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Ask Slashdot: Advice For Budding Scientist?
New submitter everithe writes "Dear Slashdot, I am nearing the end of my undergraduate years and hoping to continue on in academia, probably focusing on condensed matter physics. Recently I've noticed some alarming pessimism among Slashdotters about the state of science — that fraud is rampant and that people honestly trying to do science are less likely to be recognized and obtain tenure. Obviously I am very interested in doing real and useful science, but am worried that this could conflict with my ability to put food on the table. My question is, how bad is it really, and do you have any advice for how one just starting out might survive in such an environment?"
Those cases are all exceptions. Look around at your department, or the next one over. They're not full of crooks (probably.) The vast majority of upper-level academes are just committed nerds: think about how many cases you've heard of, and then how many universities there are, and how many professors, postdocs, and graduate students at each. Life goes on.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'.
That's your problem (or rather our problem) today. Everything today is subject to patents and liability. Every time some scientist makes some significant progress somewhere, that scientist is limited to several buzz killers like:
- Patents
- Religious implications
- Political complications
- Today's glass-fragile ethics
All these factors severely complicates life for your average scientists, well - nothing prohibits you to come up with the next cure for aids or stop world hunger, but there are many out there that can and WILL stop you from doing so.
To Open Source science however, making sure that formulas can't be patented, opens up the freedom we once had in science, the freedom to spread ideas, freely combine formulas and derivative material any way we needed to get that new idea working - is nearly long gone. That is why it's so important not to let greed hinder progress, that's easier said that done in our world today with all the super powerful "world health org - endorsed" pharmaceutical companies vigorously defending their purchased patents while half the planet is either starving or dying from not being able to afford it, while affordable techniques already exists, but is prohibited by patent issues.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
....probably focusing on condensed matter physics....
Well now. You're prepared for a seven figure career on Wall Street..
Sonny, don't waste your life in academia! You'll be 50 before you do anything worthwhile. And in the meantime, you'll be teaching an ever dwindling group of people who want to learn your subject or worse - engineering students.
On Wall Street, you'll be a god! You'll rake in the big bucks, great cars, great women, great math, and people will be impressed!
Condensed Matter? They'll ask, "You mean like my condensed orange juice? Or condensed milk - in a can?"
Yeah, get laid describing that! OTOH, "I work on Wall Street! I also have disposable Porches. Well, not disposable. I donate them to poor slob doctors.'
"Oooooooo! Take me back to your place now!"
See? And when you make it big, retire with your money and finance your own research - no need to publish or perish, no bullshit classes to teach - no engineers, no begging for funding - unless Tropicana wants help, and best of all, fucking young chicks won't get you fired! It'll get you promoted!
Come with me to the Darkside! UNLIMITED POWER! POOOWWWWWWWWEEEEEERRR!
Most of the talk of fraud is from religious nuts, climate change deniers etc. so just ignore these idiots.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
They say that evloution can't be true because the bible says it. And that global warming must be wrong because they like driving an SUV, and because they know they are nice people they cannot be impacting the environment. Most people you meet within science won't be at all like that.
If it's what you want, go for it. You may struggle for a few years early on, very few jobs are awesome (pay wise) to start but over time it will get better. Also remember, you're never too old to try something new (with the exception of a few career fields like fighter pilot), if your dream job doesn't work out, you may be able to find another one that you enjoy but never realized existed (science majors have many more options open to them than say, business majors). Success is never guaranteed, but if you don't try, you'll never get anywhere.
I too would one day like to be an Academic Scientist, and maybe I will get there, I am just taking the extra long route right now ;)
Best of luck to you.
Find great mentors. I recommend Richard Feynman.
You can't go wrong getting his perspectives on science (besides his actual science, which has some relevance to condensed matter physics). I don't know anyone who describes learning about nature better. If what he says doesn't resonate, you might consider leaving the field. If it resonates, you may find you don't care about other people's opinions as much and just enjoy the pleasure of finding things out.
There are many hours of videos of him online free.
Cheating and fraud is not rampant, and has never been. The vast majority of scientists never go close to any unethical line. Most cheating is likely found out too, sooner or later, and sooner the more flagrant and potentially important it is. Your career will not be affected in any way by the existence of fraud in the field.
What is a concern, however, is the sheer amount of young researchers and the relative lack of positions for them. Academia is an up-or-out kind of system, and at every step of the career ladder you are competing with dozens or hundreds of other qualified people. To put it bluntly, do go into science as a career if that where your hearts desire lies, but also make sure you have some idea of what to do instead if it doesn't work out.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Scientists are humans too... any bad behavior you've seen in people, you can find in scientists. I doubt that's any more or less true today than ever. But that doesn't mean that training your mind to use the tools of science won't be incredibly valuable. I had a great experience in academia getting my PhD, but ended up leaving academia right afterwords. What I learned has proven valuable, and given me opportunities to do some original science, but more importantly to have an impact and in a small way push the course we're taking as humans toward rational choice rather than whatever it is you call the alternative.
While I can't provide much specific information, I can tell you some general advice.
Background: My father is an internationally prominent plant scientist and former air pollution researcher. He's also worked at several universities in important positions (department head, etc.). One things that he's mentioned repeatedly (if not often) is the fanatical importance that most scientists and university personnel seem to place upon what's "accepted." Bluntly, this is a pretty blatant problem of inflated egos (endemic to universities and such, in general), but highly educated people are also quite good at pretending they're being rational, rather than emotional about decision-making. The essence of the problem is that if you come up with an idea that's contrary to the current "status quot" belief, and if you promote it shamelessly (as you should), you'll prick the egos of others and be ostracized, criticized, and (if possible) discredited. Furthermore, the success of a scientist seems to be about 40% skill/talent and about 60% political adeptness. Of course, an ethical and self-aware scientist will put away his pride and fear and publish good work regardless of what others think--and sometimes that will pay off in the end. Below is how it might do so.
I can't provide specific examples of theory-based conflict off the top of my head, but I can illustrate the power of politics (i.e. university politics, scientific community politics, etc.) in science by noting that because my father was able to obtain more grant money than his superiors at UC Riverside, the university decided to close down the department that he headed: the air pollution research department. Of course, this meant a prolonged job hunt and a big move for my dad and his family (including me). (UC Riverside's leaders thereby got rid of the "troublemaker.") If you aren't aware, Riverside is about 60 miles outside of LA and obviously has air quality problems to rival nearly anywhere else. A lesson to be learned from this is that no matter how good a scientist you are, and no matter how good you are at procuring what you need to do good work, ultimately it's the ego of those who provide you with land, labor, and capital that will determine how successful you are. Therefore, it's proven extremely important to foster good will amongst those who can help you do good science. The ethical way to do this (as far as it's been demonstrated to me) is to use your science to help people with real-world problems as much as possible, and show others that helping you is in THEIR best interests.
My dad now works as a farm adviser (associated with UC Davis), and it's proven very useful to go out of his way to help his "client base" (farmers, primarily) see the value of what he does by helping them to increase their production, and thereby their personal wealth. Essentially, it's good to do a good job, but it's better to "go the extra mile" to bring your good work to those who can make profitable use of it. This strategy has seen my father summoned (from the US where he lives) to China, Italy, Chile, Brasil, Uruguay, Japan, and probably others that I don't recall. By inventing means to help farmers grow their crops cheaper and more reliably (including new methods of testing for nitrogen levels without a mass spectrometer), he's made himself indispensable to the industries and institutions (universities, etc.) that he serves. It hasn't made him "rich," but it has given him job security and a good living for his family.
So, the bottom line here is something like:
Do the best possible work you can, but make sure it's actively helping people who need it. That way, when you annoy the scientific community or your academic "superiors," you'll already have people to guard against you being politically maneuvered out of position, since losing you will also cost them money and other resources. Science for the sake of science is good and useful (eventually), but in order to keep it up, you have to provide others with very good reason to help you keep at it.
I hope that helps.
--Dane
Obviously I am very interested in doing real and useful science, but am worried that this could conflict with my ability to put food on the table.
Pick any one.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
"The squeaky wheel gets the most oil", and the words "The vocal minority" seem to apply here.
There are rare cases of scientific fraud which bring out the doomsayers who you'll find pessimistically posting in every article. The reality is there are hundreds of thousands of academics around the world doing real science that brings real benefits to our lives every day. Their results alone should be proof that you can make survive in that chosen industry.
This is not specific to science but anything and everything. Many of the people others here claim to do bad work don't see themselves that way and see things differently. Also many of the people telling you things are bad are themselves doing substandard work in the eyes of others.
