Another question on DL Doctorate and PHD programs

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by pietto, Feb 8, 2011.

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  1. BizProf

    BizProf New Member

    I understand the shot fired across my bow, I came across a bit presumptuous. But things are exceptionally shiny in certain fields. Finance is one of them, accounting even more so. Your friend may be aiming high, perhaps looking primarily at big research universities at this point, where the atmosphere is rarer and competition higher. I also don't know where he matriculated, if he went to Compass Directional U and is trying to get a job as Prestige U or Flagship U, that would be a problem. But I'm 98% certain he'll land a job within the year at an AACSB-acctedited university for an amount in excess of $100K. The latest AACSB figures have finance new hires, newly-minted PhDs @ $110ish for finance. That's purely a function of demand for the position. Accounting is approaching $130--when you can find a candidate and don't get outbid.
     
  2. pietto

    pietto New Member

    Thanks to everyone that replied. From what I understand the the requirement to publish always been there, regardless of the school. I'm not sure where the idea came that all I have to do it get a PHD-DBA and i'll get a TT job came from. It seems to me that if you have PHD/DBA from AACSB school in a high demand field (I'm looking at Decision Sciences) and are published you should be fine. In my discussions with PHD/DBAs from B&M and/or DL schools, getting published separates you from the herd.
     
  3. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    I'm very well aware of the salaries for Finance and Accounting professors. I'm in IT that is not exactly so hot nowadays for teaching.

    Do you feel that a post doctoral bridge certificate in Accounting from a AACSB accredited can do the trick?
    I contacted few schools that offer this certificate and one offered possible admission but I was skeptical about the value of this certificate in the market compared to a PhD.
    Do you feel might be worth pursing this?
     
  4. ITJD

    ITJD Active Member

    Comparing salaries across disciplines isn't a valuable metric save as an individual contributor's comparison. Sure I make over 100k all sources considered per year, but if I don't want to work in IT and would rather teach and do research, then I'd want to make a comparable salary. Accounting and Finance, done right, seem to serve that bill.

    Now that's even assuming that jobs are available which I'd have to argue that to the vast majority of the denizens of this forum, since we didn't do things the "normal" way with our educations, we're already behind the eight-ball as to marketability.
     
  5. BizProf

    BizProf New Member

    Beyond my scope of knowledge. So far as I know, there are only a few bridge programs: Florida, VA Tech and one up in Ohio (I think U of Toledo or Cleveland State, someone with more knowledge will have to chime in), and I know little about the placement rates. They cater to doctorates (don't know if PhD the only "doctorate" allowed) in other fields, give them grad school coursework in statistical methodologies, knowledge in a particular business discipline, and allegedly this provides a qualification that enables them to get into a TT opportunity at an AACSB biz program. I have no idea about the likelihood of any given person using one of these programs to work their way in. There are certain biz disciplines that are glutted (econ), so-so (management, business law, marketing, IT), and great (accounting, finance).

    Your likelihood of working your way into any of the biz fields will be more a function of your publication record, how many presentations you've done at academic conferences, how many people you've gotten to know in the field--and of course, what discipline you're shooting for--than anything else. This does not mean a PhD from UoP will get you into TT academia at an AACSB school if you've published and networked, but it does mean a doctorate acquired PT or DL through a solid euro school might get you right where you want to go if you have pubs and are shooting for a high-demand field like accounting.
     
  6. BizProf

    BizProf New Member

    I'm not suggesting YOU have that attitude, I'm suggesting that many in online fora do. "Decision sciences"--is that like strategy? Or econ? Not familiar with the field or term. If being in decision sciences is an econ professorship, that's a very tight market. Hard to make good money, hard to break in. Getting published separates you from the field, certainly, but if you're going for a lower- or moderate-demand field, it's a prereq to getting into all but a CC.
     
  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I've always thought of it as being fairly synonymous with QMB, but Wikipedia says it's a bit more broad than that.

