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

Yeah, been through that

[swan5566]

But in my experience it was a blessing. Academia is so political now - not just to get in, but to stay in (tenure). Also they expect you to work yourself to death until you get tenure. Otherwise, your just a permanent postdoc wondering why you spent so long and so much to get the pay you're getting.

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)

Re:Yeah, been through that

[ctilsie242]

Tenure has/had a place, mainly to ensure that a professor that states an unpopular viewpoint won't get run out as a knee-jerk reaction. Is it still relevant? With the insane political divisions in the US, where stating something about a hot button issue can have grave consequences, tenure is definitely a must.

Maybe it needs redone, but it seems to work, and it is better than just having universities just be an echo chamber for a small set of political beliefs.

Re: Yeah, been through that

[Anonymous Coward]

Just means the only professors to reach tenure will agree with the echo chamber.

Also, when I was in school, they let go of two great teachers because they were nearing tenure. It's a special club they don't want anyone else to enter.

Re:Yeah, been through that

[hey!]

Academic politics is not a new thing. There is an old saw that goes like this: Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.

A quote investigation site recently traced the origin of this back to Samuel Johnson, writing in 1765.

Re:Yeah, been through that

[93 Escort Wagon]

As I recall, departments (or universities) can skim 50% or more from grants as overhead. Under the system you describe, this would have to stop, right?

Executive summary: No, that's completely orthogonal.

Longer answer:

If you've ever been involved with writing a grant, you know that overhead is a specific, separate entry on grant applications. You basically add up all the line items in your grant request, and then multiply that total by your university's overhead rate and add that to the request ON TOP OF the research costs you are asking the granting agency to cover. It's not in any way a "skim" or "cut" of a person's research funds.

It amounts to a direct payment from the granting agency to the university to cover general operations - administrative support, infrastructure, etc. When you write a grant, you don't generally have line items for "I need $150 of electricity over the next three years", or "I need 10% of a secretary's time" - or, for that matter, "I need to lease 3000 square feet of lab space in my academic department's building". Basically "overhead" is intended to save you, as a faculty member, from having to track a lot of tedious minutia which you probably don't want to spend time doing.

Re:Yeah, been through that

[Gr8Apes]

Well, I don't know about "Science", but science generally is apolitical and has given you the basis for typing this from some armpit somewhere in the world, just like Trump from his gilded office. Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to disparage science.

Re:Yeah, been through that

[mikael]

Then universities would become just like startups. There wouldn't be anyone over 30 there, except for administration.

Re: Yeah, been through that

[chihowa]

Being a perennial postdoc is not an "academic career" and it's not what anybody is aspiring to. Ideally, it's a poorly paid training position that is supposed to precede a real career. In practice, it's just another way to squeeze the productivity out of young researchers before they get too jaded and quit academia.

Postdocs, like grad students, are just cheap labor (consumable resources) used to prop the whole system up.

Re:Yeah, been through that

[TheCastro1689]

The AC is right. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04... DDT is the good example of this.

Re:Yeah, been through that

[Gr8Apes]

The AC is right. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04... DDT is the good example of this.

It is a good example of "think of the children!" Mosquito netting is the #1 most effective remedy against malaria and it doesn't have any negative impact on the environment. Note that science has proven DDT has negative impact on the environment at large and some of our bird species are still recovering from it. Your "Science" wants to allow it for this because "think of the children" at least according to that article. No one is arguing that DDT isn't effective against mosquitoes, especially not science. DDT even kills the almost unkillable bedbugs, which are resurging in the US as a problem. Yet we're not advocating a return to using DDT because the costs are too high, you just won't see them tomorrow or next week. That's part of being a first world country, you don't think about just tomorrow or next week, you consider long term impacts and make decisions based on what happens next year, next decade, and possibly even 100+ years from now.

Re: Yeah, been through that

[vitaly001]

Not true. I am one of those professors who has been pain in the butt for many - in the department and other units. Yes, it was a split decision in the department for my tenure but everybody else up the chain of command supported me. You do have to be reasonably successful for that (papers, grant money). Otherwise, of course you get booted out. For me, tenure protects me against the system, so I can state when faculty or administration does wrong things. Or simply when I disagree scientifically.