Are things really as bad as you heard? Yes they are. They're even worse. But don't attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance. And laziness... ironically mental laziness while as bad as physical laziness is harder to detect and often goes unnoticed - and ironically it happens to frequently be practiced by those who are far from physically lazy...
This advice may not work for you (again depending on your view of the world and priorities): if you at all can, try to separate and isolate things you are really passionate about from your work - that way you remain in control of things that matter and don't have anyone telling you how to do things, are not accountable to anyone but yourself, and don't have to compete with anyone. You can focus on your projects and ignore distractions.
Don't Become a Scientist. It isn't worth it.
Want a PhD in physics? Check this out:
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html
I left academia when I discovered just how bad capitalism was.
I don't want to contribute to a society which really needs instead to be neglected and implode upon itself so we can rebuild on more humane foundations.
Don't be an "ambitious" part of the problem: withdraw your labour. If everyone intelligent did it, things would change.
There is a large community of scientific bloggers out there (most are in the life sciences, but there are a few in the physical sciences also), at all levels (grad student, postdoc, tenure track, tenured). A lot of them a pseudonymous, and offer very candid perspectives on their careers, and a lot of useful career advice. Be warned however, that you may not like what you find. Jobs are scarce, they often don't go to the people that "most deserve" them (whatever that may mean), and those that do get them find that they're often really not a lot of fun at all. If, after getting a feel for the reality of life as an academic scientist, you still really want to be one, just go for it -- I am.
There is a fair bit of nasty backstaby fighting in some subfields, but maybe you could just avoid such subfields.
There is a much larger problem that real academic science jobs aren't nearly numerous enough accommodate the glut of PhDs. Anyone studying a STEM degree should plan on "selling out" to industry after their PhD or first post-doc. If possible, avoid the subfields that industry doesn't care about.
If you find yourself with a PhD in a not particularly applicable subfield, then you're basically faced with several choices :
(1) Retool back into an applied subfield. (2) Accept a teaching position at a crappy school that doesn't want you "wasting time" on research. (3) Emigrate to a poorer country who's university system is still growing. If you emigrate, then plan on staying permanently, you'll lack the financial resources to retire in the first world after you raise kids or whatever.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I think some clarity is needed on that phrase. Are you actually looking for bare necessities or some unspecified level of comfort? My family (two adults, two children) never want for food, shelter, and a reasonable* level of entertainment with ~$36,000 per year (total household income).
*noone is spoiled, but noone has any excuse to be bored.
Someone more insightful will likely bring better discussion to this on the other topics.
30 years ago, when I was a grad student, a visiting professor advised me to study neutrino oscillations. He told me that in that case I could include some solar physics in my grant proposal. Then I would be able to include the word "fusion" many times in my grant proposal, which he said would help me get grants. Why? Because Harwell laboratories just made some big discovery in "hot" fusion that put the US far behind. The NSF was going to throw a lot of money at anything to do with fusion in order to catch up. If that's not fraud I don't know what is.
To me the funniest part of the fraud, is Michio Kaku's first book on string theory. Seems he lifted a some stuff from a seminal paper on BRS quantization. How do I know? He didn't lift stuff from the erratta they published a bit latter. That's right he made the same errors/typos they did. This is one of the faces of modern physics.
Let me put it this way. Look at your advisor. In 30-40 years since he achieved tenure, he will retire. How many grad students will he advise? 3-4 on the low side, 10 or more if he is on the enterprising side. That means that there will be at least 3 people and possibly ten people competing for his job. Yes. there will be some growth, but do you expect that there will be three times the number of researchers in your field in 30 years? If not then there will be a job shortage. Those who are willing to commit fraud, and can get a way with it will always have a leg up.
My one piece of advice if you absolutely want to go into research is find a particular topic and subtopic that industry is likely to care about now and in the future. If that is the case then jobs created in industry will help absorb some of the crop of PhDS in the area. Further, if the research is intresting to industry, they will provide some of the grants. So even in academia you will not have to rely soley on the government for your grant money.
I'm in the sciences and work predominantly with physicists and engineers. Like any field, yes there are problems and annoyances with working in the sciences. Sometimes there are budget issues on R&D spending. Sometimes it's salary (I think a lot of good science professionals in industry are underpaid when compared to other folks given their training and contribution to the bottom line). But at the end of the day, it's about doing something that you're passionate about. If you really enjoy it, then go for it; you're only 22 once - it only gets more difficult to get into academia as you get older. Besides, even if you don't make it, or do but find out it's not for you, then you can always move on to something related outside of the ivory tower.
and so risking repeating others, it seriously isn't that bad. There's a fashion for showing how cynical you are, and how the world's going to hell and everyone's on the make and blah blah blah. It really isn't particularly bad. What you do have is a *lot* of politics, which circles around getting funding if you're a professor, and circles around getting postdoctoral positions if you're not. This does lead to both a conservatism -- which, regardless of what people might tell you is the valid approach for science; something has to be tested to oblivion for people to believe it, even if that means you're likely risking your career doing something too whacky too young -- and to a regrettable amount of brown-nosing and nepotism. There's also a distressing focus on publishing and getting citations, so if you work in a field with a lot of interest but with relatively few people you'll struggle to attract as much attention as someone who picked an easier course. What I've found increasingly annoying recently is that my career is being judged by anonymous referees on journals who clearly just don't know what they're talking about -- I get the very strong impression that they're PhD students very early on in their PhDs -- and I find that offensive. But the point I would make is this is no different from any other field and any other job, and at least in academia you can be sure that the people you're working with are at least as smart as you are. Except some of the referees.
From my experience in academia -- ten years now since I started my PhD -- the people you'll encounter are very smart, dedicated, professional in their attitude to their work; but you'll have to play the game to a certain extent, attending conferences, networking, making sure the right people know who you are, work in fields which are attracting funding but which aren't glutted or flashes in the pan (in my field that was probably braneworld cosmology; it attracted enormous funding for about five years or so and then it died out, and people who focused exclusively on braneworlds during their PhD find it a bit tough to get new positions), and make sure you put a professional face on all your work, and that you can always defend every choice you've made and every bit of work you've done. So, no different from any other job you want to do well in.
As for money, no, this isn't the best-paid job, but I get extremely irritated when people complain about it, because it's also really not that badly paid, and we get fantastic benefits. Unless you're unlucky with your lab you have fairly flexible hours, you're doing a job you love (and you better had, because if you don't love it you'll be very much better off doing something else), and there's enormous opportunity for travel, which is fully funded. If you're lucky you get generous allowances while you're away, too. We got an absurd amount to visit Toronto when there was a conference there in the mid 2000s -- something like $60 a day to eat. So we ate cheap during the day and had plenty in the evenings for a big meal and some drinks. I think we even ended making money on it...
So basically I'd say it's no worse than any other field. It can be very political given the funding situation, but that happens anywhere and in any job, and generally you've got the advantage that your boss isn't a moron, which is sometimes hard to say if you pick other career options.
Alarming pessimism is the defining trait of Slashdot culture... Science is like any field, and the majority of scientists are like the majority of other professionals - there is plenty to complain about, and plenty to be thankful for. If you want to see how it really works, I suggest trying to attend a small conference or summer school. The Les Houches schools are very good if you can go abroad, otherwise a school which is at least two weeks and has fewer than one hundred participants, mostly students, is ideal. You will meet people doing similar things to what you will be doing in the near future if you stay in physics, and you will learn a lot about the field beyond the textbook and canonical examples level of undergraduate studies. Which is not to disparage the textbooks - if you don't have Altland and Simons' book you should get it, it's fantastic.
Most of these problems occur in "sciences" such as psychology or sociology. As a physicist, myou have little to fear.
I'm on my second post-doc in bioinformatics and had to move to Asia to find work at all. There are a lot of nights where I'm lying awake at 3am with cold fear in the pit of my stomach wondering how I'm going to feed my family a couple years down the road. And it's a good week when I can make it to Thursday or Friday before the frustration of relentless failure and exhaustion of 10+ hour days have me wishing I'd never been born.
But my advice would be the same as I'd give to someone contemplating a career in acting. Do it if you really love acting/science - not just for the prospect of fame or glory or money or women or whatever - because it's extremely unlikely that you'll be one of the lucky few who makes it to the top. And be aware that it' not not just you who will suffer for the long hours and low pay: it's going to be a rough ride for whoever you happen to marry and whatever children you happen to have.
"I mean the people when you look at them or talk to them it's like there clueless and their mind is off in outer space.And even a simple conversation seems like something their not capable of,whats up with them."
