Too Few American Scientists? Maybe Not

An anonymous reader writes "We've been hearing about bad K-12 science education, too few American science and engineering students, and the real-soon-now employment nirvana in technical fields for, like, the last 20 years. The reality: rising undergrad enrollments and unemployment rates, long years as an underpaid postdoc for those who finish a Ph.D. The Chronicle of Higher Education article quotes Harvard economist Richard Freeman: 'They're not studying science,' he says, 'because they look and say, "Do I want to be a postdoc paid $35,000 or $40,000 at age 35, with extreme uncertainty working in somebody else's lab, and maybe getting credit for my work and maybe not getting full credit? Or would I rather be an M.B.A. and making $150,000 and hiring Ph.D.'s?"'"

Comments

I'm not surprised

[Omnifarious]

I think this is the primary effect of copyright and patent law. It becomes more important to be the person who controls the output of scientists than it is to be a scientist yourself.

Re:I'm not surprised

[Metteyya]

It'll be like that until everyone realize that it takes a scientist to properly control output of other scientists.
Well, but maybe USA needs more and more outsourcing and maybe some hi-tech crisis to realize that. But that's not something we'd like to see (and I'm not American).

Re:I'm not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite true, I think. Scientists and engineers need to realise that I"P" law is NOT about them controlling their work, it's about the MBAs and lawyers doing so. Mass disregard for copyright and patent law is not just a good idea, it's your duty as a scientist.

Re:I'm not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

We are the upper management of the rest of the world.

And it's statements like that that get the country bombed. Way to go.

Re:I'm not surprised

[kevlar]

I think this is the primary effect of copyright and patent law. It becomes more important to be the person who controls the output of scientists than it is to be a scientist yourself.

You can really say its about money. Money is what funds the development, money is what funds the lawyers who file the patents.

A PhD who could fund his own R&D and lawyers could have everything. The problem is that in order for them to fund it, they need their own fat savings account.

The fundamental issue with PhD salaries is that there are so many PhD's out there who are perfectly willing to work in academia withthe basics of their financial life supported that universities and companies don't NEED to pay them more. Their love for work is their motivation, not the money. Thats why they'll always generally be paid just enough to survive.

Of course... if they WERE paid more, and the costs were reflected in drug development, etc, everyone on Slashdot would scream bloody murder.

Re:I'm not surprised

[Bishop]

I think if you look back through the past 200 years you will find that academics have always been under paid, and poorly apreciated. Despite the lack of funds science has advanced because of self sacrifice and dedication. I don't believe this is good. Rather I wish to show that it is not a new problem.

Re:I'm not surprised

[kubalaa]

I think the other people that replied didn't get it. Being upper management isn't something to brag about. It means that we enjoy income based on what we control, not on what we produce.

Re:I'm not surprised

[AKAImBatman]

It'll be like that until everyone realize that it takes a scientist to properly control output of other scientists.

I'm an engineer you insensitive clod!

Joking aside, I think it's important to point out that what we need a lot of are engineers, not scientists. Scientists are wonderful people who advance our knowledge from a 50,000 foot level, and do so for little pay. These guys dream math calculations that make my mind gloss over just thinking about it.

Engineers OTOH, use a combination of scientific research and intuition to develop real and practical devices that advance civilization. Most of these guys are also very smart, but from a far more practical standpoint. Their job is to use all that research done by really smart scientists to exploit the laws of nature for the purpose of creating advanced machines that can do "work". (In CompSci, that would be a matter of applying the proper data structures and formulas to derive a computational machine that does work.)

The primary difference here is that Scientists tend to do the research because they love it. They have a keen insight into the universe and its working, and generally won't stop research even if they can't find funding. In addition, country borders rarely mean anything to their research. They could be American, Russian, Indian, British, French, or whatever. When their research gets published, everyone benefits.

Engineers (being more practical by nature) tend to aim for either the fortune of working for hire, or the fame of engineering some really amazing project. Their focus is to find a way to achieve whatever goals are put in front of them. I could tell some Aerospace engineers that I wanted to colonize Alpha Centauri, and they should be able to tell me how it can be done, how long it will take, what technologies must be developed, and at what cost. The idea that it *can't* be done is not the way they think. It's only about whether someone is willing to fund the project to its needs.

While I'm painting something of a rosy picture here, I do have a point to this rant. The US is losing *engineers* for various reasons. One reason is lower pay. Another reason is today's poor education system that often denies potential engineers from becoming such. The most damaging thing, however, is the continuously laxing standards for "engineers". A construction worker is not an engineer. Neither is a programmer a "software engineer". Yet kids fresh out of school have scented money, and said "I'll be an engineer! I'll cram my way through the schoolwork, then I can stop learning because no one will ever make me prove myself again!" As a result, the signal to noise ratio of engineers is ever dropping.

I'm not sure what the solution is yet, but I do know one thing: we need a different system for separating the wheat from the chaff. Traditional thinking says that School Degree == Knows His Stuff. Yet the reality is that you have a lot of people who go to school, but aren't really qualified for the job. At the other end of the spectrum, you have a lot of people who've made use of today's information mediums to become qualified without a degree. It's all a very confused situation.

Re:I'm not surprised

[thrash242]

It sounds like the scientist route wasn't what you wanted to do in the first place. I would think that scientists must love what they do, because as far as I know, they don't make a whole lot of money. So if you think that research is boring and don't like being around geeks, then it's a good thing you didn't go into such a field. For that matter, what are you doing on Slashdot if you don't like geeks?

Many people, however, like that sort of thing: the pure joy of learning and discovery.

I'm wondering why you were going to be a researcher in the first place if you didn't want to do that?

Re:I'm not surprised

[Gilk180]

I agree whole-heartedly.

I happen to be a software writer (call me an engineer or a programmer, whatever you like).

In my field, I have two ideas that are somewhat related.

1. Create a certification program for various software disciplines. It should be by engineers/programmers for engineers/programmers. It should be free (as in speech) and as close to free (as in beer) as possible. Possibly developed using a model where certified practitioners give feedback and continue to contribute to the test as part of their continued certification. I know there are many problems with this, but I would love to see a better system.

2. Form a union. Please don't flame me, I'm a strong conservative and against most incarnations of unions, but they are created for situations just like our own where the workers in an industry are not being treated appropriately by the employers.

I would completely disagree with wage negotiation on the part of a union, however. I would see their primary role as promoting certification to both engineers and employers.

I'm by no means happy with this suggestion, but I thought I'd throw it out there. The central point I would like to make is that (in the software and IT industry) the wages are low and we get little respect because there are a whole lot of very unqualified, unprofessional, and unproductive people in the field and employers have gotten to the point that low productivity and poor quality are what's expected, lower wages which further lowers moral, productivity and quality.

Re:I'm not surprised

[nwbvt]

No offense, but thats one of the stupidest things I've heard today. Which get paid more, research scientists in the private industry whose work is generally protected by patents or research scientists in academia whose work is generally not?

If patent law causes private businesses to hire more scientists (which itself is a dubious claim, in reality they would still hire researchers but would keep their work completely closed as trade secrets), that helps employment of scientists. Yes, some businessmen get rich too, but thats a stupid thing to cry about.

Re:I'm not surprised

[the gnat]

Agreed, but over the last 200 years scientific research has expanded immensely as a career option, and the US has become a scientific superpower in addition to an economic/cultural/military superpower. This exponential growth in research fields, coupled with exponential growth in commercial engineering, is part of what's given us the incredible scientific and technical progress of the last two centuries.

The problem is that while engineering traditionally pays pretty well, basic research never has (except for the elite professors, a very small fraction of the people doing the actual work). But you can't have progress in engineering without basic research. On the flip side, a lot of basic research doesn't directly result in marketable products for decades (if ever), so it's not economical for companies to spend a lot of money on it. (Besides, why should they? Your tax dollars already fund basic research, because the government cares about getting science done, not bringing products to market - that's just an occasional side benefit.)

I'm entering the second year of my PhD in biology, and I spend more time than I'd prefer to worrying about this conflict. I love basic research, and I love seeing my name in print. I love the thrill of discovery, and while I'm happy to see my research used towards improving human lives, that's not my primary goal - I simply want to expand human knowledge. Unfortunately, I'd also like to own a car, and lots of books, and various musical instruments. I've been wanting a video projector for a while too.

I don't think I'd find industry as rewarding in a purely scientific sense. But the odds of me getting a faculty job are slim, and even if I did, I'd be 40 by the time I was settled in with tenure (assuming I get it), and I'd probably still be single and working nonstop. Alternately, I could spend the rest of my career as a glorified postdoc, doing terrific science with some of the best people in the world, but making very little money and relatively little fame. The easier course would be to simply skip all this, go into biotech, and work in anonymity doing drug development, but without ever having to deal about funding problems or paying the rent.

I know this sounds shallow and materialistic, but I live in the Bay Area, and since all the women here are shallow and materialistic, I figure I don't have much of a choice unless I want to remain single for the rest of my life. The only thing less sexy than being a geeky, underpaid, overworked 25-year-old scientist is being a geeky, underpaid, overworked, 40-year-old scientist.

Re:I'm not surprised

[oingoboingo]

The easier course would be to simply skip all this, go into biotech, and work in anonymity doing drug development, but without ever having to deal about funding problems or paying the rent.

Maybe this is true in the pharmaceutical world, but not in 'real' biotech, ie: risky, small start-up type operations with only one or two solid products (if that), and plenty of blue-sky projects and antsy investors. I've spent the last 5 years working for a biotech 'startup' (they really can't be called a startup anymore after over 5 years I suppose), and in my experience, to use a cliche, the only constant is change. One week everything is rosy, investors are flooding in, and research projects are being approved. The next, purchase orders for critical reagents and equipment are being cancelled without explanation and there's a hiring freeze. And then the week after that, an entirely new business unit has been created with 15 new staff and everything is back on track again. Run that cycle through for 5 years and tell me it's any better than a university. At least you know you have funding for the next 2 years or whatever if you get a grant. It's maddening to not make any real progress for years at a time due to the chronic uncertainty that your project could be cancelled tomorrow, that your next order for $200 worth of antibodies will be knocked back, or university payscales are getting updated for inflation yet again, and yours supposedly 'better' commercial salary is now less than what you could get paid at a university (and get to publish your work too).

Of course, a lot of my experience derives from the fact that this particular biotech startup was (and still is) managed by vain, incompetent, and highly delusional former university scientists, whose idea of being 'business types' is to be seen reading a copy of the Financial Review or Business Review Weekly from time to time. Unfortunately for them, the 'reality distortion field' has just about worn off with investors, and some pretty serious shit is about to hit the fan. Fortunately I've recently left :-).

