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Don't Become a Scientist.

wuphys.wustl.edu

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Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#41

Post by timr »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #21

Awesome. Not only does this guy disprove the rule that all tenured profs are hopeless optimists about becoming a prof, but he's even more of a pessimist than I am! I mean: I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs. Um, no. Really, no. Spoken like a guy who hasn't really known many people whose lives have been ruined by drugs. The situation is bad -- everything t…

"There are people I know who have endured years of continuing depression because they were unable to become tenured professors. But there are also people I know who are depressed because they aren't bestselling novelists, professional musicians, lottery winners, or Bill Gates."

Granted, but science is totally unlike music, writing or gambling, in that that the best-case payoff is still quite meager. Wanting to become a professor is a good bit different than wanting to become a rock star or professional athlete.

Too many smart kids start into grad school thinking that a professorship is a reasonable, attainable career goal, depending entirely upon your motivation and intelligence. When they (almost inevitably) fail, it can lead to a crisis of confidence that goes much deeper than simply failing to become the next Kanye West. After all, everyone knows that rock stardom depends heavily on luck...but a professorship depends only on intelligence. If you ask me, it's a cruel game.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#43

Post by aswanson »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #21

Awesome. Not only does this guy disprove the rule that all tenured profs are hopeless optimists about becoming a prof, but he's even more of a pessimist than I am! I mean: I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs. Um, no. Really, no. Spoken like a guy who hasn't really known many people whose lives have been ruined by drugs. The situation is bad -- everything t…

Do you want a professorship?

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#44

Post by ingenium »

I have to agree with this wholeheartedly. I'm just finishing up my undergrad in molecular biology. I've been working in a lab doing research for the last year and a half, and it sucks. As an earlier comment had pointed out, the post-doc I work along side only makes $40,000/year. He's in his 50's and has at least 30 published papers on everything from cancer research to stuff the lab is doing now on BK virus. For the last year, he's been trying to find a different job, preferably in the private sector and that pays more, but hasn't had any luck. The work is repetitive and boring, yet you must constantly stay focused. While it may not seem like it, it's very easy to lose track of which tube you're adding a chemical to, or which chemicals you've already added.

The bureaucracy is ridiculous. My PI doesn't do any of the research along with us. He just sits and writes/revises papers and applies to grants all day. Most of the time, he has no idea how the experiments we're doing even work.

From my research experience and from the experience of others around me, I knew research was not the field to go into. That's why I'm working on a startup now and possibly going into an MBA program. Science is a great undergraduate major, just don't expect to be able to do anything with it when you graduate.

If you want to do research, at least in biology, don't get a PhD, get an MD.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#46

Post by whacked_new »

menloparkbum wrote: post #36
Trep wrote: post #3

Eh... I would debate quite a lot of what he said. This is a very field-oriented problem. For instance, in Psychology, the majority of graduate degrees go into counseling. Of the more research oriented people left, there is a vast array of fields available; Neuropsych, Cognitive Psych, Industrial Organizational, and so on. These are fields with public and private sector demand... If you're good, and you publish it is…

psychology is a science now?

My feeling is that there are two diverging branches in "psychology"; one that should promptly rename itself to a sub-branch of neuroscience, and the other into a mixture of philosophy, history, and sociology. Who disagrees?

I can't wait to see this rebranching happen, but alas, it's the establishment.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#47

Post by mechanical_fish »

aswanson wrote: post #43
mechanical_fish wrote: post #21

Awesome. Not only does this guy disprove the rule that all tenured profs are hopeless optimists about becoming a prof, but he's even more of a pessimist than I am! I mean: I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs. Um, no. Really, no. Spoken like a guy who hasn't really known many people whose lives have been ruined by drugs. The situation is bad -- everything t…

Do you want a professorship?

Who, me? Heck, no! I'm not convinced that I ever did, although at certain times in my career I used to claim that I did in a half-hearted fashion. The thing is, when someone asks you why you're studying physics they expect a more conventional answer than "because I haven't gotten bored with it yet".

I once flirted with trying to find a role as a non-tenured "member of the technical staff"... I even did an experimental postdoc with that goal in mind. I eventually concluded that my enjoyment of doing science (as opposed to "reading and writing about science", which is rather more fun) wasn't really high enough to overcome the relatively low pay and the fact that I'd be subordinate to an academic bureaucracy throughout my entire career. In other words: if you like being a glorified postdoc, it may well be possible to do it forever, but you have to like it a lot to stay happy doing it for forty years.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#48

Post by mechanical_fish »

timr wrote: post #39
mechanical_fish wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often it's the dropouts that start companies... It is probably easier to start a company on the side as a grad student than to wait until you graduate. Grad student salary sucks, but the flip side is that it can be a pretty awesome day job. The guy who pointed out that 50% of the average grad student's 60-hour week is spend playing WoW is pretty much on the money. You can go months at a time doing only 20 hours of re…

"It's actually rather hard to fire a grad student. The adviser pays the student very little, but in return (s)he is expected to graduate the student. A student who is fired by Professor X three or four years into a Ph.D. program is well and truly screwed. They might sue." ...which is why the question rarely arises. The faculty have devious ways of eliminating students that don't make the grade. Why fire people, when…

+1, painfully true. :) This is, indeed, the technique, and I have seen this done more than once.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#49

Post by asdflkj »

timr wrote: post #39
mechanical_fish wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often it's the dropouts that start companies... It is probably easier to start a company on the side as a grad student than to wait until you graduate. Grad student salary sucks, but the flip side is that it can be a pretty awesome day job. The guy who pointed out that 50% of the average grad student's 60-hour week is spend playing WoW is pretty much on the money. You can go months at a time doing only 20 hours of re…

"It's actually rather hard to fire a grad student. The adviser pays the student very little, but in return (s)he is expected to graduate the student. A student who is fired by Professor X three or four years into a Ph.D. program is well and truly screwed. They might sue." ...which is why the question rarely arises. The faculty have devious ways of eliminating students that don't make the grade. Why fire people, when…

Can you elaborate a little on these devious ways?

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#50

Post by apathy »

Hexstream wrote: post #10
anewaccountname wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since one out of ten fail, that wouldn't be the best strategy.

Those are awesome odds compared to the "standard" way, apparently.

They would be awesome, however they're backwards. 9 out of 10 are likely to fail, averaged across industries. Perhaps more.
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