I swear there is another, even larger thread about this same issue. Maybe more people are just waking up to this. When you're in a place where people are waiting or in transit in large groups, a Subway, a Bus station, etc. in checkout lines in stores, at amusement parks in long lines, etc.
(I am not promoting or suggesting you or anyone watch one or any of the following films. I haven't since I've awoken and I intend to avoid them from now on):
Films that have always bothered me when considering what you've said, in the real world:
* They Live: but what if he was going *too* far and these *aliens* were just possessing the people and he saw the evil which was front and center while the human was "asleep" (Matrix possible connection) in the background of the mind?
* Truman Show: if not "one" individual, what of "millions" all duped by another race?
* Dark City: what if not only the "dead" were/are being used as vessels, but living ones
as well? (remember "Dax" from ST:DS9? and her "parasite" like being inside her?)
Something interesting if you should ever watch Dark City, potential spoiler,
one guy who "woke up" was concerned about "them" getting to him, so he found
a way out, and he jumped in front of a train to his death..
if you go frame by frame around the time or after he jumps in front of the train,
or press pause exactly at the right moment (it's difficult to spot if you use
pause) there is a poster on the wall, where one normally wouldn't be in real
life, and it mentions HELL, I forget what it says exactly, but HELL is mentioned
on the poster. It's been a long time since I've sat down with Dark City, and
honestly I won't again, it's too jarring to the mind once you've explored all of
this Illuminati crap.
* Matrix: In my opinion the movie is a lie, IMOthe red pill symbolises the opposite, being
pushed into a frame of mind or (sub)reality in which you are a puppet and controlled.
vs. "awakening" to truth, instead you are "deceived" through lies. Symbolism of
the creature taken from Neo could be related to a soul or more likely a protective
(holy) spirit, extracted by Satanists. The whole "Matrix" world, when viewed in
reverse (no, I don't mean watching it from ending to beginning) and perverted *for*
Satanist world-view/goals is eye opening, the same with Dark City. This movie only
bothers me, not for the fake/real awakening/reality concepts but in that I feel
the whole movie, IMO is a lie and the real meaning is perverted, kind of like..
* Fight Club: On many levels this movie bothers me, but I see the dark female character in the
movie as an evil angel which is involved in the split of the two identities of
the one leading role. In the same way I perceive her role in the film I see the
same, or feel the same vibe for the role of the female evil creature in the movie..
* The Ninth Gate: both the "odd" female role in this and in Fight Club shout out to me in
that they are both playing a similar or the same role. Please don't watch
this movie, I'm sorry I ever did.
#
This one, not so much as the method of alien attack as for how it sometimes "feels" for the person played by NK, in public once they've awoken to the aliens around them and how they act, or rather what actions the aliens DON'T display:
* The Invasion (I) (2007) | Nicole Kidman in lead role
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427392/
Tucker: When you wake up, you'll feel exactly the same. (possible tie-in to the movie, "Dark City")
"As a Washington psychiatrist unearths the origin of an alien epidemic, she also discovers her son might be the only way it can be stopped."
Yorish: I say that civilization is an illusion, a game of pretend. What
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and really like learning more on this matter. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more details? It is extremely helpful for me. kamagra
. . . the state of Society, less so . . .
Actually, the state of science is in the state it always is . . . unknown. That is why we need scientists to at least be able to chip away at some pieces of the Grand Puzzle.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The amount of money you'll be able to get in academia depends vastly of where you are, who you work with, and what you do.
Assuming you're in the US, it will vastly depend on which university you are in. Try to get close to a team in a prominent university. Getting a good job in academia is mostly a matter of relations.
Runaway!
Seriously, there are lots of great careers for someone in your position to pursue, why go into something where the deck is completely stacked against you? Even if you do succeed it will take longer, and not be to the level of where you could have been in an another career track. Take it from someone who has been through that ringer, if you do go for a PhD it should only be because you have a plan for an immediate exit from academia when you finish it (i.e. you are just "getting your union card").
The fact that you are questioning tells me you might not truly want this, and the only, only time I would ever suggest someone follow this track is if they have an unbelievable burning desire for it. That's what it will take!
"I'm not afraid" you say? You will be.
Your accusation of thoughtcrime is based solely on doublethink...
As a disclaimer, my undergraduate degree and PhD were in chemistry, rather than physics, and in the UK, not the US.
When I started my PhD I was planning on staying in academia. By the end of it I was desperate to leave it behind forever. Organic chemistry is somewhat notorious for having some very strange ideas about what constitutes an acceptable work/life balance. It's generally accepted (and emphasised most strongly by the more successful and/or ambitious groups) that as a PhD student or a post-doc, your work is your life. Six days a week is standard, and if you're not still in the lab by at least 7 o'clock in the evening then you're a slacker. As an aside, this leads to extremely poor time management practices, since the accepted solution to any perceived problem is "throw more lab hours at it"; this is partially due to the nature of the field and organic chemistry still being a touch unpredictable and requiring large amounts of experimental work to offset this, but it's an endemic part of the working culture. It also leads to people being in the lab just to be seen to be in the lab, rather than using their time productively. It's ridiculous.
There was a study commissioned by the Royal Society of Chemistry a few years back looking at why chemistry had such a poor retention rate of women. Physics has a low proportion of female academics, too, but then it has a relatively low proportion of female undergraduate students. Chemistry, on the other hand, has roughly equal male and female intake at undergraduate level, but the further up the ladder you go the further the ratio becomes skewed in favour of men. So what's up with chemistry? The conclusion was that the field fosters tribal attitudes to adversity (your PhD is a trial by fire!) and very masculine support systems, and that long term prospects are not very conducive to family life. I remember reading a related quote from a US professor which, to paraphrase from memory, said: "I can give you a list right now of all my former [chemistry] students who had a good handle on their career prospects. They're in my 'recommendation letters to medical schools' folder."
Funding is short for post-doc places and shorter for academics. But there's always industry jobs, right? Wrong. The jobs barely exist. Where they do exist, they're poorly paid, unstable and have poor promotion prospects. Anecdotally, when I was looking for jobs at the end of my PhD the going rate for an organic chemistry industry job (post doc experience preferred) was around £22-24k. That's less than what a sociology student going for any of the generic graduate schemes at a thousand different companies can expect to get straight out of their undergraduate degree, and with less opportunities for advancement to boot.
So if you want to have a life outside of your work, pursue hobbies or outside interests, start a family, buy a house, be relatively financially comfortable - a career in chemistry (I won't generalise to "science", that would be overreaching) is a very, very poor choice. It won't change, either, because there will always be someone who will be willing to work 12 hour days 6-7 days a week for the prospect of just one more publication. Is it worth it? That's obviously up for individuals to decide, but depressingly enough the smartest thing I could have done with 9 years of scientific training at world class research institutes was to use it as a springboard to get the hell out.
I'm much happier now.
For the past 15 years I've had an, let's call it unusual, job working in the astronomy department at the University of Arizona. First as a student employee (research assistant) and now for a private start-up, though my "office" unofficially remains on campus.
So, I've seen a lot of the goings on in the department, and while I'm certainly not plugged into the faculty grapevine, I see what goes on.
Fraud? No. It's a friendly and cordial place to work really. If there has been any fraud, it has been either very minor or done by people who weren't around very long. But, astronomy is not like physics or biology. Sure, the grants are still very competitive, but it is expected that you will be looking for the unknown, so somewhat fanciful ideas aren't immediately shunned. Maybe you wont get to use your first choice 10m telescope, but there are many others available.
The state of astronomy is changing, though. I had a lengthy chat with my boss about this recently. He's about to turn 80, so he's been at this since the Apollo days. Back then, space research got a lot of funding, but that's not true any more. Often, to get a grant you need to try to show how this idea of yours could conceivably help industry. The problem is that a lot of astronomy falls into the fundamental research category. You just want to see how the universe functions. It is a lot harder to get money for that these days. There are subcategories where it is easier, though. I work in the adaptive optics part of the department and this has obvious uses for, among others, the military. This means you can potentially get funding from the defense department, they get something they want, and you still get to do astronomy.
Having said all of that, do read what a lot of others have posted about the scarcity of jobs for scientists in academia. It's not good. My position is somewhat unique (in both good and bad ways that I wont get into here), so I haven't had to deal with this yet. And perhaps astronomy is somewhat more fortunate than regular physics in that there are fewer students trying to get PhDs, but getting a permanent job still isn't easy.
