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More than 40% of postdocs leave academia, study reveals

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

#221

Post by jjk166 »

zaik wrote: post #91
jjk166 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academia works on nearly everything, so it's no surprise that successes come out of it. Especially if you are willing to squint your eyes a little and describe something which has a few elements of the final useful innovation (but noticeably not the secret sauce) a precursor then anything can be traced back. That does not mean academia, nonetheless academia in its current form, is the optimal system for producing inn…

Well if there is a more efficient way, the big companies haven't found it yet. Guess where they hire their research people?

Paying people to leave academia does not seem like a major endorsement of the academic system. No one is arguing that intelligent people who have spent years working in a field aren't valuable, just that they might not be reaching their full potential under the current conditions.

Further, I would recommend very strongly against using big companies as the gold standard of innovation, especially not efficient innovation.

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

#222

Post by zaik »

jjk166 wrote: post #221
zaik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if there is a more efficient way, the big companies haven't found it yet. Guess where they hire their research people?

Paying people to leave academia does not seem like a major endorsement of the academic system. No one is arguing that intelligent people who have spent years working in a field aren't valuable, just that they might not be reaching their full potential under the current conditions. Further, I would recommend very strongly against using big companies as the gold standard of innovation, especially not efficient innovati…

Then I wonder who you think does the most efficient innovations. Apparently it's not universities like MIT. It's not big companies with research institutes like Bell Labs. The military? Please don't say VC funded startups.

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

#223

Post by michaelcampbell »

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.

> Being in academia is not the only way to do research,

No, but (and I'm not in this space, so totally ignorant), is it not the case that if you're not associated with a Uni in some form that _PUBLISHING_ your research is all but impossible?

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

#224

Post by citrate05 »

krallistic wrote: post #49
pca006132 wrote: post #41

Earlier 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…

I would say teaching is not that relevant specifically for most tenure-track positions at big research universities. It is absolutely something you need to demonstrate some actual experience and proficiency with if you get a position at a small liberal arts college or a community college, where tuition is basically how they keep the lights on.

I’d also say that even at an R1, teaching volume at an acceptable quality is sometimes rewarded if your college within the university is very undergrad-heavy, because it can be part of how the university apportions funds to departments. So, it wouldn’t matter at a med school, but potentially a little in arts and sciences, though still in distant second to research.

There are also a small but increasing number of tenure track teaching-focused positions at big research universities. These folks typically help design and teach the biggest intro lectures and/or other very time- and labor-intensive courses. There are fewer of these positions than I’d like to see in an ideal world, but not zero.

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

#225

Post by citrate05 »

pca006132 wrote: post #81
krallistic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I feel terrible for the idea of jugding academics based on the amount of grant money they can get... It feels like encouraging a lot of smart people to find ways to waste money, even when they know that they don't really need that much for their project.

It does distract from the process of actually doing research, but I will point out that funding agencies take past productivity into account, so you can’t do literally nothing with the money and expect a grant to get renewed.

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

#226

Post by karaterobot »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #223
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.

> Being in academia is not the only way to do research, No, but (and I'm not in this space, so totally ignorant), is it not the case that if you're not associated with a Uni in some form that _PUBLISHING_ your research is all but impossible?

You can definitely publish outside academia. I assume you mean in scholarly journals specifically, and are questioning whether or not you need the backing or credentials of an educational institution to get past the gatekeepers—you can. It's just that, outside academia, where publishing is kind of a job requirement, there's not as much incentive to do so, and you may not always be allowed to do so by your employer.

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

#227

Post by maiar »

KingMob wrote: post #205
maiar wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a lot of fields, postdocs are required if you want a shot at a tenure-track position. For the most part, it’s just another artificial rung the system uses to justify exploiting people.

Crazy to think that 50 years ago, postdocs were rare.

They should have stayed rare, but they’re a way for universities to get free money from the government as well as a temporary (but sadly permanent) fix for academia’s deep structural problems.

