I can study both Masters in Econ and MFE at the same time. After that I'd like to get a job and study PhD.

I dont think math is useless. Obv Im gonna learn math to some degree either way. But, there is pretty much one institution that gives serious math education around here (mentioned above). Obviously I can never ever selflearn as much as I could learn there. Im just thinking about it.

Part of me (the emotional part) wants to be prepared for anything, probably overestimates inflation of higher education and focuses on constant talk about math. Also scared that I wont find a job, that hard skills are all that matters blahblahblah

The rational part wants to calm the **** down, realizes that that major is way too theoretical/goes way too deep for me to ever realistically use (supposedly studying like 20 days for some exams is std) and just tells me to selflearn what I can and not worry about it, since I dont wanna win a Nobel prize, I dont wanna teach math and hell I dont even want to do research (after getting that PhD). And learning even a little bit of additional math gives me an edge over 99% of other students.

If MFE is Masters in Financial Engineering, then wouldn't you need a lot of math for that? I've looked through the degree requirements in the US for that and MFE requires as much math as a Finance PHD program would require.

Also, wrt your how important is math, its pretty important that you know up to advanced math fairly well. I would say up until multi-variable calc you need to have down pretty good. I think one of the misconceptions you have (imo) is that research requires more math than going in industry. It obv depends a lot of the type of research you will be doing, but having talked to various professors and reading, I think once you get to research, you will just require fairly intermediate math and that's pretty much all.

However, if you plan on going into the industry (again, depends on what you want to focus in), you'll probably be using a lot more of the advanced math.

I assumed that my current uni would teach its students all the relevant math for most private sector jobs (the best alumnis go on to consulting companies, big 4, IB...others just scatter through business world).

I mean a lot of people finish this uni without any additional math and go on to get decent jobs, this is the main "business people" feeder to the economy (and it is target school for all relevant employers (afaik). Plus Ive been told that calculus I/2+stat/probability is all I need for private sector.

But yeah, I assumed that private sector doesn't require that much math because, if we really needed advanced math, pretty much all my friends would be SOL, which is ridiculous, since a lot of ambitious/type A students (including a lot of foreign students) are attending this school (with just one math semester).

"fairly intermediate math" for econ research is "up to multivariable calc"?

Obv MFE would require a lot more math, but its just a major in my current uni, so I feel confident that I'd know enough math by then. This isnt US. Remember, there really isnt any wall street here, I think that said MFE would be just normal finance with more stat/prob/stochastic calculus (for example, afaik there is no programming in) instead of accounting/taxes etc.

Econ is not my area, though I work with a few MFE's, all of whom know their **** and talk to PhD mathematicians on their level (I am the latter). They all have serious math backgrounds (one a math undergrad degree from a very good US school, one a theoretical physics PhD from another very good school, etc).

I obviously don't know the situation in the Czech republic, but here, good MFE programs put out guys who really know math well -- and I'm not talking multivariate calc. Additionally, econ research runs the gamut, but all the people I know getting econ PhDs at least have a math minor, many a dual major or a major in mathematical econ.

GL in any case.

Good luck man.

Krax,
You should consider a masters in econ before thinking about a PhD for several reasons. Lack of formal math training not only makes you fairly uncompetitive in applications but first year would suck hard. Also Euros rarely go straight to PhDs. It seems like, given your interests, a PhD in econ isn't worth it. Maybe finance? They usually take econometrics and micro core with the econ PhDs. If you have any specific questions about econ PhD programs shoot me a pm.

Edit: just realized I grunched a bunch of posts.

"Fairly intermediate" math for econ research would be an undergrad degree in mathematics. And that's just applied work really. Theorists (read: anyone who makes sense of measure theory) are pretty beast imo. Multivariate calc just isn't good enough.

Quick question! One of my LOR writers is a little bit late with submitting the LORs to the schools I've applied to. Some schools have had deadlines on December 1st, but I submitted my applications back on Nov 14th or whatever. Will my application be automatically put into the "late" pile because of my LOR writer was a week late? How much of a disadvantage does that put me?

Thanks

hello. I thought maybe I want to be an economist. then I took honors calc this year (equivalent to analysis at most schools) and it scared me so I dropped it. I thought i was good at math. I know analysis is the biggest hurdle to getting a math degree. I am scared I can't do it though. People who are smarter than me who are in higher years have enough trouble with analysis.

how do you learn analysis? because if i can't learn analysis, any hope of being an economist is a pipe dream

On our admissions committee it wasn't a big deal. We still looked at the application if the rest of it was on time, and didn't hold it against the applicant. In borderline cases we'd definitely wait until that last letter came in before making a decision. But sometimes it didn't matter, in either direction.

The learning curve in your first proofs based math course is going to be steep. You need to put in the time and read/write a lot of examples if you're having trouble. I remember having a breakthrough type day in my intro to proofs class where it all starred to make sense.

And a brief piece of unsolicited advice. If you're going to pursue a PhD you're going to fail tests homeworks finals etc. You can't let that get to you psychologically. Anal American undergrads who have like 4.0' s consequently seem to struggle a ton.

But I won't be able to pursue the PhD if I fail tests homeworks finals etc...DUCY?

