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Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

yangxiao.cs.ua.edu

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Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#11

Post by wbl »

wasabi991011 wrote: post #9
nickpsecurity wrote: post #2

I think it could be better titled "Don't Become an Academic Professional or Professional Scientist." They have good reasons for this. Whereas, you can do science as a hobby in your spare time for free or up to your chosen budget. You can publish whatever you want on your web sites, social media, etc. You can often get advice or peer review from professional scientists by asking them. You might pay them for their time…

> you can do science as a hobby in your spare time for free or up to your chosen budget Not in many fields/subfields, unless "chosen budget" is some unattainable amount of disposable income. Most people who want to do science have a specific field they are interested in. Your proposal is fine for theoreticians (and some computationalists, depending on the compute they require), but not many others.

Biology can be studied by observing outside in any park.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#12

Post by acdha »

wbl wrote: post #11
wasabi991011 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can do science as a hobby in your spare time for free or up to your chosen budget Not in many fields/subfields, unless "chosen budget" is some unattainable amount of disposable income. Most people who want to do science have a specific field they are interested in. Your proposal is fine for theoreticians (and some computationalists, depending on the compute they require), but not many others.

Biology can be studied by observing outside in any park.

This is like saying you can study CS using pen and paper. It’s possible for certain rare edge cases but absolutely nobody is going through the process of applying for grants if they don’t need the money to work on the problems they’ve specialized for. People in the past were just as smart and motivated so the low-hanging fruit is gone.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#13

Post by worik »

Has anything changed for the better?

Ten years ago the cleaners in the labs at The University of Otago had job security most of the scientists could only dream about.

I was in the business school (very low rankings!) and I was amazed at the infighting, back stabbing and general lack of collegiality amongst the academic staff.

I could not wait together out of there

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#14

Post by tomhow »

Previously on HN:

Don't Become a Scientist (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17789844 - Aug 2018 (2 comments)

Don't Become a Scientist (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9836622 - July 2015 (4 comments)

Don't become a scientist (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8702841 - Dec 2014 (33 comments)

Don't Become a Scientist (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7763737 - May 2014 (159 comments)

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#15

Post by a1pulley »

"I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs."

This seems a bit hyperbolic. In the mid to late 2000s, only 5 of the 15 close grad student friends I had at Caltech didn't get a tenure track position somewhere. Four of the five work in tech, and the fifth is a government electrical engineer. 4/5 were homegrown, the fifth is an immigrant, and all ten tenure track (now mostly tenured) profs are immigrants.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#16

Post by linguae »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #2

I think it could be better titled "Don't Become an Academic Professional or Professional Scientist." They have good reasons for this. Whereas, you can do science as a hobby in your spare time for free or up to your chosen budget. You can publish whatever you want on your web sites, social media, etc. You can often get advice or peer review from professional scientists by asking them. You might pay them for their time…

I came to a similar conclusion as a computer scientist working in industry who ended up transitioning to a community college teaching career. I remember being inspired by the stories of Bell Labs and Xerox PARC as a high school student and undergrad, wanting to follow in the footsteps of researchers like Dennis Ritchie. However, the industrial research landscape has changed in the past 15 years. It's very difficult to find truly curiosity-driven places with long timelines and little pressure, and industrial researchers these days are pressured to work on projects with more immediate productization prospects. I've seen this firsthand at a few companies. The tenure-track at a research university route requires playing the "publish-or-perish" game, which is also a curb on freedom and is also filled with pressure.

Being a tenure-track professor at a California community college is a happy situation for me. I love teaching, and for roughly 8 months of the year I'm dedicated to teaching. Tenure at my community college is entirely based on teaching and service; I'm not required (or even expected) to publish. I also get roughly 4 months of the year off (three months off in the summer, one month off in the winter). I spent much of the past summer in Japan collaborating with a professor on research. The only serious downside is not being able to afford a house within a reasonable commute from work, but I had the same problem in industry; not everyone in industry makes FAANG-level salaries. In fact, my compensation is effectively a raise from my previous job when factoring in going from roughly 3 weeks of PTO per year to 4 months off plus 10 days worth of sick leave; I took a roughly 10% pay cut in exchange for greater freedom and roughly 5-6x the annual time off.

I've learned that being a hobbyist researcher with a stable job that provides summers off is quite a favorable situation, since I don't have to worry about my job security being tied to my publication and fund-raising counts. Most of my computer science research can be done on a mid-range laptop with an Internet connection and access to textbooks and academic databases; I don't need equipment that cost five- or six-figures (though it would be nice to have a GPU cluster....).

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#17

Post by linguae »

acdha wrote: post #12
wbl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biology can be studied by observing outside in any park.

This is like saying you can study CS using pen and paper. It’s possible for certain rare edge cases but absolutely nobody is going through the process of applying for grants if they don’t need the money to work on the problems they’ve specialized for. People in the past were just as smart and motivated so the low-hanging fruit is gone.

Even for fields that can be done entirely with pen and paper, grad students and postdocs don't work for free, and often the only way a professor can keep up with a research university's publication expectations is to hire grad students and postdocs to contribute to research. Grants help pay for their stipends. Additionally, there are many universities that require their professors to raise grant money as a condition of tenure, since grant money is a significant source of revenue for research universities.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#18

Post by [deleted] »

a1pulley wrote: post #15

"I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs." This seems a bit hyperbolic. In the mid to late 2000s, only 5 of the 15 close grad student friends I had at Caltech didn't get a tenure track position somewhere. Four of the five work in tech, and the fifth is a government electrical engineer. 4/5 were homegrown, the fifth is an immigrant, and all ten tenure track (no…

[deleted]

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#19

Post by api »

This reminds me of numerous pieces I’ve read by authors on why not to try to become an author, like this: https://www.elysian.press/p/publishing-industry-truth

What it boils down to is that these are fields with a supply glut of people and/or product.

My take is: never try to enter such a field unless you really think you have a chance at performing in the top 20% of all entrants in that field. Anything else is a dice roll. A few people get lucky, but statistically it won’t be you.

Discouraging people from trying is a good filter for these fields, since the only people who will ignore such advice is people who really deeply love it or are really driven. Those are the people most likely to ascend to the top 20%. Nobody gets that good at something they aren’t driven to do.

It’s also a way to maybe make things better for people in those fields in the future. If the only people who enter the field are those who are deeply driven, it might cut down on the overpopulation problem.

Edit: some fields are worse than others of course. Glance at up and coming Hollywood actors and actresses for a worst case. Of the ones who are not nepo babies, look into how much work and hustle and luck (combined) it took for them to make it. Most are insanely good looking talented people who started acting as kids and hustled for years and then got lucky. It’s wild.

Physics is not that bad, but it’s not great. Fiction writing might be that bad, especially since the money is less even if someone does make it.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#20

Post by LarsDu88 »

I can retrospectively look back at folks in my (non computer science) PhD cohort, and say that this bearish outlook is only true for folks who stay in science too long or pursue actual academic careers.

The vast majority of folks I know flipped into more lucrative careers in industry... some of which require PhDs or Masters degrees.

Furthermore, it really depends on your track. You can wind up in a lab studying something totally obscure or you can be in a lab with multi-million dollar funding and state-of-the-art equipment you can't find elsewhere.

Sadly the most well funded scientific research right now is actually being bankrolled by techbro oligarchs for tax deduction purposes, even more so with the cuts to US funding.

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