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I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

marcelhaas.com

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Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#141

Post by bumby »

borroka wrote: post #113
bumby wrote: post #57

This reminds me of a semi-recent Freakanomics podcast where Steve Levitt voiced his disillusionment with academia where you could spend years working on a paper that only gets read by a handful of people. It was contrasted to business applications that can help hundreds or thousands of people. In his words, he had “gotten tired of academic research and decided I should try to do something useful for a while.” Maybe g…

I went to work in tech from academia, but I wanted to publish a paper I had started working on during my last months as a researchers. I worked on it during weekends, sometimes snatching hours from work. I sent it out for peer-review and it was published. One year after publication, it collected the astounding number of exactly zero citations.

Don’t feel bad. There’s some research that indicates roughly 70%-80% of publications are either derivative (i.e., not really novel) or only have auto-citations (cited by its own authors)

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#142

Post by bumby »

willis936 wrote: post #119
bumby wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re pretty close, onet says median wage is about $65k. Would you say most of the people there are hustling for the chance at a professorship, early career, or just love the environment/work?

That’s why I said “close to”. I work in a group that has about 30-50 students, 2-3 professors, 3 scientists, 2 postdocs, and 5 techs/engineers (depending on how you draw the lines). Professors make $200k. Scientists make $80k. Techs make $60k. Every single person is highly competent and could easily fetch a higher wage for their skillset. Nobody’s here because they think it’s a path to a cushy life. Working among exc…

>Working among exclusively smart people, having good conversations, not being in a nasty corporate framework

This is a really interesting take to me because my experience was quite different. I thought many were smart in a vary narrow field but at times lost outside of it, prone to ego-based biases, and much more concerned with publication and funding than really intellectually curious. There’s definitely pragmatic reasons for the latter but it seemed to water down the pure intentions people have brought up in this thread.

Of course there were wonderful people as well, but I’ve found that in the private sector too. I guess it goes to show mileage may vary and perspective is a key component

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#143

Post by willis936 »

bumby wrote: post #142
willis936 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why I said “close to”. I work in a group that has about 30-50 students, 2-3 professors, 3 scientists, 2 postdocs, and 5 techs/engineers (depending on how you draw the lines). Professors make $200k. Scientists make $80k. Techs make $60k. Every single person is highly competent and could easily fetch a higher wage for their skillset. Nobody’s here because they think it’s a path to a cushy life. Working among exc…

> Working among exclusively smart people, having good conversations, not being in a nasty corporate framework This is a really interesting take to me because my experience was quite different. I thought many were smart in a vary narrow field but at times lost outside of it, prone to ego-based biases, and much more concerned with publication and funding than really intellectually curious. There’s definitely pragmatic…

I suppose I can't really speak for academia in general. I work in an electrical engineering department that is filled with physics curriculum, problems, and culture. The EE grad students don't know many of the things I learned in EE undergrad, but have hefty physics chops. Most everyone is a combined experimentalist and theorist. The pure theorists are a little less grounded, but everyone else knows where the expertise ends and are content to not discuss things they don't know about. If my colleagues were more of the typical grant-driven hotshot type I probably wouldn't have stuck around for any amount of time.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#144

Post by [deleted] »

willis936 wrote: post #98
bumby wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they can't imagine doing something that "only" pays $100K or $150K or whatever. “Comparison is the thief of joy” I saw research from a few years back that indicated happiness peaked a little over $100k in salary and actually tended downward above that. It’s been my experience that people who are solely focused on salary tend to do so because they don’t know what else to optimize their life around.

$100k is close to twice what you make in academia unless you’re a professor.

[deleted]

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#145

Post by Ma8ee »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #135
Ma8ee wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don’t think that is the problem. In addition to the shortage of funds, there’s often a culture of doing most things yourself. When I was a PhD student, I did everything from vacuum systems, electronics, high current equipment, plumbing for cooling water, setting up a real time control system for all the equipment, data collection and analysis, and programmed quantum Monte Carlo simulation that was run on a…

Doing it yourself is certainly very important to be sure you get at least some understanding of what's going on, and often you are doing things nobody else knows how to do anyway. But it sure would have been nice to have some professional support programmer around for advice on design and help out with the gnarlier bits.

Programming was actually what I did best. I had been programming since I was eleven and also took some computer science courses at the university. In addition, the kind of programming that most physicists do isn’t really helped by the skill many so called engineers have. It’s not about organising large multitude of systems and their interaction (which is usually the hard parts today) as much as knowing things about efficient numerical packages and making sure that the computer’s finite precision don’t overwhelm your statistical uncertainties. And of course, to understand the model, with its limitations, of the system we are trying to simulate and efficient algorithms for that.

Re: I Regret Quitting Astrophysics

#146

Post by bluepoint »

minimalist wrote: post #76

I don't like posting acrimonious comments, but it is hard to find any sympathy for the author. The reasons are similar to the contempt held for people who decry the manipulation of public opinion, while our high-aptitude graduates decide to work for advertisement companies in the Bay Area in chase of the Almighty Dollar. It is sexy and high status, until more people consider the utility (or disutility) that these peo…

I am really fond of your vocabulary.
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