Anyway...the grass isn't always greener on the other side. If you're thinking about launching into the commercial world of biotech, check your facts carefully. An extra $5000 a year isn't worth it when your publication output drops off to nothing, you get stuck on dead-end underfunded project after project, and you have to deal with some of the most ignorant PHBs to sit their arses behind the wheel of an investor-funded BMW.

Re:I'm not surprised

[SageMusings]

And by the way, if you're not a teenager and you're looking to find what you can do to become a good engineer, you probably ought to find another career

Do you suppose that there are talented, creative people in other disciplines that haven't found their true calling yet? Should they be locked out of mid-life course corrections?

You should be in HR; they have a lot of people who believe that folks over 30 should consider a condo in Florida to finish out their last years.

I refuse to live my life on a linear career track.

Re:I'm not surprised

[wkitchen]

I'm not sure what the solution is yet, but I do know one thing: we need a different system for separating the wheat from the chaff. Traditional thinking says that School Degree == Knows His Stuff. Yet the reality is that you have a lot of people who go to school, but aren't really qualified for the job. At the other end of the spectrum, you have a lot of people who've made use of today's information mediums to become qualified without a degree. It's all a very confused situation.

That is something that's been prominent in my thoughs for many years. It's true. Degrees are poor indicators of ability.

The two primary functions of any school are to teach and to evaluate. Oh, they perform other functions too, but these two are the reason for their existence. It may seem that those two functions naturally go together, but I think it would be a very good thing to separate them.

Imagine institutions who test, but do not teach, and who place no requirements on where or how you acquired your knowlege. And I'm not just talking about the filling in circles with a #2 pencil kind of testing. That would be part of it, but it would also involve designing and completing actual projects, and evaluation of that by peers who are further along than you. And at the highest levels, evaluation by people with actual experience and recognized expertise in the field of interest.

Imagine something like a web of trust for reviewers, in which the reviewers are also subject to the scrutiny of their peers.

Imagine that this rigorous system eventually earns such trust that it becomes the standard against which traditional degrees are measured.

Imagine a system of evaluation that has no degrees, no majors, no grade levels. Instead, it uses separate variable metrics for each of a number of subject areas, which might themselves be composites of separate metrics for smaller specialties within each of those areas. No one would ever be denied credit they've earned in one area due to a deficiency in another. But neither would those deficiencies be hidden.

Self-learners would benefit by being able to get full and credible recognition of their abilities. And they would also benefit by gaining additional incentive and direction for progressing further.

The formally educated would benefit by having something that really proves that they know their stuff.

Employers would benefit in both cases by having a way of "separating the wheat from the chaff", as you say. Neither falling for credentialed fakers, nor missingo out on the talented ones among the informally educated.

And because of the separate metrics, employers could decide for themselves whether they care more about a "well rounded" education, or more about performance in specific areas.

The only losers are the fakers in the present system who somehow manage to acquire credentials without posessing the ability that those credetials are supposed to represent.

Re:I'm not surprised

[jstott]

No offense, but thats one of the stupidest things I've heard today. Which get paid more, research scientists in the private industry whose work is generally protected by patents or research scientists in academia whose work is generally not?

This is not correct (having worked as a researcher in academia).

Both private industry and academia protect the IP generated by their research scientists. If you have a patentable idea, both will generally file the patent etc for you, for free (assuming in both cases that the IP might have enough future economic value to be worth patenting in the first place). In private industry, that's all you get (maybe a bonus if they feel generous, but it's usually not required). Academics usually get 50% of any and all future royalties.

In sort, both academics and private industry protect the researchers IP, and arguably you (as researcher) get a much better deal [exclusive of salary] in academia than in industry.

-JS

Re:I'm not surprised

[Otter]

That's true, but:

• The overwhelming majority (I'm guessing, could be wrong on overwhelmingly) of academic biomedical PI's have never patented anything. As a generality, the parent is correct.
• Most academic patents are very early-stage work. They may generate a five-figure or low-six-figure sale, but ongoing royalties are rare. Certainly nothing like revenue from an FDA-approved compound.
• The grad student or postdoc who did the work may get a few dollars kicked down; I've never heard of a tech seeing one cent.

MBA is not the end all be all

[raydobbs]

Possessing a Masters in Business Administration is not the end all be all of the world. There are a lot of people who have this degree - but could not manage their way out of a wet paper bag. What business truely wants, and needs are managers who are creative, intelligent, resourceful, unorthodox - not just people who have the book learning.

Yeah, you can make a lot of money having this degree - but unless your passion is management, it's a waste of time - and talent.

Re:MBA is not the end all be all

[mOoZik]

I don't think a passionless person would spend 6+ years studying something in which they have no faith or no love for. It is a fact tha the average MBA makes more than the average post-doc. Money seems to be the attracting force, but also a certain sense of freedom. At least that's the reason I'm a year away from my MBA.

Re:MBA is not the end all be all

[the_2nd_coming]

you just described a leader not a manager.

managers are made to maintain the Status Quo, Leaders are made to give direction and vision and to get everyone on board.

though a good leader needs good management skills to maintain the day to day garbage.

Re:MBA is not the end all be all

[raydobbs]

A good manager is BOTH a leader and a manager. Too many managers are piss-poor leaders, and barely passable managers. Partly the reason I decided that I wanted to have more control of my destiny, and move from the front lines to more of the managerial roles.

Re:MBA is not the end all be all

[YetAnotherHoopyFrood]

Although I am at the moment just a pie-eyed undergrad, I am inclined to think that I would rather be an underpaid post-doc than a well-paid MBA, though I could also substitute "post-doc" with just about any other job and the statement would still be true. I don't doubt that it will be a little harder to maintain this position when it comes time to pay the bills.

I have personally only worked with two post-docs, but they were certainly not in any danger of having their ideas and work stolen. Granted, the "head" professor will likely get his name put on any publications produced due to his supervisory role. Even as an undergrad, any paper to which I contribute will include my name and that of anyone else involved. However, I cannot assume that these two cases are indicative of the entire system. Incidentally, both post-docs moved on to full-time positions, but there are many factors involved, and they are, after all, only two people.

Doesn't the academic job market tend to fluctuate considerably from year to year? The job market is certainly not particularly good anywhere at the moment, but even in better days one would sometimes see Ph.Ds from top-notch schools taking positions at low-ranking state schools. Other years nearly the reverse may be true. It would seem that, although we shouldn't ignore potential signs of the times, we should also listen to those who would advise us not to proclaim the end of American science to be at hand.

Re:MBA is not the end all be all

[Tlosk]

All the MBA programs I'm aware of are 2 years. If you're including an undergraduate degree, well why not throw in the 12 years of primary education as well?

If an undergrad degree is a given (all the jobs we're talking about require one) it's not really germane to the tally.

Re:MBA is not the end all be all

[Antique Geekmeister]

Yes, plenty of people would spend 6+ years studying something they have no passion for or stink at. Being a student itself is often a short career, rather than what you do when you get *out* of school.

Plenty of people who got into computer science in the dotcom boom realized how much they wanted to do something else, and are frankly much happier now making less money. They made an educated guess during college about their talents and careers, and it turned out wrong.

Bless the people who were such programmers, web designers, etc. and who are now doing great jobs as artists, plumbers, teachers, etc., etc.

True for Me

[billstr78]

I know that the bleak employment opportunities for a Computer Science Ph.D. in a 50th ranked school were the main reason I left my program and finished with a Masters instead. Now I'm employed doing the same work I did while interning as an undergraduate 4 years ago. If I'm not able to move my way up through the ranks and get to some real development, going back for an MBA is a real possibility.

Re:True for Me

[cubicledrone]

I admit the bar is high but look at this from the hiring manager's point of view.

I am looking at it from the hiring manager's point of view. Their point of view is "disqualify everyone as quickly as possible so I can go play golf." I have so many examples of this it would bore everyone to the point of weeping openly.

Education level is not strongly correlated with performance.

Nonsense. Anyone with the dedication to earn a degree has the dedication to do a job. What hiring managers don't realize is that such a statement renders all education WORTHLESS. If education is not rewarded (part of that "go to school, get a good job" social contract that employers find it convenient to ignore), then we go back to 70% illiteracy, and it will be the EMPLOYER'S FAULT.

If you were told this, you were at best misinformed at worst; at worst you were lied to.

Oh, I figured that out not long after the fifth round of layoffs.

BTW, nobody outside of your family and friends gives a rat's ass about whether you get married

Congress does. There are significant financial benefits to being married.

nor do they care whether you have a family or buy a house.

Congress does. There are significant financial benefits to having a family and a house.

There are no financial benefits to being single and a temp worker. In fact, it is MORE expensive.

No, what you have promised to pay for, you lose, if you miss the payments.

That wasn't the point. I've already done the work, several times over. Employers simply ignored the agreement when payday arrived.

It's all about the hiring manager's estimation of whether you are the best choice he or she has.

Nice and subjective and all the advantages are with the employer. Businesses would NEVER agree to such an arrangement.

Business A: "Oh, we can cancel this contract based on this guy's opinion."

Business B: "My ass you can. Have a nice day."

Number of languages doesn't really matter.

Of course not, because that is one of my most important skills. See my point now? I'm not even interviewing with you and you are disqualifying me. You don't even know whether I've "shipped a product" or not.

I've hired people who have never worked in the language that we're using.

I thought experience is what counted?

The problem is that many people with a CS degree come out not being ready to contribute in any meaningful way.

They were never supposed to. Businesses seem to have forgotten that everyone must be trained to do their job. That is the entire basis of the experience that every employer claims is so important. But businesses prefer to enjoy the benefits of that experience without actually contributing to it, or paying for it. And now, since ALL businesses are like that, it is impossible for college graduates to find a good job. As I have said before, competent, intelligent, educated people are no longer welcome in the modern workplace.

People lie about their skills so there's no help there.

Yes, of course. When all else fails, call the candidate a liar.

I can call former employers and at least verify history.

But can't call the college and verify the degree?

It's always been "what have you done for me lately."

Not for my parents it wasn't. They had their jobs for DECADES without even the slightest hint of layoffs.

It's just that companies wanted you to believe that company loyalty (both directions) still existed.

Now they want loyalty from the employee (with no raises or promotions, of course), and the ability to fire anyone, any time for any or no reason at all.

Society can't function this way. It simply cannot. People must be able to depend on a reward for their own hard work, or there will be no more work.

A little history...

[cleverhandle]

We've been hearing about bad K-12 science education, too few American science and engineering students, and the real-soon-now employment nirvana in technical fields for, like, the last 20 years.

Longer than that, actually. The beginning of all of this was the launching of Sputnik in 1957. It was the prospect of losing the Space Race against the USSR prompted the infamous "New Math" of the early 60's.

Re:A little history...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

It began, as nearly as I can figure, around 1850 or so. Read about it

Re:A little history...