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
I got a PhD 30 years ago. In Physics. I saw the rampant bandwagon trend and decided it wasn't for me. The job interviews were of two types: 1) Can you get enough money to cover your pay and more to pay the University, and 2 ) Would you like to work in Weapons? I changed my career path to straight programming
and have done OK ( food, helping people accomplish their goals for small businesses ), but could've done better if I hadn't been so repulsed by the cynical attitudes,
manipulative management, and the bandwagon trend. I have continued to do minor research ( theoretical, of course ) as a hobby, which is surprisingly rewarding
without the pressures ( publish or perish, tenure, grant research, military research project goals, egos of those who build reputations to enhance their grant
probability, in-house politics and drama). I chose not to support or participate in any of the military industrial complex projects, or the insanity of the tenure-seeking,
grant-generating University system. There are good scientists in both, but they, too have joined in and seem a little less than happy with the trade-offs.
In short, choose what you can live with, be honest with yourself, and be very careful about the bandwagon.
what Sheldon would say about this
Your first mistake is asking slashdot. The typical slashdot reader thinks he has the IQ of Einstein, Feynman and Dirac combined, but in reality his knowledge is limited to how to make EMACS compile on OpenBSD.
Try out an actual physics oriented community. Reddit has a few: http://www.reddit.com/r/physics http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience. I'm sure there are plenty more.
One academic per family is enough.
Gently reply
that's all
I spent a good number of years during undergrad and grad school working in physics, specifically scanning tunneling microscopy and later on, studying optical and electromagnetic properties of semiconductors. I did make it all the way through my Ph.D., however, I too have left the field of academia. I had an awesome time, met some amazing people, and got to play with and build some very cool instrumentation and technology. I don't regret the decade or so I spent working in the field as it was a tremendous learning expierence. I'm one of those crazy people who believe that education,discovery, and learning should be experienced by all and in abundance. Physics in general, and CM experiment in particular requires you to learn so many different skills; CAD, machining, chemical handling, carpentry, plumbing, electrical system design, building lasers, programming, vacuum systems, cryogenics... The list goes on and on. It's all a lot of fun, especially if you like tinkering and designing and building as I do.
However, you asked about opportunities in the field of science; the practice of science. Ultimately, I found the career opportunities to be too limited. As many have mentioned here, the field us very competitive. This is not in itself a terrible thing, however, when resources (and salaries) are scarce, one needs to work extremely hard and be extremely talented to land well paying positions. Many colleagues and friends of mine, brilliant people mind you, work incredibly hard to find a good position, and even some of the brightest never really find satisfaction.
I may sound a tad pessimistic, and I don't mean to discourage anyone from entering the field. I truly believe that it is vitally important for society and humanity that we have a vibrant and active scientific community. However, I would encourage someone to go into the field only when they have the passion for their chosen discipline. Academia has its share of joys and druggery, like any modern workplace environment, but the people whom I've seen succeed live, breathe, and love their work. Thus is a critically important success factor, and I cannot stress this enough. Passion for your chosen field is a necessary (but insufficient) ingredient.
I didn't have it, the combination of passion and talent for my field. I gave it a try, but it wasn't for me, and I took a seemingly random turn to IT consulting and am now in charge of IT and consulting services at a small software company. I'm happier than I could have ever imagined with my career choice.
Bottom line, if you have the will, there is something there for you to find. Go for it, find your niche, become an expert in it, if it is for you, you won't regret it.
It's not pessimism, it's the law of averages. Not everyone is a straight A student (even if they got straight As) and all things being equal, most people are average. When confronted with A student problems these people will tend to take shortcuts, lie, manipulate, and coerce. This is simply human nature, isn't it? Everyone going out into the workforce has to come to grips with reality -- it's not just you.
Science is not in trouble, people are just starting to realize what it's always been.
High-stakes science will have some serious egos and real fraud. The bigger the egos, the bigger the problems, usually. Low-stakes science will have pessimistic individuals who believe that the sky is falling on them at any moment. All levels of science will reside in the gray area between fact and fraud. Sometimes they will find things that they wish were true, and sometimes going for the lowest bidder will limit the quality of results.
Seriously.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I know young scientists tend to be a bit in the dark about sex and suchlike, but really! Budding is not the way that mammals produce offspring.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Recently I've noticed some alarming pessimism among Slashdotters about the state of science
So, you are going to make career decisions based on the mindset of a subset of the slashdot readership? For actual advice I would say do what you love and the rest will work itself out.
I'm not really sure where you have gotten the impression that fraud is rampant in science, except perhaps by confusing Slashdot with a real news source. At least in the field where I am a graduate student, Neuroscience, fraud is rare to non-existent. I would be much more worried about the political climate for funding. Depending on your field, software patents could also become a concern in the future.
People don't do advanced degrees like a PhD for the money (which isn't that great) or the recognition (which is hard to come by) but because they love the work.
Basically, if you love doing it, do it. If you hang in there, things will probably work out. If not, find something else to do with your life. A while ago I summed up in a blog post my thoughts on doing a PhD: http://computational-intelligence.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/hang-in-there.html
Just my $0.02.
You will see sciences ugly side eventually, and, if your successful, you will see it often. Put your big boy pants on and suck it up.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Whatever you do, avoid doing postgraduate (or postdoctoral work) in Asia at all costs. Fraud is a big fucking deal, especially in China, Japan and Korea (and in that order). If you're in .us/.ca/.uk/.au, you're probably fine. Much of Europe is fine too, particularly France and Germany.
Good luck.
Just go for a PhD and think about an academic career again once you are in your last year. In my experience, you will be disillusioned about science within 4-6 months. Most projects don't work and most PIs have unrealistic expectations and no time for supervision. Salaries suck and long-term career prospects suck, in all fields. There is a lot of jobs in competitive fields but cut-throat competition and no jobs in the other fields. Also I think that fraud is more widespread that a lot of academics would like to admit but it remains anecdotal and it will certainly not have any impact on your career prospects if you are honest. This being said, this is I think the best and most stimulating job in the world (or at least one of them). And I personally work from 9.30 till 9.00 every weekday and some hours over weekends.
My best advice is to consider it as seriously as you would any other job. It helps to have a clear career plan and know where you are going. Too many students start thinking it will just happen. Once you know in which field you want to work, seek advice about the best labs and apply there. Visit as many labs as you can. Don't be afraid about moving to other countries/states and if an excellent opportunity presents itself outside of what you initially considered, take some time to think about it. The most important things are (1) that you choose a project that you like, (2) that the lab where you work is full of nice people and (3) that your boss is really famous in his field, not necessarily in that order. Don't go for second grade universities, it is not worth it. If you want your academic career to be full of opportunities, you need to do your PhD in one of the top 50-100 best universities of the world and in a really good lab for your field. That will keep most doors opened and put you in the most stimulating environment. This is not to say that good research is not done outside of these but simply that you are guaranteed to get maximal exposure to foreign ideas and people.
I'm just about to start a tenure track assistant professorship this summer at a research university. Yes, it was a long road to get there, and it continues to be one. For every undergrad that I've mentored, I've done everything I can to discourage them from going into academics. IF there is anything else you can see yourself doing that will make you happy besides being a professor, I would recommend it. It is a lot of thankless work, there is lots of competition, and no guarantee of making it. Getting there requires some luck, being good at politics, and being very good at what you do (hacks are recognized pretty quickly). IF there isn't anything else you can envision yourself doing that will make you happy, then go for it. Just remember that the reward is waking up and doing what you want to do every day (and I mean every waking moment of every day). Though there are many difficult people with whom you have to work, most people are fantastically smart, interesting, and passionate. For me, this was one of the two most important things for becoming a prof (I had spend 5 years in industry as a scientist and was bored silly by my coworkers' water cooler conversations). The other is the opportunity to think up and work on hard problems that no one else had ever done before.
My dad is also an academic. Watching his path was quite inspiring for me, through I didn't appreciate all he had done until I was set on doing the same. He worked wherever he could that would allow him to write grants and do the work he wanted to do. It wasn't until he was 50 that he landed his first profship. He's now been a prof for over 15 years, works harder than before due to department responsibilities, graduate students and post docs, and loves every minute (almost). That showed me that if you keep at it long enough, eventually things would work out.
If you decide to go for the academic life, good luck and enjoy every step along the way. Just don't worry too much about the sad state of affairs for doing basic research.
Some fields are more likely to be fraudulent.
You can't really fake physics (at least I think), so I think you'll be fine on that aspect.
Although getting tenure job IS difficult.
My department (biological sciences) just went through a faculty candidate search this year.
We have two positions open and each position received 200+ application. So expect very high competition.
These people were all highly qualified good scientists, each has done 1-2 postdoc, etc.
That personally got me discouraged and I'm trying to go to MD/PhD to have some back up plan.
Now, I am in a different field, but I think I can give some hints.
