5 ms·

Full disclosure: I'm a last year Ph.D student in cognitive neuroscience, and I'm neck-deep in post-doc applications... I think a large part of the issue has t

Full disclosure: I'm a last year Ph.D student in cognitive neuroscience, and I'm neck-deep in post-doc applications... I think a large part of the issue has to do with government policy as it relates to science. I notice that many politicians reason in terms of "producing more science" as if it were a commodity good that should be produced and exported en masse. The problem, then, is that the current academic system actively encourages people to pursue academic careers without disclosing the reality of the situation. They push masses of people through undergrad, then grad school, then post-docs, until the end of the line whereupon most people hit a huge brick wall. I'm all for promoting research in STEM fields, but simply upping the quota of Ph.Ds won't cut it. As far as the U.S. is concerned, I think this has more to do with turning a blind eye to the dismal state of public education than anything else. It enables politicians to say "we trained 200% more scientists", while conveniently omitting the following truths: 1. Virtually none of them will be employed in the sciences at a level that warrants a doctorate. 2. For all the chest-puffing we do, we still get humiliated by the rest of the civilized world in terms of education. 3. Those people actually employed in research positions in American universities are majority foreign.

gaius 11y ago
actively encourages people to pursue academic careers without disclosing the reality of the situation Sure, but everyone including a freshman undergrad is an adult and the odds of ever becoming a tenured professor are public knowledge. No-one can realistically complain that they just didn't know.
- omginternets 11y ago
  The point isn't that they're unaware. The point is that it's irresponsible to push people towards academic careers without attempting to separate those who are interested in science from those who are also good candidates for tenured positions. I've always known that the academic market is saturated. I still don't know what it actually takes, in practice, to penetrate. I contend that this guidance failure stems from a policy that aims to inflate certain non-informative statistics. More to your point, however, I think you over-estimate the quality of the information going around. Every college professor will tell you it's difficult, but they'll also guide you based on their experience from 30 years ago.
  - analog31 11y ago
    I still don't know what it actually takes, in practice, to penetrate. Nobody knows. That's the long and short of it. If you find any set of traits in common among tenured prof's, and look for those traits in the grad student body, you'll find a roughly 10x surplus of people who are good enough to be in the pipeline. Disclaimer: I was not one of those people. I got my PhD in 1993, and knew that I was clearly not professor material. So I steered myself into industry. As for experience 30 years ago, the oversupply of PhDs was already widely known at that time. We called it the "birth control problem," and it was discussed over the then-nascent Internet. I mentioned it to my dad, a chemistry PhD, and he said: "Oh yeah, we knew about that in the 1950s." A perpetual optimism about career advancement is possibly just a social convention. At my workplace, the HR message is that anybody can move up. But we can't all move up, and none of us are ever told our realistic prospects. By the way I'm not trying to play "internet tough guy" here, but am just trying to be realistic. I'm actually quite sympathetic about the problem.
    - robotresearcher 11y ago
      >> I still don't know what it actually takes, in practice, to penetrate. > Nobody knows. I do. You need to either be outstandingly, obviously better than almost everyone else, or you need to be good enough and lucky. You can probably think of examples of both of these cases.
      - analog31 11y ago
        I knew those people. But my contention is that if you have those things, you're still competing with a surplus of people who also have those things. What we don't know is how to reliably raise the chance to a level above about 10%. I'd add a couple of other factors: The people I know who got into tenured jobs, had binders full of shovel ready research ideas (backed up by literature and/or preliminary results), and a comprehensive knowledge of the literature in their specialties.
        robotresearcher 11y ago
- stared 11y ago
  Did you know the odds? I didn't. Actually, I thought that they were much higher, because I based it on the data from current old professors. Quite the opposite - both countries and departments/professors actively advertise the odds as much higher.
  - gaius 11y ago
    When I did undergrad in Mech Eng, I knew that the "shortage" of engineers was a myth, but it was still the best option for an all-round technical education, and I figured I'd wing it when I graduated...
    - omginternets 11y ago
      Engineering as a profession has very little to do with academic research, so I'm not sure what your point is.
      - gaius 11y ago
        You've been watching too much Big Bang Theory. Sheldon is supposed to be a parody of a scientist, you know. The point is that everyone who goes into any STEM subject at any level ought to know upfront that there are far more graduates than there are jobs in those fields of any sort including "researcher". It's no secret.
        omginternets 11y ago
        >You've been watching too much Big Bang Theory. Sheldon is supposed to be a parody of a scientist, you know. What a snarky and strangely dismissive comment! Clearly there's a lot of overlap in the subject matter (it's science, after all), but employment prospects are most assuredly not the same for engineers and academics. You can get a job as an engineer; I cannot. As such, I don't see the relevance of your experience as an engineering student, hence my question. So again, I'm not sure what your point is. I'm open to being wrong, but in order to see my error, I need to first understand your point. It would be nice if you could explain it to me without being disrespectful.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  You're missing the import of the Profzi Scheme (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1144 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1144): the lower levels of the pyramid are necessary. Graduate students and post-docs aren't really independent researchers pursuing their own ideas, and basically never have been. They're (highly educated, scientific) laborers who work for a boss. By most metrics, a system in which most of the actual work is done by low-paid laborers with long hours - who are then thrown out as soon as they've got experience and tribal knowledge! - is not only an abusive system but a stupid and counterproductive system.
hudibras 11y ago
"3. Those people actually employed in research positions in American universities are majority foreign." Even if this was true (which I doubt), that just reinforces the article's contention that postdocs aren't paid enough: the jobs are only attractive to foreigners, while Americans have other options.
- bsilvereagle 11y ago
  Anecdotally, ~50% of the faculty in my department at a large American public university are foreigners. I've been told, but not verified, that if you count dual-citizens, that number gets closer to 65%.
  - parennoob 11y ago
    > I've been told, but not verified, that if you count dual-citizens, that number gets closer to 65%. Why on earth would you group dual citizens in the same category as foreigners? Even if 100% of the faculty are dual citizens (Americans + something else), it would still be 100% American.
    - adenadel 11y ago
      My guess would be that a large number of dual citizens obtained their citizenship in the course of their scientific work. It speaks to the training problem we have.
    - T-A 11y ago
      Because realistically, most of those dual citizens started out as foreigners and were eventually naturalized as a consequence of pursuing an academic career in the US.
    - omginternets 11y ago
      Because many foreign cultures value education more than the U.S., overall.
    - omginternets 11y ago