[Waffle Iron]

It was the prospect of losing the Space Race against the USSR prompted the infamous "New Math" of the early 60's.

They were still teaching a lot of New Math in the early 70s when I was a kid. My mom was always grumbling about how she thought that it was stupid for them to teach us about all these newfangled "sets", and they weren't drilling us on enough big arithmetic problems. (Even though this was about the time my dad got his first electronic calculator, after which I gleefully breezed through all my arithmetic homework in a matter of seconds.)

Twenty years later I pointed out to her that my career designing and programming computers was largely an exercise in applied set theory, and I was glad they gave us a lot of background in it. She was still unrepentant; she always said "never trusted computers" anyway.

career decisions...

[davids-world.com]

Let me rephrase that question.

"Do I want to do cutting-edge research, find out about new things, finding solutions to problems, maybe getting patents, work with colleagues around the world, travel to conferences and workshops, or do I like to manage people and an organization, come up with visions, conduct hundreds of interviews with applicants, go to fancy dinners with my lab's sponsors or the company's clients?"

Re:career decisions...

[gclef]

Well, kinda. In the real world, it's more like:

Do I want to have a small chance at cutting-edge research, get taken advantage of mercilessly by entrenched professors, and distantly dream of seeing my work mentioned in a high-profile publication, or do I want to actually have a life?

(For the curious: yes, I had to make that decision, and yes, that's about the position I was faced with in grad school...3 guesses which direction I went.)

Re:career decisions...

[Duncan3]

*laughs*

More like...

Do I want to shuffle papers all day, make and remake long term plans, work 70 hours weeks becasue I'm salaried, never have time for my friends and family, and get no credit ever becasue the CEO and other vicious MBA take it becasue they are trained to...

No, a geek should not try to be a MBA, and a MBA should not try to be a geek. They should however, understand each other.

Re:career decisions...

[YU Nicks NE Way]

Let me rephrase that yet again:

"Do I want to do cutting-edge research (that only five other people in the world will genuinely understand), find solutions to problems (that will be important in a hundred years, but which don't matter at all right now), work with colleagues all around the world (via e-mail), and meanwhile struggle to pay my kid's day care bills, getting lousy benefits, and having credit stolen from me by my lab director, so that in fifteen years I can have a one in five hundred shot at a tenured position? The alternative is to go into industrial research, where I will not get to work on quite such arcane things, but will, to my surprise, get all the freedom I ever got in academe, even as a star post-doc, get to work on equally interesting problems of a slightly different nature, but using the same skills as I used as an academic, and get payed...errr...five to ten times as much. Before benefits."

I made the first choice before we had kids. After we had kids, I changed my mind. I work at Microsoft now -- I look back on my time as a tenure-track assistant professor with some nostalgia, but only because it was what I always wanted to do, not because I was any better off there than I am here.

I'll take the Ph.D., thank you

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I want to be a postdoc paid $35,000 or $40,000 at age 35, with extreme uncertainty working in somebody else's lab, and maybe getting credit for my work and maybe not getting full credit?

Yes, yes I do. I'd rather live in relative poverty and be happy doing what I like than having a lot of money, but waste my life doing something I don't enjoy.

Re:I'll take the Ph.D., thank you

[cTbone]

Absolutely.

I'd rather work in a lab doing research that I feel might change something in society or maybe cure just one person's illness than slave with an M.B.A. dealing with the business end of the deal.

I really don't care if I'm getting 40,000 or so. To me it's not a big deal.

I think it's a hidden blessing that salaries aren't grossly overdone with Ph.D.'s because you weed out those who are in it just for the money and you're left with the people that truly care for what they are doing.

Re:I'll take the Ph.D., thank you

[alptraum]

I'd do this too, I'd much rather do what I love than be rich doing something I hate, you see this all the time with overworked lawyers and doctors and other high paying jobs, they have no time to enjoy all the money they make, their slaves to their jobs. Not saying that all lawyers and docs secretly hate their jobs, but a lot of them undoubtably do. On the other hand, my uncle, a chemistry phd, makes 35-40k a year but absolutely loves what he does. I currently am working on my masters in Industrial Engineering (Specifically Industrial Statistics and Quality and Reliability Engineering) I honestly have no idea how I'll fair salary-wise when I get out in a year, but I love what I do and that's what matters to me, to me engineers and scientists and the like are my heroes, and IMHO, of all human pursuits, there are none more noble than those of science and engineering.

Re:I'll take the Ph.D., thank you

[Antique Geekmeister]

Yeah, but you gotta feed your family and kids. And your addiction to techno-gadgets, unless your workplace buys them for you.....

What does K-12 science education matter here anywa

[ShatteredDream]

Most of the hard science majors I know didn't get there because of their K-12 education. It couldn't come really even close to covering what they needed to know to do anything with it. I can look at schools' "computer science" classes and see basically identical results. Most of the real coders in my computer science classes are the ones who didn't waste their time with "computer science" classes in K-12. I tried taking one for fun and found it to be quite possibly the most asinine class there, even more so than PE. K-12 is designed to build up the lowest common denominator to a point slightly above dark ages superstitions about the world. Overall it is an abysmal system and I see no reason anymore to fix it or fund it more. Think of education like hemp rope. Some will use it for good and useful purposes, some will hang themselves with it, but the majority will do nothing with it except maybe try to smoke it and get high off of it.

Read what a real scientist has to say.

[jabberjaw]

I am not a scientist (yet), I do however read the musings of a real scientist at Note Even Wrong. Scroll down to "There They Go Again..." and enjoy what he has to say about the article.

Re:Read what a real scientist has to say.

[foidulus]

Meanwhile, the ABA does the opposite. For as long as I remember, they've issued publications trying to dissuade people from taking up the practice of the law. The AMA does the same by lobbying to restrict the number of accredited medical schools. I guess the difference is that these are "real" professional associations that act on behalf of their members.
No, they are all acting in their members best interest. The fewer lawyers/doctors out there, less competetion, more money. The big difference is the ABA and AMA are run by the professionals, instead of those who hire the professionals. So the control they want over the supply/demand balance is different.

Re:Read what a real scientist has to say.

[Nutty_Irishman]

He has some very interesting points in that article.

I think it is agreed that most people that go on for Ph.D's don't do it for the money.

In academia there is a lot of money that get's blown on stuff that could be used to increase grad students pay. In addition to low pay, post-docs also tend to get walked on-- especially if you are in an industry post-doc. It's just another opportunity for PI's to get low income work out of qualified people.

After everything is said and done with, most people come out of graduate school disallusioned and burnt out. They'll be lucky if their stipends actually average out to minimium wage. After that, what do they have to look forward to? Another 3 years in a post doc getting paid crap. And those are the lucky ones that actually make it through. 1/3 of all ph.d students drop out before the end.

A couple of years ago Yale University grad students protested and tried to get unionized to increase wages. I'm not sure of the outcome now but they were very roughly shunned at first because everyone argued that they were students and not workers. In reality, these students are put through hours/conditions that would make the labour board turn it's head.

The whole point of a Ph.D program is to train people into independently thinking scientists. Many people would argue that the whole point of post-docs is to further train people to become independent scientists. In reality, ph.d students are much more of an asset to the school than a liability that the "training" claims to be and they should be getting recognition.
Behind every good graduate school is a good set of graduate students

The good news is that stipends are beginning to be pushed up. This is partly due to the large discrepency in NSF fellowships as compared to university stipends (which is around a $5,000-10,000 difference per year). I'm glad to see that at least someone is paying attention the well being of the grad students.

My decision:

[mhore]

I am a Physics student...with only one class left until Grad School. When I first considered Physics... I had a hard time justifying to myself making $40,000 as a postdoc (if I'm lucky) vs. making maybe $60-70k as a programmer...or more with an MBA or Engineering degree.

What it came down to is this... I did what made me happy. I may never make much money at all, but I love what I'm doing. I made the choice to switch over to Physics, and I have never looked back.

Mike.

Re:My decision:

[John Seminal]

It is too bad that money is often what makes a person make a decision which puts them on a path in life where the person is not happy. I remember reading the magazines in college which ranked pay by degree. If only I would have stayed studying what trully excited and interested me- biology. I was facsinated with the possibility of genetic engineering as a method of solving disease and sickness. Now I do programming work when I find it, or other office work, and I hate it. Why? Because I decided to follow the money not realizing money does not give happiness and often what is a hot job/field today will not be in 5 years. Plus, who wants to excel at something they hate doing. You know, the kind of job where by lunch you want to go home.

PH.d's can't.

[PeterPumpkin]

Well, part of the problem is that these PH.d's are 35, and have no actual experience. I've seen this at GE - there were guys, who shall remain nameless, who were brilliant with the formulas, et cetera, but who were comepletly devoid of common sense and unable to deal with real-world problems, due to too much time in a academic environment. I imagine it takes some time and several jobs before one could acclimate to the real world.

Nothing that a few good internships couldn't solve, to keep one grounded ;)

Re:PH.d's can't.

[billstr78]

This is other people's problem with Ph.D's but does not generally impact their employment opportunities or job performance. They are paid to be good with the formulas, et cetera. They never fully adapt to the working life becuase their knowledge is deep not broad.
The employment opportunities for U.S. Ph.D's are bleak becuase the field is competitive. There aren't that many positions outside of academia that require that specialized knoledge and there are plenty of talented people from other countries itching to plant themselves in the U.S. to get away from less than perfect conditions in their own country.

Re:PH.d's can't.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I've heard this said before, but being a loser without a real job, I find it hard to swallow. Are these PhDs simply unable to design the things companies want built, or unable to come up with research that companies find useful.

Or do you mean they're unable to navigate the absurd sociopolitical burearacracies found in any large company? "Gee, Dr. Egghead simply doesn't get it, we can't do that... our shareholders can't understand it and Company X just laid off 4500 (a good thing for the bottom line), we have to compete with them!"

I don't personally see how you could ever have too many researchers. As a country, the more of them we have, the more technology we will have in the future (though since the payoff won't be soon, it might not look like that to retards). Or is it simply more profitable to raise generation after generation of sheep-like consumers?

Re:PH.d's can't.

[foidulus]

I don't personally see how you could ever have too many researchers. As a country, the more of them we have, the more technology we will have in the future (though since the payoff won't be soon, it might not look like that to retards). Or is it simply more profitable to raise generation after generation of sheep-like consumers?
I think you hit the problem on the head. Look at some of today's most successful companies, do they do research? Dell doesn't do much, neither does Wal-Mart, and yet Wall Street follows them like a hawk. Wall Street only cares about ROI and getting rid of labor, no matter what the long term cost to the company is. At a place I used to intern, they hired very expensive consultants to come in and fire people, thus concentrating a lot of critical knowledge into a few hands, which they then proceed to treat like crap and pile loads of work onto them. How is this good for the company?
Nobody wants to engage in risky R&D anymore because they won't be able to use the buzzword ROI on the project(Intel thinks that it is the governments job to do research for them)
The long term consequences of this short selling mentality will be dire IMO.

