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As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

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Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#171

Post by alangibson »

notjustanymike wrote: post #140
PlasmonOwl wrote: post #131

I'm in the UK and am a PDRA in polymer chemistry. Desperate to get out. Would like to transfer to some type of coding. Pay and job security is far better. Just trying to work if I can manage with pay cut to a more junior role. It's not that I'm unsuccessful, I published plenty and work at a top institute. It's just that the jump from PDRA to permanent is impossible and I'm not interested in industrial chemistry

I've worked with a few chemists turned engineers, for some reason you lot always take to coding fantastically well. I suspect any pay cut you take would be quite temporary.

Interesting observation. I wonder if it's because chemical reactions read a lot like function calls. Complex reactions look a lot like programs written in some arcane language

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#172

Post by scythe »

selimthegrim wrote: post #134
cs137 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jobs are crap, and the pay is low. Postdocs used to be an exception, something prestigious you did before settling into a permanent role that might be a lower-ranked university. If you were really good, you might do 2 years at IAS or MIT before taking the position at a place like UCLA or Michigan (which are still excellent, just not as highly ranked). Then it became something you had to do, before getting any job…

It’s academia chicken/extended dare- who is willing to grit n+1 postdocs out to show that they’re committed

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/longevity-2

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#173

Post by apohn »

slurpmaker wrote: post #42

Make it make sense. Offer Postdocs an actual career path not based on broken tenure and disposable adjunct professor roles, with hundreds if not thousands of applicants. Why would someone, with any field of study, be a "scum of the earth" post doc for 1/5th the salary and double the hours required as a junior python developer role? Moreso, post doc'ing for the wrong professor can ruin your career, why risk that eithe…

>If the pay isn't good, the culture and work should be. In academia, that's almost never true

When I think back to my thought process when I was applying for academic and research jobs after my PhD, there's one thing I remember that always keeps me from ever second guessing my decision to move to the private sector.

At least in my field, so many people in academia and research had big egos and were a-holes. Some of them were brilliant, many of them just thought they were. It was so easy to end up in a toxic mess. You know that interviewer who makes you feel small because they knew some random minutiae that you didn't know? There are plenty of those in academia and you'll be answerable to them.

I've worked for a bunch of big companies and there's less acceptance of a-holes. If nothing else, your colleagues will acknowledge they are a-holes and validate how you feel. Even if somebody is a brilliant 10X a-hole, a decent management layer will put walls around them to minimize their damage. And if you find yourself stuck working with or for an a-hole, you have more options to switch because there are more jobs.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#174

Post by tetris11 »

borroka wrote: post #164
enriquto wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a "scum of the earth" post doc for 1/5th the salary and double the hours required as a junior python developer role Where do you get these numbers from? This is not at all like that in Europe. A postdoc gets (say, in France) 30k per year, doing a calm, interesting job and paid travel to a couple of conferences per year, with almost total freedom to choose their daily schedule. This is not a high salary, but it is c…

I did my last postdoc in another European country more or less 8 years ago and my salary was 1700 euros per month (after taxes). Very limited funds for traveling or going to conferences. That was barely livable, considering it is temporary money, you cannot ask for any mortgage, cannot plan any future and you are often starting to have gray hair (or a full head of gray hair).

Postdoc in Germany sees around 2400± after tax per month

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#175

Post by pdimitar »

scythe wrote: post #172
selimthegrim wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s academia chicken/extended dare- who is willing to grit n+1 postdocs out to show that they’re committed

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/longevity-2

Made me giggle, thanks. :)

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#176

Post by rschachte »

My partner is a post doc with an Ivy League background. If I wasn’t in tech she would essentially be eating Ramen and living in a box to survive.

The structure is such bullshit. Incentive to get a postdoc is super low IMO. You make 50k after 10+ years of training and publications and are treated like a second class citizen. They need to offer more money and better benefits with an actual path for growth.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#177

Post by pclmulqdq »

time_to_smile wrote: post #161
enriquto wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a "scum of the earth" post doc for 1/5th the salary and double the hours required as a junior python developer role Where do you get these numbers from? This is not at all like that in Europe. A postdoc gets (say, in France) 30k per year, doing a calm, interesting job and paid travel to a couple of conferences per year, with almost total freedom to choose their daily schedule. This is not a high salary, but it is c…

In the US (at least for now) it's fairly easy for a Senior Engineer to get 250k TC, and if income is your goal and you want put the energy towards a FAANG, not that hard to get up to 400-500k. In 2019 the median postdoc salary in the US was ~50k [0]. The work/life balance part is a bit trickier to quantify. Anecdotally US postdocs work pretty hard, but my experience is that highly paid engineers at FAANG-style compan…

My experience as a senior engineer at G was that most of my peers and I were working about 20-30 hours/week and collecting 300-500k TC. Some senior SWEs worked long hours, but they weren't rewarded for it, and many quickly adopt the ~30 hour/week lifestyle.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#178

Post by katz_ »

InefficientRed wrote: post #36
sseagull wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the trivialization of this. The solution is not obvious. Paying more/longer requires more money. Where does that money come from? At least in my areas of science (chemistry), most of this money comes from grants, which comes from the NIH, DOE, or NSF depending on the project. Ultimately it comes from taxpayers, and portioned out by Congress. So the solution is either to get Congress to really care about this (…

I hate the helplessness of this. You have agency. You also have responsibility. You have a chemistry phd. You don't have to build your career on other people's crushed financial futures. Either find a job where you can pay people well or find a job where you don't need to manage other people's labor to stay employed. I have A LOT of dubious pet projects I could convince NSF to fund and would love to work on if I had…

No post body was provided.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#180

Post by algoatecorn »

sseagull wrote: post #12
microtonal wrote: post #4

If you pay much lower than the industry and only give people temporary positions, it's not surprising people go elsewhere when they can. The solution is also quite obvious...

I hate the trivialization of this. The solution is not obvious. Paying more/longer requires more money. Where does that money come from? At least in my areas of science (chemistry), most of this money comes from grants, which comes from the NIH, DOE, or NSF depending on the project. Ultimately it comes from taxpayers, and portioned out by Congress. So the solution is either to get Congress to really care about this (…

The money comes from the same place they use to pay administrative folk who often earn more than post docs. It's an allocation issue
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