Jeremy Siegel is the Russell E. Palmer Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Columbia University in 1967, received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971, and spent one year as a National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at Harvard University. Prof. Siegel taught for four years at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago before joining the Wharton faculty in 1976.
Prof. Siegel has written and lectured extensively about the economy and financial markets, has appeared frequently on CNN, CNBC, NPR and others networks. He is a regular columnist for Kiplinger's and has contributed articles to The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, The Financial Times and other national and international news media. Prof. Siegel served for 15 years as head of economics training at JP Morgan and is currently the academic director of the U.S. Securities Industry Institute.
What was your career path?
I am very fortunate because I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. From when I was eleven or twelve years old, I loved explaining things to people. When I was in high school I only foresaw high school teaching. When I was in college, I saw a bigger thing and knew I wanted to be a college teacher. It was just a matter of finding a subject that really interested me. I started out in mathematics but didn’t take my first economics class until I was a junior, which was quite advanced. I get a lot of students coming to me as sophomores and even freshmen and say they are really concerned and worried that they haven’t picked their major. The truth of the matter was, not only had I not picked my major, but I hadn’t even taken my first course in what I became until I was a junior. Once you find what you love, you’ll learn it. Take as broad as you want, and when you find what you love, go into it.
It is also very important to not only do what you really like, but also that it be what you are good at, what you think easily in, what you see the concepts in. Some people want to be something, but it’s not written in their minds to be that. They want to be a doctor and they have been told that, but that’s not really what they think really well on. Everyone has their niches where they think better, and that’s what you have to find. You’ll say, “Oh yeah, that concept came easily to me; I saw that really easy.” Those are the areas you are going to do very well in. Once you find that, and it can be very late into your college career, you will find the subject that will be very rewarding.
I got my Ph.D. in economics at MIT and then I did one year of post-doctorate work at Harvard. My first job was at the University of Chicago in the graduate school of business. I taught for four years. I was an assistant professor of business economics. And then Wharton called me up and said, “We have a position for you,” and I went there. I’ve been there now since 1976; it’s my twenty-ninth year.
I always knew what I wanted to be generically, but I had to take a lot of different subjects to find out what I really enjoyed and economics definitely was a subject I enjoyed. I remember when I took that first economics course when I was a junior. After two weeks I said, “I know what I want. I’ve found what I love.” I knew it. I found it in the material, the teacher, and the course: macroeconomics with Professor Peter Kennan. I said, “This is what I want to be in; I want to be an economist.” Then I got into finance. Finance and economics are very close. When I was going through school, finance wasn’t nearly as developed as a subject matter as it is today. All of the capital asset pricing models and all of the theories that attracted someone with a good mathematical background like myself w |
Interviews
Interviews