Re:PH.d's can't.

[cubicledrone]

Sure you could show them how to do what you wanted, but if you're needing to do this every time you want something done, it becomes a pain.

Gee, that's too bad. So we discard the PhD. It's easier to fire them anyway.

Those who keep their jobs in this type of deal pick up things with minimal input

In other words, people who just happen to guess what management wants from day to day, which explains why there is no such thing as a permanent job.

Wouldn't it be better to train employees in their jobs? Since education has become worthless, it would seem to be of some importance.

$150K MBAs?

[mst76]

What I want to know is:
1. Does a typical MBA really make $150K?
2. If (as seems to be the implicit assumption) the science PhD could do the MBA's jobs as well, any company hiring PhD's can gain competitive advantage (lowers wage costs) by hiring science PhD's instead of MBA's. Don't companies realize this? Or is there more to MBA's than we all assume?

Re:$150K MBAs?

[MisanthropicProgram]

1. Does a typical MBA really make $150K?
Only if they graduate from Harvard, Yale, Wharton, Stanford, or some other top 5 school.

2. If (as seems to be the implicit assumption) the science PhD could do the MBA's jobs as well, any company hiring PhD's can gain competitive advantage (lowers wage costs) by hiring science PhD's instead of MBA's. Don't companies realize this? Or is there more to MBA's than we all assume?
A lot of business is fuzzy thinking. In my MBA program, half my class is engineers. They're great at the math, but unfortunately, they trust the numbers too much. IMHO. Some have a hard time realizing that the numbers are an approximation and not based on physical laws like theey're used to in engineering.
Just my opinion because I do the same thing.

After 25 years in engineering I went elsewhere...

[freeio]

After 25 years working as an electronics engineer, the last company I worked for went into technical bankruptcy, stopped meeting payroll, and I was forced to reconsider whether I wanted to continue in this line of work. Result? I decided to take the savings, 401K, and such and put it into a more sane business.

So my wife and I expanded her business (one of those "horribly overpayed wedding photographers") and now I work full time selling portraits, photographing weddings, doing bookeeping, and such. I couldn't be happier!

The life as an engineer was (excuse me) pathetic. Why should I spend all my life chained to a desk, living in a cube farm, and putting up with the Boss from Hell who figured he owned me as so much chattel property? Life is much better now.

So tell me again why I would even talk any teenager into becoming an engineer? They would be fools to do so.

This is just wrong...

[John Seminal]

Last fall the president of the University of Maryland found himself doing something that none of his predecessors would have dreamed of trying. While on a trip to Taiwan, C. Dan Mote Jr. spent part of his time recruiting Taiwanese students to go to the United States for graduate school.

There should be no reason to recruit outside the USA for PhD programs. We should be able to have a good pool of undergrads in the USA to fill almost every PhD seat.

I think the fix to the problem is not undergraduate education or high schools, but what is taught in the elementary schools. I knew two people in elementary/high school who went on to get PhD's. One was a person who was always entering science fairs and was excited and interested in discovery. The father of that guy never pushed the kid to "excel", but allowed the kid to feed his appetite of wonder. The other guy I knew as a kid did not really get excited about learning, but had a dad who pushed and pushed and pushed for his kid to be the best. I can't tell you how many times I remember his father telling him "do you want to push a broomstick the rest of your life?". Both did well in high school, both got into good colleges. The one who was liked studying and did not look at school as work enjoyed his graduate school days. The one who looked at school as another hurdle to jump did not like it, and dropped out early getting a masters (and now works as a programmer because it paid the best, even though he hates it).

I think what needs to be done is schools needs to get fun at an early age. It should not be a pressure filled johnny is better than mike type environment, because johnny did well on some test (only to have mike kick johnnys ass after school). I had only one good teacher in my first 8 years of schooling (before high school), and what made that teacher great was not that he taught better but that he made everyone excited about what they were doing and made everyone feel good about their interests. Those who were interested in fiction books were no less important as people than those who were looking at leaves under a magnifying glass. The teacher always asked with an excited face "how did you like that" and "what did you learn"; and anwsered "wow". It might sound dumb, but he was one hell of a fifth grade teacher. Much better than the guy who taught me algebra in high school who always took off 1/2 a point off a right anwser just to show me who was boss (for shit like "can't read your handwriting").

It's about time...

[MisanthropicProgram]

that someone published an article about this. I'm so sick of CEOs complaining that there are not enough engineers being educated in this country and therefore, they have to go to other countries. What horshit!

Every job I've worked at had at least one engineer (many times a Ph.D.) who couldn't get a job in his chosen field - especially aerospace. So, he becomes a programmer. There's a reason that nobody is getting these dgrees - no jobs!
Also, why should someone with that kind of talent "waste" it in engineering when they can go to medical school and make ten times as much?

And another thing, I once was talking to some Indians about why there's so many engineers that come out of their country. Their response: "Every parent wants their child to grow up and become an engineer. If not that, then a doctor." Granted my sample size is four, but it was interesting to hear their mindset. I'm not saying that they're right or wrong, just that Engineers are held in much higher esteem there then over here.

Re:It's about time...

[dodobh]

Its not a question of respect or esteem.

The minimum qualification for most jobs is a degree.
The people at those call centres that posters here keep whining about usually have graduates answering the phones.

If you want to do anything more than be a clerk (and out here, book keeping is very low on the totem pole in terms of respect and salary), you need either a postgrad or an engineering/medical degree. And more companies prefer engineers than postgrads (except engineering postgrads).

I have to agree with this assessment

[betelgeuse68]

The people who visit here tends to have "tech" under their skin (me included). But the average person who is considering college does not necessarily enjoy our enthusiasm for open source code, LINUX, cool science news, etc. That's just life. If someone were considering computer science I would tell them, "Unless it's something you think about an awful lot during your day, forget it." That is, unless computing is in your "blood" in some shape way or form, the prospects simply are not worth it. I went to a large Midwestern state university and left the area to be on the West Coast. I kept in touch with different people from my college days (I finished in '91). Nowadays there are quite a number of "engineers" in Chicagoland that are essentially at dead ends the changing dynamics of the tech industry. Unfortunately for them, Chicago had a rather telecom presence and the downturn in that space means there are probably lots of people who won't be in tech jobs anymore. Just yesterday (and also featured on Slashdot) there was a Businessweek article about consolidation in the software space. I see it as a given and it is something I have told people for a couple of years. You see, the railways saw huge growth in the second half of the 1800's then ther was consolidation. Then the auto industry went nuts during its inception, then it too went through consolidation in the first half of the 1900's. Frankly I don't see why the software industry would be any different or immune to these business dynamics. And despite the fact that software doesn't have a material cost, commodization directly (open source) and indirectly has dramatically altered the landscape from 10+ years ago.

Here's a good article on Newsforge that makes my case, "There may never be another software billionaire":

http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/03/28 /2 125237&mode=thread&tid=3

Sure I'm only talking about computer science jobs but the prospects of studying some scientific field and making a living at it are rather grim. I've met my share of electrical engineers and physicists making a living by being code grunts vs. being in employed in their field of study. Nowadays there's a "nuclear engineer" on my team but the company I am currently at in no shape, way or form deals with that space.

So yeah, if I had to start all over and had the business savvy, mindset, drive and acumen I would go do something else.

After all, how many CEOs in corporate America have engineering and/or scientific degress?

Point made.

-M

Re:I have to agree with this assessment

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, how many CEOs in corporate America have engineering and/or scientific degress?

I researched this very statistic while I was deciding between an MSEE or MBA several years ago. Of about 34 top US semiconductor companies(highest revenues) about 70% of the CEOs had an MS or PhD AND an MBA. Most these MBAs were earned as the CEO worked his/her up the company after starting as a non-manager.

CEOs with only non-engineering or scientific backgrounds are in the minority for major companies in the semiconductor industry.

Postdoc problem

[overbyj]

The funny thing about the postdoc issue is that it is very much a damned if you do-damned if you don't. In science, if you want a good job, you basically have to have done a postdoc. However, I have known people that have done a postdoc for 5-7 years and then still can't find a job because many will view them with the attitude of "why can't this person get a job after having a postdoc for 5 years".

An unfortunately reality in science, as it is in most of life, is that you have to have connections and you have to have timing on your side. When I was near the end of my postdoc (2 years), the academic job market was good that year. So was the industrial job market. However, two years after that, the academic job market actually shrank as the economy began to wilt and state funding for many schools shrank as well. Timing on my part was critical.

I feel for all those postdocs out there stuck in the rut of that position. I felt it was critical to my development as a scientist but man oh man, there is no way I would ever go back to that.

Supply and demand

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a fairly simple equation. The reason you can get someone for under $40,000 with a bachelor's degree, and 2-10 years of postgraduate education in some esoteric field, is that there's too damned many of us. Worse, once we're done, there's no requirement for real-world experience. Few PhD's or postdocs have any knowledge of how industry works, so they can get hired into the workforce for about as much as you can make as a prison guard with a GED in most states. (We have lab techs with MS degrees that make less than prison guards start at in this state.)

Amplifying the problem is the US's addiction to foreign graduate students. While they may work longer and harder hours, they're also cut off from their families or any social life, so they grind away in the lab early in the morning, late at night, and on weekends and holidays while us lazy Americans are off somewhere, complaining about how hard we have to work. The difference is that hard labor /= good results, and the papers these people crank out are often full of nonsense, repeat other people's work, or are completely superfluous. I've had foreign postdocs publish work with my contribution twice now, with no credit given to my input (which lasted for 15 months in one case), either out of ignorance or theft- I'm not sure which.

But, really- if you want to drive a ten-year-old car while it's your boss and administrators that roll in the big bucks (with benefits like retirement and that sort of thing), by all means- postdoc is the way to go!

Ph.D Not So Bad

[UMhydrogen]

Coming from one of the higher ranked engineering schools in the country, I find that Ph.D and masters enrollment seems to be quite up. I know most of the people I am around are not settling for just their bachelors - everyone wants to go to graduate school. I also am spending my summer in DC working for Boeing. Almost everyone here either has a Ph.D or plans on going back to get their masters or Ph.D. Engineering docotorates do not fall in to the $35,000 range and they actually get paid quite a lot. Now I am not so sure about "science" but it seems to me that getting a Ph.D doesn't leave you anywhere near shy on money. On top of that, if you're any good at what you do, you can always get a job as a Professor at a university. At Uof Michigan the Professors get paid very well and do a lot of research. I find it hard to believe that in an age so motivated and focused on technology, that a scientist or an engineer would have trouble finding work.

