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A mental health crisis in science

nature.com

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Re: A mental health crisis in science

#191

Post by fatnoah »

jebarker wrote: post #166
fatnoah wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Academia places unrealistic goals on brilliant people and pays them so meagerly that they have to often find other sources of income Early in my career, I considered (with an MS in Electrical Engineering, but with 4 years of professional programming experience) a switch into law. Big firms hire (or did in the past) people with tech degrees to do patent work and will pay a salary plus pay for law school. When I join…

> Big firms hire (or did in the past) people with tech degrees to do patent work and will pay a salary plus pay for law school. I've never heard this before. What job title would you search for?

For this particular role, it was "Patent Technology Specialist" or "Technology Specialist".

For example: https://foleyhoag.com/careers/technology-specialists/ (note, this is the firm where I did that work)

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#192

Post by fatnoah »

iancmceachern wrote: post #168
jebarker wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Big firms hire (or did in the past) people with tech degrees to do patent work and will pay a salary plus pay for law school. I've never heard this before. What job title would you search for?

I'm not the parent poster, but I believe they are generally called patent agents

Patent Agent is related, but is a subset of the role. Only one of the patent technology specialists at my firm was a patent agent when they joined. While, it was expected that we'd eventually sit for the patent bar, but it wasn't a requirement to get the job. The further expectation was that we'd also go to law school, receive our JDs, and pass the state bar as well.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#193

Post by fatnoah »

AlbertCory wrote: post #179
jebarker wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Big firms hire (or did in the past) people with tech degrees to do patent work and will pay a salary plus pay for law school. I've never heard this before. What job title would you search for?

Although I AM a patent agent, the job title that I had at Google was "technical advisor." Most of the others with my job were not patent agents and the credential was really not necessary. Litigation is not something you study to pass the Patent Bar. If you're looking for a job like that with Big Law, you might look for "litigation advisor" or something similar.

The specific role I had was on the Patent Prosecution side vs. the Patent Litigation side. The litigators were more "normal" attorneys, and while we did some small level of advisement, for any real litigation they'd always hire an outside expert.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#194

Post by greenhearth »

kevviiinn wrote: post #112
greenhearth wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the institutions be blamed for trying to stay afloat? Where is this money coming from to pay the scientists? A collective decision has to be made to keep science healthy in a meaningful and productive way. I think academia (through its ethos of critical approach and peer review) may be the single social structure that keeps some kind of sanity.

I don't know, can the admins stay afloat without making 200k+ per year? Maybe give some of that to us grad students

I'm not defending any administrators, m'friend. This is why I wrote "meaningful and productive." I want scientists to have all the money.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#195

Post by AlbertCory »

fatnoah wrote: post #193
AlbertCory wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I AM a patent agent, the job title that I had at Google was "technical advisor." Most of the others with my job were not patent agents and the credential was really not necessary. Litigation is not something you study to pass the Patent Bar. If you're looking for a job like that with Big Law, you might look for "litigation advisor" or something similar.

The specific role I had was on the Patent Prosecution side vs. the Patent Litigation side. The litigators were more "normal" attorneys, and while we did some small level of advisement, for any real litigation they'd always hire an outside expert.

Same with Google: there's always an outside firm that does the work. The Google attorney was in charge and monitored all their bills.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#196

Post by sage76 »

currymj wrote: post #190
sage76 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there’s increasingly an expectation that students should come into a PhD program with one or more publications already under their belt. For top programs ideally these should be first author (not yet an absolute requirement but it’s more important each year). This is something I discovered pretty late in my life. The web pages maintained by profs barely have any info. I have come to hate the whole "everybody looks…

at least in computer science, this document is from CMU and tended to get circulated pretty widely, although probably not widely enough. every field ought to have something like it. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf

I have seen that, and it was helpful. But at least in machine learning and AI, if you want an admit into any top 10 US PhD program, you need a publication or 2 in a top tier venue, preferably first author.

In other fields and lower ranked programs, again I wish profs would be explicit (since publications might not be expected).

Like this guy:http://math.stanford.edu/~vakil/potentialstudents.html

"So before I take you on as a new student, you should be comfortable with the foundations of the subject, which means having done the majority of the exercises in Hartshorne or my course notes, and being able to explain them on demand."

That is very explicit and sets clear expectations.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#197

Post by _aavaa_ »

obscurette wrote: post #144
vkou wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger. You don't need Facebook or the Gram to be keenly aware that all your university buddies who went into tech are going on vacations to Maui and buying their second homes, while you're still grinding your life away for nothing in a university lab. In fact, all you need to do be aware of this is to show up to your friends' bi-weekly happy hour at the local.

> Blaming social media for this is shooting the messenger. No, it's not. Social media created a world wide bullying environment. Most of people all over the world are in trouble because they have to compete with unrealistic image of you or your profession created by social media. Whatever you are or do, you are never good enough. Education, medical field and science are especially vulnerable in this regard. Tech sect…

Except it is not an unrealistic expectation to be paid adequately and not be underpaid worker.

Social media might make this disparity obvious and in your face, but it did not create it.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#198

Post by f6v »

vkou wrote: post #132
f6v wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be discouraged from abandoning projects when hitting a wall. I’d advise against dropping out of PhD program if you don’t have a publication ready in second year. Also, there’re people who truly enjoy science and pay isn’t the deciding factor.

> Also, there’re people who truly enjoy science and pay isn’t the deciding factor. If that's a good reason to keep pay low, why don't we apply this to the management and administrative class? Surely, we could find someone smart and capable who'd be happy to do an exec's or a director's job, without seven-figure pay as a consideration... Think of all the money we could return to shareholders, if we just made the direc…

I don’t know how the pay is where you are. It’s fine in the country I live in.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#199

Post by zen_1 »

f6v wrote: post #96
spamizbad wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of what contributes to this is the "brainwashing" that takes place in PhD programs that discourages applicants from transitioning out of academia into "the industry". Academia has tons of extremely smart, hard-working individuals, most of whom would have excellent white collar careers with half the work and 2-10x the pay. There are a handful of academics who are truly built for working in academia and wouldn't b…

You should be discouraged from abandoning projects when hitting a wall. I’d advise against dropping out of PhD program if you don’t have a publication ready in second year. Also, there’re people who truly enjoy science and pay isn’t the deciding factor.

There are also people who truly enjoy science while wanting to provide for a family.

Re: A mental health crisis in science

#200

Post by bumby »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #184
bumby wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this seems to be poor leadership ability. Unfortunately, it seems like in the sciences you can get get promoted because you’re really good technically, but these skills don’t mean you can manage a hill of beans. Rather than treating the whole system down, maybe we need to look to promote those who can manage teams rather than just those who are “merely” technically bright.

Hiring boards at major universities know leadership ability is valuable, it's just that there are very few people with the skills, the credible track record, the leadership/teaching ability, and willing to apply, that they have to settle for less. And it so happens that this is where it's easiest to justify settling. A lot of folks talk about how hard it is to find a tenure track job but it's actually trivial for any…

>And it so happens that this is where it's easiest to justify settling.

Why do you think this is so? Is it because technical skills are more easily measurable and thus more defensible than so-called “soft skills”?

I think it goes without saying that most 99 percentilers can get the job of their choosing within that skillset. My question is more about the ranked priorities of the rest of the "middling" candidates. Why is the value system is structured to reward one type of skills when everyone seems to conclude it doesn’t provide good outcomes?

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