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Don't Become a Scientist.

wuphys.wustl.edu

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Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#71

Post by timr »

asdflkj wrote: post #49
timr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

The basic principle is that your advisor has control over everything, and you have control over nothing. Need an important collaboration for your next paper? That won't happen without your advisor's support. The same goes for access to specialized equipment or supplies (the budget can become very tight when your PI doesn't like you). At most schools, your PI also controls your funding; you can expect to TA more often if s/he doesn't like you.

Your PI knows the weaknesses in your research and knowledge better than anyone, and can use this to your disadvantage. I've witnessed faculty who aggressively attack their own students during examinations (a truly disastrous scenario). More often, advisors will simply fail to defend their poor students from unfair attacks by other faculty. Departmental lectures, defenses, oral exams, etc. are remarkably subjective affairs, and one bad comment can snowball into an event that will add years to your time in grad school.

Another very common tactic is for the PI to hand out the best research projects to favored students. There's nothing so demoralizing as watching a first-year grad student get an publication in Science or Nature (by being assigned to an already successful project), when you've worked for years on failing experiments. I've seen this happen too many times to count.

Like I said, there's no way to list all of the different ways that your PI can make your life painful. It's just an extremely unbalanced, unregulated power relationship, and with any creativity at all, an advisor can use that power to destroy you.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#72

Post by ivankirigin »

nostrademons wrote: post #65
ivankirigin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most PhDs in technical fields get paid tuition and a stipend.

On the order of $15-20K/year. It's hard to save money when you've got a poverty-level stipend.

His comment implied that grad school is like undergrad where you accumulate lots of debt.

60K debt in student loans from undergrad is a world of difference from "wish I could save more".

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#73

Post by npk »

amichail wrote: post #63
npk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to second Michael's point. My research is genuinely exciting. It's enthralling for little kids, grandparents, and everything in between. More importantly, I find my research fascinating. The career path is challenging. Salary/hours worked sucks. Multiple moves are required for the two postdocs and a permanent job. There are serious politics. The question is ultimately personal. Is academia worth it?

If you are an independent thinker and don't care much about what your peers think, then I don't think academia is a good choice. I think it's no coincidence that startup founders tend to be more of the rebellious types.

I completely disagree with your first sentence. At least in the physical sciences. There is a spectrum of academics out there, that map to a spectrum of different personalities. Some work on stuff few people care about, some work in the mainstream and some pioneer the mainstream. There are pro/cons to all three types.

Personally, I do not know many startup founders. But, the basic underlying principle of success (that I've gathered from news.yc) is "build something people want." So startups are there to provide services. Necessarily, founders do care what other people think.

Academic scientists don't necessarily have that constraint.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#74

Post by sudeepjuvekar »

rw wrote: post #51

What a disgustingly bourgeois article; check out this quote: "I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs."

Interesting indeed!... The post was made in 1999 and a few things have changed since then

The author writes that the conditions in India and China are "worse", which might have been true in 1999, but certainly not today! See http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/feb/20apac.htm Interestingly, academic jobs are on the rise as well with burgeoning of new grad schools/research institutes. The demand-supply curve in India is skewed in other direction. Finally, (this is an information gathered from a few senior professors, haven't found any web resource yet!), the success of grant proposals in India is of the order of 60-70%, much higher than that in the U.S.

Though, it's still a fact that academia is not looked as a 'lucrative' career option yet.

(Well, as a supplement to an earlier post, there are a bunch of hilarious webpages by Philip Greenspun. See http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/)

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#76

Post by amichail »

npk wrote: post #73
amichail wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are an independent thinker and don't care much about what your peers think, then I don't think academia is a good choice. I think it's no coincidence that startup founders tend to be more of the rebellious types.

I completely disagree with your first sentence. At least in the physical sciences. There is a spectrum of academics out there, that map to a spectrum of different personalities. Some work on stuff few people care about, some work in the mainstream and some pioneer the mainstream. There are pro/cons to all three types. Personally, I do not know many startup founders. But, the basic underlying principle of success (tha…

How can you get funding as an academic if you work on something few people care about? How can you attract PhD students? How can you publish in top conferences/journals?

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#77

Post by timr »

ivankirigin wrote: post #72
nostrademons wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the order of $15-20K/year. It's hard to save money when you've got a poverty-level stipend.

His comment implied that grad school is like undergrad where you accumulate lots of debt. 60K debt in student loans from undergrad is a world of difference from "wish I could save more".

My comment implied that there are people who are broke from grad school.

Last time I checked my bank account, that's still true.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#78

Post by mechanical_fish »

michael_nielsen wrote: post #68
mechanical_fish wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the article at the top of the thread is atypical of a tenured professor, this post is absolutely typical. I've heard this speech a million times. If you ever need to hear it again, ask any professor to give it to you and they'll happily oblige. Undoubtedly, most tenured professors are having an "absolute blast". Why shouldn't they be? They are the end product of a rigorous system of selection for their particular…

"Very, very few of the people you interview with in a research group will ever tell you that your academic career is a waste of time and that you should just leave, even if it's true." It's true that they'll rarely say this explicitly. Ultimately, it's the potential grad student's responsibility to dig and find out what kind of a culture a research group has. This is a difficult thing to do, requiring considerable se…

You seem to be implicitly assuming that the world owes you a position in a good group. It doesn't. If you can't find one, then you shouldn't work for whoever has grant money to pay you. You should go and do something else - like start a company.

Now we are getting somewhere! :)

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#79

Post by aswanson »

icky wrote: post #75
aswanson wrote: post #16

Why is this post dated 1999 with a May 2001 reference?

Nobody respects the lone, eccentric time-travel researcher...

That's what I was thinking...this physics prof is doing better than he thinks. He's just so bogged down in bureauacracy that he has been unable to publish on it yet...

Re: Don't Become a Scientist.

#80

Post by npk »

amichail wrote: post #76
npk wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely disagree with your first sentence. At least in the physical sciences. There is a spectrum of academics out there, that map to a spectrum of different personalities. Some work on stuff few people care about, some work in the mainstream and some pioneer the mainstream. There are pro/cons to all three types. Personally, I do not know many startup founders. But, the basic underlying principle of success (tha…

How can you get funding as an academic if you work on something few people care about? How can you attract PhD students? How can you publish in top conferences/journals?

Of course it's hard. Harder than people who aren't trying can imagine. Chance of success is low. But there are a number of success stories.

Perfect example: the search for extra solar planets. Twenty years ago, Geoff Marcy, a prof at a teaching school, SF state, begged for telescope time. Now he's a prof at UC Berkeley, and (I think) PI of a roughly trillion-dollar space mission.

Marcy is a multiple-sigma deviation. His success is rare. Careers in academic science have a very poor risk-adjusted payoff, worst than startups. Would I rather be the guy who pioneered planet finding or one of the google guys? Don't know. :)

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