EPTOn the other hand, in my school I've been told a few times already that more and more students are getting a PhD after graduating from it,and that they are right to do so, while it was quite a strange idea a few years ago. That might have something to do with the French system, I guess.
Don't become a scientist - Page 6
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
On the other hand, in my school I've been told a few times already that more and more students are getting a PhD after graduating from it,and that they are right to do so, while it was quite a strange idea a few years ago. That might have something to do with the French system, I guess. | ||
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nath
United States1788 Posts
FUCK YES! going to grad school for Comp Sci next year, article scared me because my dad is also a physics professor and always told me this, but i guess it doesnt apply to comp sci! :D | ||
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Pathos
United States94 Posts
Honestly, this last comment is so true that it hurts. I imagine that someone who walks all the way down the path realizes that even further everyone who is left is only exceptionally good at dealing with the system/politics rather the research. Although, we should ask ourselves for subjects like pure mathematics/theoretica physics/logic - do we want these subjects to become attractive financially speaking? Do we really want people that get sucked into the money of finance and corporate law competing for these jobs, with their politics and manipulation? My guess is no. | ||
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Mykill
Canada3402 Posts
 ah well once people stop becoming scientists there will be a demand for them again. simple market cycle. | ||
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See.Blue
United States2673 Posts
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Luddite
United States2315 Posts
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. Eh, it's bad but it's not THAT bad. Nobody is "pounding out" nature papers- a lot of professors go their entire careers without ever publishing 1. If a postdoc can publish a paper in nature he's almost guaranteed a tenure position somewhere. | ||
Heyoka
Katowice25012 Posts
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Hykns
United States6 Posts
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2009_11_13/caredit.a0900141 Being a theoretical physics graduate student who is set to graduate in a few years, I pretty much agree with all of it. Getting tenure, becoming famous and becoming rich are horrible career goals. | ||
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Luddite
United States2315 Posts
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? I said, in without publishing a paper in Nature. Nature is the most prestigious journal there is, except maybe Science. | ||
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samachking
Bahrain4949 Posts
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? Edit: Too slow T.T ^ Excellent article. I am planning on getting a PhD in the health sciences, so I hope the prospects are slightly better for me, at least I have many other fall back plans if it doesn't work out. | ||
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Xusneb
Canada612 Posts
On May 16 2010 14:26 T.O.P. wrote: The article is written in 1999. Is it still relevant? As stated above, it's more relevant than ever now because what he describes only gets worse with time. The amount of doctoral graduates generated per year continues to increase while the number of jobs do not go up accordingly. It's also important to understand that when the economy goes down the shitter, the first thing any government cuts is *drum roll* research funding. Unfortunately for our species, governments value short term goals over long term ones. The general public would rather have new roads than seeing Dr. X being able to work on finding fundamental particles. It's a similar situation in Canada, professors need to fight for grants and it takes forever to get a tenured position for a new graduate. Personally, after my undergraduate experience, I'm still interested in research but I plan on pursuing it as a medical doctor with a lab on the side. | ||
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RoosterSamurai
Japan2108 Posts
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. Computer science is the way to go. | ||
micronesia
United States24701 Posts
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. | ||
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ArKaDo
France121 Posts
I think (maybe I'm an idiot) that it is still possible to do your little research in one corner of the lab without playing the silly game of fame to get $$ with your co workers. | ||
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revy
United States1524 Posts
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. | ||
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yutgoyun
Canada46 Posts
Personally, my issue is with graduate students who don't care about the science and are only there because they're too afraid to go on the job market. Flooding schools and the field with unmotivated professionals can be frustrating at times. | ||
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micronesia
United States24701 Posts
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. 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. | ||
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Tristan
Canada566 Posts
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Divinek
Canada4045 Posts
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. yeah i agree there are a ton of jobs you could just spew all the negative aspects about them and make them look really really bad. Especially if you're taking your examples from the lower end of things My goal is to get a phd and maybe be a professor but im really into that kind of thing so i could care less if i get paid shit for it, better than doing some terrible oil rig job making 5 times as much | ||
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Luddite
United States2315 Posts
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. seems like his experience basically agrees with the article- way better job prospects with an engineering degree than with a science degree. | ||
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