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Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

wuphys.wustl.edu

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Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#121

Post by danieltillett »

cli wrote: post #111
danieltillett wrote: post #67

I feel rather conflicted by any advice given to anyone to not become as scientist. I have been through the whole science treadmill all they way up to tenured professor, but I have recently given up tenure to work on my original start-up full time. I loved everything about being an professor except the pointless committee work and paper shuffling, but I reached the point where I felt I could do more good science outsi…

What field are you working in? I am a prospective physics graduate student, and I want to do physics research as a career. However, I am uninterested in going into academia after attaining my PhD, and I am also financially independent due to inheritance.

I develop genomics software - my company is in my profile.

If you are financially independent then you should look at becoming an adjunct professor as a long term goal. If you don't cost the university any money and you generate papers and grants then you will not have too much trouble finding a position.

You should use this freedom to work on areas that other less fortunate scientist can't like project that may not generate any results for 3 or more years. No grant funded scientist, or even tenured staff member, can afford to tackle projects that don't generate publications within a relatively short timeframe as any breaks in publication output is career killing.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#122

Post by sytelus »

Getting PhD and trained as scientist has a HUGE value counter to the arguments in this article.

First, as Guy Kawasaki puts it, you want to be in school as long as possible. Getting a job means life long working on your bosses orders whether you like it or not. Going to graduate school allows you to work on your favorite area, become master at something and gives you an opportunity to add that little bump in the human knowledge with your name.

After you get PhD, you should also realize that not everyone is cut out becoming next Einstein or Feynman. If you can get good postdoc with interesting challenges then fine but otherwise you can always go to industry and get a job. You enjoyed your years in graduate school unlike spending those years trying to make some company little bit more profit and that's what counts.

Today, having a PhD in any field is invaluable if you want to enter the software industry. Most PhD work today involves some level of data science and software work anyway. When you apply for a job, at least in software industry, you will get better offer faster.

The correct way to look at this not how much money you would have made if you weren't doing PhD and straight went to industry but rather how much fun you would have missed out on your favorite area of work and possibly childhood passion if you didn't.

Software is eating academia. Concern for not getting tenure positions should be minimal today. There has never been better time to get PhD and get trained as scientist.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#123

Post by tiatia »

sytelus wrote: post #122

Getting PhD and trained as scientist has a HUGE value counter to the arguments in this article. First, as Guy Kawasaki puts it, you want to be in school as long as possible. Getting a job means life long working on your bosses orders whether you like it or not. Going to graduate school allows you to work on your favorite area, become master at something and gives you an opportunity to add that little bump in the huma…

How old are you if I may ask?

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#124

Post by sagichmal »

sytelus wrote: post #122

Getting PhD and trained as scientist has a HUGE value counter to the arguments in this article. First, as Guy Kawasaki puts it, you want to be in school as long as possible. Getting a job means life long working on your bosses orders whether you like it or not. Going to graduate school allows you to work on your favorite area, become master at something and gives you an opportunity to add that little bump in the huma…

This is a very... optimistic view of the value that a Ph.D. confers.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#125

Post by gcp »

001sky wrote: post #38
gcp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand for faculty positions is pretty stable. Demand for programmers much less so.

There is a huge imbalance in new phd/new tenure-job openings. also, the proportion of faculty jobs with tenure is shrinking. both of these are massive 'caveats' to the use of 'stable'.

I actually meant that the demand for programmers matches and evolves with the supply, and has certainly room to grow for a while, whereas academia has been completely mismatched for years.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#126

Post by crdb »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #70
dnautics wrote: post #64

The only thing missing is that the grants administrators are very often (I can think of two, dear to me counterexamples) people who got into science and couldn't hack it, making for sort of a bureaucratic dunning-kruger effect. I remember meeting DOE bureaucrats coming to visit our site, and being in awe at their complete lack of basic scientific concepts, and thinking, "these idiots probably get paid six figures to…

I am sadly unimpressed by a lot of people who end up managing investment or research funds. I wonder if it is similar to politicians? It takes some specific social skill to get there, but it doesn't mean you are any good in that position when you get it.

The main difference with academia is that as a private company, you can choose your source of investment. As an academic...

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#127

Post by carlob »

lutorm wrote: post #89
dnautics wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scott's quip "many PhD programs even see training students for industry as a fundamental part of their mission." Has long been true for chemistry and biology, and that has possibly staved off the phenomenon for a bit longer than it was for physics (original article, 1999), but it is certainly now true in these fields too. Of course, these are all anecdotes, by which I mean data strongly filtered through confirmation…

It is really a simple analysis: The number of tenured faculty is not increasing, so to have a long-term sustainable job market, each one can only graduate one PhD. The actual number over their career is probably more like 5-10. Every one except one of them will not get a tenured faculty job, that's just basic numbers.

> The actual number over their career is probably more like 5-10

Where did you get that number? I think that number is actually closer to the number of PhD's in training at any given time. The number over a career is probably 10x that. Heck, I can name one professor who whas 25 PhD students at any given time.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#128

Post by Myrmornis »

drhodes wrote: post #63
javert wrote: post #30

I was thinking about trying to become a computer science professor. I think I could potentially get more top-quality research done living an impoverished lifestyle and working at something else part time, than I could in academia, where you have to focus on pleasing the "powers that be" (program committees, grant committees, tenure committees).

This reminds of something Feynman said something in "You Must Be Joking..." "When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards…

Not everyone is sociable and finds the company of other people conducive to their thought processes like Feynman evidently was. Some people work best alone, and there is no shortage of good work (including from the IAS) to demonstrate that. Personally I find talking to other people only occasionally helpful for work.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#129

Post by Myrmornis »

amirmc wrote: post #95
philip1209 wrote: post #66

As an alum of the physics department at WUSTL - the author of this piece has quite a negative reputation on campus due to his outspoken beliefs on various political matters. It has led to his removal from many important projects and nearly cost him his tenure Removal from Obama commission during BP oil spill: http://archive.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=202393 One of his other essays, "In Defense of Homophob…

This comment is borderline ad hominem [1]. I say borderline because you don't explicitly use the information you give to counter his views but since you don't actually say anything , that's the impression a reader might take away. The articles you cite have nothing to do with the author's views on academic careers or the choices people should consider regarding graduate school. Personally, I'd find a discussion of th…

What nonsense. What on Earth is the point of your post? Very clearly the GP posts some links which are helpful to someone assessing the written output, world view, politics and mindset of the author of the original piece on academia. Furthermore, have you read the piece on homophobia? I'm not the most politically correct person out there, but really that article is the sort of thing we expect from semi-literate bible-thumping retards from the small towns of the southern USA. It is definitely of interest to this thread that the physics professor in question wrote that.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#130

Post by Myrmornis »

michaelochurch wrote: post #83
philip1209 wrote: post #66

As an alum of the physics department at WUSTL - the author of this piece has quite a negative reputation on campus due to his outspoken beliefs on various political matters. It has led to his removal from many important projects and nearly cost him his tenure Removal from Obama commission during BP oil spill: http://archive.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=202393 One of his other essays, "In Defense of Homophob…

Even though I find his political beliefs repulsive, and am sure that his beliefs have put him afoul of the academic groupthink (which leaves me in a weird place, because I dislike his beliefs but also dislike the leftist conformity being brandished against him and breaking his career) I don't think any of this stuff is relevant. Standing alone, everything he says in this essay is correct and insightful. So I'd rather…

There's a place on HN for discussing both strictly the content and also issues related to the author don't you think? I mean, we have a beautiful tree UI, we may as well use it :)
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