"Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry" - Page 2

It is called U.S. academia. I too lived the evenings and weekends life of a graduate student, and from there moved to a tenure track appointment at a fine public university. As an assistant professor, guess what? I worked evenings and weekends to develop a research program and achieve promotion and tenure. That was followed by an offer to be a department chair where, you guessed it, I worked weekends and evenings. Following that I accepted a position as dean at an excellent public university, and you know the rest, I worked weekends and evenings (plus state and national holidays). The U.S. university system may be the only remaining sector where our country holds global primacy. Is there a high personal cost? Yes. Is it stresssful and competitive? Yes. Do some very talented people get lost in the shuffle? Yes. But that is our system, it produces the finest research in biological and physical sciences in the world and it isn’t going to change. You want to join a law firm and try for partnership…get used to weekends and evenings. You want to be a successful small business person….get used to weekends and evenings. You want to be a successful farmer…get used to weekends and evenings. It isn’t “slavery” if people know the expectations in advance and make an informed choice. Stuff the hyperbole about slavery and livestock in graduate science education. If you want a graduate program with tea and sympathy try art history, where you will be spared the prospect of a job working weekends and evenings. In fact, spared the prospect of any job at all.

On July 23 2010 05:35 Goobus wrote:
This is nothing compared to investment bankers, who work 80-120hrs/week year long, and only get 2 days vacation time per year. The pay comes down to $10/hr. I'm in business school, and all my friends who are investment bankers hate their lives. Even in wealth management, where I currently work, the interns work 100hrs/week.

At least you get to do cool experiments with cool equipment instead of making pitch books and formatting powerpoint presentations.

Lol, it's sad, but what the letter says is the truth. TBH Most professors expect grad students to stay late or even spend the night in the lab if they have an experiment going.

On July 23 2010 05:32 T.O.P. wrote:
I found this in the comments.

On July 23 2010 05:51 andrewlt wrote:
I really don't understand why so many people want to go into academia. If I'm going to be working slave labor hours, at least it's going to be somewhere like law and medicine where I can basically semi-retire after 10 years working. Are there really that many people who view academia as exciting that they're willing to work crappy hours for crappy pay?

I have a cousin who has a Ph.D in biology. He works probably closer to 40 hours/week instead of evenings/weekends but he's making roughly the same as me and I work 40 hours/week in corporate America.

On July 23 2010 06:43 Sadist wrote:



I agree with this. If was getting a PHD, its in medicine so I can get my own practice and make bank.

On July 23 2010 05:35 Goobus wrote:
This is nothing compared to investment bankers, who work 80-120hrs/week year long, and only get 2 days vacation time per year. The pay comes down to $10/hr. I'm in business school, and all my friends who are investment bankers hate their lives. Even in wealth management, where I currently work, the interns work 100hrs/week.

At least you get to do cool experiments with cool equipment instead of making pitch books and formatting powerpoint presentations.

On July 23 2010 06:49 AcrossFiveJulys wrote:


That's the thing. Most PhD students don't care about money. PhD students at top programs already outshined their peers in their undergrad and could easily make a killing starting their own company or working in wall street or something similar, but they'd rather do something intellectually fulfilling, you might call it a step up.