Right.

[XXongo]

In an equilibrium, on the average every tenured professor would have exactly one graduate student that goes on to become a tenured professor.

To the extent that professors train more than one graduate student, the number of graduate students who become tenured professors will decrease.

(In today's world, what is going to happen is that they take slots as underpaid adjunct professors teaching introductory undergraduate classes for a few years, then eventually turn to something else.)

Re:Right.

[sycodon]

Seems to me that the majority of PhDs should be going into the private sector.

Re:Right.

[reve_etrange]

Seems to me that the majority of PhDs should be going into the private sector.

I agree. My university has a much higher proportion of graduates entering faculty positions, yet it also helps students enter suitable industry positions, fosters industry contact, and provides several ways for students to pursue their own entrepreneurship. There's certainly demand for highly trained individuals from all STEM fields across multiple industries.

I'd also add that in my experience, which includes a Master's program at a lower-tier school and a PhD program at an elite one, students are actually pretty realistic about their prospects, and most do not really intend to enter academic careers. They are often willing to give it a shot, or know they'll seek an academic postdoc before entering industry, but the number who have principal investigator as their only desired career outcome is pretty similar to the average proportion of graduates who do attain that status.

My feeling (reinforced through peer communication at conferences, etc.) is that most students know they'll go to industry, but they may not feel safe in openly declaring this to advisers or program directors. No doubt this is a strong confounder for surveys like the one in TFA.

Re:Right.

[jeff4747]

Only if the number of students (and thus the need for professors) remains constant. Increase the number of students, and you need more than one grad student per professor.

Re:Right.

[XXongo]

Yes, that's why I specified "in an equilibrium".

Re:Right.

[reve_etrange]

The way I wrote that makes it sound like more students enter faculty positions than not, which is incorrect. The national average (US) is ~8%, whereas at my school it's closer to ~35%.

young footballers?

[fermion]

Define young footballer. I suspect most children want to play futbol or football. Even at the high school level, I bet more kids end up with jobs in research than in paying jobs in sports.

In any case, working in your chosen field is hardly even an issue. There are a lot of engineers, chemical, electrical, civil, who I know who code. They did not want to code, but that is where the money is. Likewise, most people with doctorates I know are making a living. I wonder what the percentage of people who actually dedicated their whole live to sport, as opposed to just using it as a means to end, actually are making a living at it. I suspect, for most high school, the number is close to zero. I suspect overall the number is close to zero.

Reasoning

[boneglorious]

This should be totally obvious. If you are just training PhDs to train other PhDs to train other PhDs, you basically just have a pyramid scheme. But actually, there is work to do! Not everyone can train more of themselves, some people just need to settle down and do research! This is an expectation/logic problem. (Or a very smart ploy on the part of institutions to bring down the cost of hiring PhDs...why would PhD holders participate in that? Failure to reason!)

Signed,
A dropout of the academic system that is very happy with the $$$$ I have now

Re:Reasoning

[cvdwl]

Also a dropout... but remember, they could be training to be lawyers.

Re:Reasoning

[BLToday]

I was sent this awhile back by a friend doing her PhD: http://phdcomics.com/comics.ph...

Re:Reasoning

[hambone142]

It's been my experience that PhD's are "professional students" that don't want to leave the security of academia.

In theory, they should be learning skills that allow them to apply their research to profitable or useful products and services.

Instead, they just want to breed more PhD's.

Re:Reasoning

[boneglorious]

Well, let's get real, school is so much fun it is hard to leave! :)

Re:Reasoning

[boneglorious]

haha YUP

student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[Joe_Dragon]

Changing the student loan system will fix a lot of the issues with academic.

Any ways PHD level CS people can be very clueless working in tech to the point of not even knowing how to turn a computer on.

Re:student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[ctilsie242]

How about a college system like a lot of European countries? When I was in school, my German friend had his tuition paid for by the Fatherland. The Russian student? By the Motherland. The Chinese engineer? By his country. The guy from Chile? Paid for by his government. Compare that to Americans which have to mortgage their future and have to earn significantly more to maintain the same lifestyle, and it is no wonder why there are economic issues in the US.

