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A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

president.mit.edu

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Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#271

Post by layer8 »

slg wrote: post #96
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, it’s called a brain drain and it’s why until recently America held a vice grip on groundbreaking research and its commercialization.

Historians looking back at this era are going to struggle to understand why we made the decisions we did.

They might struggle understanding why the decision-makers were elected, though maybe not even that. It’s well-documented why the decisions are being made. Decisions being bad doesn’t mean that they aren’t perfectly explainable.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#272

Post by magicalist »

cmiles8 wrote: post #247
kenferry wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but not what this article is about at all. Six figures is for undergrads. The issue here is that PIs don’t have the money to support graduate students, who are typically fully supported.

Same issue with grad school… the value isn’t there for this to make sense. Folks are better off just going right into them private sector.

The value absolutely is there. The NSF and NIH were both very cheap and have had huge ROI. The cuts to academic funding have been monumentally stupid.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#273

Post by nukedindia »

busterarm wrote: post #93
andix wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people decided that this sucks and have spoken. Dear god, make America stupid again!

So you're suggesting our systems should be less democratic, then? Maybe opposing points of view should pick better candidates that will actually win elections. That's how it works, right?

[dead]

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#275

Post by ransom1538 »

jrflo wrote: post #147

Besides the people in this thread bemoaning the state of research funding, international students, etc. (all of which are valid), a lot of people are becoming disillusioned with academia. Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia. The median science PhD takes 6 years now, and is grueling work for terrible pay, all…

"get a grad student union to try and combat the increasingly exploitative nature of academia"

Lol. Well you should introduce MIT to the concept of supply and demand. I am confident you can find people to pay MIT to work there.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#276

Post by micromacrofoot »

jrflo wrote: post #147

Besides the people in this thread bemoaning the state of research funding, international students, etc. (all of which are valid), a lot of people are becoming disillusioned with academia. Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia. The median science PhD takes 6 years now, and is grueling work for terrible pay, all…

This isn't really new, I've heard complaints about academia for decades. What is new is that grant funding has been completely eviscerated.

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#277

Post by lotsofpulp »

zamfi wrote: post #157
notahacker wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'd probably struggle to understand Caligula if he'd been popularly elected after he went mad by an electorate that got to listen to his madness on television...

On its face this sounds like an indictment of an electorate. But I think it's actually a much deeper indictment of the incumbents who couldn't present a vision more appealing than the "madness on television".

What if the electorate is so stupid that what appeals to them is ruinous?

What if the electorate is so stupid that it simply votes against women in order to affirm their personal desires to not be at bottom of the socioeconomic rankings, however delusional those may be?

Re: A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline

#278

Post by jmyeet »

jrflo wrote: post #147

Besides the people in this thread bemoaning the state of research funding, international students, etc. (all of which are valid), a lot of people are becoming disillusioned with academia. Probably 80% of the recent PhD grads I know are looking to leave academia, despite the fact that they went into it to pursue a career in academia. The median science PhD takes 6 years now, and is grueling work for terrible pay, all…

So I’m not in academia but even I’ve known for 20+ years how horrendous the job prospects are. I liken it to a game of musical chairs where everybody sat down in 1972. Academia is full of baby boomers who refuse to retire or die. And the number of positions just isn’t growing anywhere near to the demand.

I know somebody who somehow landed a tenure track position in the humanities where a PhD can take 10 years and there are 200-300 applicants for 10 positions.

Any field with an imbalance like this leads to low pay, unpaid work, the importance of politics and petty grievances. I don’t understand the appeal.

I’d really love to know why people pursue this career knowing all this in advance. Is it the belief that they’ll beat the odds? So hubris?

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