51–60 of 74 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing the depressing reality that you're spending those years broke, stressed out, and doing unglamorous work compared to your peers who went for greener pastures.
You don't get to tell the world what they are allowed to find important or valuable.
Since we are on HN, how does this irrationally differ from the hordes of people going into start ups hoping they will be the next AirBnB? I would be interested in comparing the chances of a graduate student becoming a tenured professor versus a fresh grad starting a start up that becomes a unicorn.
Far better chance of becoming a tenured professor (I'd say roughly 1 in 10-20 in my field, geoscience). Plus, like has been said elsewhere in this thread, after 4-7+ years of being underpaid and overworked, you've got a PhD.
However, a freshly-tenured professor at a major research school might make 100k, and might make 150k by full professor. Very few outside of business/medicine/maybe some engineering make more than 200k by full professor.
If you found a unicorn, you probably do a bit better than that, financially.
Since we are on HN, how does this irrationally differ from the hordes of people going into start ups hoping they will be the next AirBnB? I would be interested in comparing the chances of a graduate student becoming a tenured professor versus a fresh grad starting a start up that becomes a unicorn.
If we stick to PhDs as opposed to the excellent but undervalued MS degree: Far better chance of becoming a tenured professor (I'd say roughly 1 in 10-20 in my field, geoscience). Plus, like has been said elsewhere in this thread, after 4-7+ years of being underpaid and overworked, you've got a PhD. However, a freshly-tenured professor at a major research school might make 100k, and might make 150k by full professor.…
You can also hit 'unicorns' as a scientist, for example a major discovery (nobel prize) or innovation (millennium technology prize), which should be taken into account somehow if we want to compare the two.
In start ups there are lots of discussions and analysis of long tails and capturing unicorns (implying lots of failures along the way) but analysis of careers in science never gets the same treatment, although I find many connections between the two (many small failures but big wins). It is always statistics of what an average scientist would achieve rather than what a top scientist would achieve. It would be nice to apply some of the same analyses we do on careers in start ups to careers on science.
Hard to say. The RAND institute did a study concluding that there is no meaningful shortage of STEM graduate degrees, that the aversion to these degrees, to the extent it exists, is a rational response to completion times, attrition rates, job prospects, and salaries when compared to other professional degree programs such as MBA, law, or medicine. However, this wasn't quite the same as concluding that it is irration…
Many PhD programs offer full tuition, health care, and a yearly stipend with teaching duties. OTOH, there may be less incentive to give someone the boot if they're bringing in large sums of money by paying their way through, which is how most master's and professional degrees work (as I understand).
The article doesn't really touch on this, but for people embarking on a PhD program, school is what they've been doing 8 or so hours a day for 16+ years and school is what they're good at (or else they wouldn't have gotten into the PhD program). It's the least disruptive path post-college for a certain group of college grads and their choice is to trade potential financial gain for stability and familiarity. That may…
That rather fails to account for people who "go back to school" for a PhD after finishing their undergrad and working for a while.
> for a certain group of college grads
Hard to say. The RAND institute did a study concluding that there is no meaningful shortage of STEM graduate degrees, that the aversion to these degrees, to the extent it exists, is a rational response to completion times, attrition rates, job prospects, and salaries when compared to other professional degree programs such as MBA, law, or medicine. However, this wasn't quite the same as concluding that it is irration…
> ... the attrition rate form an elite law or med school tends to be well below one half of one percent. Attrition rates form elite engineering and science PhD programs range from 35%-50%. Many PhD programs offer full tuition, health care, and a yearly stipend with teaching duties. OTOH, there may be less incentive to give someone the boot if they're bringing in large sums of money by paying their way through, which…
It's a tough comparison of course, in that the degree itself is a very different beast. Half of a med or law degree doesn't help you, a strong student with a BA in History can't skip law school and just go be a lawyer, whereas anyone who can get into MIT's CS PhD program is already almost certainly capable of getting a good paying job. So attrition does mean different things.
That said, we are a nation that officially (by that, I mean our top elected officials, most of whom are lawyers) fret loudly and constantly, often with a tech CEO at their side, about the shortage of US citizens getting graduate degrees, especially PhDs, in STEM fields. I have never heard one of them ask why a 50% attrition rate in some programs isn't part of the problem. I think this is because, as lawyers, they think that elite PhD programs in STEM are kind of sort of like the elite law schools they attended.
There is legislation, for instance, to "staple a green card" to all PhD degrees in STEM fields. I can't argue that these talented people should be excluded from the US, nor would I want to. But if we're so short on PhD holders in STEM, to the point where we need to empower US universities to bestow green cards upon STEM graduate degree recipients (but not other fields, it has to be STEM)... shouldn't we at least ask them why they're throwing out half the class? Test scores and grades for the students who drop out or fail out are sky high, elite law and med schools don't seem to have a problem getting everyone through the program. This is a lot of power with very little accountability. US STEM PhD programs need to change if they are going to attract highly talented people with the freedom to choose their careers, unencumbered by visa restrictions, and I'm not really in favor of giving them special powers to avoid that reckoning.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should read the article more closely. It advocates exactly holding universities accountable, and in particular, holding universities accountable for deliberately casualizing academic (ie: PhD-holding) labor by converting tenured professorships into adjunct positions, even while expanding enrollments and using the tuition money to hire more and more administrators. It would be more accurate to say that universitie…
Off-topic, whatever happened to DECA? Link is dead.
My willpower is wearing down, considering the effort it takes to achieve a full Coq development of something serious like that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should read the article more closely. It advocates exactly holding universities accountable, and in particular, holding universities accountable for deliberately casualizing academic (ie: PhD-holding) labor by converting tenured professorships into adjunct positions, even while expanding enrollments and using the tuition money to hire more and more administrators. It would be more accurate to say that universitie…
I am making the case for lawsuits with billion dollar settlements or judgements against universities, as well as ongoing concessions. The article advocates what I would describe as 'half-measures', not actual penalties. Many have proposed criminal charges against tobacco company executives, and I see no reason that the university heads should be held to a lower standard.
Hard to say. The RAND institute did a study concluding that there is no meaningful shortage of STEM graduate degrees, that the aversion to these degrees, to the extent it exists, is a rational response to completion times, attrition rates, job prospects, and salaries when compared to other professional degree programs such as MBA, law, or medicine. However, this wasn't quite the same as concluding that it is irration…
> ... the attrition rate form an elite law or med school tends to be well below one half of one percent. Attrition rates form elite engineering and science PhD programs range from 35%-50%. Many PhD programs offer full tuition, health care, and a yearly stipend with teaching duties. OTOH, there may be less incentive to give someone the boot if they're bringing in large sums of money by paying their way through, which…
Do we have data showing that entry-level jobs (the first three to five years) in STEM industries have 35-50% attrition rates?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ... the attrition rate form an elite law or med school tends to be well below one half of one percent. Attrition rates form elite engineering and science PhD programs range from 35%-50%. Many PhD programs offer full tuition, health care, and a yearly stipend with teaching duties. OTOH, there may be less incentive to give someone the boot if they're bringing in large sums of money by paying their way through, which…
>Many PhD programs offer full tuition, health care, and a yearly stipend with teaching duties. Do we have data showing that entry-level jobs (the first three to five years) in STEM industries have 35-50% attrition rates?