Re:student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[WrongMonkey]

Generally speaking, STEM PhD students don't take out student loans. Every STEM PhD program worth its salt offers a stipend and tuition waiver. Grad students earn their keep by doing research or teaching.

Re:student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[sycodon]

Substitute, "taxpayer" for all those terms and then you get it right.

Re:student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[Train0987]

Your friends were also told which field they would be training in and at what school. Only the top 2% get to choose for themselves.

Re:student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[Anonymous Coward]

thats right my UStax dollar goes to killing people instead.

Re:student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend whose company does US Defense Department research. He spent the better part of the last 20 years building up a network of academic connections to help staff an internship program with several paid slots for STEM post-graduate students. The kind of research this company does is classified, so the candidates for this program have to pass security checks.

Two years ago, he had to shut down the program because he was unable to find enough qualified candidates to fill the open internships. Not because there weren't enough candidates...the academic institutions kept pushing a large number their graduate students to him...but most of these students came from Russia, China, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, etc., and failed to pass the background checks.

When he finally asked a number of the professors why he couldn't get American candidates anymore (who had at least a chance at passing background), he was told that most institutions were reserving a large number of their post-graduate slots for foreign students, since they could charge triple the price and that price was usually paid in full by a foreign government, while American students paid much lower tuition, and for the most part, would qualify for one form of financial aid or another, which in the end meant that the institution was making less money educating American students.

It looks like we created a financial incentive for our institutions of higher learning to recruit foreign students.

Re:student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[thinkwaitfast]

If you can't get someone else to pay for your phd, then you probably shouldn't get one,

Re:student loans need chapter 11 and 7

[K. S. Kyosuke]

What? Surely you're not talking about Europe here. Aside from not passing any applicable entrance exam for X, nobody tells you that you can't study X.

We need to take a look at our politics

[rsilvergun]

the drugs that kept a family member of mine alive were made in Europe at public Universities. Most drugs are (and then they're packaged up my big Pharma into profits). The computer I'm typing on wouldn't exist without massive public spending.

We're cutting all this back so we can give more and more money to the elites. Let's stop that. I get it, everybody's afraid of tax raises because even at $250k/yr a lot of us are paycheck to paycheck (60-80% depending on how you run the numbers). But here's a crazy idea: We can raise taxes on the wealthy elite without raising taxes on the workers? I know, crazy right? All it takes is to stop voting for your friendly neighborhood right winger. Oh, and make sure you show up at your Primaries so they don't sneak an economic right winger in because they're socially left wing.

Re:We need to take a look at our politics

[sycodon]

If you are living paycheck to paycheck while taking down $250k a year, you are an idiot.

And yes, that includes if you live in Silicon Valley or Manhattan where a 300st foot apartment/home goes for a quarter mil.

Re:We need to take a look at our politics

[m00sh]

the drugs that kept a family member of mine alive were made in Europe at public Universities. Most drugs are (and then they're packaged up my big Pharma into profits). The computer I'm typing on wouldn't exist without massive public spending. We're cutting all this back so we can give more and more money to the elites. Let's stop that. I get it, everybody's afraid of tax raises because even at $250k/yr a lot of us are paycheck to paycheck (60-80% depending on how you run the numbers). But here's a crazy idea: We can raise taxes on the wealthy elite without raising taxes on the workers? I know, crazy right? All it takes is to stop voting for your friendly neighborhood right winger. Oh, and make sure you show up at your Primaries so they don't sneak an economic right winger in because they're socially left wing.

Living paycheck to paycheck on 250k/yr? How do you even spend roughly $500-$600/day, 20K/month on?

Re:We need to take a look at our politics

[ichimunki]

Comment: spot on. How the hell do you live paycheck to paycheck on $250K except in the most insane markets?

Sig: no. When fascism comes to America (learn to spell it maybe?), it will be waving a flag and talking about how it is here to protect your freedoms.