Re:Ph.D Not So Bad

[Life2Short]

"...you can always get a job as a Professor at a university." Ya. Those are real easy jobs to get. Ask one of your U. Mich. Profs. how many applications they get when they advertise a tenure track position. Ask them what percentage of their new hires actually receive tenure. Try reading some more articles in the Chronicle. There's a huge glut of PhDs. Just do the math. Each faculty member at a university has a number of graduate students. Sure, some of them don't get PhDs, but a lot of them do. So figure every 2 or 3 years that faculty member graduates another PhD. The faculty member retains his/her job for 20-30 years, so where are all these new PhDs supposed to go? Private industry? It's kind of like music/entertainment. Sure, there are a lot of big names out there, but for each one there are a lot more people tending bar, waitressing, etc.

You cannot justify working as a Ph.D. in the US

[Cerlyn]

I left a comfortable job position to try for a Ph.D. at a major US institution. I was offered a full stipend, and it paid for pretty much everything except car insurance and clothing costs.

Unfortunately, when I got there, I found myself outclassed, and without help. Once my advisor came to realize I was not a specialist in the areas he thought I was, he rarely saw me, while discouraging me to look elsewhere.

Finally, my advisor dumped me two months before my contract with him was due to expire, well after the point all the other Ph.D. advisors had already chosen their underlings for the next year. I later found one of my friends in that research group was originally under my advisor as well, and had been dumped just prior to this advisor taking me in.

But it was too late for me. I lost a large amount of personal funding taking out loans to pay for the next two quarters. The politics in the Engineering department there were much worse than those I ever encountered working for the US government. Eventually I received a very good job offer from a private firm, and dropped out with the Masters degree I already had received at another school. But by that point in time, I estimated I wasted well over $10,000 in my own funds waiting for a new advisor I liked to take me in (it is worth noting he did come up with some funds for me, but I left just after this point).

The paranoid should look at two professors' testimony before the US Congress for some insight. The first is the testimony of Dr. David Goodstein about how the US Ph.D. program attempts to only breed elite members like themselves. The second is the testimony of Dr. Norman Matloff (revised since 1998) on how there really is not a Software labor shortage in the US (one section of this paper discusses why American CS students tend not to go for Ph.D. degrees).

Re:You cannot justify working as a Ph.D. in the US

[bhima]

I started my Ph.D in the US and finished in Europe and while my experience with the US system was vastly different from yours, we seemed to come to the same conclusion: it's dysfunctional. I got a job in US industry later on and came to a similar conclusion. My conclusion was to vote with my money and move, I live in a smallish town in the EU and haven't looked back!

The shame is the US can be a very cool place! (Hello to the folks in Huntsville, I still LOVE little river canon!)

Now that's a badly written story.

[khasim]

"Last fall the president of the University of Maryland found himself doing something that none of his predecessors would have dreamed of trying. While on a trip to Taiwan, C. Dan Mote Jr. spent part of his time recruiting Taiwanese students to go to the United States for graduate school."

So, we're looking overseas for students to fill our tech programs....

"Current data suggest that the new predictions may fare no better than earlier ones. In fact, contrary to prevailing wisdom, which fixes blame on poor training in science and mathematics from kindergarten through the 12th grade, record numbers of Americans are earning bachelor's degrees in science and engineering. And unemployment rates in at least some sectors of science and engineering have topped the charts."

But we're turning out "record numbers" of AMERICAN graduates in those programs.

"University presidents, government officials, and heads of industry have joined together in a chorus of concern over the state of science and engineering in the United States. The danger signs are obvious, they say. Fewer U.S. citizens are getting doctorates in those fields."

And we seem to be producing fewer PhD's in those programs.

"In fact, even as science leaders opined about the alarming NSF report from May, the agency announced last week that graduate-student enrollment in science and engineering actually reached a new peak in 2002."

But we're enrolling more post-graduate people in those programs than ever before.

"As the number of those men entering science has declined, national leaders have sought to bring more women and minorities into the enterprise."

So fewer white men are going into tech and the difference is more women and minorities?

So is this about the decline of the white male in tech fields or is it about the rise of everyone else in tech fields or is it about how the US is declining in tech fields?

"And even if the visa difficulties fade, leaders both inside and outside academe say the education system in the United States must reform itself to maintain the country's technological edge."

So, we're in decline because we're graduating more techs than ever before, but they're mostly women and minorities and lots of them go on to post-graduate work, and that is the fault of the education system?

"The board noted in particular a rising reliance on foreign-born talent, a decline in homegrown brainpower, increasing difficulty in attracting overseas scholars, and a looming shortage of scientists and engineers."

So, we are depending more upon foreign engineers and it is becoming increasing difficult to get them to come here.... ....which means that we'll have a shortage of techs soon unless we start growing our own.

"Compounding the situation, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted in 2001 that the number of jobs in science and engineering would grow at a rate three times that of all occupations, on average, producing a 47-percent increase in science-and-engineering jobs by 2010."

So we'll have lots of jobs available for people with tech degrees.

""Despite recurring concerns about potential shortages of STEM [scientific, technical, engineering, and mathematics] personnel in the U.S. work force, particularly in engineering and information technology, we did not find evidence that such shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon," concluded the RAND Corporation in a report this year."

So there won't be lots of jobs available for people with tech degrees.

And the rest of the article continues in the same fashion.

Is there a current shortage of techs? Is there a current surplus of techs?

Are too many of the techs foreign? Are too few foreign students entering our schools?

The only thing to be found in this article is that US-born citizens are not all working towards their PhD's and even if they did, they might not make any more money than they do right now.

That is a general problem with our current economy

[LordZardoz]

At the risk of sounding too damn much like a archtypical communist (which I am not)...

At the moment, there are many jobs that are not compensated for very well. Stock brokers, advertising / marketing types, lawyers, and executives make a great deal of money. Scientists, Teachers, Police, Firemen, and the like probably contribute more to civilization then the types listed above, but they certaintly dont reap much of a benefit for it.

About the only profession that makes the kind of money they ought to are Surgeons. And that is only because they have a pretty compelling way to get the compensation they deserve. "Oh, you dont want to pay me that much? Ok. Let someone else perform that arterial bypass then."

Scientists / Inventors in theory can use Patents to generate their income. But research costs money. And they end up having to sign the patents over to the company that employed them.

I think that Patents / Copyright should never pass completely beyond the control of the creator for that reason. But Patents and Copyright are broken.

However, for all my complaints, its not like I have a solution handy either.

END COMMUNICATION

Speaking of jobs...

[Uncertain Bohr]

Well, I am a 36 year old post-doc, I am making under $50/yr, but I do not work in someone else's lab. Rather, I work with a group of great people who are very motivated and good at what they do. I wake up in the morning happy to have some real problems to solve. Life is too short to make it just about $.

Quantity over Quality?

[Bishop]

The real crisis may not be one of quantity but of quality.

I believe that this is the larger issue. In my experience many university science professors have a distorted view of the world beyond their walls. As a result the material they teach and their methods do not serve their students. This problem is not one of teching theory over practice. I am a big proponent of universities teaching theory only. Rather it is beliefs such as "If you want to do anything in field X you require a Ph.D." Or like my professor insisting that I would not be able to find a job with such a low mark in his course. (I was already employed.) Too many of my professors taught in such a manner that the highest marked students were the ones who memorized the material prior to an exam, and proptly forgot everything when they put their pencils down. This practice of encourageing memorization is a dumbing down of university curriculum. It is great for pumping out "scientists." But it dosen't encourage science.

Re:Quantity over Quality?

[Skapare]

There are lots of people around who simply do terrible in school. They cannot really learn in a classroom or even by reading a book. But put them to work doing those certain things they can learn, and they learn more, and faster, than they would in school. I know I am one of these people, and I learned on the job far more than in school. I look back on my days in college as a total waste of time; I'd have learned more in the right job, which of course I'd never have gotten because the eystem doesn't allow for that. I believe there are a lot of people like this. I've met many, and it isn't just in science, engineering, or technology; I've even met business people and sales people like this. And don't forget that even Bill Gates dropped out of college to be a successful (from a financial perspective) business person.

not just the money, superstition

[fermion]

Formal education can only do so much. The great scientists are able to look for the areas of the world which we have not fully explored, and then, without prejudice, collect data or create models in such a way as to support refute existing theories. All this must be done in a logical, auditable, and repeatable manner.

I think in America we are losing this sense of adventure. I hear more people espousing their beliefs and superstitions as if it were The Truth. They are afraid of exploration and the unknown. Modern science does not exist to confirm personal beliefs any more that the CIA exists to promote political agendas. Both are there to discover what is, in a significantly tangible way, real about the world. Reality is often hard for us to understand and accept, but we are much better off when we have some assurance that we are close to the truth. The past few hundred years have shown one of the most reliable processes to get close to the truth is the scientific method.

But we have a few religious nuts afraid of anything that will contradict their carefully crafted fiction. These people subvert the educational process and teach our kids that the scientific method is wrong. Make no mistake. If one claims evolution is wrong on the basis of scripture, if one claims that the earth is a few thousand years old on the basis of scripture, if on claims that one can go from an a priori truth, construct a data set that fit those facts, and then claim that is science, then one is so wrong as to be the greatest enemy of science, progress, and even the free market.

When one makes these fantastic claims, that everything that does not fit your reality is wrong, even if a process that has proved successful for hundreds of years says it is correct, a thing called cognitive dissidence is set up in the mind of a child. I believe this often leads to the child falling on the side of superstition, and a scientist is lost. I believe that a whole generation of American scientists have been lost to this attack on science. An attack based on the assumption that it is preferable to get an MBA and oppress a workforce for personal profit, but not ok to challenge ancient superstitions for the sole betterment of the human race.

Let me state I am not anti-religion. I am quite for it and have seen organized religion to a great many wonderful things. I am, however, against the use of religion, or anything else for that matter, solely for the purpose of personal gain, and without respect of what it does to other people. Certainly Christianity tells us not to harm others, that the truth will set us free, and in the example of Jesus, that personal sacrifice is not only expected but necessary.

God may not play dice, but I am thankful every day for the quantum wells that make my life so much more convenient than my parent's.

Egos...

[Rich0]

Ah yes - those wonderful people-skills that I remember from my grad school days.

And - FYI - before you write me off as a mental defect, I was generally considered as being one of the top students in my program, which was at a top-10 university for that program.

Among the many reasons that I left with an MS was because I've never seen so many inflated egos in a confined space. I wouldn't say the majority of my fellow students were that way - but there were so many that it was virtually impossible to avoid them. At my present employer there are certainly a fair share of super-alpha-(fe)male managers, but they are few enough that you can accomplish at least a few tasks without one trying to take credit and you can go through 4/5 workdays without having to personally interact with one.

