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Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

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Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#21

Post by raverbashing »

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #16
raverbashing wrote: post #3

Ph.D. allowed for some things: - You can deepen your studies and study the state of the art of a given area - You can work in some area with all the support needed (equipment, etc) - Networking However, what's happening is: - The latest journals are a click away - A lot of experiments can be done in a computer setting nowadays - Evolution in some areas do not depend anymore on experimentation, and/or the cost for it…

I think this is a very simplistic view that only holds for a very few areas of study. The idea that computer simulation is an adequate substitute for scientific experimentation in the majority of the sciences is puzzling to me. Not that models don't help, but there's still far too much we either don't know how to model, or don't have the computational power to model (or we have both, but it would be more expensive th…

"The idea that computer simulation is an adequate substitute for scientific experimentation in the majority of the sciences is puzzling to me"

Depends on the field. Even in natural sciences, there are several research areas not related directly with experimentation.

I would say that, for a lot of areas, we have the bases covered, but what's needed are better tools to understand it.

Protein folding is one area. The physics are ok, what we don't know is how to make it work for several atoms at once.

Data transmission is another. The real changes behind 4G, 802.11N, etc, is not a better radio transmitter only, but better channel estimation, error correction and use of diversity.

"I also don't understand why your fourth point means that specialization is not necessary"

It is necessary, but not sufficient. If you only focus on one area but don't know how to interface with the necessary surroundings you won't get anywhere.

" so I think it's at least premature to conclude that you can develop the same level of expertise as an autodidact."

The application of new discoveries and techniques is important as well, and several companies and individuals are doing important work in this area. (Go, Rust, several machine learning libraries, etc)

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#22

Post by WalterBright »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #6

A big employer for chemistry PhDs that no one in the West has heard of is Wuxi Pharmatech, a contract research outfit in Shanghai. They do everything, synthesis, discovery, lead optimization, clinical testing, process development, formulation, the whole pipeline. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies stateside have turned into IP brokerages, if you think you have a promising target you buy a startup that has a compound…

> the short time horizon Wall Street demands

Companies that sacrifice long term for short term profits will, assuredly, do poorly long term. Their stock price will decline. Investors will see this and will short the stock. The stock will have low P/E ratios.

On the other hand, companies that sacrifice for the short term and invest for the long term will see high P/E ratios, as investors see that and go long on the stock. Amazon is a prime example.

I don't believe that investors (Wall Street) are too dumb to know the difference.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#23

Post by epistasis »

nextos wrote: post #15

In some areas like biotech, a PhD is almost a union card to work in large corporations doing R&D. Without it, sadly, you won't be taken seriously.

I'm not entirely sure why this is a bad thing. In lab science, the PhD process gives experience that isn't easily available in other situations.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#24

Post by erikpukinskis »

michaelochurch wrote: post #19
nextos wrote: post #15

In some areas like biotech, a PhD is almost a union card to work in large corporations doing R&D. Without it, sadly, you won't be taken seriously.

Ph.D. bigotry is an artifact of the bad job market, which has just been getting worse for the past 30 years. There used to be BA-level research jobs. There still are. They're just now filled by PhDs. Basic research is pretty much gone. Pedigree bigotry is the natural reaction of a society or subculture in decline. When the future is hopeless and the present is uninspiring, people obsess about the past. PhD Bigotry is…

I agree, Academia is in decline. Sort of. It's in decline the way journalism is in decline, which is to say: there's more of it than ever, and the people who are Getting It Done are thriving in new, 21st century institutions. But people who just want a job "in the industry", whether it is journalism or academics, are going to have a bad time as vast swaths of "the industry" crumble in response to competition that actually embraces the new value system the internet is forcing on all industries.

Universities will continue to exist, and will do great research, along with being an excellent babysitter for 18-30 year olds who have the means to purchase a babysitter while they focus on their academics (or not). But more and more research will happen outside of the Academy, because research is useful. And for many kinds of research, there are easier ways to get it done than getting a PhD. And that trend will increase.

And the University will lose its place as the de-facto spot for kids and researchers to go.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#25

Post by Thriptic »

raverbashing wrote: post #3

Ph.D. allowed for some things: - You can deepen your studies and study the state of the art of a given area - You can work in some area with all the support needed (equipment, etc) - Networking However, what's happening is: - The latest journals are a click away - A lot of experiments can be done in a computer setting nowadays - Evolution in some areas do not depend anymore on experimentation, and/or the cost for it…

It is basically impossible to do life sciences research outside of an academic or industry lab, and almost no academic lab will take on someone who is not a student or post-doc.