First of all, people often want to see things as fraud/not fraud. But that is rarely true. Scientific work has different degree of rigidity depending on who does it and what the goal is. You can see the scale as something like "Fraud", "Criminal negligence", "Bad study", "Meh", "Good study", "Impressive study" and "This should be in nature/science/what-ever-the-top-publication-of-your-field-is". You have to consider the whole scientific process to see where a paper falls. Even if you do flawless statistics and report everything in detail your study can be crap if you choose the wrong methods. What would be fraud from a skilled researcher might just be an oversight from a less skilled one.
Secondly, this is such a tiny, unimportant, part of why you are getting into science/getting a PhD. If I was to give you any advice when you are getting into science it would be the following:
1. Make sure you love the field. If you are not ready to spend a whole weekend in the lab sweating while everybody else is out having fun it's not a very good path to take. Overtime is pretty much the norm where I work.
2. Make sure you love your adviser. He/she can make or break your career. And you are going to spend more time with him/her than your girl/boy friend, should you have one, over the next 7 years.
3. Make sure you have a backup plan. A majority of those with a PhD does NOT work in academia. You need to know stuff that lets you survive outside a university. Management, economics, applied science... Pretty much anything will do, as long as you can go out the doors and feel confident that somebody out there will hire you.
4. Remember that you are investing many productive years into this. Statistics says that your lifetime earnings will go down. Be ready to see your friends that went out in industry earn twice as much as you do.
Bored with your life? Nothing makes life more interesting than a combination of religion + paranoid schizophrenia! Sign up today!
I seriously doubt that you will ever be challenged putting food on the table. You might have trouble buying new Beemers and the like. But if you are a good scientist chances are that you will be very much sought after and have job security as good as any super star in any field. Build a big name and you will be an asset to academic institutions even if you don't do much at all. To them your name on a door may be a great selling point to attract students and funding. Like all other fields you will be in competition despite it not being so obvious in academia.
Thanks for post. http://www.interestingengineering.com
fraud is rampant and that people honestly trying to do science are less likely to be recognized and obtain tenure
Dr. Weatherman PhD here. The above is mostly rubbish amplified by the media and those philosophers in Insane Clown Posse.
The first thing you need to realize is that all universities are different, and the requirements for obtaining tenure vary dramatically from place to place. I would presume for condensed matter physics you're not going to be at a small liberal arts college, teaching a heavy load to undergraduates, but you will be seeking out a research intensive (call them R1) university where you will, if you are lucky, interview well and get an offer with a nice startup package so you can begin to build your research program. While I am tenured at a school which tries to be both undergrad focused and research focused (the best - or worst - of both worlds) I have a pretty good feeling for what the R1 schools require. While it still varies from place to place, your national and international reputation in the field will be a major factor in determining tenure, as well as your ability to land grants and publish (the latter tends to help the former).
If I were you, I'd be asking myself the following questions: Am I willing to work 60-80 hours a week for 7 years at (comparitively speaking) low pay doing what is necessary to obtain tenure? And doing basically the same things afterwards (maybe at a slightly less vigorous clip) to obtain promotion etc.? What aspects of academia interest you the most - research? Teaching? Service? Are you willing to post-doc for a few years while putting your resume out there and interviewing? Would you settle for a non-faculty position at a research lab?The job market - in general - is pretty bad right now in academia in the US. I don't know specifically about your specific field of interest, but there are generally a lot more applicants than open positions, and in many cases, retirements are not being filled with new searches at state funded schools whose state funding has been shrinking every year. If I were you, I'd go for it and get the PhD if it's what you love to do. As much as I bitch about the job to my colleagues I consider myself to be a lucky bastard to have such a cool job where I get to do nifty science (for me, on supercomputers) and do everything I can to get those around eager weather nerd undergrads onto their own career path, whether it be grad school, the private sector, or, god help me, TV. So anyway I say go for it if you really really love learning new things and want to never stop trying to answer questions about the world around you. For me, that's mostly what it's all about.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
If you are passionate about science like me (I am in my 4th post-doc year in biophysics), do it! But not for the money. You will spend more time at work than anywhere else, and probably work at home too (because you enjoy it!), so pick a field you love and enjoy it! You will not be as well payed as your friends, but will have enough to live comfortably. Money does not make you happy. But a fun job to go to every day will! If you are good, you will have no trouble finding jobs. And you can always start working for a company if you chance your mind, even after 6 years or so as a postdoc.
Money is a bitch of a self-replicator with little regard to its hosts. At some point it'll change from useful symbiont to pathological menace in whatever field you go into.
So go do what you love best.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I appreciate your frankness and found this very useful. I do enjoy all the learning and the machines but am quite intimidated by the rest of the incredibly capable people around. I fear I may not have the same aptitude as they do, but it's heartening that you've managed to find a career path that makes you happy. That is, if things don't work out in academia for me, at least there are other viable options (:
...and after you've made your megabucks, get a graduate degree in a science that interests you.
Right after you graduate and before you have to start paying student loans back six months after graduating, get a welding certificate. You'll know stuff no welder knows about plasma and no physicists you work with will have better job prospects if the funding dries up. And its kinda fun. Crappy, hard work, but fun and in some cases pays better.
If you need to go to college to learn about "advanced" science and maybe math instead of frequenting used book stores in college towns and watching lectures on youtube, that might be a sign that you're really not up to a career in science. Consider computer science or something that's really in demand and not just a sacred cow. Better to spend four years hating your course of study than 20 years of disappointment in your field.
I've seen far too many friends, far brighter and more talented than I am, become shells of their former selves by a PhD, chemistry in particular. The academic system in particular seems to take the very best talent and utterly destroy it, with science as a whole suffering as a result.
I'm midway through a graduate program and here are the things I wish I was told before I started:
With that said, don't let the naysayers get you down. There are good people in academia and always room for a few more. Good luck!
Hey mate, spare a sig?
As a fellow physicist (PhD in soft condensed matter), I will offer some very simple and easy advice: stop listening to the know-nothings on slashdot and talk to people who are actually in academia.
I mean, really, you're asking for career advice from a bunch of computer programmers (and even more CS-wannabe's) who have never read a real science journal article in their life, much less written one. What do you expect to hear?
-JS
Do you have a reason?
and don't try to fool yourself.
Context: I went from undergrade to PhD track programme at advice of my new thesis advisor; he was optimistic about my chances to get a nice scholarship open for PhD track candidates in the department. Ultimately, I 'downgraded' to a masters degree, made a graceful exit after 4 years in the program, and am now happy for the experience but not working in academia.
Things that became clear only after the first year or two:
-- you have to work to understand why you are pursuing the academic path
-- typically it will be lots of very hard work; some of it is very unglamorous and repetitive. (the old saying, "99% perspiration and 1% inspiration" is pretty accurate)
-- you aren't doing it for the money, so make sure you really (!) *love* the work. Ultimately this is the big payoff.
-- if you don't *absolutely love it* then you really need to think about why you are doing it. Trying to fool yourself usually means you learn the hard way that some other path may be better for you.
Look around you; see how hard young faculty members are working in the department; be realistic to observe the hours they need to put in to 'get ahead' in their field of choice. Imagine yourself in their shoes in 10+ years after you finish your postgrad, your postdoc, etc.
If you like what you see, then maybe academia is for you. If not - be honest with yourself and think about what you really want.
I don't believe academia is more 'corrupt and bad' than it is 'good' - although certainly there is no shortage of pressure to 'publish or perish'. There are challenges; there always will be. This doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of good, worthwhile work happening.
As someone who has just finished my PhD in experimental condensed matter physics let me be the first to say that in my entire tenure, both graduate and undergraduate I have seen only one instance of fraud, which incidentally broke Bell labs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%B6n_scandal . Most faculty and students are trying their best to explore the universe, which may lead to errors, but not fraud. With that said, the competition for faculty positions is intense, requiring a good publication record, both number and impact even for consideration. This is of course not the only option for a graduating PhD, with many condensed matter PhDs finding good industrial positions with double the pay and less working hours (caution PDF http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/phdinitial.pdf). With that said, a PhD in physics, like many others, will not so gently change who you are and how you think, so weigh carefully if you are willing to embark on that transformation.