Other reasons that I left included a lack of faith in my advisor and the project I ended up on, a lack of people who were willing to act as mentors, and the general super-competitive atmosphere where the guy who discovers something first gets 100% of the credit, and the guy who makes a parallel discovery two weeks later is lucky to even get published at all - and will certainly not get a Ph.D. out of it.

I'm all for a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, but I don't work for the sake of working, and I don't believe that most normal people set a goal of spending 100 hours a week working at their careers.

If that's what you want to do, that's fine by me. And I could care less if you want to be a jerk with an inflated ego on the side. Just don't be surprised that nobody wants to be around you. And don't be surprised when taxpayers aren't willing to fund your research. It isn't like most people feel a moral obligation to fork over their hard-earned cash to people whose main goal in life seems to be to prove that they are better than everyone else.

If more people at the top in academics were willing to invest a little time in helping those beneath them understand science, and to help them climb the academic ladder, then perhaps more people would find it an attractive career option. To me, it just seems like a way to be underpaid while having to deal with crazy egomaniacs.

In my present job I don't necessarily work on cutting-edge science, but I do have a little spare time to follow what is going on in the world of science. And, unless I got tenure at a top-20 university I probably wouldn't be paid much more than I am now (not bad considering my salary is likely to continue to rise). I still get to solve interesting problems, and I have coworkers who aren't out to prove that they are better than me - we actually can go out to lunch once in a while and enjoy ourselves...

my 2 cents

[gyratedotorg]

Or would I rather be an M.B.A. and making $150,000 and hiring Ph.D.'s?

it seems to me that if you're only concerned with how much money you're going to be making when you finish school, maybe you shouldn't be going into a technical field anyway. we need more people who love their jobs and do good work, and less people who are only interested in the size of their potential salaries. the dot-com bubble should have taught us that.

More to the point....

[eril]

Do we really want our scientific community to be comprised of people who are in it for the money and attention? Given the choice between the guy looking for financial success and the geek looking to keep scratchin' that curiosity itch, I'm betting all my chips on the curious geek.....every time.

WTF people?!? How'd this even get on Slashdot? With all of the elitist attitudes espoused around here, I'm surprised you'd even consider encouraging the acceptance of bourgeois pricks into a field that should be filled with guys who are doing it because they're fucking CURIOUS!

[/end rant]

Anyway. Yeah, what's up with that?

Re:More to the point....

[bobhagopian]

Do we really want our scientific community to be comprised of people who are in it for the money and attention? Given the choice between the guy looking for financial success and the geek looking to keep scratchin' that curiosity itch, I'm betting all my chips on the curious geek.....every time.

I think you've missed the point, and indeed don't understand the scale of the problem. (This is not a flame, but I do wish to inject some amount of reason into this discussion.)

The major problem here is that there are plenty of people in the world who ARE curious. They're *not *doing it for the money (after all, nobody goes to school until they're 30 years old without making a dime for the money). The point is that many of these curious individuals cannot follow their passions in science because that career is just too unstable and underpaid to support a family with. I'm speaking somewhat from personal experience: until recently, I was planning on taking my bachelor's degree in physics with me to a PhD program. But doing my latest research with a 36 year old postdoc opened by eyes to the fact that, until you become a tenured professor, you're basically kicked in the balls over and over -- as a grad student for 6-7 years, then as a postdoc for several more years, you're underpaid ($0 - $30000) and overworked (80+ hrs/wk). That's discouraging to a lot of people.

For the record, I favor paying scientists more money. Arguably, they do the most important work in this world -- think about where we would be without the Newtons and Edisons of this world. And the funny thing about science is that it's internally regulated -- you'll never get to a well paying job without first proving yourself (that's what a PhD is, after all), and even then, you won't be successful and you won't have your job for long if you aren't a "curious geek" that can actually produce results that people care about.

Re:You're obviously not a foreign student

[timeOday]

Are you sure about your assertion of US taxpayers subsidizing foreign students? I think a lot of schools like foreign students because they often pay full fare.

Re:What does K-12 science education matter here an

[cmorriss]

You're right in that an education is what you make of it, but I disagree that what we have is an abysmal system. If someone doesn't care about school, usually because of the environment in which they were raised, there is little the educational system can do about it. It's a cultural problem and we need to start treating it that way.

Far too many pepople rely on the educational system alone to turn their obnoxious little brats into good upstanding citizens. They don't understand that the educational system is just a tool. It generally takes a good upbringing to get kids to take advantage of it.

Once someone wants to learn and sees the value in a good education, they'll get a good education, even in the "abysmal" system we currently have.

It was a lie in the '80s. It still is.

[Sans_A_Cause]

I'm an American scientist, and I've been through this battle already. For you younger folks, back in the late '80s, many organizations, particularly societies like the American Chemical Society (whose main interest is keeping Ph.D.'s plentiful so the chemical industry can pay them $40K/yr forever) testified before Congress about the upcoming "shortage" of scientists. Many grad students, including myself, were told that this shortage would translate into good jobs when we graduated with a Ph.D. It was a complete lie.

In the early '90s, testimonies and hand-wringings were still going on. Only thing is, those of us who had graduated with a Ph.D. had learned of a new problem. It was called "The Glut". Most places, especially in academia, were averaging 300-400 applications for teaching and research positions. There were postdocs out the wazoo, and most of us were in a holding pattern. I was a postdoc for 6.5 years, trying to find a place to land (I finally did; many of my colleagues stopped trying and went off to sell computers or work for biotech companies as a marketer or salesman). I remember one position that I applied for in academia didn't even respond with a letter. They had so many applications, they just sent out a postcard that began "Dear Applicant:".

The Glut is still here. Don't believe the lies about getting research positions after you graduate. You may do it, but you'll need some luck. The shortage is in graduate students. Every faculty member would like 2 or 3 (or more) graduate students to work on their projects, mostly 'cause we faculty spend all day, every day writing grant proposals to keep our soft-money-funded postions on faculty. And the NIH and NSF budgets are tapped out, meaning the only way I get my grant funded is if my colleague loses his. This breeds a situation where every April, Sept., and Dec., everyone gets nervous, waiting for those grant scores to roll in. If your score isn't good, update your CV. And there's a pretty good correlation between the number of grad students you have and the score you get: more is better.

Science can be a fun occupation. I love it. But don't be deceived into thinking your going to go from graduation to a faculty position in anything less than 6 years, or that you're going to get some cushy job teaching or in academia. Trust me.

another old story

[zogger]

Lee Iococa made sure that his corporation was set up to pay a first year dealer carlot salesman a LOT more than an engineer. And that's the lowball pay structure, it goes way up from there, and it's skewed to the non innovators side. So he wonders why there weren't as many engineers as he wanted? The second point is, professional racing pays better and is more fun for an automotive engineer than working for one of the big car companies. They have more freedom to be creative, and the rewards -in all forms, not just financial-are better.

Here's an automotive engineering example,Smokey Yunick. Worked various pro racing because he truly could be creative, and he got paid well to do it. He even proved he could almost single handedly beat detroit in making a non racing car, but a commuter car that could get fantastic mileage and not be weird, just a normal looking car that worked much better. He did it,built it, proved it worked, that it could be done, when detroit was whining to congress it wasn't possible, and that detroit was being lamer about it,liars basically. Detroit-GM IIRC, offered him literally dick for it in terms of money, a quarter million, it was a joke offer for what he had, so he went back to racing.

These big companies, with a few exceptions, don't want to pay for the class A brains, they want to pay for snakeoil salesmen, because it's a better way for them to make profits, sell the sizzle, which is cheap and easy to do, rather than building a better cow and selling a better steak. They also tend to reward the memebers of their clique, the other managers and sales people, because that's who they grew up with and hung out together with and went to college with. It's a good ole boys network. Why share the pot with people not in your clique? that's what they think anyway. They think anyone not in their cliqie is a loser, or a nerd, sonmeone to make fun of and to soak for everything they can get from them. They put themselves in the position to do that, so they do that. They also go WAY out of their way to make sure the nerds never have an effective union, they keep telling them from day one they are different from the blue collars, they are "white collar" and despite the fact they get treated like the blue collars, the nerds keep thinking they are somehow part of that management/sales clique, even though they never will be, so they get shafted. It's almost impossible for the nerds to use collective bargaining,in most cases,because of that indoctrination, and they also make sure the government-which they control because lawyers and legislators are closer to their clique than the blue collars or nerds-always passes laws that favor them, and no one else, except for the occassional non meaty bone toss.

I am speaking in very general terms now, I know there are exceptions to the rule, but in those general terms that's how I see it being run, and it's been run like that for a long time now.

Re:That is a general problem with our current econ

[Prof.Phreak]

I have a solution: make it illegal for companies to own patents.

Re:What does K-12 science education matter here an

[cleojo42]

Most of the hard science majors I know didn't get there because of their K-12 education.

I wholeheartedly agree. I remember as a child *hating* science classes. Up until 14 I wanted to be a musician, after that a writer.

I went to college to be a science teacher, and was appalled. They concentrate more on the teaching than the science (now, i am not saying that being able to effectively communicate an idea is wrong to learn) but these idiots were getting D's in their science classes. Maybe the problem that no one goes into science is because of this phenomena.

Happily to say, I am pursuing a Ph.D in the sciences. It has nothing to do with my experience as a child. It has everything to do with the women who taught me calculus. She was a real encouragement to me going on to grad school.

And for all those people who say that women don't go into sciences: you should check out the men:women ration at schools of public health. All of the ones in the US have more women.

It's an extinction event!

[sidles]

If you remember the disaster movie "Meteor", a young reporter uncovers a high-level government coverup known as "Ellie", which turns out to be not a sex scandal, but rather an acronym for "Extinction Level Event".

Well, according to NSF statistics, US science and engineering is pretty clearly heading for an extinction-level event!

Here are total doctoral degrees by US citizens (or permanent residents) for the years 1995 and 2002.

1. US PhD Electrical Engineers: 971 in 1995, 506 in 2002 (-> extinction in 2010).
2. US PhD Mechanical Engineers: 563 in 1995, 343 in 2002 (-> extinction in 2013).
3. US PhD Physicists: 1059 in 1995, 586 in 2002 (-> extinction in 2011).
4. US PhD Mathematicians: 771 in 1995, 442 in 2002 (-> extinction in 2011).

The physics and math communities, in particular, need to recognize that companies hiring few American engineers will be hiring no physicists or mathematicians. Conversely, the engineering communities need to recognize that in the long run, US companies need several PhD-level engineers to justify employing even one physicist or mathematician.

