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More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

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Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#181

Post by noobermin »

crocowhile wrote: post #56
noobermin wrote: post #27

Academia is one of those realms where I just wish things would collapse. Working conditions are terrible for the educational level they expect, yet there are always more and more graduate students and post-docs to exploit, so the wheels keep turning. A naive perspective is a glut of experts is a good thing because a society with more experts could produce more innovations and development but because of the peculariti…

As someone who has worked in academia for more than 20 years, in four countries, (and now is a professor in a top 3 world institution) I can tell you that it very much depends on where you work. Working conditions depend on the larger and smaller culture. It is a mistake to assume that everyone is living the same experience.

Kindly, given your credentials, it does sound like your situation is a bit biased. That said, of course let me know where you are so I too can enjoy your luck.

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#182

Post by croissants »

tombert wrote: post #105
jillesvangurp wrote: post #38

Not surprising. I quit after about a year. I could have stayed on but I realized that it just wasn't right for me. By then I had figured out that most research is done by post docs and phd students and it doesn't pay very well. Not that I cared about the money but I started thinking about what is next and did not like the perspective. Professors are basically there to manage the process and haggle for funding. They t…

Postdocs always seemed like a scam to me. Almost by definition, if you're doing a Postdoc in a STEM field, you're probably qualified for a relatively well-paying job in industry [1]. And it's not like universities don't know this, people have been complaining about it for forever. They know if they were to just hire a person with a relevant PhD to do work, they'd ask for a good wage, so instead they dangle this "mayb…

At least in computer science, postdocs have other benefits:

1) they can be well paid, like high five to very low six figures;

2) they can be an extra year or two to figure out your own research direction with some help but not much oversight;

3) they can be much easier to get than industry positions -- sometimes requiring little more than a solid publication record and advisor recommendation;

4) if you've been in a university environment for ~a decades and liked it, it might strike you as an easy path to keep doing that (this is probably the worst reason, though).

This is skewed by computer science postdocs at highly ranked schools, though. Yes, people taking these positions face opportunity costs, but the actual experience can be pretty nice.

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#183

Post by ProjectArcturis »

whatever1 wrote: post #104
rednafi wrote: post #53

My spouse is a molecular biologist pursuing her PhD in RNA therapy. She works ~2x longer and 10x harder than I do, with only a third of the yield. You can only sustain that for so long. She's in academia solely because she's good at it. However, there are a few things I've observed from the sidelines: - PIs can make your life absolutely miserable for no reason, and it's difficult to switch labs if you're otherwise ma…

Poor pay is an understatement. Back in 2010’s when I graduated, I was making USD$21K per year! If you calculate the hourly rate it is probably close to $3/hour given that PhDs work every day, and specially in the holidays that the advisor has more free time. We were jokingly say that they don’t dare to call it a salary, that is why they call it a stipend.

That's awful! I was a postdoc then and the NIH standard was $40k.

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#184

Post by micheles »

dawnchorus wrote: post #58
wordpad25 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't competition good for innovation?

As a former postdoc in the physical sciences (who is now out of academia mostly for family reasons), I don't like the constant argument I hear about whether competition is good or bad in research and especially academic research. I think it is the wrong question. Competition is inherently good in that whatever researchers are competing over will be optimized in the long run. We wish that we were optimizing for new/gr…

Finally somebody making sense in this thread!

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#185

Post by absolutelastone »

godelski wrote: post #180
absolutelastone wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Training is how the low pay is justified. I certainly agree it's not a good deal, more of a supply and demand effect. Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 I do agree it probably gets used more as an easy way to get experience, the usual thing organizations crave in their new hires. But it isn't the only way. Top graduates can get temporary research…

> Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 Yes, I would say it is inaccurate to say that a post doc position is about training. Unless you're referring to them training undergrads and grads. I think there are 2 key things we need to note about your source >> Which items or job requirements are most commonly used by institutions to define postdocs? This…

It isn't just job ads. For half the schools there was a formal definition. Also it has this part: "In 2001, NSF and NIH established a formal postdoc definition as “an individual who has received a doctoral degree (or equivalent) and is engaged in a temporary and defined period of mentored advanced training to enhance the professional skills and research independence needed to pursue his or her chosen career path.”

And yes you should expect to receive training. In the sense that you have a right to it and the supervisor has an obligation to provide it. You seem to be mistaking my criticisms of these jobs for defenses of them.