Like getting an MBA. You can make way more money through fraud with an MBA than a Phd. Phds are a waste of time.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
My wife got a Ph.D. in molecular biology. She did a postdoc and NIH and then started to look for job. She wanted to be a professor at a University. After talking to some of the recruiters at Universities we found out they were getting hundreds of resumes for each position. In addition, the research field is brutal. You constantly struggle for grant money and tenure is pretty much a thing of the past. Universities want you to come in with grants, they take half the money, then they boot you out if you lose your grants. You have to work crazy hours and be good at politics to succeed in science. It's a very stressful environment to be in. Another thing I ran into while doing research was that the number of teaching positions at Universities has gone up about 50% since 1960, however the number of Ph.D.s has gone up 500%. Of course there are commercial research positions as well, but at least in biotech there is a lot of turn over as companies come and go. She has friends that get laid off every couple years and spend six months to a year looking for a new job. There were also a lot of sales jobs where you go around and sell equipment to companies, which she didn't want to do. Do you really want to spend all that time in school to be a sales person? My wife eventually ended up with desk job with Genebank at NIH and no longer does research. Note that she was 31 by the time she got her first real job. That's a lot of time to put into education for not much reward. She is especially annoyed that she will never make as much money as I do in IT even though she has a doctorate degree and I have a master's in CS. We have encouraged our son not to go into science. Of course money may not be your primary motivation, but love of science tends to wane over the years.
Fraud has really taken over. At least here at MIT, I know of 3 profs in the physics department who got their tenure by fraud, and that's just the ones I know for sure, the actual numbers no doubt are worse.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
in US academia is part of the reason for that.
See also: http://disciplined-minds.com/
Lots more links: http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-October/005379.html
What we need is a basic income for all (or similar things), which would allow those with intellectual aspirations to live their lives at a graduate student level without senior academics having such life-and-death control over whether other thinkers can lead a life of thought. Likewise, those who wanted a life in the arts or a life raising children could focus on those things. Our society has become so materially wealthy by everything we have learned over the millennia that we no longer need to live by the old scarcity myths that there is not enough to go around for everyone to have a reasonable good life materially even if few choose to be materially productive) given modern industry, robotics, AI, cheap communications, youtube educational videos, etc.) And beyond that, we've even got at least another good 1000 years of exponential growth possible if we expand into space in the local solar system and build space habitats.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
1. when you check out phd programmes, dont simply go to a school just because its famous and its a top-ranked one. your choice of thesis advisor is most important, because he/she is the one who will open up opportunities for you eventually via networking, and he/she is also the one who has the potential to bring you as far as where you want to go. for my case, i'd pick someone who is one of the masters of the trade. and of course, do some background check on the person. i wont go for someone who doesnt care for his/her student at all totally, no matter how good he/she is. by the way, dont try to run away from teaching duties during your graduate training. learn to love it, because it's all part of the trade. in fact, you'll sometimes learn beneficial things frm your juniors/students =) this is rewarding therefore hahahahah
2. fraud is not rampant; in other words, rare. the general consensus is that most of us here are honest pple making an honest living. thus said, even negative results can also be published because it shows that something's not working or perhaps we shld be looking at some other regions of interest, like what i've published on PRD. for us, sharing is caring. to say fraud is rampant is perhaps due to the fact that every time a fraud comes up, it becomes widely reported by your best friends the journalists, and sometimes fraudsters become even more famous than your nobel laureates, hence their "recognition". sometimes, even what seems to be fraud as reported may not be fraud, simply because of rivalry between rival research groups all aiming to become the first to publish whatever results they're going after, and this is probably one way they kill each other off. again, this statement may not be entirely accurate, anyone can feel free to correct what i've said, thanks =D
black sheep is everywhere. if fraud is "rampant" in science, i dont know how anyone may like to describe the financial sector, when in some circumstances what seem to be corruption morally turns out to be legal after all.
3. tenure is nv easy to achieve. there are pple who travel around the world giving talks and presentations, hoping to impress their future employers after their postdoc, and it's usually tough luck. the job market in academia is not really looking good for the foreseeable future, because there are just simply too many pple applying for a small number of openings in various faculties. thus said, dont be disheartened when at the end of your postdoc eventually you have problems looking for a tenure position. it happens and will happen to most of us. you may probably like to check out non-tenure positions, and yet at the same time publish papers with your colleagues in any lab you're interested to work in (pretty much translates to "doing something for nothing" roughly). with sufficient experience and maybe a few impressive publications, as well as some luck in networking, you may just land that position you've been craving for all the time. oh, networking is impt. eat this. seriously.
4. dont worry too much abt "food on your table". unless lady luck shines on you all the time, you pretty much struggle a bit when you start off initially, just like the rest of us. the money may not be awesome, but it's enough to make ends meet. again, do what you love doing, the wealth will come eventually. i'll love to see you bear this in mind. you're doing this in the first place for a reason, and it's because you love it. there is no meaning in life if you do something you hate just for the money. thus said, it's just like a calling. not everyone on earth has this privilege to go this far like most of us here.
5. even if everything doesnt work out for you in the end, touch wood, your training in physics pretty much allows you to do a lot of things. if at the end, money is all that you're seeking, then you can still pretty much run simulations for financial institutions and they will gladly pay you obscene amounts of cash and drown y
People often underestimate how difficult it is to get through your degree, work intermittently as postdoc (normal), and then eventually get into a tenure-track position (i.e. "permanent" job). Or they have an unrealistic expectation of where and exactly in what field they can get a job ("I want one in my home town and at this institution doing this exact very obscure job full-time"). It's a long haul and you must have a combination of persistence and opportunity. Some people are VERY bitter about how the process works and how difficult it is.
I've seen the process from the other side: during hiring. I've gone through 40 CVs for one tenure-track position. I don't care *how* good you are, that's going to be 39/40 very disappointed people: people that can get pretty bitter if they try for position after position and don't get it. The reality is, having a PhD isn't enough. It's the barest start. You have to work to distinguish yourself from the pack, and even if you actually *are* good, you have to be fortunate enough to have your rather specialized skills align with what a university or other institution is looking for, and be willing to go wherever that position is. I'm in the position I'm in now because I just happened to be working as a postdoc in the relevant area when someone retired and the position needed filling. Was I twice as good as any other candidate? Probably not. But I did have the right combination of experience and skill, and I brought more to the position than what they were looking for (i.e. "Can do X that we nominally need to meet the job specification, but can also do Y and Z that would be useful to have in the department"). It's a long way off, but try to think about how your CV would be examined, work to address any deficiencies, and look for ways to demonstrate you can do the job (e.g., if the job involves teaching, then do something that would *show* you can do teaching, like interacting with the public/students in a volunteer capacity).
For advice: publish early and publish often, apply for scholarships and grants, and generally get yourself involved with the process of research as much as possible as you proceed through your degree. Specialize, but look for ways to combine your specialty with other fields (i.e. try to maintain some breadth to your skills and knowledge). This will be useful when looking for a job (too narrow == too few opportunities). When assessing potential supervisors for graduate work, talk to their students to find out what you are getting into. Students are the best indication of whether the supervisor is any good or not. Are there sleazeballs out there? Sure. Just like any other field. But I haven't noticed any greater number than any other job I've worked at.
Talk to professors. Ask them how they ended up in their jobs. I think you'll find it surprising and enlightening.
If you love the science and enjoy teaching it is very rewarding despite the steep challenges of getting there.
As a scientist who has done ok for himself (physicist at NIST), I'd say the following:
1. Each day I look forward to getting to work (I love being a scientist.)
2. I couldn't imagine anything I'd rather be doing
3. Scientific integrity is the rule (I've never seen any evidence of fraud or dishonesty among my colleagues)
4. I work long hours for reasonable pay (much less than I could earn in finance, medicine or law but reasonable)
5. I've been lucky and eventually found a good position for myself (I was almost 40 when I joined NIST)
6. There are too many PhD milled in the US today. Grad students and post-docs are cheap labor and the funding agencies & academic researches are addicted to their cheap labor.
7. Job prospects for recent graduates are not very good (multiple post-docs positions are not uncommon.) Industrial jobs can be hard to get particularly if your course of study is pure physics.
8. If you are smart, hard-working and play your cards right you can compete.
9. Don't assume just because you are smart at your high-school, college etc that you'll be smart among practicing physicists. (They are something else entirely...)
It's a dirty little secret that the media does not like to talk about.
Simply put, offshore workers are much cheaper. Expect to be forced to train your H-1B replacement.
Also on the theme of women being too smart and self-respecting for a career in science these days: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science ... Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why any young American would do it. Yet we do find some young Americans starting out in the sciences and they are mostly men. When the Larry Summers story first broke, I wrote in my Weblog: "A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of landing a $35,000/year post-doc job?" ... What about women? Don't they want to impress their peers? Yes, but they are more discriminating about choosing those peers. I've taught a fair number of women students in electrical engineering and computer science classes over the years. I can give you a list of the ones who had the best heads on their shoulders and were the most thoughtful about planning out the rest of their lives. Their names are on files in my "medical school recommendations" directory. ..."
