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Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

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Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#221

Post by stocknoob »

throwaway_gerts wrote: post #216
fma wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's many issues in our science system, but it may be a blessing that you got rejected. I'm a senior software engineer. My wife has a PhD in biochemistry from a top university. When she graduated she could not get a job anywhere. We both agreed she should choose a different path and she started a business in a totally unrelated field. Meanwhile someone like me...I'm literally turning away interviews. I have no dou…

> Meanwhile someone like me...I'm literally turning away interviews. How do you manage that? I've been a software developer for over 20 years now, and every time I lose my job it's a SLOG to find another one, with anywhere from a few months to a year in between. I can't even remember the last time a recruiter contacted me (perhaps 5-6 times in my entire career). It's not like my technical skills are lacking. I've wor…

This may be difficult to hear, but something is wrong if you have been working for 20 years and old colleagues aren't occasionally checking in to see if you'd like a different gig at their current company. The people who called you a miracle worker, they don't keep in touch? They don't want you to join their current project?

You may want to ask someone who you are on good terms with what's going on.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#222

Post by cycomanic »

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #150
usrusr wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is what would be the alternative to grant applications. A grant lottery?Tenure lottery? Stop funding entirely and just include "dear God, make our science advance" in your evening prayer? Nobody considers the grant treadmill an achievement to be proud of, but arguments against the claim that it's the least bad solution have to go beyond just "it's not good".

How about actually measuring them by the citation count on their papers (note this is already a minor factor in tenure decisions, after monies brought in :P )

The thing is, you're trying to create a metric that measures an essentially unmeasureable quantity and to predict future outcomes on this.

Moreover you're trying to do this for generally very smart people, so obviously they adapt their behaviour to those metrics (they game the system is a less favourable way of saying this). So the only thing you have achieved that the academics change their work to maximize those metrics. We have seen this with grants as well, to be successful you essentially have to write lots of grant (a period without grants can be career ending), so academics spend up to 50% of their time on grant writing and reviewing. At this point I'm not convinced a lottery would not be a better way of distributing money (and I say that as someone who has been fairly successful at getting grants)

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#223

Post by throwaway_gerts »

stocknoob wrote: post #221
throwaway_gerts wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile someone like me...I'm literally turning away interviews. How do you manage that? I've been a software developer for over 20 years now, and every time I lose my job it's a SLOG to find another one, with anywhere from a few months to a year in between. I can't even remember the last time a recruiter contacted me (perhaps 5-6 times in my entire career). It's not like my technical skills are lacking. I've wor…

This may be difficult to hear, but something is wrong if you have been working for 20 years and old colleagues aren't occasionally checking in to see if you'd like a different gig at their current company. The people who called you a miracle worker, they don't keep in touch? They don't want you to join their current project? You may want to ask someone who you are on good terms with what's going on.

I've never had an old colleague contact me. Is that a thing?

Forgive me, but I'm not even sure what I should be asking these people... "Why haven't you contacted me" sounds too abrasive...

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#224

Post by jacksonkmarley »

throwaway_gerts wrote: post #216
fma wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's many issues in our science system, but it may be a blessing that you got rejected. I'm a senior software engineer. My wife has a PhD in biochemistry from a top university. When she graduated she could not get a job anywhere. We both agreed she should choose a different path and she started a business in a totally unrelated field. Meanwhile someone like me...I'm literally turning away interviews. I have no dou…

> Meanwhile someone like me...I'm literally turning away interviews. How do you manage that? I've been a software developer for over 20 years now, and every time I lose my job it's a SLOG to find another one, with anywhere from a few months to a year in between. I can't even remember the last time a recruiter contacted me (perhaps 5-6 times in my entire career). It's not like my technical skills are lacking. I've wor…

Seems weird to never be contacted by recruiters, are you not using linkedin during your job searches? After my last round of linkedin application spamming I get a steady stream of emails about opportunities even after I stopped looking.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#225

Post by boublepop »

odyssey7 wrote: post #56

Is it counterproductive that we expect researchers to work in universities and become professors? It seems like there should be more outlets for the calling. Our universities are proving to be a bottleneck. I see how there is an often-natural relationship between cultivating knowledge and disseminating it to students. However, we need and have more prospective researchers than universities are willing or able to supp…

We do have more prospectives for researchers. There’s industry which many go into. Most the time it even gives you much better financials, but the trade off is lower freedom in choosing your area of research.

To me it’s a fair trade off. If your in a big company with a high salary doing research you have to convince management if you want to start working with some new area of research and have them invest into it. If you are in academia you have to convince some grant issuing institution. Either way if you want to be a researcher it’s not enough that you are talented in doing the research itself. You also have to be able to write down your work in high quality, and communicate your past and current work, as well as future work plans in high enough quality to get someone to invest in you.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#226

Post by throwaway_gerts »

jacksonkmarley wrote: post #224
throwaway_gerts wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile someone like me...I'm literally turning away interviews. How do you manage that? I've been a software developer for over 20 years now, and every time I lose my job it's a SLOG to find another one, with anywhere from a few months to a year in between. I can't even remember the last time a recruiter contacted me (perhaps 5-6 times in my entire career). It's not like my technical skills are lacking. I've wor…

Seems weird to never be contacted by recruiters, are you not using linkedin during your job searches? After my last round of linkedin application spamming I get a steady stream of emails about opportunities even after I stopped looking.