Yeah you will, curves are beautiful.

Then that's not really failing...

That is, if you get 50% on an exam, and that's a B, well, then that was just a test written so that to get a B you needed 50%. It wasn't that the 50% failed and then somehow turned into a B.


Yeah, most teachers/profs/whatever (at least at the intro levels) use a 90/80/70/60, but sometimes that gets too restrictive. So the exam and grading scale is changed. (by they way, 90/80/70/60 is no more or less valid a curve than any other--it's just more popular)

Yeah. I remember taking several math classes where the assumption was that we were all quite competent, so the only way to actually find out what parts we did and didn't understand was shoot for an average of around 50-60%. It was a bit of a shock at first, but everybody thought it was OK when we realized that 60% could still be an A.

So I submitted all my apps recently. Not sure about the interview process for the sciences (biochemistry), but how serious are they? Do I need to wear a god damn suit to these events? What questions should I prepare to answer? Also, what if I get asked to interview at 2 schools that have the same interview weekend but I want to check out both?

The vast majority of times it won't matter. Some places might be anal about it. It just depends on whether or not the committee members have more *******s than not. I'd be willing to bet you're OK though.

I'm not sure, but it's always better to be over dressed than under. You don't want to be the only guy to show up not wearing a suit.

This is totally discipline-specific. When I did my visits, I was all ready with jacket and tie, and my student host told me the night before that I would be taunted mercilessly for wearing a tie. Then again, my field tends to attract bearded dirty hippy types, so ymmv.

Your best answer will likely come from current grad students in that particular program, since norms can vary widely among schools, programs, and disciplines. Current grad students will be sympathetic to your dilemma and should be willing to provide information.

Yeah. I brought a suit to all of my interviews, but I never got the chance to wear it. I ended up wearing decent-looking clothes that weren't super formal.

I don't know about biochem, but lots of programs have several different interview weekends. As soon as you know there's a conflict, contact the school to see if you have another option.

Biggest piece of interview advice: don't get drunk. There'll probably be free alcohol, and drinking is always fun, but don't be the guy who was a lock, but gets rejected because he turns out to be a drunken *******.

Save this for accepted students weekend. Then you can drink your ass off unless you're weird. Let loose and enjoy/meet the grad students, socially. See what the vibe is.

We had a few guys we encouraged to go to other really good schools (and had professors encourage to take offers elsewhere) because they were just weird as ****. We had a pretty big party that the cops broke up one night. The next morning, some prospective is asleep on my couch, unbeknownst to me. Apparently dude was hammered and hid in my hall closet when the cops showed up, and after we got everyone into cabs and went to bed, he came out and crashed on the couch. I was still drunk, so my gf had to schlep him to campus in the AM to not miss the brunch and talks. And when I was interviewing, we had a dude on-the-spot composing poetry and reading it to chicks as a pickup attempt in a bar, interspersed with trying to get people to play this ******ed card game he invented. ****ing weird.

Curious as to if any of you guys have a take on this.

I'm in the middle of my 4th year in a PhD program in Mathematics and [absurd details omitted] I might be being forced to leave the department and start my career without my PhD. I already have a Master of Arts (MA) as a non-terminal degree, awarded after I successfully completed my PhD exams at the end of my 2nd year. The department now recommends to me that, as an alternative to completing my PhD, I write up my substantial work-to-date into a Masters thesis over the course of a few weeks, present it publicly, and receive a Master of Science (MS) in addition to the MA I already have.

Is a MS "better" than a MA, would it be perceived as such, and if so, how much better is it?

I already have two job offers which don't care whether I have a PhD or not, and I'll be accepting one of them if I am indeed leaving my program, so any marginal value of a different Masters degree will not matter for my first job.

edit: My motivation in potentially declining to write a Masters thesis is not merely laziness, as I'll also be trying to complete and publish my first paper during the next few months regardless of what else is happening and might rather devote more of my resources to that.

No one gives a **** about MS v MA.

If you want to PM to discuss your omitted absurd details, let me know. I've been there, and I finished, in math, and I'm in NJ as well.

GL.

The "unless you're weird [or an *******]" part is important, because a lot of programs have "accepted students" weekends before students receive their official letter, and I know of at least one student who got booted on exactly that type of weekend.

Any chance the MS and MA could be in different fields? I have no idea, but that might be useful.

In some fields, esp if you're staying in academia, "terminal MS (or MA)" means "couldn't finish," and not in a good way. Then again, sounds like you're not staying in academia.

Thanks for the input, much appreciated. My assessment so far is that, at least outside of academia, nobody would realize or assess any relevant distinction between the MS and the MA, though it's hard to know for sure. Nope, same field, the only difference is the one letter and that one turns out to require a written thesis here, which I don't think (?) is any sort of universal thing with these degrees, right? Right, that occurred to me too. I am not planning to be in academia for the foreseeable future, but I always entertained ideas of doing some sort of teaching later in life. I'm not sure which story reads worse for a potential future academic position, "left with a non-terminal MA for a finance job" or "took a terminal MS and then went on to work in finance".

The former at snap judgement. I don't think they hold it against young people to want to make money and have fun. The latter implies failing or being pushed out imo. That may be an econ specific view....