January 28, 2026

What a journey it has been.

In 2017, I stepped away from my job as a fixed-income trader at an investment bank and returned to school to study statistics. What originally was intended to be a two-year academic excursion to obtain a master’s degree turned into an eight-year academic odyssey, culminating in me completing a PhD in Statistical Sciences at the University of Toronto (UofT). This was truly a transformative experience, and one that, looking back on, I am glad I undertook. The purpose of this article is to highlight some insights I gained throughout the process that may not be immediately obvious to someone considering pursuing something similar. Below, I have written a short key takeaways paragraph, and then grouped my other observations thematically. I shall caveat this article by saying that if you are considering pursuing a similar path to mine, the absolute best way to determine whether it is right for you is to speak face-to-face with several individuals who have completed PhDs, to understand the pros and cons better.

Key Takeaways

The path I took, completing an undergraduate degree in business, and then leaving a finance job to undertake a PhD in statistics, was somewhat unconventional. I was unsure when I left my job in 2017 if it was the right decision for me, but had I known what I know now, I would have been less hesitant to pursue this path. At the time, the uncertainty of where this would take me, and the fact I was doing something so different from my peers, loomed large in my mind. Looking back, these things seem trivial relative to the skills I was able to gain during my studies. For those considering pursuing something similar to what I did, particularly those who enjoy math and academic settings, I would strongly encourage them to give it a shot (after giving it the appropriate amount of consideration of course). Lastly, I would not be surprised if career paths similar to the one I pursued become increasingly common in the years ahead.

Insights - Big Picture

  1. Exciting times - The world of statistics, math, and computer science is very exciting right now. While large language models receive most of the media and public attention, a wide variety of academic researchers and companies are utilizing more involved quantitative methods than in the past. This helps with motivation when working towards a PhD in these fields, and also makes the post-PhD career opportunities very interesting.
  2. Value of a PhD - I think it is pretty standard to hear advice to people considering a PhD, particularly those thinking about going into industry afterwards, that the degree itself may open a few doors, but overall is not particularly useful given the required time investment. I think this is probably true of many fields, but for statistics, I believe there is very real value in the skills acquired through a PhD that would be hard to gain elsewhere. Chief among these skills would be a deep understanding of methods from the ‘standard’ statistical toolbox (e.g., t-tests and regression), the ability to efficiently learn more advanced methods, and the skills related to conducting complex open-ended research projects. The time and energy required to develop these skills are a big part of what makes PhDs take so long.
  3. Taking your time - Coming from my master’s into my PhD program, I confidently believed that I would finish in four years, despite the ‘standard’ time to completion in our department being closer to 5 years. This mindset was partially rooted in how I viewed my undergraduate and master’s, which had very set four-year and one-year timelines, respectively. However, given the outcome you get from a PhD is more about the skills developed as opposed to the degree itself, I wish I had let things take a more natural course as this would have helped me better plan when to complete an industry internship (I ultimately completed an internship one year before I graduated which was a good time to do so). Also, it would have decreased my stress levels which came from the realization that things would take longer than my initial unrealistic timeline.
  4. Gaining research momentum - There are no shortage of things that can distract you from the main objective of a PhD, which is conducting research. While striking a balance between competing priorities is important, namely serving as a teaching assistant which helps in cementing certain math knowledge, research is the main objective of a PhD. Looking back, I wish I had focused more intently on research early on in the PhD. The first preprint for a project I worked on was released in my fourth year, and I wish I had been able to get this out sooner for two reasons. First, having even just one project out (even if it is only a preprint) helps in applying for scholarships as it gives you something to talk about in applications, and it also demonstrates research ability, which is often a criterion in the rubric for scholarship competitions. Since you must apply for most major scholarships early in the PhD, if I had more projects completed by then, I think I could have won more scholarships. Second, once I had actually gone through the peer-review process, I understood how to write papers better, since I realized what type of things reviewers might have concerns about. Given that the review process can be very long (e.g., around 4-6 months just to get the first set of comments), getting your first project submitted reasonably early in a PhD ensures that you understand the review process well with lots of time left before graduation occurs.
  5. Comparison with your peers can be the thief of joy unhelpful - I came to realize over the course of my PhD that students in a PhD program tend to start the program with a much more diverse set of skills and experiences than in undergrad. For me, I had minimal research experience on day 1 of the PhD, which contrasted with some of my peers who had multiple projects either published or at various stages of review. I realized over time that it was not worth stressing about feeling behind in my studies, and that it was more important to just focus on pushing forward with my journey one step at a time.
  6. Finding support - The PhD is in many ways a very intense experience. It can be isolating. The work is challenging. The outcome is uncertain. One constantly questions its worth. For all of these reasons, having good support from family and friends is important.
  7. The people you meet - Academia, particularly a school like UofT, is full of highly talented and hard-working individuals. One of the greatest benefits of graduate school is the learning that occurs from working alongside such extraordinary peers.

