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As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

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Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#231

Post by bogeholm »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #177
time_to_smile wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US (at least for now) it's fairly easy for a Senior Engineer to get 250k TC, and if income is your goal and you want put the energy towards a FAANG, not that hard to get up to 400-500k. In 2019 the median postdoc salary in the US was ~50k [0]. The work/life balance part is a bit trickier to quantify. Anecdotally US postdocs work pretty hard, but my experience is that highly paid engineers at FAANG-style compan…

My experience as a senior engineer at G was that most of my peers and I were working about 20-30 hours/week and collecting 300-500k TC. Some senior SWEs worked long hours, but they weren't rewarded for it, and many quickly adopt the ~30 hour/week lifestyle.

Well, that sounds OK ;)

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#232

Post by vecter »

LegitShady wrote: post #211
pfortuny wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No: the will to power is greatest because you have (supposedly) power over the creme of the creme. As silly as that but Nietzsche had it right: the will to power is one of the primordial forces.

the creme of the creme are all working for big companies making big dollars. But I could imagine people in academia thinking they are the a big deal.

That's not really fair either. There are plenty of brilliant people in academia who don't care for big paychecks from corporations.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#234

Post by apohn »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #225
borroka wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very understandable. I worked as a post doc for 8 years, with a paltry salary, I must say I had excellent advisors, so the experience was professionally enjoyable and I had the opportunity to sharpen my skills, travel the world for work, and have fun in general. But in spite of an excellent CV, with the caveat that I had no affiliations with top schools and was not part of any in-group--I did not know how important b…

> But in spite of an excellent CV, with the caveat that I had no affiliations with top schools and was not part of any in-group--I did not know how important both would be for an academic career, I though my many well-cited publications and clear and long-term research plans would have been enough. Even those are not enough. I had all of those (great undergrad and grad school pedigree, postdoc with a novel laureate,…

>You need to have a final boss who will go to bat for you, unfortunately the Nobel laureate was 84 and more into playing slots at the Indian casino/fucking around in the lab than he was in advocating for my career.

This is one of the things I like about industry jobs. Your career at a company might grow or be derailed by one person, but it's just that particular company. If it's a big company, it's just that particular org. In academia a single person can derail your entire career. As you've pointed out, sometimes it's not even malice. They just aren't interested in doing what they need to support you.

At one point my skip-level was a VP at a software company who loved to push people into doing things by saying "Think about your career. If you do things right you will be set for life." Outside of his tiny universe at that company, nobody even knew he existed. I burned some bridges with that person and some of his sycophants, but I just moved on to a different company with zero ramifications.

It's liberating to be able to just say F-it and move on.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#235

Post by adam_arthur »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #219
adam_arthur wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advocating for higher wages to fight inflation is non-sensical. It just exacerbates inflation and requires even further wage gains to keep even. There is a wealth of economic history that shows this. The stimulus checks and co were the primary driver of inflation. Handing people more money is not the answer

Why should labor eat the real losses from inflation rather than capital or rentiers?

They shouldn't but the mistake of handing out tons of helicopter money has already been made

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#236

Post by [deleted] »

apohn wrote: post #234
throwawaymaths wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in spite of an excellent CV, with the caveat that I had no affiliations with top schools and was not part of any in-group--I did not know how important both would be for an academic career, I though my many well-cited publications and clear and long-term research plans would have been enough. Even those are not enough. I had all of those (great undergrad and grad school pedigree, postdoc with a novel laureate,…

>You need to have a final boss who will go to bat for you, unfortunately the Nobel laureate was 84 and more into playing slots at the Indian casino/fucking around in the lab than he was in advocating for my career. This is one of the things I like about industry jobs. Your career at a company might grow or be derailed by one person, but it's just that particular company. If it's a big company, it's just that particul…

[deleted]

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#237

Post by qayxc »

feet wrote: post #100
bmitc wrote: post #84

Honestly, there are just too many PhDs and too much glorification of PhDs. Academia is just far too inefficient as well. I have no idea where all the money that’s being moved around is going. My other thought is that maybe companies that pay little taxes but hire a lot of PhDs should maybe be looked at. Corporations have been extremely successful in outsourcing training to higher education, online learning, and other…

There's a bunch of glorification of physicians too, who are essentially repair techs for people

Sure, but there's something about saving one's life that's not quite the same as saving one's device or car...

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#238

Post by labcomputer »

bjourne wrote: post #55

I think Western academia is mostly reliant on immigration. Few natives would accept the low pay/high workload combination that is a postdoc, but for an immigrant from a third world country it might be an amazing opportunity. Same reason most fruit and berry pickers also are immigrants.

> but for an immigrant from a third world country it might be an amazing opportunity.

In part, because academia is exempt from H1b quotas.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#239

Post by bmitc »

feet wrote: post #100
bmitc wrote: post #84

Honestly, there are just too many PhDs and too much glorification of PhDs. Academia is just far too inefficient as well. I have no idea where all the money that’s being moved around is going. My other thought is that maybe companies that pay little taxes but hire a lot of PhDs should maybe be looked at. Corporations have been extremely successful in outsourcing training to higher education, online learning, and other…

There's a bunch of glorification of physicians too, who are essentially repair techs for people

I don't think that's the same thing at all, and I disagree. Physicians are directly useful to society.

Re: As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

#240

Post by [deleted] »

travisporter wrote: post #229
gautamdivgi wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an industry person who wanted to transition to academia. I just decided against it obviously. I liked all the aspects you pointed out above. The one thing that is missed is that most places are publishing sweatshops where the pay and work conditions are horrible. The “boss” or the PI has unlimited control and can destroy your career. The problems are also way out of the ordinary. I’d like to draw a parallel wit…

Is the whole patent clerk discovering stuff in their free time still possible? I know people say do what you love etc but I’ve found something I kinda like as a day job but I’d rather be doing astronomy.

[deleted]
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