Re:We need to take a look at our politics

[hey!]

Well, that's kind of the poster's point. People are afraid of investing in the common good because they can't make ends meet even on practically unlimited money.

Re:We need to take a look at our politics

[HornWumpus]

Sig argument: you two are not disagreeing.

Fascists are waving a hammer and sickle flag and talking about protecting your freedoms.

Re:We need to take a look at our politics

[Major Blud]

made in Europe at public Universities. Most drugs are

Can you please provide a citation, because it was pretty easy for me to discover that isn't the case.

http://www.xconomy.com/seattle...

Assume you will be average

[Steve1952]

Having gone through all this myself, my advice would be: "assume you will be average". Will this particular career let you have a decent life if you end up being about average in your field? If not, consider something else.

Re:Assume you will be average

[boneglorious]

That would be a good idea, if not for the fact that in America, we have basically all just agreed that average people should be able to make ends meet. Because we are all above average! If you, like me, are above average, you will pull yourself up by your bootstraps to be a millionaire!

Re:Assume you will be average

[boneglorious]

qmtcorrect: average people should NOT be able to make ends! That's how below average I am, I don't proof read till after I post!

Re:Government's fault.

[TWX]

I don't think that Nye is trying to get kids to grow up to get Doctorates. Nye himself does not have a Doctorate. Nye seems to be advocating for science education because it will allow students to better understand the natural world around them and to make decisions with that understanding. A byproduct of a good science education is the development of critical thinking skills, which further helps students to make good decisions.

Holy $#!+

[BlueTemplar]

Only 3-4%!? (Is that similar in other countries?)
I'm *so* happy now that I picked a Masters degree where I can either choose to work directly after getting it or still do a PhD anyway (which would be more for fun than $$$ at this point...)

Re:Holy $#!+

[TheRaven64]

Sounds a bit low, but about right. From a UK perspective:

Each faculty member is typically supervising 2-12 PhD students, let's say an average of 4 to be conservative. It takes 3-4 years to complete a PhD, so that works out at one PhD per year. A faculty position is typically 20-30 years, so that's an average of about 25 PhDs produces per faculty member. Assuming a static faculty size, only 1/25, or 4% will get faculty jobs. Most good science faculties are growing, but only by a few percent a year, so I'd expect around 5-6% of PhD students to end up with faculty positions.

That's not necessarily a bad thing: when I went back to academia, I turned down a job at Google that paid a lot more to do it, and if it stops being fun here then I'd be very quick to head back to industry (or industrial research). It definitely improves a working environment when everyone there knows that if they quit they could be making at least double their current salary within a week.

Re:Holy $#!+

[TheRaven64]

Post-doc student? Not sure what you mean by that - postdocs aren't students. £120K seems in the right ballpark for a PhD student for the entire degree, but near the top of the pay scale £120K/year doesn't sound too far off for the cost of a postdoc for one year including things like pension contributions and overheads.

Right winger?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that politics in the US presents us with a false choice; Democrat or Republican. The idea that this is a choice is an illusion created and fostered by the establishment to keep us believing that we have a choice. In reality, both parties are essentially the same and it doesn't matter what you choose, you're always gonna gets screwed.

Re:Right winger?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

In reality, both parties are essentially the same

Well, almost, perhaps?

True in many university departments

[rtfa0987]

Whatever the department - physics, journalism, drama, or "human performance" (athletes) - professors and department chairs need lots of students in order to keep their own jobs, regardeless of whether there are enough job opportunities in the field for the students upon graduation.

Starving Artists

[WrongMonkey]

I always say that being a scientist is like being an artist: it is a privilege just to be able to pursue my passion, even if it isn't a great career choice. I didn't get a PhD because it made financial sense, I did it because I have this insatiable curiosity and academic research gives me access to resources that I wouldn't have any other way.

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.

Re:Government's fault.

