Don't become a scientist - Page 6

On May 16 2010 14:58 L wrote:

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.

On May 16 2010 23:53 heyoka wrote:
There is not a single professor anywhere who has gone his entire career without publishing a paper what gives you that idea that people like that exist?

On May 16 2010 23:53 heyoka wrote:
There is not a single professor anywhere who has gone his entire career without publishing a paper what gives you that idea that people like that exist?

On May 16 2010 14:26 T.O.P. wrote:
The article is written in 1999. Is it still relevant?

On May 16 2010 08:17 orgolove wrote:
I'm surprised that he's even saying a PhD in engineering is any better. It's just as bad, fighting for grants every week, practically doing the same thing over and over again.


What he says is the truth. Being a postdoc is a terrible life to have >.<



If you want to get a PhD, at least get one in a field that will let you get out of academia afterwards.

On May 17 2010 00:58 revy wrote:
I have a somewhat related experience that I will share.

3 years ago I graduated from college with a B.S. in Physics from a reputable university with decent but not stellar grades (my GPA went roughly as a positive exponential). Initially I decided I would carry through and get a PhD in Physics so I made a round of applications for grad schools while I worked as a waiter. Long story short I messed up a lot of the application process, received some outright rejections due to my poor grades during my early college career, and ended up with nothing to do around May 2 years ago.

I decided I would then hit the job market with my B.S. in Physics. Mind you this was during incredibly difficult economic times, but regardless I turned up a blank. I applied to every position I might be remotely qualified for, I exhausted every contact that my former professors and my girlfriends family had, hell I submitted my resume to places that weren't even hiring. November comes around and I still had made essentially no progress, I had picked up a 20 hour a week position as an educator at a museum to go along with my waiting tables on Friday/Saturday Nights. The museum position was fun, but I was a rather intelligent 24 year old with a B.S. in a hard science, I wanted to do something more technical.

So I approached the graduate school attached to my alma mater and started on a M.S. in Electrical Engineering in January 2009. With a B.S. in Physics I had some basic circuits (which put me in a huge hole) though, I had a heck of a lot more math than anyone else there. I worked my ass off to catch up, I had essentially no free time between my jobs and studying. It worked though, by the time summer 2009 rolled around I had a 3.8.

The thing about this M.S. in engineering program is that it is somewhat like a trade school version of a M.S. The challenge is there, don't get me wrong, they have very smart professors and students. The thing is that the professors are all PhD's who are professors on the side. Very few of the professors do so as their primary means of employ. They're all engineers in the field, many own their own companies or work for the big companies in the area (GE, Knoll's Atomic Power Lab, etc). So they farm talent directly out of their classes, this is what happened to me in early November 2009, I was offered a Jr. Engineering position at a small industrial electrical R&D firm.

Since then I've been juggling the difficult full time job + full time graduate student ordeal but It's something I'm familiar with considering how hard I had to work to catch up to people who had B.S. degrees in EE. My GPA is now up over a 3.9 and I've received several pay hikes which put me more than double the "standard postdoc salary" that Dr. Katz wrote about in the article above. I'm almost done with my M.S. I'll be done in under 1 month at which point I will get another nice pay increase.

Long story short (TLDR version) , my B.S. in Physics has helped me tremendously but when it came to getting a job it was essentially worthless. From the time I signed on as a M.S. Electrical Engineering student it took me exactly 9 months to get a GOOD job.

On May 17 2010 00:09 micronesia wrote:
I would take this article a bit more seriously if he put just as much effort into trying to describe why you should become a scientist. Obviously he will have more to say about why not to, but it will qualify his argument a lot. Still he seems to know what he's talking about.

I could write an article with a lot of evidence titled "why not to become a progamer" or "why not to become a public school teacher" but just because there is ton of evidence doesn't mean you shouldn't become one.

On May 17 2010 01:04 micronesia wrote:

Interesting story that I'm glad you shared... when I got my BS in physics (graduated in May 07 from umd) I wasn't in your predicament since I was planning and certified to search for public school teaching jobs... of course that represented its own challenges.

So.. your bs didn't get you any kind of a reasonable job by itself from your searching, but your connections through your masters in engineering is what did it... I wonder what advice we should be gleaming from your experience.