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Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

nature.com

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Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#21

Post by at-fates-hands »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #18
cryoshon wrote: post #17

There are a few sub-issues here, which the article touches on briefly. First, the pay and benefits are awful. This could be fixed with a cultural attitude shift which favors scientific progress enough to actually incentivize people to do it. The entire "STEM! STEM! STEM!" craze has not been accompanied by increased wages, so it rings cynically hollow. Second, the work-life balance is poor, especially for PhD students…

I thought STEM already are the highest-paying industry jobs, so already worthwhile. Or does 'increased wages' mean relative to academia? And regarding academia and politics, the old saw "The infighting is so fierce because the stakes are so small"

>>> I thought STEM already are the highest-paying industry jobs, so already worthwhile

Could this be a simple case of supply and demand:

"This is partly due to a lack of room at the top. In the United States, the number of PhDs entering the workforce has skyrocketed but the number of stable academic jobs has not. In 1973, nearly 90% of US PhDs working in academia held full-time faculty positions, compared with about 75% in 2010."

When supply does up, and demand goes down, price tends to drop. I would assume that with an influx of PhD's and not enough open spots, salaries tended to either stabilize or drop, making a career in academia not very worthwhile economically speaking.

Of course when I was working on my doctorate, one of my professors told me flat out, "Academia carries a lot of prestige, but the paychecks leave a lot to be desired."

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#22

Post by bkcooper »

turnip1979 wrote: post #2

Good read. "One who got away" is a nice subtitle ... it exemplifies the strange relationships we have in academia. The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i) less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful. I had heard about (i) before I started my PhD. That did…

The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i) less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful.

ii and iii are the big issues for me (and obviously interwoven.) While it's not an original observation, one aspect of ii) that is especially bad is that most people probably have a distorted perspective on how good they are when they are starting out. The pool you will actually be competing with is probably much stronger than you realized.

In discussing some of these issues with a friend of mine, he said that he thought a good solution would be to substantially cut graduate enrollment and fill the labor gap with an increase in staff scientist positions. I think there's a lot to recommend that, but I can't say I see it realistically happening.

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#23

Post by micro_cam »

As someone who just left academia for industry a big factor in my decision is that I'll actually get to do more of the fun parts of research in industry. Ie develop a system, test it in real world situations and then see it pushed into actual use within the span of a few months and be part of the group that benefits materially from it.

By comparison the cycle in academia would be something like come up with an idea, submit grants wait months to hear back while working on other projects, do the work, write it up and submit it somewhere then wait months to hear back again and hope someone reads it and finds it useful.

I think this also points at part of the solution: less of a wall between academia and industry and allow people to move more freely between the two. Machine Learning and data analysis is leading the way here with great publications coming out of industry and professors holding positions at companies etc.

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#24

Post by syntern »

turnip1979 wrote: post #2

Good read. "One who got away" is a nice subtitle ... it exemplifies the strange relationships we have in academia. The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i) less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful. I had heard about (i) before I started my PhD. That did…

> (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful

This is pretty much the same everywhere.

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#25

Post by sliverstorm »

syntern wrote: post #24
turnip1979 wrote: post #2

Good read. "One who got away" is a nice subtitle ... it exemplifies the strange relationships we have in academia. The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i) less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful. I had heard about (i) before I started my PhD. That did…

> (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful This is pretty much the same everywhere.

Supposedly (not an academic here) it's just exceptionally bad in academics.

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#26

Post by toufka »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #5
cpks wrote: post #4

It's usually the smartest ones who get away. Spend 7 years for a chance at tenure? In many fields, spend years in a postdoc for a chance at a tenure-track job? Not smart. The image that the smartest, most promising ones stay in is just false. Most of the cut-offs in academia are crabshoots. Smart people realize that. The intense competition makes for horrific working conditions, at least until tenure. Smart people re…

Whenever people complain about society lacking scientists or scientific progress, I think, "Have you tried paying us money and giving us job security?"

