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Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

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Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#221

Post by asafira »

JepZ wrote: post #184
asafira wrote: post #154

Hey, so I'm a PhD student (in Physics) at Harvard that has been looking into these issues (as graduate council president in the department), and I really don't like the bickering that occurs between (roughly speaking) die-hard academia pursuers and the others that feel there is a lack in support for non-academic jobs. Here are by far the most compelling issues that I think need to be fixed that both sides should be a…

Well, I think there is a common misconception among academics: They think that theory must be pure and that people who work tend to muddle the theory. What they seem to ignore is that theory is an abstraction within the human mind and that the real thing is something practical. So in my opinion the academic path should be accompanied by a real/practical job (within the field of study). Apart from supporting the stude…

One issue here is that there aren't always real/practical jobs within the field of study, though. Furthermore, I would claim that people who do experiments often are ones that are doing "real things"

Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#222

Post by Halladie7 »

make3 wrote: post #203
Halladie7 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grad school dropout here. I never wanted to be a professor. I have no interest in teaching. I just wanted to research. My degree would have been in CS/ML/NLP. When I realized that I would be out over half a million dollars in earnings over the time I was in grad school, I made the decision to leave. The fact that my advisor was a terrible researcher and a horrible person made it much easier.

wouldn't you have made more at the end?

No. Because I'd have gone to private industry anyway. Starting research and engineering salaries are roughly equivalent. Their respective progressions are about the same too.

You'd only make more money if you founded a company and it was successful. You don't make fuck you money as employee #5000.

Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#223

Post by Halladie7 »

obmelvin wrote: post #211
ramy_d wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500 thousand dollars is nothing to sneeze at. The thing about crushing debt is that ... it's absolutely crushing.

one shouldn't run up debt in a STEM graduate program. Sure, there is a big opportunity cost with regard to wages, but that's not crushing debt

My tuition was fully paid and I got a $1600/mo stipend for being a dedicated research assistant. So the opportunity cost wasn't worth it when I discovered I'd be earning the same on either career path.

Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#224

Post by Halladie7 »

ramy_d wrote: post #210
make3 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldn't you have made more at the end?

500 thousand dollars is nothing to sneeze at. The thing about crushing debt is that ... it's absolutely crushing.

Especially when you consider compound interest. :)

Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#225

Post by Robotbeat »

emodendroket wrote: post #204
Robotbeat wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most farmers don't grow ethanol. And ethanol is a fuel, it isn't just paper, regardless of the subsidies. As far as being well-paid: farmers are fairly well-paid. They have to work hard and use a LOT of what you might call automation (combine harvesters and the like). But to your point: I sometimes am persuaded by the conjecture that we developed BS paper-pushing jobs for people since we've automated away farming, mu…

Well, a lot of people work on a farm who are not by any stretch of the imagination rich, and someone operating a large factory farm is probably not the image that comes to mind when you think "farmer," is what I meant to say. As for the ethanol, it's a fuel, but without the subsidies and legal mandates would there be a good reason to use it? I'd always heard it's not really efficient and the environmental impact is n…

Ethanol mandates really kicked off in the W administration. I think it's worth remembering that at the time, the primary motivation was probably more geopolitical than climate: ethanol is domestically produced, as are many of the energy inputs (such as electricity and natural gas). The US now produces a non-trivial amount of ethanol, enough that if it were removed from the market, we'd probably import significantly more foreign oil.

But I digress.

Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#227

Post by tincholio »

chrisBob wrote: post #198
BeetleB wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about theoretical physics, but math professors usually have almost no burden to produce grant money. My observation is the same - they are very relaxed. In my school, the physics department was part of the College of Engineering. They had the usual 80 hour weeks because their evaluations depended on the amount of grant money they brought in.

This is related to the cost of doing experiments and running a lab. My wife is a bio-physicist and goes through $1k is supplies on a good day. In contrast you could run a math lab on almost nothing.

There's this old joke about math departments being the second cheapest to run, since you only need pen, paper, and a trash can. The cheapest department to run is Philosophy, since you only need pen and paper.

Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#228

Post by scientistem »

hyperbovine wrote: post #94
chriskanan wrote: post #6

The longer students stay in a PhD program, the less likely they want to be professors. Typically many first year students say this, but the numbers quickly drop off in later years. When I was a PhD student, I gave a few talks and blogged about this issue. I would present all these statistics in my talks about what they needed to do to be competitive, and people just absolutely hated me for it. One person said she wan…

> ... you work 80 hours per week and make less than ... I've read so many comments like yours, on HN and elsewhere, and invariably the argument hinges on some variation of the above sentiment. I've come to believe I just have fundamentally different values than the vast majority of people who work in industry. To answer your (friends') question, because the work is more interesting and I make plenty of money as it st…

Well this is true, but it’s certianly a far cry from the high employment prospects i was brought up believe STEM fields offered.

My sister is on her second post doc; while the money is perfectly adequate, if she ever burned out she would be stuck up the creek without a paddle.

Personally, it’s the precipitous drop in tenured positions that scared me away. Too risky of a time investment!

Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#229

Post by pm90 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #183
hyperbovine wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... you work 80 hours per week and make less than ... I've read so many comments like yours, on HN and elsewhere, and invariably the argument hinges on some variation of the above sentiment. I've come to believe I just have fundamentally different values than the vast majority of people who work in industry. To answer your (friends') question, because the work is more interesting and I make plenty of money as it st…

>I've read so many comments like yours, on HN and elsewhere, and invariably the argument hinges on some variation of the above sentiment. I've come to believe I just have fundamentally different values than the vast majority of people who work in industry. Indeed! Why is the assumption always, "We all value money, so just switch to industry!"? It's like telling a public servant that if they wanted a living wage they'…

I don't think asking a researcher in AI why they couldn't work in industry that is willing to pay them tons more $$ is a bad question to ask. Its certainly not the same as asking a public servant to learn coding.

Living in the CS bubble, a lot of us forget that outsiders think of programming as some kind of black magic that they could never figure out ever. And are baffled that those who know it are not milking it as much as they can.

Re: Many junior scientists need to take a hard look at their job prospects

#230

Post by xyzzyz »

chrisBob wrote: post #198
BeetleB wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about theoretical physics, but math professors usually have almost no burden to produce grant money. My observation is the same - they are very relaxed. In my school, the physics department was part of the College of Engineering. They had the usual 80 hour weeks because their evaluations depended on the amount of grant money they brought in.

This is related to the cost of doing experiments and running a lab. My wife is a bio-physicist and goes through $1k is supplies on a good day. In contrast you could run a math lab on almost nothing.

The biggest cost of running math department is travel costs, but then again, biophysicist probably spend just as much on that.
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