From BI to California

Getting into the doctorate program at the prestigious UCLA Anderson School of Management is like getting through the eye of a needle. Tobias Ingebrigtsen made it, and has spent his first year working remotely from Oslo, Norway. But in July, he’ll hopefully be able to make the move to LA for the last four years of his PhD.

But first: A question. What is your first thought when you hear that Tobias graduated as the best Master of Science in Finance student at BI and as the best overall Master of Science student from the class of 2017-2019? That he was a mischievous troublemaker in his teens and didn’t finish high school on the first try?

Probably not. But that’s also part of his story.

– If you had asked my buddies a few years ago, when I was in high school, they would laugh out loud at the thought that I would end up on one of the world’s best doctoral programs at UCLA. I was kind of a rebel back then. Although I did well in sports, I didn’t finish high school on time, I did that a year later than the others. Schoolwork was far down on my list of priorities.

– What made you pursue economics at BI, then?

– To be honest, I wanted to be an investment banker, wear a suit and tie, and drive fast cars, like so many others. But when I arrived at BI and got into the studies, I met teachers who invested time in their students and really inspired me to prioritize schoolwork. During the last year of my bachelor’s degree, professor Patrick Konermann at BI told me that I really should consider pursuing a doctoral degree. I was surprised, but intrigued.

– Was this the first time you ever thought about this?

– Indeed! I had been working hard, but never seen academic research as a possible path for myself. I thought this was a field reserved for geniuses. But his encouragement was important, as I started looking into it and discovered a new and interesting world of researchers pushing new limits within the field of financial economics. It quickly became clear that by pursuing a PhD, I could make an impact on my field and contribute to pushing the research frontier. I was happy to find that BI has some outstanding academics with a huge, international network that can open up some amazing opportunities – if you are willing to put in the work.

– So, from laidback rebel to securing a doctorate at UCLA: How did you do this?

– You can never do something like this on your own, no matter how hard you try. It’s a challenging, and rather confusing, undertaking. I had tremendous support and practical help from my professors and inspiring mentors at BI, especially Espen Henriksen, as well as the colleagues I had at the Norwegian Central Bank. 

– What did they do?

– During my master’s, Espen gave me fantastic advice and also helped me apply for a position as an intern in the bank’s modeling unit, where I met some amazing people. After I was done with my master’s, they put me on the bank's junior researcher program that year, which is tailored to get ambitious students into world-renowned doctoral programs. So this is what happens when your professors work closely with policy institutions and are known in the international academic world.

– If you could do one thing differently during your time at BI, what would it be?

–  Even though work has been an important, exciting, and incredibly rewarding part of my life, I would have spent a bit more time with friends and family. My work ethic has made it possible for me to prioritize work almost without compromise, and competition is a big drive for me. It helped me get this far, but looking back, I should have allowed myself to appreciate my achievements more along the way.