161–170 of 212 posts
There's toxic culture in a lot of fields and there's one common denominator. Can't wait for AI to take over every field it can and push out the corrupting factor - humans
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Can the institutions be blamed for trying to stay afloat? Where is this money coming from to pay the scientists? A collective decision has to be made to keep science healthy in a meaningful and productive way. I think academia (through its ethos of critical approach and peer review) may be the single social structure that keeps some kind of sanity.
I don't know, can the admins stay afloat without making 200k+ per year? Maybe give some of that to us grad students
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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.
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Wages paid by grants in general have to match whatever the institutions 'standard' pay scales are. So it's the institutions deciding pay rates. At least in the U.S..
My wife is currently in the middle of a fight over this. Her salary is paid by a grant from an organization that has a minimum pay scale for postdocs. The university has its own standard pay scale for postdocs, which is about $20k/year lower. So far they've refused to budge. It's not even their money, there's just 4 layers of bureaucracy who have nothing better to do than ~enforce policy~ no matter the cost.
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…
Some advice for grad students who want to preserve their mental health: 1) Have an entirely separate life outside of academia. Do not mix the two, maintain a strict separation, and keep all academic relationships strictly professional. 2) Don't think of your advisor as anything other than an employer. They're not a father figure or a mentor or anything like that. You're just cheap labor, and don't forget it. 3) Don't…
As you can imagine some people do great with it but I'm also aware of some catastrophes.
I like to think that our relationship, where we're free to vent about our work but also talk about and enjoy lots of other things, helps to keep us both mentally healthy.
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…
> Academia places unrealistic goals on brilliant people and pays them so meagerly that they have to often find other sources of income Early in my career, I considered (with an MS in Electrical Engineering, but with 4 years of professional programming experience) a switch into law. Big firms hire (or did in the past) people with tech degrees to do patent work and will pay a salary plus pay for law school. When I join…
I've never heard this before. What job title would you search for?
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> Academia places unrealistic goals on brilliant people and pays them so meagerly that they have to often find other sources of income Early in my career, I considered (with an MS in Electrical Engineering, but with 4 years of professional programming experience) a switch into law. Big firms hire (or did in the past) people with tech degrees to do patent work and will pay a salary plus pay for law school. When I join…
> Big firms hire (or did in the past) people with tech degrees to do patent work and will pay a salary plus pay for law school. I've never heard this before. What job title would you search for?
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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
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…
There's a regular story told in physics departments that if you leave you can't get back in. But in my experience, maybe people leave and don't want to go back.