The present system is like an ecosystem with plenty of sea otters (the physicists and mathematicians), but far too few abalone (the engineers). All very beautiful, no doubt, except the young sea otters starve to death. Meanwhile, the senior sea otters -- who are in secure possession of resources protected by tenure -- are slow to recognize that an extinction-level event is underway.

Thus, unless dramatic breakthroughs occur, the numbers seem to indicate that a US techno-Ellie is irreversible and inevitable.

Too many para-engineers in software

[Mybrid]

Hi! Happy Saturday!

As someone who holds both a bachelors and masters in computer science from the school of engineering from U.C. Berkeley, one huge problem is too many "para-engineers."

If only licensed engineers were allowed to be employed as engineers then this problem would not exist. The problem is there are too many high-school graduates, history majors, and every other discpline imaginable practicing being software engineers. And this causes untold problems with software because of the lack of formal training.

Yeah, maybe we have too many lawyers, but you know they are all licensed to practice law. A para-legal cannot be hired as a lawyer. A nurse cannot be hired as a doctored.

The problem in computer science is too many hacks are being paid and labeled as engineers when they are not. And yeah, there are lots of good programmers without degrees, but guess what, there could be lots of good lawyers and doctors without degrees too if we didn't insist on licensing them. But as a culture we realize the benefits and trade offs of licensing these professions and the same logic needs to be applied to engineering.

If we don't do this then an engineering degree isn't worth the paper its printed on. Today thousands and thousands of people filling jobs labeled as *engineers* have no formal education or have a degree in a different field.

Either an engineering degree matters or it doesn't.

Re:Too many para-engineers in software

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree the value of formal training is indeed high, I think your logic is rather flawed. For example, you point out that a para-legal cannot be hired as a lawyer, which in all honesty is a shame because as anybody who has been around the legal profession at all will tell you, they do 90% of the work associated with a case. The lawyer is just the mouth for what they did. But you are correct, they can't. Although they most certianly know the law better than the lawyer as they are the ones doing all the research and briefs for their trials!

What the real problem here is society historically has been filled with people who think just like you. What you really wish for, is a strongly hierarchal society and generally, people who have invested a great deal of time and money in asserting their identity and thus, seperating themselves from "common men" often feel greatly threatened/cheated when people who have not gone through this same ritual take a similar "elevated" status within society.

And since throughout history we have in fact lived in a hierarchal/caste based society, thinkers such as yourself have always prevailed...that is until demand is greater than the supply. Once this happens, the requirements on canidates to enter into the upper castes are reduced. But as things counter correct themselves, as they have done in this case, we are back to the same old hieararchy. And within that, there are quite a few people such as yourself, who are speaking based upon really what is only good for people who again, participated in the rituals you did to achieve your status level. Of course, you and people like you always deny this and always will. But it is a fact regardless. So to answer your question, does a Engineering degree matter or not? I would say it is in fact overrated and now more than anytime in history, people like yourself are not as valuable as you once were and neither is your education (although still admirable).

Never before in the history of the world has information been as readily available as it is today. Many of the same things you have learned in your course of self empowerment are in fact, available to the general public free of charge. You boast of your degree, but perhaps you aren't as smart as you thought eh? No...I don't think you are. Enjoy what little time you have left yuppie. Your era is coming to a end.

Re:Too many para-engineers in software

[multiplexo]

someone who holds both a bachelors and masters in computer science from the school of engineering from U.C. Berkeley, one huge problem is too many "para-engineers."

Well, bully for you, what do you want, a fucking pony or something? As someone who holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Washington I can say that categorically you're full of shit. Licensing doesn't exist to protect consumers, it exists to protect the class of people being licensed, as an example look at the Bar, you can be admitted to the Bar in one state but not in another, does this protect people seeking legal counsel? Well, not really, but it does protect lawyers from too much competition, which leads to such things as judges in the state of Texas attempting to ban software from Nolo press because it allows people to write wills without consulting a lawyer (See http://www.nolo.com/texas/index.cfm for more on this) If you had taken a couple of basic political economy classes insetead of wanking your way through some of formal education that you got in CompSci (hint: no one uses Scheme or Eiffel in the real world) you would have learned about how these state sanctioned monopolies work.

Oh, by the way, another reason that your whine really pisses me off, aside from the obvious chip on your shoulder and the snivelling sense of entitlement you carry around because of your degrees (notice that I didn't say "education") is because I consider myself a systems engineer, despite my lack of formal training (well I took courses at the U of Wa, but they were mostly a waste of time, my best training was OJT working in a lab there). Why do I consider myself an engineer? Well, because I designed, procured and managed large scale systems that came in on time on budget and worked in high intensity production environments for years. I worked with a lot of other people who did similar things without any benefit of this formal education that you speak of (What does that consist of anyways? showing up for class, sitting up front, kissing your professor's ass whenever possible?)

Of course if I had a dollar for every piece of shit code that had been written by a CSci graduate who called himself a software engineer, and which burned CPU cycles, leaked memory and hammered my systems into the ground I wouldn't ever have to work again. Formal education is no guarantee of quality in computer code, I'll testify to that from experience, and it's not much of a guarantee of quality in medicine or law either, if it were malpractice wouldn't be the problem it is in those fields.

You write The problem in computer science is too many hacks are being paid and labeled as engineers when they are not. well if you had ever worked in the real world you'd realize that a lot of those hacks have CSci degrees and have studied software engineering, and despite this their codes still sucks ass. Let's face it, if the only way you can get and hold a job is to have the government artificially lock out competition then you're a worthless piece of shit.

Of course there's also the interesting question of what the Professsional Engineer's exam would look like for software engineering. Given the way government works you'd probably have lots of questions about the best way to manage loading data from tapes when programming in Cobol and Fortran. If we had the kind of government regulation that you want to protect your worthless ass then we wouldn't have a computer industry, Hell, it would still be the early 1970s with a bunch of geeks wearing clip-on ties and birth control glassesloading tapes into IBM 360s and entering instructions in assembler via a TTY.

Of course if you don't like it here in the US of A you could always move to Germany and work there, the Germans are really credential happy (I speak from experience having worked there for a year) and might give you the adulation that you think you deserve for getting those shiny Berkeley degrees, and if they don't you can always go on welfare there, which given the obvious welfare mentality that you manifest in your post wouldn't be too hard for you.

Re:After 25 years in engineering I went elsewhere.

[slashdotjunker]

The life as an engineer was (excuse me) pathetic. Why should I spend all my life chained to a desk, living in a cube farm, and putting up with the Boss from Hell who figured he owned me as so much chattel property? Life is much better now.

My life as an engineer is fantastic. I love staying indoors at a desk and exercising my mind. I don't have to suck up to my boss because my industry is a meritocracy. I enjoy the freedom that comes from being able to switch jobs anytime because good people are always in demand. Life couldn't be better.

I am happy that you have finally found your calling in life. But, don't put down my industry. Leave those teenagers alone; let them find their own way. They just might enjoy engineering. I know I do.

No, it's fear of uncertainty...

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

I think this is the primary effect of copyright and patent law. It becomes more important to be the person who controls the output of scientists than it is to be a scientist yourself.

People who specialize in making money are called "businessmen" [or "entrepreneurs," or "the self-employed"]. Their careers require freedom from intervention, and a system of property rights which protects the fruits of their labor.

Oddly enough, the vast, overwhelming majority of almost every population of people to be found in any locale on the face of the earth, at almost any point in human history, want nothing whatsoever to do with freedom. Rather, they choose, of their own free will, to live in a state of slavery, i.e. they choose to be employees, rather than entrepreneurs ["employment" being a polite euphemism for slavery]. As long as Massuh keeps the checks coming every two weeks, they're happy.

Entrepreneurism is terrifying - an entrepreneur never knows where his next meal ticket is coming from, and he lies awake at night worrying about little more than revenue streams [or waking up in a cold sweat when he's had another nightmare about them]. And biweekly paychecks? One of the entrepreneur's greatest worries is not that he won't get a check, but that the checks people write to him will fail to clear the bank.

The left, which would encompass pretty much 100% of all university professors, and a substantial number of those who claim to worship at the altar of the pagan religion known as "science," is terrified of the very idea of freedom - they want nothing to do with it.

But you've got a choice - if you don't like the intellectual property agreement that your employer is trying to shove down your throat, then don't sign it. Take your ideas and set out on your own. Start your own company. Own your own ideas. Tell "the man" to go screw himself.

Of course, the vast majority of people reading this missive won't have the balls to take me up on my challenge. I know who you are - you're the wage slaves who just want Massuh to keep your belly full. Well screw you - move to North Korea and let Kim Jong Il be your fearless leader.

Listen folks, despite what the left would have you believe, you've still got freedom of the will. Exercise it.

Re:No, it's fear of uncertainty...

[EvolutionKills]

Right, we all lack the balls to go out and do independent scientific research outside of an institutional setting--because it's so damn cowardly and slavish to do underpaid scientific research in a laboratory instead of free-lance "street science," which I've heard is the latest entrepeneurial rage. Uh huh...

Unfortunately, here in the real world (you should visit sometime; email me and I'll give you driving directions), much of science absolutely requires the institutional backbone and funding that established laboratories provide. There are some aspects of science that can be capitalized on, and more power to those that make hay with 'em!, but even those niches would be impossible without a tremendous amount of supporting research coming out of universities and other (largely publicly-funded) institutions. So, gosh darn it, we'd still be back in the 1940's--or even more primitive--if it were all up to entrepeneurs. The over-educated, devoted people who bring you modern medicine, biology, physics, computer science, chemisty, and so forth shouldn't be continually underpaid just because they don't own the damn company.

And so long as you're comparing much of the world to ignorant slaves for their working for or in collaboration with larger institutions, maybe you should take that logic a bit further (to its logical conclusion)--why submit yourself to the rule of law at all? If you're such a freedom-loving rebel, unwilling to let anyone boss you around (because it's soooo slavish), then why buy things when you could steal them? Why not just shoot that jerk who cut you off on the freeway? Screw 'em! Nobody's gonna boss you around, right?

Or maybe some of us are willing to be employed rather than employers because we recognize that the specialized skills that we possess require an appropriate environment in which to be employed, and that we are no more slaves for doing so than you are the arbiter of what constitutes religion, you whackjob.

That is not the primary reason

[jobugeek]

It it so John and Jane Doe can treat themselves and tell the doctor what they need. Americans seemed to think pills cure everything. I've read countless articles about doctors who have had patients walk in the door telling them what they need.

The doctors and nurses are the only people who need to know what drugs are available. It's their job.

Why the Education System is So Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

John Taylor Gatto's book The Underground History of American Education explains a lot of the problems with the American educational system.