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

#228

Post by dekhn »

godelski wrote: post #180
absolutelastone wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Training is how the low pay is justified. I certainly agree it's not a good deal, more of a supply and demand effect. Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 I do agree it probably gets used more as an easy way to get experience, the usual thing organizations crave in their new hires. But it isn't the only way. Top graduates can get temporary research…

> Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 Yes, I would say it is inaccurate to say that a post doc position is about training. Unless you're referring to them training undergrads and grads. I think there are 2 key things we need to note about your source >> Which items or job requirements are most commonly used by institutions to define postdocs? This…

Let me give an anecdote: I was a PhD 1995-2001 at UCSF. I made $25K/year plus UC benefits.

Then I was a postdoc at Berkeley 2001-2004. I made $76K/year plus UC benefits plus the service clock for the pension started.

Then I was a staff scientist at LBL 2004-2007. I made $100K/year plus UC benefits and the service clock for the pension continued (I have enough service credit to get some thousands of dollars a month after I retire). It was an exhausting job and I did not enjoy having to simulateously publish, travel, and get grants to hire people to do research for me. I concluded this was not enough to buy a house and raise a family, so I left for industry.

I worked at Genentech 2007-2008 and made $120K ("Senior Architect") plus full benefits (which were pretty good).

I then moved to Google as an L5 (I had wanted to work there for ~10 years before I got hired) and started around $140K plus stock options, benefits, and retirement. Over the decade I worked there (2008-2019) my pay was increased signficantly every year, ending around $250K (including the year that Eric Schmidt gave everybody a 10% raise. thanks eric) along with ever-increasing options and then RSUs, worth millions (about $200K/year), excellent benefits, and saving a ton for retirement. There were a lot of side benefits- on the job training, free phones, etc. I really lucked out getting hired and promoted and being there during a growth period; I don't ever expect to have a role like that again. This was the first time I truly felt like I could have kids and a home in the Bay Area without going deeply in debt.

The first few years at Google were stressful, I worked about as hard as I did at LBL, but every bit of hard work was compensated in some way or another- additional pay, access to resources (I basically could use all of the idle cycles in prod at Google- 1-3M cores- to do protein design, and publish). Every bit of research work that led to publications had far more impact (mainly due to the employer's position in research) than before, and I felt supported by the infrastructure to do ambitious things.

I spent a year at a Startup, making $250K and similar benefits to Google. I was employee #11 and have (worthless) equity- if they IPO I might get somewhere around $1M depending on how diluted my shares are and how big the IPO is. I am not allowed to sell the shares on secondary market.

Now I am back at Genentech and make more than I ever have in terms of base pay, while the stock (Roche stock) isn't nearly as valuable as what I got from Google. Fortunately, all those previous years helped build up a big buffer that will help pay for my kids to go to college (hopefully, some of my payment will go to help somebody else's kid get financial aid).

I'd actually love to return to LBL because if I do, my career will actually form a correctly nested path: LBL -> Genentech -> Google -> Startup -> Google -> Genentech (I am here) -> LBL. I'm sure I could get rehired there but at this point, why would I want to work harder for less money and publication credibility?

Looking back at my postdocs, while I learned a lot, I did not like the power dynamic with my PI, and really only persisted for 3 years with the goal of getting a much higher paying job.

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

#229

Post by hinkley »

shermantanktop wrote: post #196
hinkley wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe you haven’t been privy to conversations about whether certain people are sinking or swimming.

I would rather keep a consistently mediocre individual than an inconsistent one because I know what I can and can’t trust the former with. I have to keep checking in on the latter. But I’ve met more than a couple loudmouths who disagree. Who think they can raise their stock by pushing someone else’s down.

Whether you see actions or not, I assure you that time and energy are being wasted on regrets.

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

#230

Post by shermantanktop »

hinkley wrote: post #229
shermantanktop wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe you haven’t been privy to conversations about whether certain people are sinking or swimming. I would rather keep a consistently mediocre individual than an inconsistent one because I know what I can and can’t trust the former with. I have to keep checking in on the latter. But I’ve met more than a couple loudmouths who disagree. Who think they can raise their stock by pushing someone else’s down. Whether you s…

I absolutely am in those conversations and see the time and energy, and some of it is mine, across a sizable organization. I am absolutely not saying that industry is a friction-free meritocracy, and of course there are politics everywhere.

What is unique to academia is the static supply of jobs. When people don't leave, new people face a huge uphill battle to join, and that battle is largely against their competition, not the institution that they seek to join.

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