It doesn't work in quite the same way for physicists/quants though. Once you leave physics and go into finance it's extremely hard to make the jump back -- a few years in finance puts you way behind your peers in the race for publications, and you're pretty much stuck there forever. The startup scene is far more forgiving to its apostates than the physics scene is.
I personally wish it were easier for physicists to spend just a few years in finance to find out whether they like it, and/or to save up some money.
"But, 35% or so of my social group that are pursuing degrees in Physics are headed to Finance instead of research. I'd much rather seem them expand human knowledge than profit and live an easy life."
Are there enough research positions to employ the majority of current physics and math students? I doubt it.
If you choose Finance as your desired profession, and Finance sees physics and math as a good source of new talent, then it's very rational to choose a physics or math major to get into Finance. As pointed out in a sibling comment, upside to physics and math departments is demand that wouldn't otherwise be there.
I get nervous when physicists wander too far from Physics. They're a smart lot, but look what happened when they went into Finance. :-) It takes a while to apply the math skills properly elsewhere.
But the point is you are not doing physics, you are at best tweaking some pre existing model.
I did it in the past while consulting for a major bank, I studied CS, not physics, and I haven't seen any applied physics in banks.
They hire young people studying physics because they are not scared of working "with numbers", but when you past 40 you're not scared of anything anymore and you'll find there a majority of people with a degree in economy, once you grasped the basics, you can do the job.
While the physics student hopes to be a real physicist someday in the future and stop working on trading models as soon as somethings better comes up.
Perhaps also why physicists can be dangerous in Finance. They have all the math skills, but they can also have a little too much faith in those skills.
I know and deal with some physicists and they all seem really happy and only one of them is famous/rich. The fact that you can always bail and go to finance seems to be a good backstop for them.
No OP, but another former physicist. There's not much career opportunity in that field, but physicists are eminently hireable in software engineering or investment banking.
Yeah, half my friends from university graduated straight out of their Physics degree and went straight into finance. Didn't even bother with the Masters or PhD.
I go to an economist, or maybe a trader, to learn about money and finances.
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