    -=Steve=-
     
  8. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    I'm actually in Decision Sciences. Decisions Sciences captures most of the quantitative courses for business including statistics, operations, decision support tools, etc. Many business departments just have the math department to teach these courses while others have their own department for this.

    PhDs in this area include Operations Research, MIS and Decision Sciences, Quantitative, etc.

    Decision Sciences is not nearly as hot as Finance and Accounting. Many teachers in this area have PhDs in Math and they don't command high salaries as Math departments are paying peanuts nowadays given the amount of Math PhDs without work.
     
  9. SurfDoctor

    SurfDoctor Moderator

    There's a a lot of math PhD's without work? I thought that was one of the few fields where PhD's are still in demand. I don't know anything about it, but I've heard that said around here.
     
  10. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    I'm going to pretend that I know what I'm talking about here but please don't confuse this with real knowledge. I think that what RF meant was that there are not a lot of university teaching jobs for PhD level Mathematicians. Also, I think that there may not be a lot of positions in the industrial sector for pure math geeks. Maybe some stats jobs, certainly engineering jobs that are hardcore math intensive, different kinds of cs/it jobs that math people might do but it's more applied math/crossover math stuff where the jobs are found. But if you're just some random math geek who wrote a dis on number theory or some other esoteric weird math thing then you might not be getting a lot of call-backs on your resume.
     
  11. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Math departments at some of the Universities that I worked produce about 10 times more PhDs than business faculties.

    A good friend of mine had to work about 6 months in a telemarketing company with a PhD in Math and still struggling to find something permanent. A few more friends continue in endless post docs with the hopes to land something permanent.

    There are few math fields in demand like financial mathematics but it is not an easy field to get into for academics.

    I have no hard statistics about employment prospects for PhDs in Math but the few people that I know struggle in this field.

    One thing for sure is that you won't see them commanding 200K starting salaries like some accounting PhDs.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 25, 2011
  12. edowave

    edowave Active Member

    The ones I know are struggling too. Not just math PhDs, but physics also. One friend of mine after his 3rd post-doc gave up on finding a TT job, and became a high school teacher.
     
  13. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Yeah, so you guys are getting the same sort of info that I'm getting. This is a little interesting to me because it might tie into another threaded topic here, that being the ROI of a PhD. It may be better for a Math nerd to get the Masters and then, instead of the PhD, to get another Masters in something like IT/CS or even an MBA (QA can be Math intensive in some work environments). Economics is relevant to Math but there's no jobs there (AFAIK). Your friend who became the HS Math Teacher may have made a smart decision.
     
  14. AUTiger00

    AUTiger00 New Member

    I have a good high school buddy that earned his PhD in nuclear physics (or something, whatever it was it went way over my head) at Yale a year ago. He had to settle for a post doc at UCLA as he couldn't land a TT job.
     
  15. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    This explains why salaries in Decision Sciences are not nearly as high as those in Finance and Accounting. Salaries in Decision Sciences start in the 70K range while people in Finance and Accounting start at that 110K range.

    70K is still good as some people in the math department start in the 50K range.

    It is sad that our salaries are dictated by the market conditions but that is the way the economy works.
     
  16. AUTiger00

    AUTiger00 New Member

    The math salaries sound low to me (i'm sure they are accurate, just seems they are underpaid). If you go over to MIT almost all of the math/engineering students are taking jobs in high finance (hedge funds, vc, i-banking) and this is at the undergrad level. I would imagine a person with a PhD in math could land something in the financial sector that would be substantially more lucrative than a TT position at a university.
    Maybe the cream of the math crop is doing this leaving only math PhD's rejected by the big financial players available for the TT jobs, so the schools know they can drive their offers down.
     
  17. commserver

    commserver New Member

    thyslip,

    i am also waiting for admission decision from dsu. when did you apply? i applied back in october. i think that having to wait until after may 15 is ridiculous since there are only a limited number of places available. i was told that they want to see all applications before final decision. why then want applications to be as early as possible?
     

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