Zero Arbitrage in Career Changes: Greener Grass Takes Work

As a computational chemist seeking to broaden my appeal to a world with many employers not impressed with the solvent-effect free vacuum at 0K in which I had played for so long, I have begun to study the world of business and finance around me. When I ask for Christmas or birthday presents, they usually go to gift cards that purchase textbooks in these fields (Horribly nerdy, but that's how I roll). Quantitative finance has two fundamental axioms (time-value of money) and (zero-arbitrage principle) from which the entire field is derived. It is very reminiscent of the first two laws of thermodynamics, and while mulling over their similarities, I thought about how these apply to my search for a full-time career.

1) You can't borrow your way out of debt. The time-value of money principle states that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Just because you decide to take out loans to go back to school, or increase your credit card debt to pay for online classes does not guarantee that you will complete the program (assuming that the program is legitimate). More importantly than that, it DOES NOT guarantee employment. Going into further debt to obtain more education that *maybe you will complete so that you can *maybe earn more money at some future point and *maybe maintain that employment for long enough to get out of debt completely is tenuous at best.

2) Employers prefer experience to education, everything else being equal. Work experience with trustworthy references and a proven history of excelling at what you do means much more to most employers than having a doctorate or graduating from a top-tier school. Education implies that you have the potential to be successful at a position. Experience already shows you at an acceptable level. Hiring someone who is educated but untested is a huge risk to an employer. There is something to be said for graduating with a doctorate in a STEM field, or having quality publications. These imply that you know how to work hard, you are not one-dimensional and you have the potential to go above the bare minimum stipulated in job description and provide meaningful contributions. However, it is okay that it may take hundreds of applications and several interviews, because in the end they are taking a huge chance on you.

3) Work is the opposite of play. Meaning or enjoyment for life do not come out of a job title. The major part of a being a scientist who looks at data is staring at numbers on a computer all day. Worse than that, you have to hunt all over for those numbers and they are never in the right format. Computers are not as smart as you would believe. They only understand what you give them and are notorious sticklers for detail. While you are complaining of how your office chair hurts your back and how they really need to fix the AC in your area, there are people getting heat exhaustion from doing landscaping work all day who would love to have your problems.

The zero arbitrage principle is the assumption that in financial modeling, there are no unfair advantages between buyers and sellers on the large scale. It is another way of saying that if you want to make the grass greener, you had better be willing to put in some work. Because nothing comes for free however, we all have the ability to change our situations through effort. Keep going and always remember that everything looks better to us when we are going through hard times in our current careers.