EPTTime to start applying to Starbucks.
Don't become a scientist - Page 5
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ShaperofDreams
Canada2492 Posts
Time to start applying to Starbucks. | ||
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LLXC
United States125 Posts
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L
Canada4732 Posts
On May 16 2010 11:59 Servolisk wrote: Seems like a load of standard events being over dramatized. I don't think he has any significant passion for his work and is a typical whiner. He even made a tenured faculty position sound undesirable :p He basically sounds like he is not getting any grants funded. Compared to most things, I find the academic track he described to be very meritocratic, in the long run. Ph.D. students and post-doc's are usually underpaid, but if successful have the opportunity to independently run their own research, and become a tenured professor-one of the best jobs possible. No successful post-doc really views it as a bad job, that I have seen Speaking from a Bio perspective, I feel like the track is very competitive but full of opportunity to people who are dedicated. Maybe it is different in Chemical Engineering than Biology, but for Bio they won't care what university it is, they will only care about publication quality. Although in Bio you won't get a faculty position as a Ph.D. graduate without a post-doc anyway. Uh, If you bothered reading, he says he's completely happy with his current state, but that undergrads nowadays are getting the shaft because they need to spend years and years as post-docs. I've worked in labs with absolutely BRILLIANT post docs who sacrifice everything for their research. When you learn that they're 37 and have been pounding out nature and lancet papers, but still can't find a tenure track position, it drives home just how much of a glut the market currently has. The same thing is going to happen for a few years in law because of the massive cutbacks that firms went through during the downturn. Graduates are going to be competing against partner-level candidates that are happy to work for student salaries. Doctors and engineers are the only professions that are really paying out in north america. England still has a good legal market. None of the above, by contrast, have good scientific markets. | ||
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o[twist]
United States4903 Posts
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heishe
Germany2284 Posts
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Caller
Poland8075 Posts
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sporkify
United States31 Posts
Also, thread title is misleading. Going into science does pay well. (Depending on the field of course.) It's just the academic career that doesn't earn much money. | ||
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haduken
Australia8267 Posts
Oh well, I wasn't smart enough to do physics anyway. | ||
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talismania
United States2364 Posts
It's all more or less true about there not being that many jobs at the top for scientists in academia. We can't all stay in it. I'm sort of undecided at this point - I've never really considered money for career decisions and would stay in academia if I do because I like doing it and for no other reason. Teaching is another alternative - even at the college level there are nonresearch-oriented (think liberal arts school) positions out there. Fuck industry though, I'm not working for a company unless I'm running it. Bottom-line is that it's competitive. It will stay that way for pretty much ever unless the public decides for some reason that giving the government and/or private funding institutions lots of money for research and expanding faculty positions is a good idea. Don't really see that happening though. | ||
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darmousseh
United States3437 Posts
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Biff The Understudy
France7992 Posts
So our dear government says that we shouldn't pay anymore for the thousand of people starting a career in philosophy (nor anything "useless") as most of them won't get a job directly from it. Which is a fucking garbage reasonement. It's a shit reasonment because, precisely, if the government hadn't cut the number of teaching position it creates every year by 5, philosophy would still be an attractive career. We need philosophers, we need a shitload of people to study philosophy, and we need philosophy to be a realistic career and not a niche reserved to 60 people a year, because theses people are the one who think, which is getting rare. Why doesn't this teacher fight for more funding in fundamental research? For the creation of more scientific jobs in universities? For a country, every scientist is an investment. It's not useless stuff that need to be cut because the economy is doing bad. Now saying don't become a scientist because you can be a lawyer which is easier and earn more is such a lame argument that I don't know what to say. Obviously if you want to earn money and that's it, better becoming a banker than a mathematician. | ||
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Qwertify
United States2531 Posts
1. Your preconceptions of what it is going to be a scientist do not match reality (which is true of almost every job). 2. The increase in number of trained scientist have made the job market incredibly competitive which makes it harder to gain permanent work and lowers the salary (but again, this is true of almost every job, including law and medicine). What to take away from this article: Unless you want to risk taking the Marxist road to becoming a physical scientist, you should just make life easy for yourself and become an engineer of some sort. | ||
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Qwertify
United States2531 Posts
On May 16 2010 18:42 Biff The Understudy wrote: There is the same thing in France with Philosophy. Every year, France produces about 60 job of philosophy teacher in total. It used to be 300 or so, but whatever. Every year there are literally thousand of students starting a philosophy career. So our dear government says that we shouldn't pay anymore for the thousand of people starting a career in philosophy (nor anything "useless") as most of them won't get a job directly from it. Which is a fucking garbage reasonement. It's a shit reasonment because, precisely, if the government hadn't cut the number of teaching position it creates every year by 5, philosophy would still be an attractive career. We need philosophers, we need a shitload of people to study philosophy, and we need philosophy to be a realistic career and not a niche reserved to 60 people a year, because theses people are the one who think, which is getting rare. Why doesn't this teacher fight for more funding in fundamental research? For the creation of more scientific jobs in universities? For a country, every scientist is an investment. It's not useless stuff that need to be cut because the economy is doing bad. Now saying don't become a scientist because you can be a lawyer which is easier and earn more is such a lame argument that I don't know what to say. Obviously if you want to earn money and that's it, better becoming a banker than a mathematician. I completely agree. You don't need a job the relates directly with Philosophy to be a philosopher. That and many people with a training in philosophy go on to be great in other areas of life. It goes both ways, and if there are people there to support it with money, and they see sense in what they are doing, they should be allowed to pursue that. Otherwise it is like telling people what to do with their money. | ||
thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On May 16 2010 14:30 ray1234 wrote: lol just noticed, i guess that was before the dotcom bubble and the fiber optics fail. and with the shitty economy, now getting a industry job straight from undergrad doesn't seem like a much better option. More relevant than ever. Even the "professional schools" (law, b-school, med) are oversaturated with students who realize the work force competition is fierce. Same thing goes for academia. It's a vicious cycle. | ||
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BluzMan
Russian Federation4235 Posts
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betaben
681 Posts
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Biff The Understudy
France7992 Posts
On May 16 2010 19:21 thedeadhaji wrote: More relevant than ever. Even the "professional schools" (law, b-school, med) are oversaturated with students who realize the work force competition is fierce. Same thing goes for academia. It's a vicious cycle. I think it's a vicious circle as long as countries keep lowering the money they invest in fundamental science / academics in general. As soon as the economy will get better or/and as soon as governments decide to invest into research again, which imo would a damn good idea, the vicious circle should be broken. On May 16 2010 19:17 Qwertify wrote: I completely agree. You don't need a job the relates directly with Philosophy to be a philosopher. That and many people with a training in philosophy go on to be great in other areas of life. It goes both ways, and if there are people there to support it with money, and they see sense in what they are doing, they should be allowed to pursue that. Otherwise it is like telling people what to do with their money. Problem is that people nowadays tend to consider career as a training to get a job in your speciality rather than as education which will make you a more complete person, more intelligent, and qualified for numerous things including things not directly related to your branch. Diplomas are more and more specific and knowledge is less and less recognized. I met someone in the train the other day who had a philosophy PhD in France, and was teaching french privately in England. She was very happy about her life, and didn't regret at all to have study that much to do something at first sight unrelated. | ||
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Electric.Jesus
Germany755 Posts
But, on the other hand, you get a l.ot of benefits when you are successful. In Germany, professors are servants of the sate, meaning you can NEVER be fired, i.e. maximum job security. You also have almost complete freedom to decide what topics to investigate. In other words, you lead a very autonomous work life. So if you make it to professor, its totally worth it. Also, what a physics professor may not be aware of (due to lack of experience) is how sucky a lot of jobs outside university are. Stupid bosses, boring work environments (mentally not challengeing) etc. So i guess the grass is always greener on the other side. | ||
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Highways
Australia6105 Posts
About how useless generalist Uni degrees are. http://blogs.theage.com.au/small-business/workinprogress/2010/05/14/unidegreeswho.html A few years ago, I was recruiting for entry-level call centre positions and was floored by the flood of resumes from MBA graduates. | ||
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Catyoul
France2377 Posts
On May 16 2010 14:14 ray1234 wrote: So like many, I am too afraid and uncertain future, especially the "postdoc trap". so is it a myth or fact that its easier to get a job right after PhD than after a few years in postdoc? Maybe Catyoul you have some comments about this? I don't know. I don't really see why that would be the case, except that you would have to explain why you want to switch after those years in postdoc and avoid saying it's just because you can't find anything in academia. I know people who used their first postdoc as a period where they were paid better than during the phd and during which they had the time to find a job, which went fine. However, if you're planning to branch out after your phd, my advice would be to find your job BEFORE you finish your phd. It's easy to put it off to after finishing, because you have enough things on your mind already, but I find it to be a superior choice. I took a 3rd option myself, I took some holidays and learned a few things I had been putting off for a long time, and then only started looking for a job. On May 16 2010 20:29 Electric.Jesus wrote: But, on the other hand, you get a l.ot of benefits when you are successful. In Germany, professors are servants of the sate, meaning you can NEVER be fired, i.e. maximum job security. You also have almost complete freedom to decide what topics to investigate. In other words, you lead a very autonomous work life. So if you make it to professor, its totally worth it. Also, what a physics professor may not be aware of (due to lack of experience) is how sucky a lot of jobs outside university are. Stupid bosses, boring work environments (mentally not challengeing) etc. So i guess the grass is always greener on the other side. Enjoy it while it lasts, it changed a couple of years ago in France from a similar system to a grant system. My former supervisor, who is brilliant and had a passion like I've rarely seen (the kind of guy capable of coming back to the lab on a Friday night at 11pm because he just thought of something he wanted to test), has barely any time left to do real science. He has to fill projects reports, grant requests, etc. most of the time. Also, good point about how much other jobs can suck. While you do your phd, you will hear all these stories coming from the majority of your friends who didn't and went straight to industry. Obviously, it depends a lot on the company where they ended up, some being really nice, others being nightmares, and most being somewhere in between. At any given time, there is always someone I know who isn't happy in their job for perfectly valid reasons. The ones who didn't like it changed company, or went independent for some of them, and it got better. So yeah, it isn't all rosy outside of academia either. | ||
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