An individual outside of academia would be unable to purchase supplies due to supplier restrictions, would lack access to journals without piracy, would have no access to expensive required analytical equipment, and would be unable to front the costs associated with regulatory compliance in a lab setting.

While it's true that progress can be made from a simulation stand point, licenses to these software packages are enormously expensive. Without a university appointment or a well established track record, no one is going to be willing to share clinical data with you. Moreover, without any ability to validate the findings from your simulations in a lab / clinical setting, any results would be of questionable value.

Most importantly, it would be extremely difficult for an individual not associated with a university or industry lab to publish their results in a top tier journal.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#26

Post by mililani »

Has anyone ever looked at how large some of these graduate STEM departments are by the number of students? When I decided to go back to grad school for maths, I realized that doing a Ph.D. would probably be fruitless. How did I determine this? I went to UC Berkeley, Stanford and UCLA, arguably the best math departments in the country based on the NRC rankings and AMS rankings, and counted up their graduate students. There were over 300 students. THREE HUNDRED. Three hundred brilliant minds with brilliant credentials with at least 300 other hundred brilliant competitors. That's not including the grad students at the other more mediocre schools in California like USC, UCSC, UCSB, UC Davis, UCI, UCR, and, god, I must be missing some. Oh yeah, UC San Diego. I was wondering, then, where are all these brilliant students going to go? Surely, there is not enough openings in academia, even at lower ranked institutions, for these guys. I went and checked for job openings in academia for math tenure tracked appts, and yes, there were only 10 jobs out there at the time. I then started piecing together things I saw in my own life's journey: brilliant mathematicians and scientists teaching and researching at second or third tier research universities. A lot teaching at teaching colleges (at my school, SJSU, there are several math professors from Stanford and Princeton teaching there).

It was then I realized that doing a Ph.D. in STEM is a pretty piss poor proposition. I would highly discourage most people from doing it, unless you really love research, don't care about job prospects or money, and that's all you want to do in life.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#27

Post by raverbashing »

Thriptic wrote: post #25
raverbashing wrote: post #3

Ph.D. allowed for some things: - You can deepen your studies and study the state of the art of a given area - You can work in some area with all the support needed (equipment, etc) - Networking However, what's happening is: - The latest journals are a click away - A lot of experiments can be done in a computer setting nowadays - Evolution in some areas do not depend anymore on experimentation, and/or the cost for it…

It is basically impossible to do life sciences research outside of an academic or industry lab, and almost no academic lab will take on someone who is not a student or post-doc. An individual outside of academia would be unable to purchase supplies due to supplier restrictions, would lack access to journals without piracy, would have no access to expensive required analytical equipment, and would be unable to front t…

Oh I don't disagree with you, life sciences are an area where things will still work as you described for a long time.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#29

Post by jnbiche »

Thriptic wrote: post #25
raverbashing wrote: post #3

Ph.D. allowed for some things: - You can deepen your studies and study the state of the art of a given area - You can work in some area with all the support needed (equipment, etc) - Networking However, what's happening is: - The latest journals are a click away - A lot of experiments can be done in a computer setting nowadays - Evolution in some areas do not depend anymore on experimentation, and/or the cost for it…

It is basically impossible to do life sciences research outside of an academic or industry lab, and almost no academic lab will take on someone who is not a student or post-doc. An individual outside of academia would be unable to purchase supplies due to supplier restrictions, would lack access to journals without piracy, would have no access to expensive required analytical equipment, and would be unable to front t…

>While it's true that progress can be made from a simulation stand point, licenses to these software packages are enormously expensive.

Can you specify which software you're referring to? For many life science sub-disciplines, there are an increasing number of either open source or low-cost competitors.

Re: Employment rates for STEM Ph.D.s are down or stagnant across the board

#30

Post by aquadrop »

WalterBright wrote: post #22
HarryHirsch wrote: post #6

A big employer for chemistry PhDs that no one in the West has heard of is Wuxi Pharmatech, a contract research outfit in Shanghai. They do everything, synthesis, discovery, lead optimization, clinical testing, process development, formulation, the whole pipeline. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies stateside have turned into IP brokerages, if you think you have a promising target you buy a startup that has a compound…

> the short time horizon Wall Street demands Companies that sacrifice long term for short term profits will, assuredly, do poorly long term. Their stock price will decline. Investors will see this and will short the stock. The stock will have low P/E ratios. On the other hand, companies that sacrifice for the short term and invest for the long term will see high P/E ratios, as investors see that and go long on the st…

If short term companies will kill their long term competitors in short term, i.e. now, long term may never come and global trend won't care about the future. Isn't that a danger?
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