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Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

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Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#151

Post by raphazlab »

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…

Thanks for the link to my blog. This interpretation is not just uncharitable; it also does not really back up your argument: contrarily to the student who became a grant admin, the PI decided to pursue in this very same route, building a vast scientific enterprise on the said PhD work... If the to-become-grant-administrator decided to leave it there, this person has demonstrated a somewhat more rational course of action than the academic!

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#152

Post by epaladin »

dekhn wrote: post #85
RK wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm under the impression that it has only gotten worse. Anecdote: A super smart friend of mine from physics grad school finished in 2008 and went on to post-docs at Caltech and Harvard. He was unable to get a tenure track job, primarily because in that 4 year timespan only 1 faculty position opened up in the entire US for his (tiny) field. He now works at Google. In fact I'm not sure that anyone from my cohort is sti…

I'd just like to emphasize: while most people would agree that we train too many PhDs, I can assure you: the process of training many PhDs (in any discipline) has been very, very good to Google. It selects for, and hones the skills of, people who are quantitative, can form hypotheses, and test them. I went to Goog- and took a significant temporary hit to my bioinformatics career- while working as a software engineer…

I'm seeing more and more bioinformatics-related positions in industry that are listing a PhD as a requirement. I'm currently trying to decide if it's worth it to do the PhD now (in Bioinfo or a strongly related program) or to side-track for a little while doing something more directly computational or entrepreneurial. I'm ultimately interested in coming back to bioinformatics regardless. Would you say it's worthwhile to do the PhD (even if intending to work in industry), or to try to make up for the lack of a PhD with other experience?

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#153

Post by hga »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #137
michaelochurch wrote: post #91

The result is that the best young people, who should go into science, sensibly refuse to do so, and the graduate schools are filled with weak American students and with foreigners lured by the American student visa. Not quite true, but what I have noticed is that, at the graduate-school level, there's a very low correlation between the quality of the program and the students. If you go to a top-5 PhD program, you'll…

Why are you so surprised that a metric like GPA (or undergrad accomplishment in general), with a hard ceiling, loses its correlation with actual talent at the top end of the scale? That is, most undergrads will simply never get the opportunity to publish one paper in undergrad, let alone two or three, so if you admit them to grad-school based on maybe a publication, good grades, and maybe some internship/REU experien…

Well, one thing you can do is admit everyone who a colleague you know and trust says can do research (what I've heard, quite logically, is the #1 way to get into a good graduate program, after of course convincing a professor in one to demand your admittance).

So the "schmucks" ... and I've known of one MIT professor who didn't get tenure who was in that category (a friend tried to do research in her laboratory and found it impossible, it was so badly run, something subsequent events proved) ... are either false positives from the above metric or from the cohort of department's best guesses after running out of them.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#154

Post by eli_gottlieb »

hga wrote: post #153
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so surprised that a metric like GPA (or undergrad accomplishment in general), with a hard ceiling, loses its correlation with actual talent at the top end of the scale? That is, most undergrads will simply never get the opportunity to publish one paper in undergrad, let alone two or three, so if you admit them to grad-school based on maybe a publication, good grades, and maybe some internship/REU experien…

Well, one thing you can do is admit everyone who a colleague you know and trust says can do research (what I've heard, quite logically, is the #1 way to get into a good graduate program, after of course convincing a professor in one to demand your admittance). So the "schmucks" ... and I've known of one MIT professor who didn't get tenure who was in that category (a friend tried to do research in her laboratory and f…

>Well, one thing you can do is admit everyone who a colleague you know and trust says can do research

I always thought this was simply how you get into grad-school: do research in undergrad, and have your research mentors write you letters of recommendation, trusting their reputation to carry information the admissions committee will understand and care about where grades and awards won't.

>So the "schmucks" ... and I've known of one MIT professor who didn't get tenure who was in that category (a friend tried to do research in her laboratory and found it impossible, it was so badly run, something subsequent events proved) ... are either false positives from the above metric or from the cohort of department's best guesses after running out of them.

