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A mental health crisis in science

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Re: A mental health crisis in science

#101

Post by ke88y »

dv_dt wrote: post #84
tptacek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In biochem, the norm is for people who intend to work seriously in the industry to go to grad school; that is, academic research in that field is not a competition for a tiny number of academic jobs. But bio and chem have two of the worst reputations for academic research culture.

I wonder if there is a filtering effect here where people who have relatively better soft skills and technical knowledge move into industry, and what we are seeing in academic circles is biased to what the industry declined.

> better soft skills

This is starting to happen in CS -- the level of technical competence remains fairly high, but the faculty ranks are swelling with "doesn't play well with others" types. Most of our PhD interns with serious ego/soft skill issues don't get return offers and end up in faculty positions as a result.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#102

Post by dbcooper »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #87
currymj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would help on some level, although it would definitely make the stress on applicants much higher. E.g. there’s increasingly an expectation that students should come into a PhD program with one or more publications already under their belt. For top programs ideally these should be first author (not yet an absolute requirement but it’s more important each year). So you better get a good research assistant job as a…

Would you rather be told you're not going to get a stable job as a researcher when you're 21 and first applying to grad school or at 28-35 when you're finally told you didn't get any interviews for a tenure track job?

Exactly. It's far better to get rejected early from the PhD track, for not being a high achiever, than to muddle through unable to secure a job. You would still be able to prove yourself in a masters degree.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#103

Post by AlbertCory »

Rather than focusing on research, we should look at "careers that are considered prestigious or rewarding in themselves" : fashion, entertainment, sports, medicine, tenured teaching. In all of those, there are more applicants than there are jobs. Hence, lousy salaries and poor treatment.

On the other hand, jobs that won't impress anyone you meet tend to have fewer applicants and much better treatment, because they can't afford to drive people away.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#104

Post by askin4it »

searine wrote: post #94
bioemerl wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really speak out of concern of the well being of those in research, but for the health of the system as a whole. The fact it's a monster that eats people alive to me is an evidence that the whole thing needs to be torn down and replaced, which is the best way to erase all these sorts of harms. But this isn't about today's scientists. I fully expect a collapse of academia to harm anyone currently in it, becaus…

>The fact it's a monster that eats people alive to me is an evidence that the whole thing needs to be torn down and replaced, which is the best way to erase all these sorts of harms. It is easy to tear down but hard to build. I get that you are jaded, but tearing down institutional science is just going to harm future scientists by robbing them of opportunity. Yes the system isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean we ha…

What does Opportunity have to do with science?

In this case, it seems like the Opportunity is an opportunity to get trapped in a system that is likely to be both unsatisfactory and unproductive.

My fear is that we've crossed the event horizon and we can't rollback all the alterations that accumulated over the years and gotten academics into a cul-de-sac or box canyon. (Pick your metaphor...) next stop, the singularity, where we will have the opportunity to experience life as a dimensionless point...

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#105

Post by commandlinefan »

ke88y wrote: post #71
commandlinefan wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know - I have two kids, one 17 and one 19. The 19-year-old graduated valedictorian from his high school of 700 last year, did extracurriculars and scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT... and was still rejected by the "top" colleges he applied to (Stanford, MIT). The 17-year-old got a B this year, and she's devastated - if getting everything nearly perfect isn't enough, what hope does everybody else have?…

> The 19-year-old graduated valedictorian from his high school of 700 last year, did extracurriculars and scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT > Stanford, MIT I see this attitude often and... I just don't get it. It seems innumerate at best. MIT accepts around 500 students and Stanford accepts around 2,000 students. There's overlap between those two groups, but let's assume they are entirely disjoint. That gives…

> I know they can get a great education

Too bad the people doing the hiring don't know that.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#106

Post by MisterBastahrd »

I know a very intelligent woman: graduated in 4 years having a 4.0 with a double major in CS and Chemistry. She was extremely gung-ho about going to university and achieving her PhD, and I naively believed at the time that she'd have no trouble accomplishing her goals.

