professional career vs. trader

Discussion in 'Professional Trading' started by omega3, Dec 29, 2006.


  1. SUSQ is a good place... but they will play "interview games" with you...

    i.e. you do 6-7 phone interviews before they even see you in person, then it's another 2-3...

    lol
     
    #11     Dec 29, 2006
  2. I am not sure if it is true but I heard dentists have one the highest suicide rates of any professionals. My grandfather was a dentist, and he had a meaness and a general unhappiness about him. Of course, he was a dentist before so called "painless" denistry.


    Ambrose Bierce had the following to say about dentists.



    DENTIST, n.
    A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth, pulls coins out of your pocket.

    His opinion of lawyers was lower.


    LAWYER, n.
    One skilled in circumvention of the law.


    Personally, I associate denistry with pain and cannot help but thinking of Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman.
     
    #12     Dec 29, 2006
  3. newbunch

    newbunch

    Check out the British comedy "My Family." The father is a cranky unhappy dentist.
     
    #13     Dec 29, 2006
  4. omega3

    omega3

    Note: I am 24 and have finished college. Currently an engineer doing boring sht.


    Dentist Total Compensation (general dentist)
    http://downloads.pennnet.com/pnet/surveys/de/0512de70-79.pdf
    $233k for owner
    $107k for associate (it takes minimum 2 years to get enough experience to start your own biz)

    http://www.ada.org/ada/prod/survey/faq.asp#income
    $177k for all general dentists, owner and associate

    reimbursements
    i cant speak intelligently on reimbursements.

    Cost of dental school
    http://www.hsdm.harvard.edu/asp-html/faq.html

    The total estimated cost for a first-year DMD student including room and board, health insurance and other fees is approximately $57,000. (BTW, i'd rather go to my state school which costs 15k a year.)

    $60k*4, 240k debt. lets say its 300k @ 6% interest, 15 year payouts if you're making 120k starting salary. whats that, 2-3 grand a month, 35k a year, ~50k pretax income. Hmm. i'd be 29 or 30 making 120k/year. possibly married with no kids. not a great situation. within 6 years, i think its reasonable to become an owner of my own practice and on my way to getting the office established. so, say age 37 @ 200k. I'll definitely have kids by then as well as other shit like a 3k mortage, 1k in cars, etc. so yeah, 200k isnt that strong either at 37. I'd be lucky to save 25k-40k a year after taxes. Which is GREAT for most of the world but I have the unlucky privilage of being surrounded by my banker friends, who at age 24 just collected 75k bonuses pretax.

    suicide rates of dentists
    http://www.google.com/search?q=suic...ient=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

    i dont know the suicide rate, but how bad can 35 hours/week of teeth be? hygenists do the real "dirty" work, no?

    i'm not thrilled about a career in dentistry, by any means, except for the stability, relatively strong income, and good hours. I probably wont hate being a dentist nor will i love it. i'm not an idealist in search for the "perfect job".

    -------------
    As far as getting a wall st job, I feel like the banking route passed me by at this stage. my focus in college was mostly premed stuff. i never bothered with resume drops for the goldmans etc. plus, most of my college peers are now 2nd year bankers and predict they will get the 'analyst squeeze', i.e not offered a 3rd year and forced to look for work elsewhere for two years before they head to wharton/kellogg/etc. anyways, once they get the boot from the ibank, I'm sure they'll find a sick job at some tiny PE firm making 200k+. worse case, they'll get some finance job at time warner making 90k. at my current job as an engineer (ugh), I can probably get into a top 8 MBA as well and transition into a finance/banking job as an associate...but it sounds pretty hellish albeit $$$$. I'm not a guy who can kiss ass for 14 hours a day * 6days and smile about it, i.e my personality is not "type A".

    Can i get an assistant trading job at a hedge fund with no experience? i feel like i'm pretty old at 24, to attract any interest from hedge funds, even for an entry level position. No harm in trying, i suppose.

    The other option, of course is daytrading with a prop firm and risking a small amount of capital but more importantly two years+ of time. huge failure rates. I'm not very well capitalized, but i have saved about 25k so far. Prop firms want 5k down. i understand they hammer you in commissions and in exchange you get "trained", i.e sit here and watch. I cant guess whether have what it takes to succeed, but I know the odds are stacked against me. From what I gauge on this forum, it seems rare to make 200k+ a year as a trader. 200k is a number that i assign that would PERSONALLY make this path worth the stress and instability. If i failed, i'd be 26 with not much to fall back on.
     
    #14     Dec 29, 2006
  5. Is it because some dentists are close cousins to snake-oil salesmen?

    The body's ability to re-calcify small caries is broadly underestimated . . .
     
    #15     Dec 29, 2006
  6. i know many dentists and i live in a big city and i think averaging 230k is bs. overal all dentists avg max 150k a year
     
    #16     Dec 29, 2006
  7. No doubt. It must be nice to be able to be so picky.
     
    #17     Dec 29, 2006
  8. omega3

    omega3

    you may know 100 dentists but that would still be a tiny ass sample size. i'll go with the ADA on this one.
     
    #18     Dec 29, 2006
  9. that's what i heard... don't know how much the #'s were inflated.
     
    #19     Dec 29, 2006
  10. This post appears about every 3 months or so and I'm always amazed at all the people that take the bait and get drawn into this rehashed "delimma".

    Anyone asking this question obviously doesn't have an Ivy League education, and if they do, their mommy and daddy are deserving of a substantial refund.


    O.P. (now on your umpteenth alias), just go away or just put up the money and trade.

    Sad, sad, sad.....
     
    #20     Dec 29, 2006