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Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

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Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#51

Post by mililani »

fsk wrote: post #43
mililani wrote: post #26

Has anyone ever looked at how large some of these graduate STEM departments are by the number of students? When I decided to go back to grad school for maths, I realized that doing a Ph.D. would probably be fruitless. How did I determine this? I went to UC Berkeley, Stanford and UCLA, arguably the best math departments in the country based on the NRC rankings and AMS rankings, and counted up their graduate students.…

I was going for a PhD in Math and dropped out for pretty much the same reason. The field was so specialized that nobody really understands anyone else's research, which makes it mostly not-merit-based (politics) who gets hired where. Also, it really wasn't fun. I figured it would be easier to work as programmer and study Math (or other things) in my spare time. It seems like a waste to spend 5+ years on a PhD and 3-5…

I've seen permanent adjuncts / post-docs. There was a guy at my old school who was there as a post doc. He did his PhD at UC Berkeley. I can't believe that he has been jumping around to different institutions as a post doc or lecturer for over 10 years. It's quite sad. My friend did his Ph.D at University of Oregon. It took him 6 years to finish it. Then he spent 2 years as a post doc at University of Toronto. He finally got a job back home at a small 4 year college. I guess he's doing what he set out to do: be a university math professor. But, I believe him being from Hawaii helped him land that gig. They prefer locals who want to go back home before considering others.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#52

Post by mililani »

chestervonwinch wrote: post #42
mililani wrote: post #26

Has anyone ever looked at how large some of these graduate STEM departments are by the number of students? When I decided to go back to grad school for maths, I realized that doing a Ph.D. would probably be fruitless. How did I determine this? I went to UC Berkeley, Stanford and UCLA, arguably the best math departments in the country based on the NRC rankings and AMS rankings, and counted up their graduate students.…

From what I've gathered, this has been the job outlook for academic positions for some time across most areas (not strictly STEM), hasn't it? The prospects for STEM phds in industry appears better (or at least as someone pursuing a math phd with plans to go into industry, I must tell myself that). I'm interested in what decision you made.

Yes to academia. Academia is hard to break into, and from what I gather from talking to a lot of math professors, it seems to have been this way since the 50's.

No on industry. I'm on other math forums, and judging by the constant reposts of "Finding a job with a math degree", I really believe that it's tough finding a job in private industry as well.

Personally, I decided not to do a pure maths degree but instead concentrate on statistics. The job prospects in industry are much better in that field. And, my goal was to teach at community colleges. From my discussion with CC faculty, their most popular math courses are statistics. So, they often look for people who have strong stats backgrounds. My plan is to find work as a statistician and work as an adjunct until I can land a permanent TT job at the community colleges. I just got certified as a SAS programmer, and there are lots of jobs at there I can do remotely.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#53

Post by mililani »

onetimeusename wrote: post #35
mililani wrote: post #26

Has anyone ever looked at how large some of these graduate STEM departments are by the number of students? When I decided to go back to grad school for maths, I realized that doing a Ph.D. would probably be fruitless. How did I determine this? I went to UC Berkeley, Stanford and UCLA, arguably the best math departments in the country based on the NRC rankings and AMS rankings, and counted up their graduate students.…

So did you end up getting the phd anyways? In your experience, did you feel the departments' agendas placed importance on the field or were they more interested in career aspirations or money? My personal experience is that mathematics comes second to research grants and ensuring prestige. I do want to hear from other people though since that was just my own.

No, I'm actually starting grad school next month. But, I decided against a PhD and will just do a masters in math with a concentration in statistics. My ultimate goal was to teach at the community colleges anyways. I really don't want to do research for the rest of my life.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#54

Post by jebus989 »

onetimeusename wrote: post #45
jebus989 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The overhead, Vague > the poor job prospects Relative to whom? > the cost If you're paying a dime to do a PhD you're doing it wrong — I get paid an ok amount and my fees are covered. > the obsession with prestige Not sure what you mean by this.

overhead -> time taken and requirements to write and defend a thesis, in addition to teaching and writing papers with advisor. rhetorical question, is having a phd the only way to prove without a doubt that you are an expert in a field and know how to do research? poor job prospects-> Did you read the article? How many tenure track positions do you think there are for someone who researches pure math? cost-> are you…

Overhead, I'm on a fast-track 3yr EU PhD admittedly the US system is a different animal in this regard. Is it the only way to become an expert, of course not and I don't think anyone is making that argument.

Yes I did read the article. So you're equating "job prospects" with "chance of being a tenured professor in a specific field", more usually it means the opportunity to enter a well-paying or otherwise respectable career of any type.

Costs, sure I imagine I would earn more as a technician in industry with an MSc but if you're driven by immediate-term financial gain I'd agree a PhD is not for you.

Prestige, at PhD level it matters less about the institution than your specific advisor. Also I'd argue science is ahead of most careers in being a meritocracy, the quality of your publications should count for more than your institute's ranking. Should people care about the level of research of their institute as judged by an independent group of peers, probably yes.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#55

Post by hyperbovine »

math0ne wrote: post #47
hyperbovine wrote: post #46

The economist types who ceaselessly churn out these doom-and-gloom articles about the PhD job market just kill me. Almost every single one unblinkingly equates success with salary. In my field postdocs pay 2-3x what you make as a grad student, while still giving you almost total flexibility to work on the things that interest you, with very little oversight. To a certain subset of people, this is far more attractive…

I like the point you are trying to make, but you go a little off the deep end there at the end. There's nothing wrong with pursuing money.

