Academia is one of the few careers where you can afford the luxury of taking time to understand the mechanisms behind existing phenomena or developing solutions to current problems – with high degrees of objectivity and no political agenda.
I have always liked studying how information travels – either within financial markets or between corporations and the market. Exploring these questions objectively would have been challenging outside academia.
Teaching is another aspect of academia that attracts me. Transmitting new tools to future professionals or academics to prepare them for the next stage in their lives is a rewarding task, and the constant interaction with MBA students for keeps us up to date with what’s happening in industry from the professionals’ perspective.
Finally, from a personal point of view, I love the variety of life in academia. Different challenges arise with every new project, novel techniques are required to tackle the next idea and each semester comes with a new cohort of students.
My professors were truly my inspiration in pursuing a PhD in the first place. I was lucky to be taught throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies by passionate faculty who motivated me to pursue my research aspirations and ultimately inspired me to do a PhD.
My main daily motivation is to work towards an idea that I am passionate about and want to share with the rest of the world – a topic to which I want to add my own contribution. My motivation comes from my desire not only to unveil the mysteries of the financial markets but also to learn from other researchers’ discoveries and the answers they provide.
I didn’t particularly prepare for joining the PhD programme, but if there are skills to gain before starting, they would be communication, critical thinking, creativity and patience (if that can be called a skill). Communication is important for working with peers or on joint projects and presenting work in class or in seminars. Even the best ideas need good communication skills to emerge. Critical thinking and creativity are crucial for obvious reasons: to come up with ideas in the first place and to assess them every step of the way. Lastly, patience is key for the research process – you start a project and after a while realise it is not going in the right direction. Going back to square one requires patience if you are to strive and not give up.