"What about personal experience? The women that I know who have the IQ, education, and drive to make it as professors at top schools are, by and large, working as professionals and making 2.5-5X what a university professor makes and they do not subject themselves to the risk of being fired. With their extra income, they invest in child care resources and help around the house so that they are able to have kids while continuing to ascend in their careers. The women I know who are university professors, by and large, are unmarried and childless. By the time they get tenure, they are on the verge of infertility.
A "basic income" for all might help in correcting this situation.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I'm a graduate student in condensed matter experiment, and I'm not at all worried about my future job prospects. Yes, it is very difficult to get one of the ~10 top-ranked tenure track positions that come open every year in a given sub-field, which would require at least one very-intense postdoc (and to some extent a lot of luck). It's somewhat less difficult to get a tenure track position as a second-tier school, and if you're good at teaching there's plenty of opportunities at smaller universities and liberal arts schools. There are however, tons of companies that hire physicists every year, especially ones who specialize in the more applied side of CME (magnetics, semiconductors, devices, etc). That's what I'm interested in, mostly because I would rather not work 60+ hours a week for the next 15 years. Physics is great fun, but it's not the only thing going on in my life. Outright fraud in physics is astoundingly rare. There's Heinrich Schoen and that's about all I can think of in the last few years. It's not a perfect world -- there are some assholes and also well-meaning people who write papers which are flat-out wrong for one reason or another. However, the vast majority of people who work in the field are honestly trying to do good work. I don't think you have anything in particular to worry about.
I posted elsewhere at the top level but it hasn't been modded up (maybe you can find it anyway), so, in the hopes you read this: find scientist's blogs and read them. There are a lot of them. The pseudonymous ones are more helpful as they generally don't beat around the bush about expressing their views. There is a lot of exactly the kind of wisdom you are seeking available in the scientific blogosphere. There are quite a few female science bloggers also, which should give you a feel for the "special challenges" that unfortunately come with being female in academic science. This is something to read -- not the best thing by far, but very true and from there you should find a lot of edifying blogs.
I guess one thing to bear in mind is that what may seem reasonable in your early 20s may not seem so reasonable in your early 30s or 40s -- but like all these things, you can probably be told that repeatedly and won't really understand until you get there. Best of luck whatever you do, anyway.
You've probably now got a reasonable impression of:
Probability of you finding ANY continuing position
Now consider:
Probability of you finding ANY continuing position X Probability of partner finding ANY continuing position
Now consider the probability of you both getting jobs at the SAME university (or at least within reasonable commutes of one another)
Don't forget that this is a social community which you are burdened with fitting into. If your views of science diverge from the establishment, it's not always worth sharing. Sad, but apparently true.
The fact you are interested in the subject is a good start. If you want to do a PhD for simply studying 'cool' stuff- go for it! (the definition of cool depends on your personal interest).
Ask a lecturer in condensed matter any experts (s)he knows, and send them an email, prospective CV, and offer to meet up. When you meet them, see if you can get along with them. I went to 2 interviews, one was a brief chat and the other was an interrogation. I subsequently worked for the former.
From what I've seen fraud is not rampant. The fact that scientists who are caught fabricating results end up in the news shows it is rare. I recently found out several results of mine were wrong (summary of the problem: garbage in, garbage out). I told my supervisor this, the reason for the error and he accepted it. I had to redo some calculations, and more annoyingly some guys I work with had to as well, but making sure the results were accurate was more important. We learned from the mistake and move on.
The USA may be different, and I hear funding can become an issue in some cases. That said, in condensed matter I can't see this being an issue.
I wouldn't worry about public opinion. If you want to do something, then do it, and public opinion be damned.
Have gnu, will travel.
Preferably underneath a lake. The water helps to both fuel the fusion reactor as well as hide its tell-tale heat and radiation signature.
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
This is advice for science in general, but especially for the notion of "rampant fraud". Many of the people who make that allegation are not themselves involved in science. The vast majority of people working in science are in it because they love it, and they work within established ethical standards. However, like any industry, science does have some bad apples that rise from time to time for varied reasons.
As for tenure, if you're only finishing your undergrad now you have a long time before you will be worrying about such a thing. Some schools are doing away with it altogether. Be more concerned about staying on top of the field you want to go in to. Even more so, know what the funding situation is for that kind of work, and how to get yourself in on the funds available.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/06/139231/majority-of-landmark-cancer-studies-cannot-be-replicated
http://www.thelocal.se/39070/20120213/
So far, around 150 children in Sweden have developed narcolepsy from the Pandemrixswine flu vaccine, but that number could rise, according to Tomas Norberg, chair of the Swedish Narcolepsy Association (Narkolepsiföreningen).
http://dangerousprescriptiondrugs.weebly.com/flu-vaccine--narcolepsy.html
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=10
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Legislative_Exchange_Council
The source you linked to, while having some valid points, is from 1999. Many things (particularly salaries) have changed quite a bit since then.
That said, thanks to the repeated crappy economic decisions this country has been making for decades, many of the criticisms in that source are still very valid. I certainly wouldn't take it as gospel at this point, though.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
go into management; it's easier, pays better, and you get an office.
I have a PhD in molecular biology, as does my wife
Below pertains to that field
Axiom I: Academic research is driven by very cheap postdoc and grad student labor
The result is that academic research is a bit of pyramid scheme, or ponzi scheme; most phds can't by smple math, get funded to research themselves
(its sort of malthus in action; if you start at time T with N researchers, who produce X grad students per year , and it cost M dollars/researcher, and if a fraction of grad students Fx go on to start their own labs, clearly, growth of labs is exponential; since research is $$, that means that most students will not do research, at least academic research in their careers.
So long as you have that in mind, you should be ok
Axiom II: at any one time, there are a handful of superstars drivng the field forward; try as hard as you can to work for one of these people
If you look at nobel genealogy, you find that nobel winners were grad students with nobel winners
Watch out for career trap
There are just not a whole lot of places that want particle phyiscists, so if you go into something like that, the total number of jobs, and, more importantly, their geographical distribution, is limited
Successfull scientests are like sucessfull people in any field;they are highly highly compettitve. This doesn't mean that they cheat, so to speak, although I think rule bending is frequent: who can proove that you took a week or two longer to review a paper so one of your former students could get their paper submitted ?
A career in the sciences is far less likely to be touched by fraud than more commercial endeavors. "Follow the money" as they say. Each discipline is its own community, however, and the level of political infighting, the need to struggle for funding, the publication pressures, etc, vary greatly. External pressures are different, too, but condensed matter physics is about as far from the front lines of the culture war as one can get :-)
I do wonder what mythical past the recent critics of science (and of academia in general) are comparing us with. Government funding has always been in the mix. Corporate funding has always come with strings attached. Read Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle to get a sense for the underlying drama of research as a creative exercise.
A good bit of luck is needed to follow the narrow path to tenure. (I stepped off long ago.) A good bit of luck is needed to bubble to the "top" of any organization of any type. The difference with the sciences is that there are innumerable interesting detours and niches along the way. Having a graduate degree in a STEM field is an advantage for pursuing many future options. And the journey has been a hell of a lot of fun!
Ultimately the question becomes "compared to what?" How will you put food on the table if you forgo grad school? And is a seat at a smaller table enough for you?
It's no accident that many early researchers were gentlemen of means and leisure.
Find a way to wealth, then do what amuses you.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I recommend going for something in Engineering. Now there can be a lot of grumble grumble about engineering, but frontier level research in engineering can be very close to physics and other science.
I lucked out - out of undergraduate I got into a research division at a huge company. While there I enrolled into a Master's program at a top EM program. I didn't have an adviser in my program, I just went to class mostly and did research at my company. At first the PhDs at my company gave me research topics to work on. But even so, as just a BSc, I was getting in on papers and patents, and presenting technical topics to a whole host of people. After a while I was allowed to choose a topic that I came up with to do research on. So, I'd have 3 or 4 topics going on at the same time, and class.
Now, just after I got my Master, I lead a couple research topics. This includes setting up collaborations with Universities and working directly with tenured professors. I publish in journals (but not at conferences, I don't need to get our name out there and the information from others at conferences isn't good enough for the money and time to go there), still work in the lab, and have minimal pressure to secure funding (I have to ask for it from the main company, but its more or less guaranteed at this point). I'm on the same career track as PhDs, just 2 years behind. That's fine as I was in school for a shorter amount of time.