Sorry, I did not mean to give offense, but the presumption that there's something wrong with not pursuing money is both a) irksome and b) at the root of a large number of ills in our society.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#56

Post by purringmeow »

refurb wrote: post #13
HarryHirsch wrote: post #6

A big employer for chemistry PhDs that no one in the West has heard of is Wuxi Pharmatech, a contract research outfit in Shanghai. They do everything, synthesis, discovery, lead optimization, clinical testing, process development, formulation, the whole pipeline. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies stateside have turned into IP brokerages, if you think you have a promising target you buy a startup that has a compound…

This is a great point, employment stats are not the same across all PhDs. Back in the early 2000's organic chemistry PhDs were in very high demand. Salaries went from ~$70K/yr to start to over $100K/yr by 2005 or so. Since 2005 two things have happened: (1) as mentioned above, a lot of off-shoring of basic research has happened, particularly to China and India (not saying this is good or bad) and (2) a shift by the b…

That kind of offshoring is definitely bad, IMO. We aren't talking about outsourced PHP web development sweatshops, but incredibly high-tech research. As one poster below mentioned, you are losing institutional knowledge & traditions. That has to have a negative long term effect on your economy.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#57

Post by mechanical_fish »

hyperbovine wrote: post #46

The economist types who ceaselessly churn out these doom-and-gloom articles about the PhD job market just kill me. Almost every single one unblinkingly equates success with salary. In my field postdocs pay 2-3x what you make as a grad student, while still giving you almost total flexibility to work on the things that interest you, with very little oversight. To a certain subset of people, this is far more attractive…

Do postdocs ever end in your field, or can you build an entire forty-year career out of a succession of three-year postdoctoral appointments?

If you can work as a postdoc forever, can you do this with confidence? Which is to say, what are the odds that you'll wind up washed up at age 34, or 44, or 54, driving the mid-21st-century equivalent of a taxicab, after your PI's grants dry up and you can't find any other PIs who need your possibly-quite-esoteric research skills?

Tenure would help, of course. What's the ratio of assistant-professor openings to Ph.D.-level graduates in your field?

Getting your own grants might help. In your field, do people who have done, say, five postdocs in a row routinely get awarded grants in their own names?

(Full disclosure: I did a postdoc for fun, once. It was fun. There are many worse ways to spend three years of your life. But it was an expensive detour from my eventual career.)

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#58

Post by munin »

nagrom wrote: post #38
onetimeusename wrote: post #32

I would really like to see an alternative to going to grad school for a Ph.D. spring up for people who want to do research, particularly in math which doesn't require expensive labs. The overhead, the poor job prospects, the cost, the obsession with prestige all need to go.

A PhD in math does, however, require a motivated and interested supervisor. A supervisor who can tach you how to write papers, how to get them published, to tell you where you are wasting your time and to help you over the humps that may otherwise stop you. It needs a supervisor who can introduce you to others in the field, even if they live in other countries or on other continents! That may exist as a culture in Op…

> If the government decided to fund maths PhDs directly, they'd need a ready-made corpus of people who could decide who gets funding. They'd need people who have published and who have proved that they know what they're talking about.

Government research grants already fund maths PhDs and this process (a corpus of people who decide who gets funding) is how NSF, DARPA, IARPA, etc hand out grant money.

One problem is that the university takes a 60% cut off the the top of government grant awards. What for? I dunno, many places, the football team, padding the endowment, building new B-school buildings, hiring an army of mid-level administrators. It certainly isn't to pay for researcher (professor and postdoc) salaries, they are paid from other grants, again, from the government. It isn't to help with the grant award process, professors (and their students) write all their own grants.

The Academic tradition is alive, but the University has become a bloated beast siphoning life from the researchers and the government. What was a support infrastructure has a life of its own. It needs to be stopped.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#59

Post by hueving »

hyperbovine wrote: post #46

The economist types who ceaselessly churn out these doom-and-gloom articles about the PhD job market just kill me. Almost every single one unblinkingly equates success with salary. In my field postdocs pay 2-3x what you make as a grad student, while still giving you almost total flexibility to work on the things that interest you, with very little oversight. To a certain subset of people, this is far more attractive…

That's a cute strawman of what people in the industry do. It's similar to saying that all post-docs do is resubmit the same paper to conferences/journals for an entire year until one barely accepts it, at which point they are so disgusted with their own work that they hate to even talk about it.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#60

Post by kaitai »

hyperbovine wrote: post #46

The economist types who ceaselessly churn out these doom-and-gloom articles about the PhD job market just kill me. Almost every single one unblinkingly equates success with salary. In my field postdocs pay 2-3x what you make as a grad student, while still giving you almost total flexibility to work on the things that interest you, with very little oversight. To a certain subset of people, this is far more attractive…

I love having postdocs too, but what after that? I run out of postdocs. At some point people are going to stop considering you for math postdocs because you've been out of the PhD too long. And while it's great to make 40-50K and think about math all the time, the cost in stability of moving a family around every two years is ridiculous and unsustainable. Ok, now you've moved your family around for 6 years or done the long-distance thing and no one will hire you for a postdoc anymore and no one will hire you for a faculty job. What then? Perma-adjuncthood. Now you get to go back to 30k a year and still have no job security, and less time for research. So what was the point of that sacrifice?

If you want to do research in a field like math and you can't get a professorship, you need to have an outside income that still allows 30 hours a week to think. If you want to do research in math and you can get a professorship, you need to protect your time fiercely even if you're at a research school and you're close to doomed if you are teaching 3-3 or 4-4. (I've seen some people do it.) So that dream of working on things that interest you with very little oversight is temporary pretty much no matter what.

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