I disagree. It's a lack of research job opportunities that pushes people from hard sciences and into, especially finance IT. At the risk of sounding like NDT, f

I disagree. It's a lack of research job opportunities that pushes people from hard sciences and into, especially finance IT. At the risk of sounding like NDT, funding for research labs (and yes, NASA) would suck up the hard sciences people like nothing. And until you have the basic research figured out, it's pretty hard to just "entrepreneur" your way through these problems. There are plenty of people who pursue degrees in the hard sciences --- PhDs in physics, chemistry, etc. Then, somewhere around their third year, they all realize that: 1) To get a faculty job, you have to be beyond brilliant. I'm not. Research labs? Also barely scraping by. Be prepared to, at best, be on soft money and have to apply for grants every 2-3 years, most of which run between a 10-20% acceptance rate. 2) There are some industry labs. They pay decently, but it's basically carrying out others experiments in line with short-term goals. Where can XX find / extract more oil? Is it any surprise they wake up and shift, particularly to finance IT, where they can at least get paid well? Spend a month learning stochastic calculus and you're good to go. Yes, I oversimplify, but not by too much (at least, for the hard sciences people I've talked with here at the UofC and in the post-graduation Chicago finance shops).