This Is Your Education. This Is Your Salary

[Ranger]

Check out Philip Greenspun's Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists. It is very insightful. In particular check out the graph that shows the relationship between your salary and education level. The pictures in the Achievement Gallery are just priceless.

another way of looking at it

[Goldsmith]

First of all, if you're in science for the money, you're not going to be getting that PhD. It's simply too hard and too much work to get through unless you really love it. That aside, there are good economic reasons for going into science, particularly physics.

For example, I am currently a physics graduate student. I get paid a little less than $20K a year, but have no fees.

My brother is going to law school. He gets paid nothing and will have around $150K in loans to pay off when he's done.

The balance is that he'll get paid more after he gets out, right? What happens if he can't find a good job? Not all lawyers (or MBAs for that matter) make a lot of money. What happens if he can't find any job? Unemployment among physics PhDs is always very low, almost never higher than 4%. Can MBAs or lawyers say the same?

The numbers of $40K a year for a post-doc may be right for biologists and organic chemists, but many of those guys are being replaced by robots and combinatorial chemistry. That's led to some poor job markets for them. Here are some actual numbers (as opposed to vague generalizations). While you don't make six figures as a physicist, you're doing pretty well.

When it comes down to it, science is changing now in the same way everything else is. Computers are cheap, easy to use and more powerfull, allowing students to be replaced by a few good Labview programs. The revolution in nanoscale characterization allowed by AFM and STM has lead to new, better ways of doing chemistry and biology. Should science NOT use these tools because it means some people are now obsolete?

The article is right on when it takes Universities to task for not teaching the skills which will be needed. Grad student labor is cheap, and some of this equipment is expensive. It's not even that more money is needed. It just needs to be spent smarter. Buying used equipment, testing prototype technology and forming collaborations with other groups to pool resources are ways of providing your research group with cutting edge tools (all of which are used in the lab I work in). Of course, there's nothing wrong with building your own equipment either (what I am spending a Saturday doing, after posting here, of course). In any case, it's dishonest for a University to hand out PhDs to people who are not able to get jobs for lack of training.

To repeat: It's fear of uncertainty.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

...it's that small, entrepreneurial businesses simply can't survive the competition with corporations. Walmart alone has devastated the American heartland, crushing many, many formerly prosperous small-town main streets.

Yet another thing that the entrepreneur must fear: Someone who builds a better mousetrap and sells it at an even more aggressive price.

There's always gonna be something to worry about when you're free: There will always be someone who's smarter, stronger, faster, prettier, or better-financed than you.

People who love freedom shrug these things off, and figure out a way to adapt. People who hate freedom get down on their hands and knees and beg Massuh not to take away their hot grits and chitluns.

Finance

[Mad Martigan]

This is one of the reasons I'm going into the field of finance instead of teaching.

When I started grad school (I'm a second year student in math), they told me, "When you're done you will almost certainly have to teach. Really good students will be able to land a post-doc right when they get out. You .... won't."

Then, after slaving away at a three-year post-doc (or, more ilkely, multiple one-year post-docs), I could maybe get a teaching job. That's a big maybe, too. People fight tooth and nail for teaching jobs.

Even if I could get a job, the pay is relatively low. Don't get me wrong, even bad teachers at mediocre colleges make enough money to get by, but the pay that you're getting for having a Ph. D in Math is lower than you would think is fair for the amount of effort you put into the degree.

So, I've decided to get a job in finance. There's cooler jobs than you think. For example, my bachelor's degree was in math and computer science. Well, there're these jobs called 'quantitative developers' that combine your (very high level) understanding of math with C++ or JAVA development skills. You get to do math and code, and all for pay that is (on average) much higher than what people got at the height of the tech boom in the late '90s. It's not just the money, either. You wouldn't believe how much great theoretical math there is finance. Most academics will tell you that they're in it for the science, and that's why they can put up with lower pay. I say, why bother if you can do the science in the private sector? It's not quite as nice an environment as academia, but it sure pays well enough to help blur the distinction.

With the scarcity of academic positions, people from lots of different fields, such as math, physics, and engineering are heading to the finance sector. Hopefully, I'll be at the front of the pack.

Re:No Bling-Bling in Science.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's good for the society we have, silly.

When you keep people unintelligent they'll work more diligently at their burger-pushing or paper-pushing jobs, because they won't be so nihilistic and disillusioned with the current system.

How to Make Lot's of Money

[schneidafunk]

Really, it does not matter what sort of degree you hold. The key to making a lot of money is to own your own business. Being an employee means you are always making someone else money. Money is just a symbolic representation of value. If you are able to produce value for a massive amount of people, such as a business or entertainer, you deserve massive amounts of money. Being an employee usually means you are providing value to one person, your employer.

A slave to the market

[erice]

Is it any better to be enslaved to the market and your customers than to be enslaved to your boss?

Unless they get lucky, and hit it big, most entrepenuers seems to have a lot less freedom than those those that work for "the man".

It's even worse if your passion is not business. Working for a company means letting someone else deal with that crap. Working for "yourself" means you deal with it and have little time for your own passion.

Nonsense

[GCP]

If a scientist can't fund his own research, he can't do it. If he wants someone else to pay for it, he has to prove that his work is more valuable to that "investor" than anything else that investor could do with his money.

That investor could be a person, a corporation, a non-profit, a government, whatever. It doesn't matter. Any of the above have more things they could do with their money than they have money.

So with this in mind, consider your advice: "Mass disregard for IP laws is the duty of a scientist." There are plenty of countries that exhibit a mass disregard for IP laws. How does their scientific productivity compare to countries with strong IP protection? How much funding do their scientists attract?

People are not usually inspired to invest their own money in scientists who consider it their "duty" to rip off the investor.

(This does not mean that I think that the stronger the IP laws, the better. I think productivity falls off at either extreme, and the US is less productive than it could be because IP laws have gotten ridiculously constraining. The solution is not to disregard the laws and rejoin the third world, though. The solution is to fix the laws.)

Oh really?

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

It's just morally wrong to claim exclusive ownership over something nonrivalrous.

So Wiles shouldn't claim ownership over semi-stable Taniyama-Shimura?

And Hilbert shouldn't claim ownership over the Nullstellensatz?

And Gauss shouldn't claim ownership over Theorema Egregium or Theorema Aureum?

And neither Newton nor Leibniz should claim ownership over the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus?

And Galileo shouldn't claim ownership over Conservation of Momentum?

And Scotus shouldn't claim ownership over the concept of infinity?

And Archimedes shouldn't claim ownership over the volume of solids?

And Hippasus shouldn't claim ownership over the irrationals?

Re:Precisely.

[space2004]

Perhaps erice's point was that unless you are in an environment that is free from competition you *cannot* forego masters. Einstein worked for the Swiss patent office while developing the special theory of relativity, if I remember correctly... do the Swiss own special relativity?

Never been a shortage of engineers

[Wansu]

This article should have been written long ago. It was true then and it's true now. There has never been a shortage of engineers or scientists. There certainly have been shortages of engineering jobs. As the article pointed out, these shortage claims were made by those interested in increasing the supply of workers for the purpose of holding down their wages. What they mean is theres a shortage of engineers at the nice price. By a similar line of reasoning, I conclude theres a shortage of gasoline at the price of $1 per gallon.

Here's Another Avenue

[DocScience4]

I went a different way, probably because I came (back) to academia later in life. Consider, especially if you're in CA, teaching at a community college. Some of the ways it differs: Need a Master's (though some fields - not the technical ones usually - are hiring PhDs who didn't get 4-year slots)...in some more practical fields, maybe not even that Usually no research, it's all about classroom teaching (so liking that helps). What is nice is though that I can pursue my own research. I was also asked to get in on a grant with my alma mater since a lot of grants offer incentives to work with 2-year schools. Faster, less dicey tenure. Yes it's not that high-falutin' but at my age a PhD just didn't make sense. The environment is different (wider range of student abilities, to be sure) but there are some excellent students. The trend here is to redirect some incoming UC/CSU students to the CCs with guaranteed admission after two years as a cost-saving measure, so the trend in numbers and especially quality looks good. I am noticing that we can always use some good people, especially in the technical areas. If you like people and can deal with them, and can live without the support system you get at a 4-year school, look into it. Not as much money, but solid money/benefits. Plenty of time off to pursue other things and a very flexible schedule.

Re:Nonsense (Different AC)

[GCP]

Neither myself nor the other American here have a real familiarity with life in India. Unless "several trips" had unusual duration.

I lived in Asia for many years. I lived in three different Asian countries and traveled frequently (for business and fun) to most of the others.

While I don't experience India the way an Indian would, I have a pretty good feel for cross-country comparisons. I can assure you that anyone who claims that "the vast majority of Americans live in grinding poverty" and then proclaims life in India to be better is either mentally defective or is attempting to take advantage of other people's lack of confidence in their knowledge of "foreign countries" to deceive them for some reason. Perhaps he's one of the virulent strain of Hindu nationalists that have been growing in number over the last several years.

I don't know, but I DO know that his opinions are worthless.

If you want a reasonable Asian comparison with the US in terms of living standards, you would be talking about Japan, Hong Kong, or Singapore, not India, China, Indonesia, etc.

And your comments about the trends in the US and India leading to a meeting in the middle are borderline nonsense because you clearly don't understand the enormous difference between and the enormous inertia of two such huge nations. While it's true that a small sliver of Indians are now solidly 1st world economically (as is true in China), I don't think you can imagine what it's like to have more than a billion fellow countrymen living as they did centuries ago, steeped in leftist "equality by confiscation" dogma, and viewing you with growing envy and hostility--as a pocket ripe for picking rather than as a role model to emulate.

I don't see India and the US "meeting in the middle" anytime in the next century, given the enormous inertia, though I can easily imagine tens of millions of Indians and Chinese (still just a sliver of the total in each country) living better than the *average* American before long.

It may not be lack of Scientists, but thinking...

[meburke]

Although a lot of the threads debate the merits of engineering and other disciplines over PhD programs, and one thread even asks what the use is of Science classes in K-12 education, I see the problem as a lack of good thinking skills: There are not enough people qualified to think through the potential of all the research available from the Scientists we have!

Back in the mid 80's a Physicist from Israel, Eli Goldratt, overwhelmed the manufacturing industries by applying scientific thought to manufacturing. There is tons of raw research out there, and the USA has some pretty good Scientists, so why aren't we seeing this type of thinking applied to other areas of the Economy and Environment? I believe it's because the HABIT of scientific thinking is acquired while we are young, and teaching these habits is mostly lacking in our educational system. I suspect that there would be plenty of demand for PhD's if there were enough thinkers to take advantage of their outputs.

An interesting note, though: I read an article in the IEEE magazine back in the 70's that said something to the effect that that the best balanced ratio between Engineers/Inventors and Pure Scientists was 7/1. If I remember the article correctly, "Pure Science" is the raw material of Engineering.

I wonder what 3M would have to say about this ratio?

Mike