Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
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Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
1–10 of 94 posts
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#2Hacker news has seen a lot of posts on this subject. The usual advice is to work in industry, where people are apparently treated like human beings. I am sure this is true, but the advice isn't helpful to me.
Society benefits from scientific research. Dismiss its wage problems at your own peril. Sadly, a lot of research is outsourced to universities because labor is cheap. Why pay someone loads of money when you can contract with a university lab? It might be good in the short term, but the talent is leaving research in search of greener pastures.
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#3Hacker news has seen a lot of posts on this subject. The usual advice is to work in industry, where people are apparently treated like human beings. I am sure this is true, but the advice isn't helpful to me. Society benefits from scientific research. Dismiss its wage problems at your own peril. Sadly, a lot of research is outsourced to universities because labor is cheap. Why pay someone loads of money when you can…
> We cannot dismiss these problems in science if we want research to continue.
The sad reality is that right now, those concerns can be dismissed. There is a huge supply of good researchers (especially foreign researchers) who are willing to work under poor conditions just to get a shot. Until there is more money in the system / more positions / fewer people in academic science, you are going to see PIs with unreasonable expectations because they know they can get away with it.
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#4Headline should say [2010], though the thing the post is about is from 1996.
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#5I'm not surprised in the slightest. Caltech has a reputation as one of the best research universities in the world and getting a degree or doing research there requires a lot of work because it's so competitive. I've spent many nights as a kid running around Caltech in the dark while my mother worked on her experiments till midnight or later (all of the turtles come out at night!). Publish or perish goes tenfold for the elite schools which have a never ending supply of talented postdocs.
Though I'm not surprised that this letter came from someone in the chemistry department. ChemE especially has a reputation within Caltech as one of the most difficult paths for both undergraduate and graduate work. The ChemE specific classes usually require a much bigger time commitment and the tests are notoriously difficult.
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#6From what I can tell, this is much more common in synthetic labs than physical or analytical labs. I think most of the physical chemists I knew in two different universities worked fairly normal hours, the labs were mostly empty on nights and weekends.
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#7It's a violation of labor laws. Universities argue that they can bypass labor laws by calling it education but there have been some recent rulings against that argument in postdoc unionization cases.
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#8Hacker news has seen a lot of posts on this subject. The usual advice is to work in industry, where people are apparently treated like human beings. I am sure this is true, but the advice isn't helpful to me. Society benefits from scientific research. Dismiss its wage problems at your own peril. Sadly, a lot of research is outsourced to universities because labor is cheap. Why pay someone loads of money when you can…
> Dismiss its wage problems at your own peril.
It's far worse than this. In my field, even in industry I have had far more lucrative offers from quantitative hedge funds than any industrial research labor. Let alone staying in academia, where it literally starts to become a factor of four (or more) difference in salary between a postdoc and finance.
The only reason I did not bite is because I am fortunate enough to have no college debt even after undergrad and phd. Most are not in a position to be so picky.
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#9It's a violation of labor laws. Universities argue that they can bypass labor laws by calling it education but there have been some recent rulings against that argument in postdoc unionization cases.
Actually, it allows both postdoc AND grad student unionization.
Re: Something Deeply Wrong with Chemistry (2010)
#10It's a violation of labor laws. Universities argue that they can bypass labor laws by calling it education but there have been some recent rulings against that argument in postdoc unionization cases.
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