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More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

nature.com

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

#211

Post by eleveriven »

hinkley wrote: post #134
karaterobot wrote: post #96

This 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 don't think I ever remember a time when the walls of the pyramid were shallow enough that the base could support all of the people at the top. 2 out of 5 people getting all the way to the end and discovering that research or teaching are not them living their best life sounds either very sad or pretty good depending on your perspective. A lot of people convince themselves that what they aren't feeling now will fina…

For many it’s not easy to accept that "who you are" doesn't have to depend on the prestige of a title or a position, and that's often where people get stuck.

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

#212

Post by eleveriven »

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…

The cost outweighs the benefits

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

#213

Post by onli »

wesselbindt wrote: post #144
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's mostly reasonable. But for some people at least, the PhD doesn't give them all the skills they are looking for, so they might do another post-doc (2-3 years at slightly better than PhD lifestyle), before jumping ship.

It's entirely anecdotal, but in my experience in academia (which consisted of 4 years of post-master's PhD), I've seen this happen exactly 0 times.

Just to raise the number from 0, I did exactly that. The post-doc was in a research institute, a department that focused on usability. It seemed worthwhile to learn how to really do user tests and usability evaluations in practice, in the best way possible academically (or so I thought) but with real enterprise projects. Contrasted a lot with the quite theoretical PhD.

We can always argue about whether it was worthwhile ofc. Moneywise, definitely not (though the pay wasn't all that bad compared to industry compensation in my countries). But I learned what I wanted to learn, and the issues the position had were speficic to the place, not the concept of the position, if that makes sense.

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

#214

Post by crocowhile »

noobermin wrote: post #181
crocowhile wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am in London at the moment but I worked in Italy, Austria, USA before. I would never, for any kind of money, go back to academia to the USA for the reasons you listed.

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

#216

Post by rjsw »

rscho wrote: post #92
motorest wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Western academia has always been more about advancing knowledge, which IMO is academia's mission. You can advance knowledge in ways that are aligned with the nation's strategic needs. That would imply the career path of researchers would be oriented towards industry instead of pie in the sky projects.

I fail to see why universities should align on their country's strategic interests. Universities are not political nor military entities. Additionally, pie in the sky projects is what's needed to advance science, which is very distinct from advancing technology (industry).

> I fail to see why universities should align on their country's strategic interests.

In the UK, the industrial and military research labs have been closed, there is nothing being done except in universities. The university projects are really specific and don't join up in any way. There is no equivalent of DARPA guiding research proposals to be useful but Governments still think that the universites will define the next generation of industrial products.

Source: my own area of trying to use computers for Materials Science.

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

#217

Post by kleiba »

rednafi wrote: post #66
kleiba wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in academia for almost all of my adult life, although in CS/LangSci not in molecular biology. Either I got lucky or it is some other reason, but I have not had the same experience. > She works ~2x longer and 10x harder than I do Now, I don't know how long you work but most academics I've met do it because they love it. Mind you, it's not like there is no pressure to stay on top of your game, and endless a…

> Not true in my experience, the pay in academia has always been more than acceptable. But again, I was in CS/LangSci, and I know that for instance in the humanities, pay is lower for similar jobs. This could also depend on location, but from what I’ve seen, postdoc CS pay in most places is less than what you can earn as an entry-level frontend engineer at a medium-sized scale-up.

This may be true - and I wasn't trying to claim that you can make as much money in academia than in the industry, I'm arguing that you often get paid a quite decent salary that allows you to live very comfortably.

Could you make more somewhere else. Quite certainly! But ask any Humanities grad what they're making in their first job outside academia.

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

#218

Post by yhavr »

Obviously. And much more leave on the previous stages.

Because academic science doesn't have scientific proof of existance. People shouldn't stay there, because there are no anthro-/psycho-/socio-/etc- reasoning that this way of organising people to seek new knowledge actually works, and it's efficient in any way.

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

#219

Post by selimthegrim »

dekhn wrote: post #117

my postdoc advisor (a tenured professor at berkeley) made us clean the air vents in the office by standing on a tall ladder with a vacuum as well as clean the floors. I didn't leave academia, but I did leave that lab. That's some sort of power-play I have no time for.

This sounds like visiting undergrad research at MIT where the grad students’ idea of a joke was to have me clean the microwave.

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

#220

Post by niemandhier »

I am in the academic circus since 20 years, in my opinion everything more than a masters degree is an expression of ones interests and a way of life: Its great and allows you to do things that only a few people on the planet are allowed to do and once you drop out you just get a normal job.

It takes a few years to bridge the income gap between you and the people that went towards an industry career immediately, but you got to climb around in the large hadron collector when it was not running and have lots of stories about strange British professors.

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