Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
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Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#2I would say "stay as far away from academic research as you possibly can" is the best advice someone can get these days. It is an awful, stressful waste of the prime of your life.
From what I saw in biomed only 1/10,000 or so will end up with the time, skills, and appropriately ambitious project to allow a decent job to get done. The rest will be forced to produce BS (literally, most of it is just misinformation at this point) or quit before even graduating.
Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#3In the mid 90's, Caltech's David Goodstein predicted an impending "Big Crunch" in science, writing: "We must find a radically different social structure to organize research and education in science after The Big Crunch."
The essay is long but well worth reading: https://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html
Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#4yeah, i left science for the reasons the article outlined.
it's a big weight off of my shoulders. i tell people who are thinking of going into science not to do so, now.
Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#5I would say "stay as far away from academic research as you possibly can" is the best advice someone can get these days. It is an awful, stressful waste of the prime of your life. From what I saw in biomed only 1/10,000 or so will end up with the time, skills, and appropriately ambitious project to allow a decent job to get done. The rest will be forced to produce BS (literally, most of it is just misinformation at t…
>I would say "stay as far away from academic research as you possibly can" is the best advice someone can get these days. It is an awful, stressful waste of the prime of your life.
On the other hand, spending some years pursuing a PhD can be a great time to build skills and introspect in life. I grew a lot in that time in a way I don't think I would have with a job.
Of course, if you have a very stressful advisor, it isn't worth it.
Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#6"mediocre science", that line says it all.
Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#7I would say "stay as far away from academic research as you possibly can" is the best advice someone can get these days. It is an awful, stressful waste of the prime of your life. From what I saw in biomed only 1/10,000 or so will end up with the time, skills, and appropriately ambitious project to allow a decent job to get done. The rest will be forced to produce BS (literally, most of it is just misinformation at t…
>I would say "stay as far away from academic research as you possibly can" is the best advice someone can get these days. It is an awful, stressful waste of the prime of your life. On the other hand, spending some years pursuing a PhD can be a great time to build skills and introspect in life. I grew a lot in that time in a way I don't think I would have with a job. Of course, if you have a very stressful advisor, it…
Actually, my adviser was quite laid back. As a result, I was able to build a lot of skills in order to complete my project. However, notice I said able. I had to self-teach and self-fund to do it, the academic stuff was really just an obstacle.
I think something like a basic income would allow the a certain type of person to achieve the same, and do it much faster and cheaper than getting a higher degree. I wonder if that is one reason why most of these problems started when higher education/research became less of an "elite" activity, ie as discussed in subnaughts link in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12805406
Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#8In the HN spirit, where's the opportunity? How can we help improve the life of researchers?
Start ups trying to help:
Science Exchange (YCS11) https://www.scienceexchange.com/ : outsource parts of your research to companies
Instrumentl (YCS16) https://www.instrumentl.com/ : identify and push relevant grants towards applicable research
Experiment (YCW13) https://experiment.com/ : crowdfunding platform for scientific research
Transcriptic (YCW15) https://www.transcriptic.com/ : a robotic cloud laboratory for the life sciences
LabGuru https://www.labguru.com/ : inventory management and lab notebook
Lab Spend https://labspend.com/ : tracks spending and finds savings on supplies and chemicals
Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#9"if you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to work on a lower, or at any rate a different plane where he could be sure of getting year by year tangible results which would justify his salary. The position is this: You want one kind of research, but, if you pay a man to do it, it will drive him to research of a different kind. The only thing to do is to pay him for doing something else and give him enough leisure to do research for the love of it. "
-- J. J. Thompson"
Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories
#10I would say "stay as far away from academic research as you possibly can" is the best advice someone can get these days. It is an awful, stressful waste of the prime of your life. From what I saw in biomed only 1/10,000 or so will end up with the time, skills, and appropriately ambitious project to allow a decent job to get done. The rest will be forced to produce BS (literally, most of it is just misinformation at t…
>I would say "stay as far away from academic research as you possibly can" is the best advice someone can get these days. It is an awful, stressful waste of the prime of your life. On the other hand, spending some years pursuing a PhD can be a great time to build skills and introspect in life. I grew a lot in that time in a way I don't think I would have with a job. Of course, if you have a very stressful advisor, it…
> On the other hand, spending some years pursuing a PhD can be a great time to build skills and introspect in life.
as software dev, I would never, ever, ever want to be in academia compared to the jobs I went through. much more life to be lived, much more money to spend on life to live (ie travelling around the world), and CV/skillset that gets door opened for next jobs.
you can build proper introspect in life when trekking few weeks among 8000m peaks, diving in coral reefs or anything in between, just give it a bit more than 1-2 weeks.
great PhD can be interesting experience, but for me, it would always be subpar to great job