The headline figure is not at all surprising. Academia is by design a pyramid, from undergrad through to tenured professor.
More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
191–200 of 250 posts
Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are good arguments about phd's not going into academia. But a postdoc at a university is an underpaid training position for the most part. Not a worthwhile sacrifice if you want to work in the private sector in my field. Maybe it's more important for industry jobs in biology or something. Personally I think it's a warped system that takes advantage of cheap labor from developing countries. And it feeds itself.…
> 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…
In life sciences, it's common to see postdocs as trainees. That kind of makes sense, as MDs are also trainees in the same career phase.
You also sometimes hear people talking about "postdoctoral students", which is less reasonable.
Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sometimes just wonder, a lot of professors are bad at teaching because they don't have to be good at it. Is it the same for universities? It feels like reputation for universities are quite detached from the courses they have or teaching quality. Rankings focus a lot on quantitative measures, but teaching quality is hard to measure quantitatively. The output of universities, i.e. the quality of their students, depe…
Teaching is not really relevant in the hiring process of professors. I saw several committees for prof position and teaching is treated like a checkmark. You should done it and provide a small sample lecture (which you prepare much more than your average lecture) and don't have to suck at it. After this checkbox, the differentiating factors are about citations and how much grant money you can/could/do have... (Wester…
Can confirm this. Teaching is a pass / fail grade for new professors to get tenure in most places. Your ability to get grant funding and publish highly cited papers are astronomically more important to the university than your teaching abilities.
I was told by a seminar speaker one time about a pre-tenure professor who was awarded his University's highest teaching award one day. The very next day he was denied tenure because he didn't publish enough.
I recommend reading the book "Tenure Hacks" [1] to anyone interested in pursuing a career as a tenured professor. I don't agree with all of the points in the book, but it is an important and eye-opening alternative perspective to the typical narrative surrounding academic positions.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Tenure-hacks-secrets-making-tenure/dp...
Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#195This is only surprising if you expect that every postdoc should stay in academia, or would want to. Being in academia is not the only way to do research, and is not a prerequisite to using your degree. The private sector is a thing, and postdocs leaving academia can do perfectly good work in their field while actually making a grown up salary.
I left academia after my PhD, with no regrets.
As a grad student, for the duration of your thesis work, you're locked into a specialty at a specific institute that isn't necessarily first-tier, may need to work at a level of intensity that prevents you from attending to a proper job search, and may end up under a professor who doesn't adequately support your career (e.g., with reputation and favorable recommendations).
In short, many things can go wrong, but you're focused on finishing. Under those conditions, if you do go straight into an industry job, it may be a shitty job that's not much better than a post-doc.
A brief stint as a post-doc gives you an income while you repair your career. This may involve changing specialties, developing your own research idea, working in a more prestigious institute or under a famous professor, or searching for industry jobs. Whatever it is, my own advice would be to only consider doing a post doc if it serves a credible purpose, otherwise, getting paid to get older isn't worth it.
In my field (physics), it was customary for grad students to work for their PhD advisor as a post-doc if they didn't already have a job lined up. I know lots of people who did that. It may inflate the number of "postdocs who leave academia" if it's not really a new job and their intention was to leave academia all along.
Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should absolutely only do a postdoc on the supposition that you will get a tenure track faculty position afterwards. It makes no sense financially or emotionally to do one if your goal is to go into industry.
But how can we know that we picked the right person for the job if we aren't at the very least absolutely sure the alternatives were worse? The human mind resists accepting decisions made without a proportional amount of effort put into those decisions. If we only get one candidate for the job, we will either hire them and deal with constant nagging doubt, or we will lower our standards to get more options we can rej…
This is not how industry works, at least not in the US. Hire a good person, they sink or swim, life goes on. It’s only the harsh narrow bubble of academia that pits smart people against each other this way.
Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#197This is only surprising if you expect that every postdoc should stay in academia, or would want to. Being in academia is not the only way to do research, and is not a prerequisite to using your degree. The private sector is a thing, and postdocs leaving academia can do perfectly good work in their field while actually making a grown up salary.
Indeed. In other news, the overall pass rates for my (translated into US terms for the first three) middle school, high school, university and post-graduate degree were all approximately 50%. So this doesn't seem particularly bad.
Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are good arguments about phd's not going into academia. But a postdoc at a university is an underpaid training position for the most part. Not a worthwhile sacrifice if you want to work in the private sector in my field. Maybe it's more important for industry jobs in biology or something. Personally I think it's a warped system that takes advantage of cheap labor from developing countries. And it feeds itself.…
> 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…
>You're also talking about someone who is probably in their early to mid 30's. Eventually people want to start having a life. And you're expecting them to make pennies? I'm not joking. Here's a list of CS Post Doc stipends[0]. Go to Berkeley or Stanford and make $66k-$80k? I've gotten more money as a PhD Intern! You're going to get more than double that in industry before we talk about RSUs.
Now maybe I'm out of touch, being a postdoc and all, but hasn't the tech industry been suffering mass layoffs this past year or so that really make it a bit unrealistic to label salaries above the American median as "pennies"?
Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 Be careful: many people who are great postdocs are rather overqualified (and thus rather not suitable) for many jobs in industry. Getting well-payed in industry requires in my opinion skills that are opposite to those that make you a great postdoc: In industry you must not be a tru…
It’s not exactly overqualification, more misqualification. If all you have to say for yourself is “I have completed 23rd grade, look at all these papers I wrote,” your skills and experience, no matter how deep, have diverged from the needs of almost any conceivable employer. I strongly encourage anybody thinking of doing a PhD to get a job in industry first, even if just for a year.
I've found STEM research to be different than that. Lots of opportunities to build and design whilst growing understandimg. Work with diverse teams and students of multiple levels. Communicate, work with, and network with industry individuals.
Re: More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With the exception of poor pay, I experienced all of those things while working as a software dev for a major company. Same here. I've worked at grindy startups that made me want to leave the profession altogether—everything from gaslighting by small shop CEOs to firing threats, and even firing a colleague just to show "who's in charge." But switching companies is always an option, as is switching domains. I did th…
Is short term stability, really stability? I think it's pretty rare to get post-doc contracts longer than 3 years, renewal after that is unlikely especially for a long period of time. You can't really be a post-doc long term and it can easily have you bouncing across the country/countries following funding. It's more stable than freelancing perhaps or maybe a startup. There's stability in academia as tenured professo…
I've seen a lot of industry outfits fail to survive 18 months with everyone doing the job they were hired for.