> For instance, academic administrators and policymakers may want to ask, “How can we make postdoc positions more attractive?
They could start by firing a few administrators and spread the savings on better pay for the postdocs.
As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
181–190 of 332 posts
Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Expanding the acronym for non-academia, ABD is "all but dissertation". After the first 2-3 years of a PhD program, the coursework is finished, you're into mostly independent research, and so you've completed "all but dissertation". This is a nebulous time that could be as short as 1-2 years, and could be as long as 5-10 years. The shorter durations tend to be in the sciences, and the longer durations in the humanitie…
Isn't ABD status the time from successfully proposing a dissertation to a specific committee until successfully defending that dissertation in front of that committee? The former step is intended to clearly define what is sufficient work. In effect, it is the contract that eliminates some of the risk of the advisor's whim.
In my university the first part ("successfully proposing a dissertation to a specific committee") was called the preliminary exam ("prelim"). In principle, you should do this decently early in your thesis. In practice, many advisors would tell their students "Go do 90% of the research and when you're close to defending, do the prelim". They didn't want to commit to a project and later fail to achieve it.
So with those advisors, it was normal for people to graduate six months after the prelim (because the department required a minimum of 6 months between the prelim and the defense).
Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
#183Make 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 t…
My friend who is a professor at a university aiming for tenure put it succinctly: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low."
Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
#184Make 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…
Very understandable. I worked as a post doc for 8 years, with a paltry salary, I must say I had excellent advisors, so the experience was professionally enjoyable and I had the opportunity to sharpen my skills, travel the world for work, and have fun in general. But in spite of an excellent CV, with the caveat that I had no affiliations with top schools and was not part of any in-group--I did not know how important b…
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Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Expanding the acronym for non-academia, ABD is "all but dissertation". After the first 2-3 years of a PhD program, the coursework is finished, you're into mostly independent research, and so you've completed "all but dissertation". This is a nebulous time that could be as short as 1-2 years, and could be as long as 5-10 years. The shorter durations tend to be in the sciences, and the longer durations in the humanitie…
> Because the duration is so dependent on the program, and the only end is when the advisor agrees that sufficient work has been done to merit a PhD, it can stretch on without much hope in sight. At least one world famous research university has a fix for this problem of "... when the advisor agrees": The official statement of the university is that the Ph.D. student must submit "an original contribution to knowledge…
> The official statement of the university is that the Ph.D. student must submit "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication".
> So, if a student believes that they have done such work, then they are free to, and maybe should, submit it for publication. When the work is accepted for publication, the student can then so announce to the professor, department school, and university.
For many fields, this would not work. My advisor required a journal publication to get the Master's degree, and several to get the PhD. He (and many others) would have failed any candidate's defense if they had just one paper if they were in their committee.
(Yes, it's crappy).
Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
#186Academia is mostly a bureaucratic scam at this point.
So many research lab have zero impact on the real world.
I think most of the useful research happen in corporation now.
Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 t…
My friend who is a professor at a university aiming for tenure put it succinctly: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law
The stakes are in fact very high for the academics themselves. There’s night and day difference between getting tenure, and not.
Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
#188Earlier 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
#189In addition to terrible compensation, I think another common issue for a post-doc is that they are not afforded the same protections as a graduate student. In the places I have worked the grad students are usually protected by the university, their committees, etc. Post-docs on the other hand are usually contract workers and they can be fired without any recourse. Usually with two to four weeks compensation. It gives…
Interesting. I know graduate students at my alma mater are now unionized, I wonder if that can cover post docs as well.
Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia
#190Make 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 t…
The closer I got to my PIs and their friends/enemies in various academic departments, the more I realized that university departmental politics are more stereotypically 'high school drama' than anything I actually experienced in high school! My god, professors can be so petty.
Don't consult a self-perceived expert on a field on a project you're considering? Uninvited from their July 4th BBQ.
Standing up for a junior tenure-track faculty who a senior person doesn't like? Have fun getting work done while scheduled to teach the 800 person remedial chemistry class, disparagingly called 'chemistry for artists.'
Need some equipment but you forgot to wish me happy birthday? Sorry, unforeseen maintenance lol. Oh please.