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Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

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Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#51

Post by COGlory »

alephnerd wrote: post #9
robertlagrant wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Paying postdocs private sector hourly salaries will probably resolve the issue What's the actual issue, though? Is there something bad that this effect is causing?

Salaries are basically limited to $50-70k a year with 50-60 hour workweeks. If you did a PhD in Biochemistry, you could make $100-200k a year plus stock working 40-50 hours a week at most working for Pfizer in Cambridge MA instead of earning around $60k working 50-60 hours as a Postdoc at a regional Boston based program like BU or Northeastern - you have to pay the same amount for rent and groceries, but you earn hal…

>If you did a PhD in Biochemistry, you could make $100-200k a year plus stock working 40-50 hours a week at most working for Pfizer in Cambridge MA instead of earning around $60k working 50-60 hours as a Postdoc at a regional Boston based program like BU or Northeastern - you have to pay the same amount for rent and groceries, but you earn half as much and work much longer hours.

I was recruited pretty heavily relative to my peers, when I finished up my biochem PhD. Clearing $100k was actually a pretty tall order without a postdoc. There are jobs out there, and I managed to get one of them, but they were very competitive. With a postdoc, $150k was on the low end, but also still competitive. Basically no one is hiring at $200k in biotech, beyond director roles.

Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#52

Post by raverbashing »

sct202 wrote: post #7

Postdocs are such a scam role. These are PHD educated scientists who have spent 4+ years on PHD getting paid like $50k-$70k/year with basically dead end jobs where they must leave to another place to get a tenure track role since they're already considered 2nd class at the institution the postdoc is at.

Really

Search on YT (as an example) what's the outlook on postdocs for most people on the academic world (some notable Exceptions can be Found though)

Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#53

Post by etrautmann »

aiisjustanif wrote: post #35
sct202 wrote: post #7

Postdocs are such a scam role. These are PHD educated scientists who have spent 4+ years on PHD getting paid like $50k-$70k/year with basically dead end jobs where they must leave to another place to get a tenure track role since they're already considered 2nd class at the institution the postdoc is at.

> getting paid like $50k-$70k/year with basically dead end jobs $50 - 70k would be nice, but we’ve seen lower in some states

This has been going up a bunch in the last few years thankfully, but not by enough to make it livable for people with children or in high cost of living areas.

Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#54

Post by Tadpole9181 »

zer00eyz wrote: post #38
lecunn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 weeks of work at minimum wage is nowhere near $16,800...

I fat fingered the 2... that was supposed to be 25...

Flip those numbers. That's a full year of minimum wage... 16,000 / 8 / 40.

Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#55

Post by COGlory »

robertlagrant wrote: post #11
alephnerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries are basically limited to $50-70k a year with 50-60 hour workweeks. If you did a PhD in Biochemistry, you could make $100-200k a year plus stock working 40-50 hours a week at most working for Pfizer in Cambridge MA instead of earning around $60k working 50-60 hours as a Postdoc at a regional Boston based program like BU or Northeastern - you have to pay the same amount for rent and groceries, but you earn hal…

But what's the actual problem that fewer postdocs causes?

Postdocs are the single most productive members in a research group.

The PI is typically a tenured or tenure track professor, who got the job based on their research ability, but now they are relegated to an office, teaching 1-2 classes/semester, writing grants, reviewing papers for free for for-profit journals, reviewing grants for NIH/NSF, etc.

Grad students are not well motivated, not skilled, need lots of training, take classes, need to work on a thesis, and often times also teach. So they are low output and high time investment.

Postdocs require little-to-no time investment as they already have most prerequisite skills, have no other obligations beyond research, and sometimes even bring their own funding. They are basically professional researchers and are by far and away the most productive members of any given research group.

Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#56

Post by [deleted] »

PheonixPharts wrote: post #24
betaby wrote: post #4

In the replication crisis era it's a good thing I suppose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

I'm not sure why this is being down voted. The classic argument in favor of taking a (potentially major) pay cut to work in academia as opposed to industry was always that academia is an environment for true learning and doing proper research uncorrupted by profit-seeking motives of corporations. Essentially, you make the classic trade-off between income and integrity. In recent years we've seen that there's not a wh…

[deleted]

Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#57

Post by alephnerd »

COGlory wrote: post #51
alephnerd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salaries are basically limited to $50-70k a year with 50-60 hour workweeks. If you did a PhD in Biochemistry, you could make $100-200k a year plus stock working 40-50 hours a week at most working for Pfizer in Cambridge MA instead of earning around $60k working 50-60 hours as a Postdoc at a regional Boston based program like BU or Northeastern - you have to pay the same amount for rent and groceries, but you earn hal…

>If you did a PhD in Biochemistry, you could make $100-200k a year plus stock working 40-50 hours a week at most working for Pfizer in Cambridge MA instead of earning around $60k working 50-60 hours as a Postdoc at a regional Boston based program like BU or Northeastern - you have to pay the same amount for rent and groceries, but you earn half as much and work much longer hours. I was recruited pretty heavily relati…

> I was recruited pretty heavily relative to my peers, when I finished up my biochem PhD

When? Your numbers don't make sense in the late 2010s to present.

Even my friends working as Sr Associate Scientists (BS only) for employers like Pfizer or Biogen are earning $100-140k base after barely 2 YoE, and younger friends and family of mine are getting $100-110k base for new grad roles now

Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#58

Post by etrautmann »

el_cujo wrote: post #31
robertlagrant wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what's the actual problem that fewer postdocs causes?

There really isn't one in my opinion. Academic postdoc positions in many fields are pitched as a stepping stone to professorship, but professor positions are very few so you end up with PHDs continuing the low-pay grind after graduation to prop up academia for a dream that doesn't come true. I think it's good more are recognizing this and just going to industry, maybe eventually this will cause problems and academia…

The professor positions themselves aren't particularly cushy at the end of that road. Some postdocs take a look at the prospects of 60-70 hour weeks, very little time to focus on anything scientific or technical, and huge piles of administrative work, and relatively low pay and choose to industry options not out of a lack of the ability to land a professorship.

Re: Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show

#59

Post by hedora »

alephnerd wrote: post #19
COGlory wrote: post #15

I made $16,800 a year while getting my PhD. Sometimes that required me to teach, when we had funding, it was just research. Grueling hours, abusive PI, for 6 years of my life. I helped bring in over 4 million dollars in grants to my university. After about two years, I was highly skilled and founded a new core facility that I kept running for the next 4 years while finishing my PhD. When I graduated, I had someone of…

> We don't need H1Bs. We need better PhD student and postdoc wages. You need both. Your PhD classmates from abroad (most likely Russia, China, Korea, and India) would have gotten an H1B after they graduated from the PhD program, and their (edit: post-) postdoc employment would have been on an H1B. I'm assuming this was the late 1990s or early 2000s based on the numbers provided One of my friends who did their PhD and…

I’ve heard the path to getting a professorship in China after getting a PhD in the US was basically a sure thing, and could be used as a backup plan if the cushy US industry job path didn’t work out (or as a zero-risk plan if you wanted to move back home).

Now, it’s the opposite; people with hard-to-obtain visas get stranded in the US because the job market back home is too competitive for them.

This is great for China, but terrible for the US.

We need to bring the US education system back up to modern standards so that more Americans succeed in industry, and we also need to again make it a no-brainer for skilled workers to stay here.

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