My friends at university who went for the PhD had different amounts of success. The ones in engineering mostly jumped right into industry and do pretty well. A couple ended up in disasters. One friend's adviser transferred schools half way around the world, and no one else had room for that specific type of work, so she had to follow him to complete her degree. Another's topic just ended up not working out, and had to start over again. The one person I know that aimed for academia is still a post-doc in an unimaginably shitty office. At 33. Who cancels our plans on the weekend 75% of the time because of deadlines or adviser requested work.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you go into industry instead, the whole 'academic' part of it doesn't disappear and you end up in endless meetings or something. I meet up with professors often, and I take their students as co-ops in our dept every so often. Some of the guys in our dept are on thesis committees of various students. I have control over my own lab that a bunch of people work in. The only thing you can't do is see your name in the lights all of the time or get some sort of Discovery Channel segment filmed in your lab with purple and blue lighting in the background.
For me, that's fine. I'm not driven by some all consuming research urge. I love research, but I also love other things too. I love art and I wouldn't be able to draw or paint if I was at the lab until 9pm every night. I love taking girls out to nice restaurants and wouldn't be able to do it on a stipend. There's just too much competition in academia to take a break from it and have a hobby, it wasn't for me.
I got my PhD in CM. Did everything "right" - great advisor, great institute (Max-Planck Institute for Metals Research), very nice people to work with.
In the end, I had five publications, two Phys.Rev. B and one Phys.Rev.Lett. One Letter to Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials, one article in Journal of Mathematical Physics.
A fellow student I used to trade notes with went into the Bose-Einstein-Condensate/Rydberg Atom stuff and has three PRLs, two Nature Physics, one Nature and a couple other publications. He did have a much better work ethic than me (would not say he was much brighter), but it is somewhat typical of the fields. In CM, you try to improve upon decades of research by very, very skilled people, which were very well funded. Simply getting an overview over the directly relevant literature will take several months, and a complete overview over your field (mine was magnetism) is close to impossible even if you devote your life to it.
The work still pays off handsomely if you are willing to get into industry later, if you are willing to move to where the big players are. However, if you want to be a scientist, you will inevitably compete with the Rydberg-Atom guy for a professorship. Guess who will win?
Do NOT let posts you read on the internet (yes, even slashdot) discourage you. Who knows what the back story is. Maybe they did see fraud or got screwed over or they could just be full of shit. But don't live your life based on other peoples anecdotes. All the people with awesome careers are too busy doing awesome stuff to post on internet forums. Find something you think you might like to do and give it your best shot. If you're doing science outside of the third world you won't starve. You might not have fancy cars and a big house but if your work fulfills your life, that makes you a true 1%er.
...such as that at the University of Arizona or Rochester. You will probably get paid $50K/year annually more than you would with a physics PhD, and it is probably more likely that you will ultimately get a job that uses actual science. A physics PhD is a wonderful personal achievement. It is also a horrible career decision. You will almost certainly have no chance at a faculty position when you are done. You might post-doc for a couple of years before doing your best to convince prospective employers that you can work as a software engineer. I know physics PhD's who have been fired from teaching high school. I know others who dropped out after three quarters of a decade, and they usually find some sort of programming job after half a year of unemployment.
There are more lucrative options in finance or defense, but I would personally rather die than pursue some of these options.
With optics, you can get a job doing research and development, easily, even if you fail your comps or otherwise bail with a masters.
In short, my answers are:
- It's quite hard. You need to be in the top 10% of your "class" (very widely defined) to have a shot at it.
- Go for the best graduate schools, take the most difficult classes, ace them, go work with prestigious scientists.
- Choose an experimental topic that can also be applied outside of academia (such as a widely employed characterization technique).
The long version:
I am a professional researcher (tenured staff scientist at a research institute in France). I only worked in Europe, and I'm not entirely familiar with the US system, so I'll only address general points that should hold everywhere.
- By the end of your undergrad studies you should already know how you fare academically: are you among the best ? If you're not sure, go talk it over with a professor of your choice.
- Apply for grad school. The answers you'll get will also give you a hint. You need to be admitted in some of the top schools in your discipline. Again, if unsure about it get advice from someone already in the system (not Slashdot). Take the most demanding classes, be the best.
- Three things you need to know about theoretical physics:
1) The competition is tougher than in experimental physics because there are fewer positions and because the best (scholarly speaking) students often gravitate towards theory.
2) Succeeding as a theorist is highly correlated with academic success. If you do not excel in math and physics at the undergrad level you will probably not excel in your PhD work.
3) It is usually more difficult to cross over to the industry with a theoretical PhD (see however other posts above about finance etc.)
- In experimental physics you can still get ahead with a less than exceptional (but still very good) grasp of the theory. You will need a combination of hard work, ingenuity and well-tempered imagination.
- Finally, no matter how optimistic you are about your chances, have a realistic (actively prepared) plan B outside academia.
Best of luck!
It's not outright fraud that's the problem it's the overlooking of negative results or burying of suspicious methodology by 'sticking it in the supplemental text'. There is such intense pressure to publish that being uncritical, to the point of gullibility, is actually an advantage. People with these traits rise to the top! I was once given the advice 'you need to be a bit less rigorous or you won't get anywhere'.
On the plus side you will meet interesting and extraordinary people.just make sure you pick up enough real skills to make you employable in the real world once you realize you aren't going to make it in academia. check out the economist article on the PhD glut http://www.economist.com/node/17723223.
fucking hell. If you think asking slashdot about this, it doesnt really bode well for your career methinks.
Science for sale is a very real problem. Look at the testing they do on genetically engineered foods, climate science etc. The problem is that those who pay the bills want a certain result. When companies like Monsanto pass off their "2 week turkey" as science you know it is bad. That was with the RBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) test that said "at normal pastuerization temperatures no residual was left". What they didn't say was that they pastuerized it for 30 minutes. This is the equivalent of baking a turkey for 2 weeks and claiming no ecoli or salmonella is present.
To do real science you will be faced with a lot of very difficult choices but to be a real scientist you must follow the scientific method regardless of where it leads.
1. Run, don't walk away from academia as fast as possible.
2. Discover what you have a talent for.
3. Discover which of those talents you enjoy.
4. Pursue it with a passion.
5. Make sure you understand Balakrishnan, Susskind, and Feynman
6. An example is El Sistema, the Venezuela Youth Orchestra.
All above are on Youtube.
And don't be a problem solver, be an opportunity seeker.
--Best Wishes,
--Johndickinson
Mendel's work on peas got him a couple mentions in the newspapers at the time. After he died it became the foundation of modern genetics.
So all that effort didn't really do him a pinch of good in his own life. Stuff like that happens all the time, guy does something and fifty years later somebody dusts it off and gets fabulous results with it.
Do the science because its science, OR make a living. If you manage both you'll be a rare bird indeed.
I'm in the UK, not the US. I'm a post-doc in CS.
As many others have pointed out, fraud is rare. It probably makes for good headlines, but I have never personally seen or heard of an instance of fraud.
The negative side of academia (for me) is the growing trend of heavy focus on metrics, e.g. the number of papers published (sometimes weighted by impact factor), or the number of citations a paper receives. This is generally a result of top-down meddling by the government and distracts scientists from doing good work. I disagree with it and try to avoid thinking about this game.
I have not chased publications, but my career is going just fine.
Some people claim that you have to work 60+ hour weeks etc. to be a successful academic. In my experience, this isn't true. Some people do work those hours, but most of them have poor time management skills and are not very productive. I don't see anyone working significantly more hours than myself achieving more over an extended period. They tend to get tired, burn out a bit, and spend a lot of time procrastinating. You can be a successful academic by working reasonable office hours, plus the extra hour here or there, maybe a weekend day occasionally, and then a little extra around deadlines. You just need to be organised and disciplined.
So, don't believe all the negativity you read. I love my career, and I love the flexibility that academia gives me. I work with tons of creative people in a relaxed environment where I set my own hours, have a large say in what I do, and get to work with intelligent students who keep me on my toes!
Oh, the money sucks ;-) It's enough to comfortably live on, but compared to industry (and given the sacrifice of doing a PhD in the first place) it is a serious financial sacrifice. I am considering going back into industry at some point in order to build some savings.
Hope that's of use.
RS
I work in the science field and I can tell you that there are not many crookers as much as dishonest people. Crookers will, sooner or later, be caught but dishonest people climb up the ladder of success rather quick. Most of the dishonest people are the ones whose writer skills are the best, so they can write papers and grant applications without committing the mistake to lie about results, but at the same time not touching the big problem. In other words, they write a lot but make little or no advances in science.
If you like mathematics, laboratory activities and to solve real problems you may end up one day tossed out of the science field, or being used by one of those big jerks.