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The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#21

Post by scarmig »

hyperbovine wrote: post #12
insaneirish wrote: post #3

Most jobs, even technical ones, truly do not require a Ph. D. This is just the market sorting things out. Why have zero (or negative) income to get post baccalaureate education if you can go work somewhere (for money) and learn on the job?

Physical and intellectual freedom are worth more to me than money.

Who's more likely to have physical and intellectual freedom:

1) A recent PhD with $40,000 to his name

2) A Google engineer who graduated from undergrad at the same time and has $400,000 to her name

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#22

Post by untangle »

Xcelerate wrote: post #20

I am surprised that so many people are relating PhD's to the money you'll make. I hear (very frequently) that "the amount of time you spend doing your PhD will put you far behind the 4 years of having a job" or "if you want to get rich, go into ...", or "management is where all the money is; you need an MBA for that". Uh... I'm doing a PhD because I like scientific research and can't stand the thought of being a proc…

Good for you. You'll be in good company. These folks aren't HN-rich either: fighter pilot, fireman, teacher, social worker...

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#23

Post by javert »

malandrew wrote: post #13
kyllo wrote: post #9

As far as desirable traits, a job can be: 1. Interesting 2. Secure 3. Lucrative You get to pick two at most, and that's if you're lucky--most people only get to pick one, or none. Jobs in academia are certainly no exception to this rule.

OT, but I find it amazing that the triangle of desirable traits applies in so many places. There's the obvious "faster, cheaper, better. pick any two" and yesterday I heard another one "sane, smart and beautiful, pick two", which I'm sure has a corollary like "handsome, sensitive and rich, pick two". It's as if Brook's "no silver bullet" can be applied to just about everything our life (or it's just that easy to pick…

That "amazing triangle" idea is just nonsense.

For example, computers have gotten faster, better, AND cheaper over time.

There definitely are women who are sane, smart, and beautiful. Are you kidding me? Just walk around any research university where they're doing graduate-level research and you will see lots of them.

As for the other gender triangle, pg is definitely handsome, sensitive and rich, so there's your disproof.

The "no silver bullet" thing is talking about something totally different. And it's an observation specific to software engineering (or, possibly, other specific domains, considered individually). There is a silver bullet for vaccinating against polio, but not for classroom teaching techniques.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#24

Post by Xcelerate »

untangle wrote: post #22
Xcelerate wrote: post #20

I am surprised that so many people are relating PhD's to the money you'll make. I hear (very frequently) that "the amount of time you spend doing your PhD will put you far behind the 4 years of having a job" or "if you want to get rich, go into ...", or "management is where all the money is; you need an MBA for that". Uh... I'm doing a PhD because I like scientific research and can't stand the thought of being a proc…

Good for you. You'll be in good company. These folks aren't HN-rich either: fighter pilot, fireman, teacher, social worker...

[Retracted; I was conveying my point incorrectly.]

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#25

Post by javert »

robrenaud wrote: post #18
kyllo wrote: post #9

As far as desirable traits, a job can be: 1. Interesting 2. Secure 3. Lucrative You get to pick two at most, and that's if you're lucky--most people only get to pick one, or none. Jobs in academia are certainly no exception to this rule.

I doubt this. Very talented people can easily accomplish all three, especially in tech. I guess the lucrative and secure part are supposed to be in tension? EG, if something is lucrative, there will be lots of competition that fights and eats away the security? But that same lucrativeness causes security, eg, golden hand cuffs.

Yeah.

In an economy with a healthy labor system, someone skilled in a certain field (say, software engineering) can just get a new (sufficiently lucrative) job if they lose the one they have, so there's no _necessary_ tension between those two.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#26

Post by javert »

Xcelerate wrote: post #20

I am surprised that so many people are relating PhD's to the money you'll make. I hear (very frequently) that "the amount of time you spend doing your PhD will put you far behind the 4 years of having a job" or "if you want to get rich, go into ...", or "management is where all the money is; you need an MBA for that". Uh... I'm doing a PhD because I like scientific research and can't stand the thought of being a proc…

your chances of being able to do exactly the kind of research you want goes up significantly with a PhD, plus you've already had the experience of doing it for 4 years.

I'm not so sure that's a valid generalization.

I'm getting a PhD in computer science, but any corporate R&D department I know of that would hire a fresh graduate would only let you do R in service of their particular D needs, i.e., you have too little autonomy.

I definitely think I can find jobs that I love and that are lucrative (I have some in mind), but I won't be doing research as, say, a tenured professor would define it.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#27

Post by javert »

scarmig wrote: post #21
hyperbovine wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical and intellectual freedom are worth more to me than money.

Who's more likely to have physical and intellectual freedom: 1) A recent PhD with $40,000 to his name 2) A Google engineer who graduated from undergrad at the same time and has $400,000 to her name

The first one.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#28

Post by lutorm »

Xcelerate wrote: post #20

I am surprised that so many people are relating PhD's to the money you'll make. I hear (very frequently) that "the amount of time you spend doing your PhD will put you far behind the 4 years of having a job" or "if you want to get rich, go into ...", or "management is where all the money is; you need an MBA for that". Uh... I'm doing a PhD because I like scientific research and can't stand the thought of being a proc…

As long as you don't do a Ph.D. with the assumption that you will get a permanent academic job, i.e., faculty at a university.

I don't really think it's the salary of a permanent academic job that people complain about, it's the fact that in most fields, the number of such jobs is far surpassed by the number of Ph.D.'s produced. When you realize that "not that much money" means "postdoc kind of not-that-much-money", then the outlook changes.

Re: The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

#30

Post by kyllo »

robrenaud wrote: post #18
kyllo wrote: post #9

As far as desirable traits, a job can be: 1. Interesting 2. Secure 3. Lucrative You get to pick two at most, and that's if you're lucky--most people only get to pick one, or none. Jobs in academia are certainly no exception to this rule.

I doubt this. Very talented people can easily accomplish all three, especially in tech. I guess the lucrative and secure part are supposed to be in tension? EG, if something is lucrative, there will be lots of competition that fights and eats away the security? But that same lucrativeness causes security, eg, golden hand cuffs.

Lucrative and secure are in tension only if the work is also very interesting (or fulfilling/challenging/stimulating, etc.)

If a job is all 3 of interesting, lucrative, and secure, then everyone will try to get that job, and the competition will either drive the salary down, or drive the job security down, or both.

A more general version of this rule is that anything desirable (or "scarce" if you want to use an economic term) in life will soon be pursued by others to the point where it becomes no longer desirable. That's the essence of how markets work.

The trick to wealth is to know (through some combination of vision and luck) what is going to be desirable ahead of time and obtain it before everyone else knows they want it.

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