Yes, when I'm looking for work I turn on the looking-for-work thing on linkedin. I'll get 1 maybe 2 generic pings over the next few months for "fullstack dev" (which I'm not - I do server-side or low level software), but that's about it.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#227

Post by cosmodisk »

thayne wrote: post #29

I am a casualty of this. I was originally intending to follow an academic career, until I discovered that my career would be dependent on my ability to secure grants. Something that if I was not bad at (which I think is unlikely), would at least be extremely stressful for me. It isn't the only reason I decided to to switch to being a software engineer, but it is a major reason.

I would love to do something meaningful, be it research or similar activity but I can't imagine constantly working knowing that the carpet can be pulled from underneath my feet any minute or that I constantly need to do political ballet at some university to make my living. It looks that there are thousands upon thousands in similar situations.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#228

Post by jacksonkmarley »

throwaway_gerts wrote: post #226
jacksonkmarley wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems weird to never be contacted by recruiters, are you not using linkedin during your job searches? After my last round of linkedin application spamming I get a steady stream of emails about opportunities even after I stopped looking.

Yes, when I'm looking for work I turn on the looking-for-work thing on linkedin. I'll get 1 maybe 2 generic pings over the next few months for "fullstack dev" (which I'm not - I do server-side or low level software), but that's about it.

I don't want to dunk on you with really obvious suggestions like "you have a bad resume, fix it" type comments, maybe you've already had it looked over, and you're in a non-optimal location or something. Maybe ask a few specific questions on reddit somewhere like r/cscareerquestions.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#229

Post by stocknoob »

throwaway_gerts wrote: post #223
stocknoob wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be difficult to hear, but something is wrong if you have been working for 20 years and old colleagues aren't occasionally checking in to see if you'd like a different gig at their current company. The people who called you a miracle worker, they don't keep in touch? They don't want you to join their current project? You may want to ask someone who you are on good terms with what's going on.

I've never had an old colleague contact me. Is that a thing? Forgive me, but I'm not even sure what I should be asking these people... "Why haven't you contacted me" sounds too abrasive...

Maybe 10% of my coworkers transitioned from work acquaintance ("Hi Jim") into good work acquaintance ("hey man, grab lunch?") into friend ("hey man, want to grab dinner/beers later?") into good friend ("hey man, want to go on an out-of-country trip?").

If nobody is making the jump into good work acquaintance, where you enjoy hanging out casually without needing an explicit work reason, something is amiss. I don't try to form connections, it just happens similar to how you make friends in class. Work is class. If nobody talks to you after the project is over something isn't right.

You can't ask people who aren't close directly why they aren't close, but maybe family members / non-work friends. "Is there something about me that makes it difficult to make connections?" It's quite hard to get explicit feedback on this type of thing.

Re: Our brutal science system almost cost us a pioneer of mRNA vaccines

#230

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

idrios wrote: post #51
thayne wrote: post #29

I am a casualty of this. I was originally intending to follow an academic career, until I discovered that my career would be dependent on my ability to secure grants. Something that if I was not bad at (which I think is unlikely), would at least be extremely stressful for me. It isn't the only reason I decided to to switch to being a software engineer, but it is a major reason.

Biomedical engineer with a 2.977GPA. Lots of extra curriculars, volunteered in labs, 160 credit hours of mostly STEM classes, lots of grad-level courses, relevant work experience, but GPA was 0.023 too low to pass the automated filters and I didn't get into any of the grad programs I applied for. I ended up doing fine in software development though. Also, the Wright Brothers didn't need a research lab to invent fligh…

Not for you obviously, but in case someone else that is still in the situation of applying for grad school is reading this.

Have you checked outside the US?

In the EU there are plenty of universities that offer grad programs without the crazy access requirements of US universities. Tuition is free or at a token price in many countries. And it's reasonably easy to get a paid PhD studentship where you get paid a real salary, not slave wages (probably this is not that easy to get when you're straight out of your Master's with a mediocre GPA, but once you have shown ability to do research successfully and have a couple of papers under your belt, it shouldn't be hard in most places).

Sure, EU universities don't give you the clout of Ivy League, but many do perfectly fine research, you may even learn more as the 3rd PhD student of a professor than as the 27th PhD student of a superstar professor that talks to you five minutes once a month, and can advance your career path just fine.

I'm talking about the EU because it's where I am and can talk more or less confidently about, but this is probably true of many other countries and regions outside the US.

It's crazy to see how many people don't even consider this. I remember an Iranian researcher I was going to hire for a PhD position, she ended up going to the US because you know, it's the US... she faced the Trump ban and the PhD student tax hikes (here she would have a salary allowing her a middle-class lifestyle and without all those threats), and to this day she has significantly fewer papers than the person who had the second best CV and interview and I hired instead. Seriously, there is life outside the US!

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