Fewer U.S. scientists are pursuing postdoc positions, new data show • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by Perceval » Wed, Mar 27, 2024, 3:09 PM UTC

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…

I had a similar experience. My initial stipend in grad school was $13,500/yr. My first job after defending was a VAP position for $55,000, also in my early 30s. After a year of that, I jumped to an FFRDC for twice as much.

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

#72

Post by dguest » Wed, Mar 27, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

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…

I'm guessing that it's getting down voted because it implies that the solution to bad science is to stop doing science. It's unfortunate if the poster was trying to say something different.

There are other solutions to "fixing" science: you demand more openly published data, look more critically at peer review, reexamine the tenure process, incentivize open source development, etc. It's possible that the poster was suggesting some of these things, but that wasn't clear.

Industrial research is great if you have a product you can sell, but there's a huge swath of science research where that doesn't work: you can't monetize JWST images or LHC data. Zuckerberg, whatever you think of him, isn't going to dump all his money into something that won't pay out at all in the near future, and will be shared by everyone when it does.

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

#73

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 27, 2024, 3:12 PM UTC

COGlory wrote: post #55

robertlagrant wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 trainin…

[deleted]

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

#74

Post by alephnerd » Wed, Mar 27, 2024, 3:14 PM UTC

COGlory wrote: post #70

alephnerd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$16k PhD stipend in 2024?!? Which program did you do your PhD at!!!! Even UCSC has a stipend of $24k, BU a stipend of $27k, and UIUC a stipend of $25k. No offense, but it's sounding like you attended a non-target program. At that point it absolutely makes sense to switch to software. Also, you may need some hiring mentorship. Indeed is not the best platform for roles. Also, Assoc to Sr Assoc is just 1.5-2 years so yo…

I was at an R1, public land grant university. By the time I realized how insane it was, I was close enough to graduating that I just decided to stick it out. I wasn't a great undergraduate and didn't have the background I'd have liked for the field I went into. I took a gamble on myself and it paid off, but yeah, there are some PhD programs out there that do pay a bit more. However, I am aware of a couple that actual…

There are hundreds of land grant programs ranging from Tier 1 programs like UCB or UMich to regional state schools UAlaska Anchorage.

Just saying "R1, public land grant university" isn't relevant.

> I wasn't a great undergraduate and didn't have the background I'd have liked for the field I went into

That was your problem. Not "H1Bs" or "foreign" researchers.

UC Berkeley alone can graduate around 700-800 Bio and bio related undergrads (MCB, Chemistry, etc) a year. Let alone the dozens of other similar programs (UCs, UMich, UW, Big 10, Ivies, etc)

That said, with your background in structural bio you will do well in the bioinformatics and potentially even ML space, and will probably be able to realize some actual changes that you wouldn't be able to in the more traditional and hierarchical system that exists today in Life Science research.

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

#75

Post by tombert » Wed, Mar 27, 2024, 3:16 PM UTC

game_the0ry wrote: post #65

Eric Weinstein has been complaining about this for a long time. [1] Probably a result of the monopoly + monoculture of the higher education system. Universities love taking advantage of their postdoc and phd candidates. Thankfully, industry sometimes compensates the ones who justify higher market value. [1] Listen to almost any bog podcast he has done.

I think it's particularly bad in the US. When I was looking to get a PhD here, I emailed a ton of professors asking if it was possible to do the PhD part time so I could keep my job, and most of them just didn't get back to me, and the ones that did acted like what I suggested was a completely ridiculous proposition.

On the other hand, when I looked at UK universities, every professor I emailed got back to me, and while not all of them were amenable to part time remote PhDs, all of them did know someone who was and was happy to forward my request over and they actually did!

I'm not 100% sure why the UK seems to be a little less horrible on this front, because eventually I was able to get into a a PhD program with the express understanding that it's part time, and I have a regular job.

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

#76

Post by COGlory » Wed, Mar 27, 2024, 3:22 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #74

COGlory wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at an R1, public land grant university. By the time I realized how insane it was, I was close enough to graduating that I just decided to stick it out. I wasn't a great undergraduate and didn't have the background I'd have liked for the field I went into. I took a gamble on myself and it paid off, but yeah, there are some PhD programs out there that do pay a bit more. However, I am aware of a couple that actual…

There are hundreds of land grant programs ranging from Tier 1 programs like UCB or UMich to regional state schools UAlaska Anchorage. Just saying "R1, public land grant university" isn't relevant. > I wasn't a great undergraduate and didn't have the background I'd have liked for the field I went into That was your problem. Not "H1Bs" or "foreign" researchers. UC Berkeley alone can graduate around 700-800 Bio and bio…

>Just saying "R1, public land grant university" isn't relevant.

There are 146 R1 universities in the United States. There are about 35 in the western half of the United States. There are no R1 universities in Alaska. There are 105 public R1s. R1 universities are widely considered the top tier for PhDs. In my field, I had a once in a lifetime opportunity to get hands on training with a new, otherwise inaccessible technique. I did well, and like I said, was recruited heavily. This included turning down a job at the premier institute in Germany where this technique (cryo-electron microscopy) was basically developed. My PI was prestigious and well respected in the field. His previous students went on to ultimately take director positions at places like Pfizer.

Yes, I could have taken $30k/year to go a school on the California coast, but it'd have come out to about the same once you adjust for cost of living.

>That was your problem. Not "H1Bs" or "foreign" researchers. $16,800 is not significantly less than what other PhD programs I looked at were paying. Low 20s was pretty common.

From what I remember, Cornell was paying like $24k/yr at the time.

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

#77

Post by robertlagrant » Wed, Mar 27, 2024, 9:08 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #13

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?

Lack of research. Most academic research is done by postdocs through grants from e.g. NSF. NSF and other grantors cap postdoc pay at below living wage in expensive cities like Boston. (The professor and university who hire the postdoc have very little flexibility to pay them more.) Add that it's a temp job with no security and fewer people want to sign up. So a lot of cutting-edge research can't get done.

But is that because a lot of value can be found in these same people producing in industry at the moment? I wonder if there could be a cycle of sometimes discovery being more valuable, because biotech is fairly commoditised, and a cycle of implementation sometimes being more valuable, because we haven't made the most of discoveries.