Guest Column - Phyjacking - Saswat Sarangi

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I thought I should share with you one recurring experience that I kept having in New York City. This, again, has to do with the world of Physicists in finance - or, rather, the world of Phynance as some people call it.

As you know, back in the IITs, only the crazy ones did physics. In India, in general, at least back in those days, the prestigious fields of study for undergraduates were Engineering, Medicine. Many Engineers used to follow it up with an MBA. The golden combination was, of course, IIT + IIM. I believe it is still the same. So the people I knew in Physics had to be a bit crazy. The ones who went on for grad schools in the US were the ones who thought about physics all the time and could never think of any other career (at least at that stage of their lives). But we were definitely not used to, nor did we expect to receive, the kind of limelight that our Computer Science, Electrical or Mechanical Engg friends received. Physics was our Madhu and the Physics Department was the Madhushala.
 

And then I came to New York City and soon I realized that the world is upside down here! :)
 

My favorite story of this is from the year 2006 when I was a fresh postdoc at Columbia University. As you might know, it is the right and duty of every grad student and postdoc (who are, by definition, poor) to go to every possible event in the University with free food. Knowing that this is the only way to ensure a high attendance at talks/seminars, the arrangers of the events make sure they mention the "free food" under the announcement of every event.
 

It was one such "free food and cheese and wine" announcement that stole my attention while walking across the campus. I promptly showed up at the event at 6 pm that day and looked around to see a fantastic pile of food and felt happy at the thought of not having to spend any money on the night's dinner. I immediately picked up a plate and loaded it up with food and picked up a soda. Then turned my gaze at the audience and realized that they were all students who were very well dressed - suits and ties. The 5 or 6 people on the slightly elevated podium - who were clearly non-students - were also well dressed. I quickly realized that the students were either from the Law School or the Business School and that it was some firm from downtown Manhattan doing a spiel for their annual campus recruitment.
 

I had clearly made a gaffe as none of them had started with the food yet. The correct thing to do would have been to listen to the presentations from the recruiters and then socialize with them and finally, at the end, start with food and wine. These were civilized people. Not like the scientists I had seen at Cornell where it was perfectly ok to attack the donuts before the weekly talks - where there pretty much used to be a competition between students and professors alike of who reached the auditorium first and ate the maximum number of donuts.
 

Further, to add to this awkward start, I was completely under-dressed, it seemed to me, for this event. I was wearing an old half sweater (with a slight tear) that my father had worn through the 1970s and handed down to me and which I loved to wear out of emotional attachment to it, and an old jeans and an old shirt. I must have turned red immediately after realizing how out of place I was! But leaving was not an option I was ready to take - did not want to feel like a complete loser. I decided to put on a confident look and sat down in a corner of the room, hoping that no one noticed my plate full of food and my inappropriate attire.
 

The speakers spoke about their firm. How it was better to work for them than for the usual Wall Street names like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley... I might have heard these names for the first time that day! Then, finally, this guy - in his late 40s probably -  came to speak and introduced himself as an ex-Nuclear Physicist. He was the head of some group at that firm. He spoke very well, very confident, better than everybody else. And I decided that may be I will speak a few words with him, just out of curiosity, about how life is in a "real job". Being an ex-physicist he will understand my question, I figured.

As the talk proceeded the audience had these very intelligent questions about the firm, the economy, the interest rate hikes, about Alan Greenspan (the next biggest thing to God during those halcyon days), the housing bubble and what not. I kept eating making sure I didn't make any crunchy noises as I bit the crackers with cheese. When I saw these students with their questions I felt pretty stupid and started deciding against bothering anyone with any questions.

 And soon the talk session was over. It was time to socialize. I was, of course, done with my food - any signs of my social gaffe were securely hidden in my stomach now and I felt better. Each of the speakers was immediately surrounded by these very smart looking MBA students. I kept some distance, feeling diffident. But soon the head speaker was done talking to one student and excused himself from the herd and stepped towards my direction to get some water. I decided to corner him and chat a bit before leaving for good. I was sure he would not be much interested in talking to me. Maybe I was just wasting his time, I wondered. But still I went over and said something like, "Hi. I am a Physics postdoc here at Columbia. I noticed you said you were a Physicist as well. So I am just curious how it is to do a job in finance?" And that's when his face suddenly just lit up! He immediately summoned his colleagues saying something like, "Hey guys, this guy here is a postdoc in physics! We have to recruit him. How soon can you interview with us? We want more physicists."  And many of them immediately dropped the bunch of MBAs they were talking to and came over to me.
 

This was a complete shock to me! I had heard, of course, that physicists were sought after in Wall Street. But never had I experienced this kind of attention first hand! This was just phenomenal! They dropped a bunch of MBAs like hot potatoes as soon as they heard there was a Physicist present in the room. Crazy! I was laughing incredulously the whole evening (may be it was that wine!).
 

This of course was a somewhat extreme experience that I had. Perhaps these guys were just tired of talking to MBAs all the time and wanted a change. But experiences like this have persisted. And it is just funny because we were always under the impression that Physicists had to be like sanyasis. We did our stuff for our own enjoyment. It is the Computer Science or Electronics people who had the mass sex appeal. And suddenly here I find this perception spun around! I meet my old friends from KGP, ex-Chemical Engineers or ex-Electrical Engineers with MBAs who switched to Wall Street and they wish they had done a PhD in Physics! Nothing draws the attention of Quantitative Finance divisions of Banks and Hedge Funds like the mention of a "PhD in Physics" in the resume.
 

Just yesterday my wife and I were having dinner with an Investment Banker from the biggest and most successful bank here, and he was regretting not having a Physics background as that would have helped him so much in finance!

I just find this hilarious! Never thought "fame" and "sex appeal" are so transitory and dependent on country, city, profession!

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