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Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

nature.com

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Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#61

Post by kneel »

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #35
JDiculous wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents to have society employing you full-time to make rich people richer via gambling in the financial markets rather than something more beneficial to society? I don't blame you at all (I'm sure your quality of life is magnitudes of order better, and I'd do the same in your position) and this isn't personal at all, it just pains me that our brightest graduates are working in fi…

Do you ever feel that maybe you shouldn't talk about things you don't understand? Working a prop trading firm is nowhere near "making rich people richer via gambling in the financial markets". Furthermore, the majority of software/engineering jobs out there are not doing "something more beneficial to society". How many companies are really just ad-driven, marketing-driven. Yes, it would be nice if the entire world co…

>the majority of software/engineering jobs out there are not doing "something more beneficial to society" ... other things need to get done. And the majority of people have bills to pay.

This is a big problem in itself.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#62

Post by jawilson2 »

eanzenberg wrote: post #52
jawilson2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you aren't downvoted for this, as this is basically my exact thought process for the last few years. > make rich people richer It is prop trading, so we are making ourselves richer, technically. We do a lot of charity work and donations with schools, etc. > Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents Absolutely. However, I also like not having to beg my toddler to eat the food in front of him because payday i…

Why are you having children in grad school or as a postdoc? And three at that..

Because I didn't want to be 60 years old with a kid in high school?

This type of question represents one of the things that really turns people away from getting into science, or makes people leave. You are expected to give up your ENTIRE PERSONAL LIFE to "the good of society" and make these sacrifices, for...what? To get denied tenure in 5 years (if you're lucky enough to be tenure-track)? This is even more true for women, though this isn't unique to academia. I was thirty years old, had been married for 6 years, just finished my PhD, and thought starting a family sounded like a reasonable thing to. And, my next two kids were born after my postdoc. So, fuck that, and anyone who thinks that waiting until you're 40 to have kids sounds reasonable.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#63

Post by dwaltrip »

jawilson2 wrote: post #44
JDiculous wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents to have society employing you full-time to make rich people richer via gambling in the financial markets rather than something more beneficial to society? I don't blame you at all (I'm sure your quality of life is magnitudes of order better, and I'd do the same in your position) and this isn't personal at all, it just pains me that our brightest graduates are working in fi…

I hope you aren't downvoted for this, as this is basically my exact thought process for the last few years. > make rich people richer It is prop trading, so we are making ourselves richer, technically. We do a lot of charity work and donations with schools, etc. > Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents Absolutely. However, I also like not having to beg my toddler to eat the food in front of him because payday i…

Thanks for sharing your story. It sounds you had good self-awareness, and made an important decision to look out for your own well-being and end an unsustainable situation. There are many who could benefit from your example.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#64

Post by jawilson2 »

fsloth wrote: post #55
eanzenberg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you having children in grad school or as a postdoc? And three at that..

Because biology does not stop? The older the parents the riskier having kids becomes. The last time I looked at science there was no vow of staying childless required.

I kind of like the irony of the scientific "class" becoming childless, like a priesthood. It's probably not too far from the truth. Kind of like the two couples in Idiocracy.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#65

Post by [deleted] »

siddarthd2919 wrote: post #50
jawilson2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you aren't downvoted for this, as this is basically my exact thought process for the last few years. > make rich people richer It is prop trading, so we are making ourselves richer, technically. We do a lot of charity work and donations with schools, etc. > Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents Absolutely. However, I also like not having to beg my toddler to eat the food in front of him because payday i…

The cost of education (Fees) are going higher. Research/Researchers are not getting funded. Where is the money going to? Infrastructure of the universities?

[deleted]

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#66

Post by pvaldes »

eanzenberg wrote: post #52
jawilson2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you aren't downvoted for this, as this is basically my exact thought process for the last few years. > make rich people richer It is prop trading, so we are making ourselves richer, technically. We do a lot of charity work and donations with schools, etc. > Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents Absolutely. However, I also like not having to beg my toddler to eat the food in front of him because payday i…

Why are you having children in grad school or as a postdoc? And three at that..

Because you can not get pregnant at 55yo. For many scientist women is a now or never.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#67

Post by jawilson2 »

siddarthd2919 wrote: post #50
jawilson2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you aren't downvoted for this, as this is basically my exact thought process for the last few years. > make rich people richer It is prop trading, so we are making ourselves richer, technically. We do a lot of charity work and donations with schools, etc. > Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents Absolutely. However, I also like not having to beg my toddler to eat the food in front of him because payday i…

The cost of education (Fees) are going higher. Research/Researchers are not getting funded. Where is the money going to? Infrastructure of the universities?

We get research funding from government agencies like the NIH and NSF. You can also get private grants (e.g. I got an NVIDIA grant in 2009 to do GPU research). The funding pool has remained stagnant for years, while we are pumping out more PhDs than ever. Back in the 90's an R01 (the top NIH grant you can get, and which more or less ensured tenure) had a 33% funding rate or so. It is now in the low to mid single digits. Plus, the rules have changed, so that you cannot fund your salary off of a single R01; you now need TWO R01s to pay yourself, which is the goal, at least in a soft money position. After learning this "on the job" as it were, it didn't take long to start looking elsewhere.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#68

Post by jawilson2 »

leggomylibro wrote: post #42
jawilson2 wrote: post #11

I got my biomedical engineering PhD, and was a neurology professor at a top children's hospital doing brain/epilepsy research for a few years. Literally my dream job for most of my life. I left it two years ago due to many of the reasons listed, and got a job going quant/algorithmic trading at a prop firm. I have never been happier, it is a hell of of a lot less stressful, I may actually pay off my student loans befo…

Hey, we used bci2000 as undergraduates to run a little DIY BCI club - thanks for all of the work on it! I'm kind of surprised to hear that being a quant is less stressful than being a research professor, though. I've heard that biology especially is a very "publish or perish"-y environment, but I guess I assumed that once people had a few prominent papers under their belts they might be trusted to work on something l…

Glad to hear it! It was/is and awesome project. I still help present at some of the workshops, when I get a chance.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#69

Post by neuromantik8086 »

martincmartin wrote: post #26

Many of these people will leave for academia. Some of them have spare time, or maybe will have spare time after their kids are grown, or will be able to retire early. Then they could become citizen scientists [1], independent scientists [2], etc. Like independent film or video games, they couldn't compete head-on with big budget research. But they could presumably make progress in areas ignored by them: longer term,…

This is why I'm a fan of open data / data sharing, and why I wish federal grants would more emphasize intermediate steps that could lead to papers rather than the production of papers themselves. The barriers to data collection are quite large (it's at least $1 million to acquire an MRI scanner in my field, neuroimaging; a huge fixed cost that most individuals would never be able to afford), but the cost of hosting those data once they're acquired is trivial. Once up on the net and publicly shared, anyone can take a crack at the the data and see what they can find.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#70

Post by brohee »

siddarthd2919 wrote: post #50
jawilson2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you aren't downvoted for this, as this is basically my exact thought process for the last few years. > make rich people richer It is prop trading, so we are making ourselves richer, technically. We do a lot of charity work and donations with schools, etc. > Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents Absolutely. However, I also like not having to beg my toddler to eat the food in front of him because payday i…

The cost of education (Fees) are going higher. Research/Researchers are not getting funded. Where is the money going to? Infrastructure of the universities?

Head coaches salaries (http://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/)
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