Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Difference between going to Business School vs going to Graduate School

A JC classmate and I graduated from college the same year. He went on to Business School two years after I started Grad School, and received the MBA 2 years before I got my PhD.

He is now at a major investment bank that survived the bank failures of 2008 and is set to receive record bonuses for this year. I am an academic postdoc, and have just received email from Payroll that my income for the next year 'may be subject to a temporary reduction due to the extreme financial emergency facing the University'.

His base salary alone is about 4 - 5 times what I am earning now. Sure we can both say our work suck, but hey at least he's better compensated than me, and he has bonus payouts. I will be lucky if I don't get a paycut.

We had identical O- and A-level grades. Such is life and the options we chose earlier have financial consequences.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, at least u r in USA where the pay isn't too bad. Imagine wat the financial reward difference will be like if u were in SG doing academic or technical work ?!?!

Missing My Friends said...

Wow...you are doing a good job of dissuading me from grad school. I am still wedded to the idealistic notion that its about pursuing research I am passionate about, otherwise I would have gone down the IB path (which isn't too hard to get on).

Ponder Stibbons said...

Missing My Friends:

If you enjoy research and there are no other jobs where you could be paid to do what you enjoy, then go to grad school.

Money can't buy back the time you spent in a job you didn't enjoy. It also can't reverse brain rot.