Enter competitive research academia. She felt constantly defeated by classmates and advisors who seemed to be working against her at every turn. One advisor, whom she trusted, moved to take a job with another university. She followed in the hope that she could shed the toxicity of the current working environment. Turns out that the new place was just as toxic.

She finished with a 4.0 through grad school but never defended the dissertation due to burnout, tired of the constant struggle for resources, attention, and just plain basic humanity. She now has a subservient role to PhDs she could run circles around intellectually.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#107

Post by currymj »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #87
currymj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would help on some level, although it would definitely make the stress on applicants much higher. E.g. there’s increasingly an expectation that students should come into a PhD program with one or more publications already under their belt. For top programs ideally these should be first author (not yet an absolute requirement but it’s more important each year). So you better get a good research assistant job as a…

Would you rather be told you're not going to get a stable job as a researcher when you're 21 and first applying to grad school or at 28-35 when you're finally told you didn't get any interviews for a tenure track job?

right, this is the clear improvement. on the other hand, now it means science-oriented high schoolers lives get an extra helping of misery and stress.

on top of this you also filter out anyone who doesn't perfectly stay on this high-stakes pipeline from age 14 to tenure, which is probably not good overall for science.

economics is actually pretty close to working this way already. indeed, the job market for economics PhDs is much less dystopian than say life sciences. but there are tradeoffs.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#108

Post by schnitzelstoat »

dbcooper wrote: post #102
xhkkffbf wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather be told you're not going to get a stable job as a researcher when you're 21 and first applying to grad school or at 28-35 when you're finally told you didn't get any interviews for a tenure track job?

Exactly. It's far better to get rejected early from the PhD track, for not being a high achiever, than to muddle through unable to secure a job. You would still be able to prove yourself in a masters degree.

Kinda, some people I know who did poorly at undergraduate/masters did a lot better at the PhD level though and vice versa as research is very different to being taught.

There is such a lack of permanent research positions compared to postdocs and PhD students that I'm not even sure it's selecting for the best people.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#109

Post by ke88y »

dragonwriter wrote: post #61
cornercasechase wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CEO of Microsoft is a child of middle class Indian immigrants Middle class people aren’t the secretary to the prime minister. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/satya-nadela-microsoft... > so is CEO of Google “His father also had a manufacturing plant that produced electrical components” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundar_Pichai You’re buying the propaganda.

> Middle class people aren’t the secretary to the prime minister. That sounds quite normal, actually. But the middle class (the petit bourgeoisie ) is a small, economically elite class. It is in the middle between the working class that makes up the vast majority and the even narrower haut borgeoisie — the major capitalists whose relation to the economy centers on control of capital to which rented labor is applied.…

>> Middle class people aren’t the secretary to the prime minister.

> That sounds quite normal, actually.

?!?!

> Unfortunately, people sometimes confuse the middle class with the middle income segment of the working class, which is a very different thing. (And that confusion is often deliberately exploited.)

Oh, I see. This doesn't seem particularly helpful. People don't "sometimes" confuse those two things. The de facto agreed upon meaning of "middle class" has been "middle income segment of the working class" for at least a century at this point.

And, in any case, serving on the Planning Commission seems much closer to "Ruling Class" than "Middle Class" unless you literally believe in the illuminati.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#110

Post by kevviiinn »

spamizbad wrote: post #89
abhayhegde wrote: post #42

Academia places unrealistic goals on brilliant people and pays them so meagerly that they have to often find other sources of income. On top of this, some of the advisors are outright unbearable with their demands and work expectations, the world seems bleak for even a motivated researcher. Amidst the scarcity of grants, measly pay, extremely competitive environment, uncertainties tied with job market, failures in ex…

Part of what contributes to this is the "brainwashing" that takes place in PhD programs that discourages applicants from transitioning out of academia into "the industry". Academia has tons of extremely smart, hard-working individuals, most of whom would have excellent white collar careers with half the work and 2-10x the pay. There are a handful of academics who are truly built for working in academia and wouldn't b…

In my PhD program I don't see that at all, in fact our program recently paid for students to attend a multiple day seminar about how to get jobs outside academia. I'm not sure where you get that impression from
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