[ctilsie242]

The problem with STEM here in the US is that the government and businesses make a mistake that even the most brain-dead farmer would never do. If you expect to have a harvest, you plant a crop. You have to fund R&D, fund colleges and universities, and give Joe Sixpack Jr. a reason to go into engineering or science, and not law or finance. Because there isn't any interest in plowing a field, there are very few returns, and it is no wonder why other countries (like Germany or China) who offer university education for a reasonable cost are reaping rewards, while here in the US, many people consider having roads and a power grid "socialism"... and then wonder why prosperity has left this country.

The real false choice

[rsilvergun]

is there's no choice at all. All you have to do is show up at your primary. Do you have any idea how much power there is a in a primary vote? Jeff Sessions just shut his career down because he's going to lose his primary challenge (sadly he's being replaced by an even bigger nutter, since the voters know Sessions isn't helping them but they don't yet know what else to do, so they're doubling down on right wing politics).

Show up at your primaries and vote for the most left leaning candidate you can. If everybody did that we'd have Bernie Sanders for president.

Very old news

[avandesande]

It's been this way since the 90's, possibly earlier.

Re:Very old news

[khchung]

I think the newsworthy part is, even after 30 years, the facts still haven't gotten through to the students.

I blame it on the universities for not drilling this fact to prospective students. Graduate programmes take in groups of new students every year, knowing most of them have unrealistic expectations of an academic career afterwards, and universities did NOTHING to made them aware such expectation is unrealistic.

Re:Very old news

[tommeke100]

The difference, at least in Belgium, is that they are churning out much more PhDs since the 2000s. 2016 sees a 70% increase vs 2005, and it has been increasing since the 90s. It has doubled in 15 years. That's because Universities get more funding based on more PhDs.
The same article says that only 20% of these can stay in academics, which means postdoc stuff, and if you're very good and/or lucky tenure and/or prof.

Re:Government's fault.

[powerlord]

Now you're on to something.

Need to submit an NSF grant on "the correlation between Lavatory Twitter use and Genius I.Q."

(of course, as a proper scientist,you must follow the line of inquiry wherever it goes ... )

But ...

[powerlord]

If people stop going for PhDs, what criteria will Google use to cut the pile of applicants for their job openings?

climate change research

[Spy Handler]

plenty of opportunities in this hot new growing field.

Conflating academia tenure with academia research

[WillAffleckUW]

Look, the article makes a view that all those who seek PhDs not only want to go into tenure-track academia, but will continue to want to do so.

And it conflates working in top-tier academic tenure with working in academia at the college and non-tenure tracks.

And it presumes, that after ten years in academia being paid half of what industry pays, they won't want to switch to corporate with some academic participation (e.g. associate faculty at nearby locations, institute work with campus seminars, or more contract based academic participation combined with spurts of other stints).

This would be like me telling you that everyone who wants to become a medical specialist PhD/MD will wish to continue doing this or will, in fact, succeed in completing this.

But it's still far more likely than making it in a sports career.

Your path is your path. Sometimes it changes. Sometimes you realize the stuff you like to do is not what you thought it would be, so you shift to a more rewarding career, both monetarily and professionally. Sometimes you become a scientific advisor, or write books, or take up professional surfing.

Re:Climate Change has solved all that

[hey!]

Strangely, people who push this kind of conspiracy theory don't seem to think there would be funding for scientists who could show that humans weren't contributing to climate change.

They also don't know any working scientists. It's not about money, it's about reputation, and the way you make your reputation is you prove other scientists wrong.

The Science Career System is Broken

[Yergle143]

The science job system is broken. The main problem is the federal subsidy of Graduate Student Stipends and Postdoctoral Fellowship salaries from grants. This has led to the situation of an oversupply of bright people in what amount to full time jobs with no benefits with little chance to achieve a rare faculty post. The fix is to stop the subsidy. Institutions need to take on fewer graduate students, pay them more and train them fully. Bolster the Master's degree for the less committed. The Postdoc should be eliminated and replaced with the term Contract Researcher which should be treated like a job. These people should be paid market rates so they can move to whomever is smart enough to get a grant.
For the kids out there, the current system is a sort of feudal concoction built to maximize imperious egos and is fundamentally exploitive.
Advise: go into science if you have the desire. Go to a good undergraduate school but if you do not get into one of the best institutions for grad school DO NOT GO.
It's that bad out there and it's winner take all.
Science is a rewarding profession but the hardest thing to understand is that even if you do everything right your career can still fail so you have to be brave. You also have to have GENERAL/VERSATILE knowledge to adapt with the times.
The parent article is predicated on the assumption that Science equates with dollars for science. Once basic science in an area is well formed it becomes technology and society has no compelling reason to keep paying for it. Tenured faculty who continue to burn out grad students working on subjects "understood" decades ago are part of the problem here.
Finally: biology is a vast frontier but the NIH wants cures. You don't have to fully understand cancer to kill it.

