Many Junior Scientists Need To Take a Hard Look at Their Job Prospects (nature.com)

In its careers section this week, science journal Nature surveyed more than 5,700 early-career scientists worldwide who are working on PhDs. Three-quarters of them, they told the journal, think it's likely that they will pursue an academic career when they graduate. How many of them will succeed? The editorial board of the journal wrote in a column published on Wednesday. Most PhD students will have to look beyond academia for a career, the editorial board added. From the article: Statistics say these young researchers will have a better chance of pursuing their chosen job than the young footballers. But not by much. Global figures are hard to come by, but only three or four in every hundred PhD students in the United Kingdom will land a permanent staff position at a university. It's only a little better in the United States. Simply put, most PhD students need to make plans for a life outside academic science. And more universities and PhD supervisors must make this clear. That might sound like an alarmist and negative attitude for the International Weekly Journal of Science. But it has been evident for years that international science is training many more PhD students than the academic system can support. Most of the keen and talented young scientists who responded to our survey will probably never get a foot in the door. Of those who do, a sizeable number are likely to drift from short-term contract to short-term contract until they become disillusioned and look elsewhere.

Comments

Re:Yeah, been through that

[93 Escort Wagon]

I work in a STEM department at a US university, and it is my opinion that tenure needs to die. Faculty should get a generous stipend during those quarters when they teach... but otherwise they should have to support themselves from their research funding, and pay into retirement like “normal” people (university funds pay our emeritus faculty, at least).

Many of our faculty pull in lots of money and stay active in research; but there are a few who seem to think getting a big salary for doing next to nothing is a god-given right for reaching full professor. I’ve watched several chairs attempt to “fix” this, e.g. by requiring non-funded faculty to teach more - but political pressure always kills any reforms.

Alternatively, I suppose tenure could stay if the rights to all publicly-funded research were given back to the public - meaning, for example, if you get a multi-million-dollar patent, or if you commercialize a company and a VC buys it, that money goes back to NSF or ONR or whatever agency provided the funding.

(Let’s see if I still have a job tomorrow, haha)

They have bad advisors if this is news

[damn_registrars]

I went through grad school in a similar illusion of going into a strictly academic position. Then I went through a postdoc position and hit a wall. There are lots and lots of PhDs running around out there who tried the same and failed the same.

Thankfully a lot of advisers now are more receptive to their students announcing early that they want to follow a non-academic track (many before used to reject prospective students who wanted that). However not many are great at steering their grad students towards it. If the faculty advisers were even honest about the time commitments expected of junior faculty in the hard sciences (generally starting around 80 hours a week) that would steer many students down another path.

That said, I have a non-academic position and I am very happy. I'm making more than junior faculty at the school where I did my undergrad or PhD and I only work 40 hours a week.

Feel very sorry for them.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I was there.

It was particularly bad for me. Friends and family and random strangers pumped up my ego since leaving high school, using terms like, "creme-de-la-creme" "got through JEE? life is made man!". Then ended up in a PhD program in hypersonic flow when that baldie with a blotchy birthmark pulled perestroika and glasnost out of a hat and dissolved USSR. Having defeated the enemy USA cashed in its peace dividend, which essentially meant all those PhDs in hypersonic rocket science are totally surplus. People with 10 and 20 year experience in hypersonic CFD were coming around begging for temp positions. People whose papers I used to read with great reverence and admiration were standing in line ahead of me fighting for a 12 month post doc position.

Visa running out, with a baby, all those non creme-de-la-creme were all on great jobs and career path ... never felt more depressed.

Then, finally, the waves of economic growth finally lapped up on that isolated island I was marooned in. Feb 1994. Worst month in life. March 1994. Had three job offers, three count them, one, two, three! Purely lucked into taking up an offer from a startup just on the verge of take off and IPO.

But, it was luck. Not perseverance, not hard work, not impossibly high IQ, not my careful career choices. Bad luck followed by good luck. That is all it was. L.U.C.K.