Kinda. Politics become a problem, but it is true that once you actually get to the point of publishing papers, the cap on your achievements disappears, so you do, in some way, get career credit for doing more.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#156

Post by dekhn »

epaladin wrote: post #152
dekhn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd just like to emphasize: while most people would agree that we train too many PhDs, I can assure you: the process of training many PhDs (in any discipline) has been very, very good to Google. It selects for, and hones the skills of, people who are quantitative, can form hypotheses, and test them. I went to Goog- and took a significant temporary hit to my bioinformatics career- while working as a software engineer…

I'm seeing more and more bioinformatics-related positions in industry that are listing a PhD as a requirement. I'm currently trying to decide if it's worth it to do the PhD now (in Bioinfo or a strongly related program) or to side-track for a little while doing something more directly computational or entrepreneurial. I'm ultimately interested in coming back to bioinformatics regardless. Would you say it's worthwhile…

The older, safer part of my says get the PhD. The younger, more risk prone part (which I ignored for too long) suggests you're going to make a bigger impact sooner by doing something computational and entrepenurial.

The PhD means, when you get to industry, you won't end up as a lab tech. it doesn't mean that you will be running a lab, however.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#157

Post by Balgair »

javert wrote: post #148
Balgair wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I used my list of logical errors incorrectly, my bad. Still, yes, for him, maybe he does in fact know more 'failed' physicists than junkies. However, there are many many many more junkies with much much worse lives than almost all PhDs. I'm going into neurosci this fall, so I don't know yet personally. However, the attitude expressed in that sentence is so very toxic. If that's what the professor publishes, then…

I'm finishing my 5th year of grad school now. My adviser constantly sets expectations so high that they literally cannot be met. I have had to skip holidays and neglect my family and I have still often had my work trivialized. My work is not appreciated, the fact that I have given up almost everything else in my life is not appreciated. Most people do not even make it to their 5th year in our group. I spent a lot of…

Wow, thank you for the advice, I do appreciate it!

I'm going to push back on you though. Having to skip out on your life and family to satisfy an advisor who "sets expectations so high that they literally cannot be met" is NOT ok. I have done this to myself and family before as well, and am old enough now to know that it is WAY unhealthy and detrimental to the work over the long term of months.

Honestly, it sounds like you are kinda Munchhausen-syndroming here. I mean, bravo for sticking with it and having the hardihood, but... dude.... wake up. Your advisor seems to be an ass. If they ride you this hard and trivialize all the hard work it is not helping you be a scientist, it's helping them further their career. You are getting screwed here.

Also, you seem to be very confused as to why you are doing this. You claim to not have a life outside of grad school and yet your life in grad school is terrible. You claim to love what you are doing but only after years of struggle and browbeating. From what little data you have shared (and thank you for doing so, I do appreciate it) you seem resigned. You advisor is not going to give you a good letter of recommendation. You indicate your science is not good enough for your advisor and do not refute this. You claim to be selfish but care about missing out on family and friends. You state your advisor is trying to make you a better scientist, but only discovered so after 5 years of their bad treatment. What is your plan? What are you going to do with your life? If this is what science is doing to you, you might want to reconsider. You seem miserable.

Back to the quotes; my problem was that he is self selecting out the good students. You advisor is a person you should trust. Writing an article like this sends out big red flags to anyone maybe thinking of working with him. I'd never work with the guy because I know for a fact he is a bad investment. If he had any students at the time of the writing, he just threw them all under the bus, along with most of his co-professor's students. He tarnished the reputations of his lab, department, and school by saying those things. Mostly he tarnished his own reputation.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#158

Post by agarttha »

lumberjack wrote: post #14

Does anyone know how the situation in Europe compares for post grads in Math, Physics and CS?

As an American physics PhD who is continuing his career in academia in France, the situation is comparable to that in the US: the number of tenure openings (French CR1/CR2) is declining while the number of PhDs is growing.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#159

Post by cli »

danieltillett wrote: post #141
amirmc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were independently wealthy, an adjunct professorship would be pretty appealing (in the right institution). Getting frontline access to very smart people working on potentially world-changing problems while having very few hard responsibilities/commitments (lectures, committees, etc) seems like a nice way to work. Being independently wealthy is a pre-requisite as the institution offers nothing but access.

I agree - it is a pity I was not born to really wealthy parents. There was a paper in Science about 15 years ago that was on how the independently wealthy worked in science that was really interesting (I might see if I can find it online). If we go back to the foundations of science all scientist were just wealthy dilettantes :) Edit. Found it - actually it was from 16 years ago :P http://www.sciencemag.org/content/2…

Thank you very much for linking this article.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#160

Post by [deleted] »

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…

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