Re:The Science Career System is Broken

[slew]

Finally: biology is a vast frontier but the NIH wants cures. You don't have to fully understand cancer to kill it.

Interesting, that's the same line of reasoning that hawks take before promoting a war.

Geopolitics is a vast frontier, but the Military wants wins. You don't have to fully understand your enemy to kill them.

I guess that shows that sometimes things are more similar than you think.

Re:Conflating academia tenure with academia resear

[WillAffleckUW]

Not everyone is getting a PhD in French Literature, Poetry, or Anthropology.

That said, people forget that a PhD merely means you are able to teach yourself, and teach others, and publish academic papers or books on at least one subject. Theoretically, at least, you're supposed to be able to learn a new field of study and teach it as well. I've seen examples of PhDs who teach college in other countries in fields that are not their own original focus. Some of the best faculty and post-docs have done this.

It's like an engineering PhD who studied fossil fuel extraction (oil, LNG, CNG, coal, etc) not adapting to a downturn in fossil fuels. Many could easily transition to biofuels, and other related fields of study.

I'm not saying it would be easy, but that's the basic concept, and why most Doctorates are literally "Doctor of Philosophy" in the sciences. You're trained to think, formulate, research, learn, and then teach.

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.

How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang

[laughingskeptic]

I had to dig this up:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/11/how-academia-resembles-a-drug-gang/

Goodbye forever /.

[Yergle143]

Actually I am a cancer researcher who has published in all the areas you just rattled off so yeah...idiot.
You did help me with one thing, I've used this website since the beginning and it is now dominated by uncivil discourse.
Got better things to do.
Goodbye forever /.

Re:Goodbye forever /.

[dwpro]

Well, I did appreciate your last post, thanks for sharing.

Many students don't want a faculty position

[thePsychologist]

Postdoc in math here. Most people with a PhD in progress already either already know they want to do something else besides academia or are unsure, so the numbers aren't that grim.

On the flipside, those that do want to go into academia are still facing an incredibly hard time. In math, there are about 200 permanent, reasonable positions that actually let you do research and there are at least 700 people applying for them.

The sad thing is, a huge factor that determines whether you get such a position is not how hard you work or how smart you are, but rather if you manage to get into just the right popular area and clique. And believe me, this has little or nothing to do with how valuable your research might be to society.

No different than 30 years ago

[thinkwaitfast]

That's life

Re:Conflating academia tenure with academia resear

[TheRaven64]

That varies a bit. One of my friends was a biology postdoc, but quit academia to move to a big pharma company. Her starting salary was about 50% higher than she had been making and she had the funds to recruit a small team to work for her. She's definitely still using her biology PhD, but she's no longer in the academic track (though she is still publishing, so could return without much difficulty if she wants to).

McDonalds?

[tmjva]

Do you want fries wit dat Mac?

Oh wait, that's the punch line for English majors.

You live and work in a pricy city

[rsilvergun]

and you're trying to hold onto the standard of living you've had as your wages have stagnated. Yes, somebody in that bracket can downsize. Sell their home and start running a 2-3 hour commute. Buy an economy car. Stop taking vacations. Eating crap food.

Yeah, somebody in that income bracket has a lot further down to go, but they're still going down. When you start talking about tax raises you lose them and their vote. This is exactly how the ruling elite keep us at each other's throats. Whatever you have you're always just barely hanging on to it. That's the essence of 'Conservative'. It's a kind of desperation that leads to easily exploitable fear.