Insights - Research

  1. Advisor style - I benefited from having two advisors over my PhD. I came to realize from this experience and from hearing the experiences of others in my PhD cohort that your PhD experience (i.e., research output, opportunities, and what the day-to-day looks like) can vary significantly depending on who your advisor is. Whereas before my PhD, I thought the school you attended and the advisor you had would affect your experience roughly equally, now I realize the advisor is the primary determinant of the PhD experience. I would encourage those considering a PhD not to get too hung up on the precise institution and to focus more on the advisor who will direct your studies.
  2. First things first - One of the best pieces of advice I received from one of my advisors was to put ‘first things first’. When conducting research, there is always a temptation to do too much at once, such as jumping into the most complex data/model right away. Time and time again, I have seen the value of incremental progress, particularly in spending time to ensure you have the basics right, such as understanding how a statistical method works in the simplest cases.
  3. Take your time - Academic research really drills into you the importance of doing things correctly the first time they are done. Much of my research involved computer programming, and there was no worse feeling than eventually discovering a bug in the code that either invalidated previous results or explained why things were not running as expected. Taking my time to carefully set up things at the beginning, while delaying when I would get my first results, generally led to substantial time savings in the long run.
  4. Pockets of focus - A big transition for me was getting used to the way in which research progress was non-linear, and the need to be in a very focused mental state to make good progress. I found, unsurprisingly, getting a good sleep and staying active (particularly doing cardio) helped greatly in this regard.

Insights - Administrative

  1. Availability of funding - Coming from a business school undergrad background I always associated graduate school with costly tuition (e.g., a Rotman MBA is ~50k/year). To my knowledge, most academic master’s and PhD programs in Canada are ‘funded’, in that you pay tuition each year (at UofT it was ~10k/year), but through a variety of funding sources, you end up net making money. At UofT, the base/minimum funding package means that net of tuition, you earn ~30k/year, a package that generally requires working as a part-time TA (I would typically TA for ~200 hours/year). On top of this, numerous scholarships can add to this funding amount. The big government ones such as CGS and OGS are reasonably attainable (particularly for domestic students), and can increase the funding package net of tuition to ~40k/year (note in our department, as I believe is the case in many others, winners of these big awards have some of their base funding clawed back, so you do not benefit from the full award, but on a net basis you end up ahead). The availability of this funding makes the prospect of spending an extended period of time at a university for a graduate degree much more reasonable from a financial perspective.
  2. Completing a PhD later in life - I completed my undergraduate degree in 2012, arrived at UofT in 2017, and completed my PhD from 2019-2025. In my program, I would estimate ~75% of the students started their PhD having never left academia since they began their undergraduate degree. Completing a PhD ‘later in life’ is very doable, and knowing what I know now, I think more people should do it. However, the nature of a PhD requires lots of focused time, and research involves making non-linear progress. Finding space for this focused time and patience for non-linear progress becomes much more challenging as you get older, with numerous non-work priorities competing for time. One of the reasons I decided to make the jump from my master’s to a PhD program was that I was pretty sure at the time that I wanted to complete a PhD, and I felt it would only become harder as time passed to begin one. Looking back, completing the PhD was manageable, and I am very glad I got started right after my master’s and did not wait any longer to begin.