A major issue with paying more is the scientists themselves. We tend to be a self-righteous group who insist our vow of poverty actually improves our work. And that by increasing our pay you'll tempt us into distraction. It's a horrible loop. We'll gladly fork over half a million for a new scope, but balk at paying the person to use it an extra $1,000 a year.

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#27

Post by crpatino »

bkcooper wrote: post #22
turnip1979 wrote: post #2

Good read. "One who got away" is a nice subtitle ... it exemplifies the strange relationships we have in academia. The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i) less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful. I had heard about (i) before I started my PhD. That did…

The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i) less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful. ii and iii are the big issues for me (and obviously interwoven.) While it's not an original observation, one aspect of ii) that is especially bad is that most people prob…

It is impossible for Universities to cut down graduate enrollment.

Professor productivity is defined primarily in terms of two measures: how many papers you authored (notice I avoided using the word wrote) and how many advanced degree students you graduate. Having a big pipeline of graduate students to help you achieve both goals is fundamental for success.

Also, Professors are tasked with multiple responsibilities that add little, if anything, to their perceived productivity as measured by the University. The most time consuming of those is usually lecturing undergraduate classes. Having an even bigger pool of graduate students where to offload time consuming activities associated with the class (primarily T.A.s and L.A.s but also people never met by the class doing support work like slide preparation, library searches, capture of results in brain-dead software platforms purchased by Uni's managers not doing any teaching themselves, etc) will allow you to concentrate in your research and do things that really matter (a.k.a. athoring papers and advising future PhDs).

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#28

Post by mcguire »

turnip1979 wrote: post #2

Good read. "One who got away" is a nice subtitle ... it exemplifies the strange relationships we have in academia. The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i) less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful. I had heard about (i) before I started my PhD. That did…

(iv) the politics involved are insane.

Consider that the most important facet of your early career is getting published, which depends on the peer review process. You may have heard recently of a number of things getting published in major journals that didn't pass a sniff test---peer reviews are usually only single-blind; the reviewers know who and where the authors are, but not vice-versa. And who the authors advisers are, and so on.

(Once upon a time a grad student was given the task of reviewing a paper submitted by a senior, important researcher at another institution. The paper was completely unreadable---it had apparently never been seen by an English speaker, and the researcher was well known for writing obtusely. The student told his advisor, "I have no idea if this is any good or not. I'd like to reject it." The answer, of course, was, "Oh, no, we can't do that. Ask the best questions you can and send it back for another round. Maybe it'll get better.")

Don't forget, academic jobs are driven by tenure, and the club thereof. Do not under any circumstances piss off the faculty you work with. They will hold it against you.

And then there was the case of a senior, famous researcher who left to start a company; when the company wrapped up, he came back to professor-hood and became the department chairman, because (a) he wanted to raise the visibility of the department, and (b) no one wants to be chairman. For (a), he got the faculty to agree to create a new external liaison position which was half-time PR and half-time tenured faculty. Then he hired his student and friend from his company into the position, said student having previously been so successful at teaching that after one class he was never asked to teach again.

Oh, and before you say, "the politics are bad everywhere," consider that academic jobs are based on tenure. I've worked in industry most of my career, and when things get bad I pack up my camels and move on. You don't have that option in the five years before you get tenure---it's a one-strike-and-you're-out game.

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#29

Post by syntern »

sliverstorm wrote: post #25
syntern wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful This is pretty much the same everywhere.

Supposedly (not an academic here) it's just exceptionally bad in academics.

I have seen both academics, small and large corporations. I think startups are the worst, but other than that, the rest is pretty much the same. Of course if you are only in one or the other, it may seem that your particular situation is the worst...

Re: Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

#30

Post by eli_gottlieb »

toufka wrote: post #26
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever people complain about society lacking scientists or scientific progress, I think, "Have you tried paying us money and giving us job security?"

A major issue with paying more is the scientists themselves. We tend to be a self-righteous group who insist our vow of poverty actually improves our work. And that by increasing our pay you'll tempt us into distraction. It's a horrible loop. We'll gladly fork over half a million for a new scope, but balk at paying the person to use it an extra $1,000 a year.

Who do you know who actually thinks like that?
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