A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
theguardian.com
A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
1–10 of 173 posts
Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#2I think what we have is a glut of people who don't want to enter the workforce, and have this naive dream of academia, tenure, and doing research. In my humble opinion, the purpose of a professor at a university is to TEACH. Not research, that should be secondary to their teaching duties. Universities are deceiving PhD students into thinking this magical world of research, and lifetime tenure awaits them at the end of the PhD rainbow.
Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#3I think what we have is a glut of people who don't want to enter the workforce, and have this naive dream of academia, tenure, and doing research. In my humble opinion, the purpose of a professor at a university is to TEACH. Not research, that should be secondary to their teaching duties. Universities are deceiving PhD students into thinking this magical world of research, and lifetime tenure awaits them at the end o…
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Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#4The PhD system is a Ponzi scheme. First and foremost, a PhD program trains one to become a professor. During a professor career, one is expected to graduate 5, 10, 20 PhD students. It is mathematically impossible for the majority of these students to find a professor job. The explosion of higher education, internally and globally, masks the problem to some extent, just like a good old fashioned Ponzi scheme appears solvable for a period of time.
Edit: It is pretty well known that there is exactly "One True Path" for a research career. See [0] or [1]
[0] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/doing-good-science/care...
[1] http://ethicsandscience.scientopia.org/2008/11/20/excuses-fo...
Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#5>>Despite our moans about hours of work, pay, and pensions, being an academic is still the best job in the world for those of a particular temperament and talents.
I have a slave temperment and enjoy being hauranged by my PI?
My talents include falsifying experiments and writing endless papers about how our method is superior to all other methods? Yet we, much like the communist revolutions in the 20th century, have been working on it for the last 20 years?
Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#6I think what we have is a glut of people who don't want to enter the workforce, and have this naive dream of academia, tenure, and doing research. In my humble opinion, the purpose of a professor at a university is to TEACH. Not research, that should be secondary to their teaching duties. Universities are deceiving PhD students into thinking this magical world of research, and lifetime tenure awaits them at the end o…
As the child of a tenured professor, the employment contract didn't even used to mention teaching, the job was to do research.
Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#7Academia is one sink for PhDs. The whole idea of "too many educated people" has to torn down!
Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#8Why does everyone think PhDs want or need to go into academia? I never planned to be an academic when I decided to start my PhD. I think that's fairly common.
Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#9The PhD system is a Ponzi scheme. First and foremost, a PhD program trains one to become a professor. During a professor career, one is expected to graduate 5, 10, 20 PhD students. It is mathematically impossible for the majority of these students to find a professor job. The explosion of higher education, internally and globally, masks the problem to some extent, just like a good old fashioned Ponzi scheme appears s…
> First and foremost, a PhD program trains one to become a professor.
No it doesn't! It trains you to be a researcher. You can be a researcher without being a professor.
Re: A glut of PhDs who can’t find academic jobs
#10The PhD system is a Ponzi scheme. First and foremost, a PhD program trains one to become a professor. During a professor career, one is expected to graduate 5, 10, 20 PhD students. It is mathematically impossible for the majority of these students to find a professor job. The explosion of higher education, internally and globally, masks the problem to some extent, just like a good old fashioned Ponzi scheme appears s…
I think this is more of an indictment of how little real investment goes into R&D at private industry - even as the companies merge into megopolies who should have the finances to best justify it, they seem to become even less inclined to invest in fundamental research.