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#186

Post by godelski »

absolutelastone wrote: post #185
godelski wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 Yes, I would say it is inaccurate to say that a post doc position is about training. Unless you're referring to them training undergrads and grads. I think there are 2 key things we need to note about your source >> Which items or job requirements are most commonly used by institutions to define postdocs? This…

It isn't just job ads. For half the schools there was a formal definition. Also it has this part: "In 2001, NSF and NIH established a formal postdoc definition as “an individual who has received a doctoral degree (or equivalent) and is engaged in a temporary and defined period of mentored advanced training to enhance the professional skills and research independence needed to pursue his or her chosen career path.” An…

  > “an individual who has received a doctoral degree (or equivalent) and is engaged in a temporary and defined period of performing independent research.”
Would be just as accurate.

Btw

  > “an individual who has received an undergraduate degree (or equivalent) and is engaged in a temporary and defined period of mentored advanced training to enhance the professional skills and research independence needed to pursue his or her chosen career path.”
Would be an accurate description of a PhD student too.

The official definition could also be accurate if describing an Assistant Professor (professor before tenure is granted)

So this is why I'm pushing back on the definition. Calling it a "training position" is just an excuse to have cheap labor and be exploitative.

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#187

Post by j7ake »

absolutelastone wrote: post #172
godelski wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But a postdoc at a university is an underpaid training position for the most part. That's not really true or fair. You're talking about a person who's done likely 4 years of undergraduate and between 4 and 8 (median 5?) years of graduate studies and gained a Ph.D. This person is without a doubt "an expert" in their field. Does that person still need training? Sure. But who doesn't? You're also talking about someone…

Training is how the low pay is justified. I certainly agree it's not a good deal, more of a supply and demand effect. Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 I do agree it probably gets used more as an easy way to get experience, the usual thing organizations crave in their new hires. But it isn't the only way. Top graduates can get temporary research…

It’s not universal. Nsf is a narrow view of academia. There are other countries that pay postdocs properly (ie comfortable own place with kids) with benefits and pension.

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#188

Post by dahart »

michaelt wrote: post #43

According to https://data.aaup.org/academic-workforce/ there are 270,000 tenured professors in the United States. Assuming a tenured professor holds that position from age 35 to age 65, that's 9000 tenured positions to be filled per year. According to https://ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/earned-doctorates/2023 there are 57,000 research doctorates granted per year. So 84% of people granted PhDs don't make it in academia.

Perhaps too simplistic since tenure is not the only way to “make it” in academia. Many people have academic careers without making tenure. You’ve also excluded people who publish impactful work, spend time teaching, and leave before seeking tenure. It might be fair to say 84% of graduating PhDs don’t make tenure, it’s just jumping to conclusions to say they don’t make it in academia.

Also don’t forget there’s a large time lag between graduating PhDs and when they get tenure, so today’s 270k graduates might be shooting for the next decade’s 15k or 20k tenure spots. Or… who knows they might be shooting for the future 5k spots if the rumors about colleges trying to reduce their use of tenure are true.

“Non-tenure-track faculty account for about half of all faculty appointments in American higher education.” … “About 90 percent of all full-time lecturers and nearly 50 percent of all full-time instructors are nontenure track.” https://www.aaup.org/report/status-non-tenure-track-faculty

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#189

Post by jonshsjsb »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #155
whatever1 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor pay is an understatement. Back in 2010’s when I graduated, I was making USD$21K per year! If you calculate the hourly rate it is probably close to $3/hour given that PhDs work every day, and specially in the holidays that the advisor has more free time. We were jokingly say that they don’t dare to call it a salary, that is why they call it a stipend.

are you in the US? that's surprisingly low as by the mid/late 2010's PhD students in stem fields were averaging 30k. for the many postdocs on nih-supported grants i seem to remember ~60k being standard at that time. eg https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/salary-cap-stipen... .

In 2013, I graduated from a top 3 school in my field of engineering. I was getting paid $23 000/year as a PhD student.

I hated it every second of it too. 11 years later I still loath everything I did then.

Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

#190

Post by jonshsjsb »

fn-mote wrote: post #147
rednafi wrote: post #53

My spouse is a molecular biologist pursuing her PhD in RNA therapy. She works ~2x longer and 10x harder than I do, with only a third of the yield. You can only sustain that for so long. She's in academia solely because she's good at it. However, there are a few things I've observed from the sidelines: - PIs can make your life absolutely miserable for no reason, and it's difficult to switch labs if you're otherwise ma…

For readers still in a position to make a choice: interviewing and carefully selecting the lab / professor that you attach yourself to for the PhD is really a good idea! Unfortunately, a lot of people enter the pipeline (in the US) not yet equipped to evaluate the possibilities. If that’s you, get the masters degree that gives you enough knowledge to make an informed choice, then move if necessary.

But careful. Many professors lie. And many of them are nasty.

Talk to the grad students of other professors

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