Finance to Poli Sci? Am I crazy or is this possible?

[Financeguy1234]

Background: I went to a state school you've probably never heard of with about 20k students on a full ride and double majored in Finance and Economics. Was Student Body President and held a bunch of other leadership roles on campus. Out of school got a pretty hard to get job in finance. Job pays really well and the work is interesting, but I don't think it's what I really want to do long term.

 

Since the start of the year I've been bouncing around ideas of what to do next and while I've had a lot of different ideas I keep coming back to one thing: being a Political Science Professor. My background doesn't really correlate with this at all, but I've always been interested in National Security and actually majored in Finance when I came to college because I knew the FBI recruited finance majors (at the time I thought that's what I wanted to do). 

 

So now I'm looking at my options and looking for someone to tell me "yes this is doable" or "no you're an idiot." I'm looking into applying to masters programs as realistically this is my only chance. Would like to do SAIS, HKS, or Fletcher and then work in a research role for a year or two and then apply to phd programs. Hoping that a good masters with a thesis and some research experience would work. 

 

Undergrad gpa was 3.6 and major gpa was 3.8 for Finance and 3.9 for Econ. I took a practice GRE and got a 163Q 156V with no studying. 

 

Is this path possible/logical or am I dreaming? Thanks for any advice and I can provide more info if necessary! 

[resDQ]

Possible, but you should probably be a bit more certain you want to do this before you apply. Why do you want to be a professor?

 

[Financeguy1234]

28 minutes ago, resDQ said:

Possible, but you should probably be a bit more certain you want to do this before you apply. Why do you want to be a professor?

 

Yes I know that. For brevity purposes I didn't include that. I TA'd in undergrad and really enjoyed teaching. I went into investing because I enjoy digging deep on a hypothesis and using data and qualitative info to come to a conclusion, but I feel like my work doesn't add real value. I've also been a close follower of politics and policy and feel like as a professor I could 1) teach and 2) use my quant skills and inquisitiveness to do interesting research on various topics related to foreign policy and national security. 

[Financeguy1234]

Just now, Financeguy1234 said:

Yes I know that. For brevity purposes I didn't include that. I TA'd in undergrad and really enjoyed teaching. I went into investing because I enjoy digging deep on a hypothesis and using data and qualitative info to come to a conclusion, but I feel like my work doesn't add real value. I've also been a close follower of politics and policy and feel like as a professor I could 1) teach and 2) use my quant skills and inquisitiveness to do interesting research on various topics related to foreign policy and national security. 

I should also add that I did an academic paper with a professor in undergrad (although not good enough to get published) and really enjoyed that process. 

[resDQ]

4 hours ago, Financeguy1234 said:

Yes I know that. For brevity purposes I didn't include that. I TA'd in undergrad and really enjoyed teaching. I went into investing because I enjoy digging deep on a hypothesis and using data and qualitative info to come to a conclusion, but I feel like my work doesn't add real value. I've also been a close follower of politics and policy and feel like as a professor I could 1) teach and 2) use my quant skills and inquisitiveness to do interesting research on various topics related to foreign policy and national security. 

Then go for it.