gaius 11y ago

actively encourages people to pursue academic careers without disclosing the reality of the situation Sure, but everyone including a freshman undergrad is an adult and the odds of ever becoming a tenured professor are public knowledge. No-one can realistically complain that they just didn't know.

omginternets 11y ago
The point isn't that they're unaware. The point is that it's irresponsible to push people towards academic careers without attempting to separate those who are interested in science from those who are also good candidates for tenured positions. I've always known that the academic market is saturated. I still don't know what it actually takes, in practice, to penetrate. I contend that this guidance failure stems from a policy that aims to inflate certain non-informative statistics. More to your point, however, I think you over-estimate the quality of the information going around. Every college professor will tell you it's difficult, but they'll also guide you based on their experience from 30 years ago.
- analog31 11y ago
  I still don't know what it actually takes, in practice, to penetrate. Nobody knows. That's the long and short of it. If you find any set of traits in common among tenured prof's, and look for those traits in the grad student body, you'll find a roughly 10x surplus of people who are good enough to be in the pipeline. Disclaimer: I was not one of those people. I got my PhD in 1993, and knew that I was clearly not professor material. So I steered myself into industry. As for experience 30 years ago, the oversupply of PhDs was already widely known at that time. We called it the "birth control problem," and it was discussed over the then-nascent Internet. I mentioned it to my dad, a chemistry PhD, and he said: "Oh yeah, we knew about that in the 1950s." A perpetual optimism about career advancement is possibly just a social convention. At my workplace, the HR message is that anybody can move up. But we can't all move up, and none of us are ever told our realistic prospects. By the way I'm not trying to play "internet tough guy" here, but am just trying to be realistic. I'm actually quite sympathetic about the problem.
  - robotresearcher 11y ago
    >> I still don't know what it actually takes, in practice, to penetrate. > Nobody knows. I do. You need to either be outstandingly, obviously better than almost everyone else, or you need to be good enough and lucky. You can probably think of examples of both of these cases.
    - analog31 11y ago
      I knew those people. But my contention is that if you have those things, you're still competing with a surplus of people who also have those things. What we don't know is how to reliably raise the chance to a level above about 10%. I'd add a couple of other factors: The people I know who got into tenured jobs, had binders full of shovel ready research ideas (backed up by literature and/or preliminary results), and a comprehensive knowledge of the literature in their specialties.
      - robotresearcher 11y ago
stared 11y ago
Did you know the odds? I didn't. Actually, I thought that they were much higher, because I based it on the data from current old professors. Quite the opposite - both countries and departments/professors actively advertise the odds as much higher.
- gaius 11y ago
  When I did undergrad in Mech Eng, I knew that the "shortage" of engineers was a myth, but it was still the best option for an all-round technical education, and I figured I'd wing it when I graduated...
  - omginternets 11y ago
    Engineering as a profession has very little to do with academic research, so I'm not sure what your point is.
    - gaius 11y ago
      You've been watching too much Big Bang Theory. Sheldon is supposed to be a parody of a scientist, you know. The point is that everyone who goes into any STEM subject at any level ought to know upfront that there are far more graduates than there are jobs in those fields of any sort including "researcher". It's no secret.
      - omginternets 11y ago
        >You've been watching too much Big Bang Theory. Sheldon is supposed to be a parody of a scientist, you know. What a snarky and strangely dismissive comment! Clearly there's a lot of overlap in the subject matter (it's science, after all), but employment prospects are most assuredly not the same for engineers and academics. You can get a job as an engineer; I cannot. As such, I don't see the relevance of your experience as an engineering student, hence my question. So again, I'm not sure what your point is. I'm open to being wrong, but in order to see my error, I need to first understand your point. It would be nice if you could explain it to me without being disrespectful.
eli_gottlieb 11y ago
You're missing the import of the Profzi Scheme (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1144 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1144): the lower levels of the pyramid are necessary. Graduate students and post-docs aren't really independent researchers pursuing their own ideas, and basically never have been. They're (highly educated, scientific) laborers who work for a boss. By most metrics, a system in which most of the actual work is done by low-paid laborers with long hours - who are then thrown out as soon as they've got experience and tribal knowledge! - is not only an abusive system but a stupid and counterproductive system.

hudibras 11y ago

"3. Those people actually employed in research positions in American universities are majority foreign." Even if this was true (which I doubt), that just reinforces the article's contention that postdocs aren't paid enough: the jobs are only attractive to foreigners, while Americans have other options.

bsilvereagle 11y ago
Anecdotally, ~50% of the faculty in my department at a large American public university are foreigners. I've been told, but not verified, that if you count dual-citizens, that number gets closer to 65%.
- parennoob 11y ago
  > I've been told, but not verified, that if you count dual-citizens, that number gets closer to 65%. Why on earth would you group dual citizens in the same category as foreigners? Even if 100% of the faculty are dual citizens (Americans + something else), it would still be 100% American.
  - adenadel 11y ago
    My guess would be that a large number of dual citizens obtained their citizenship in the course of their scientific work. It speaks to the training problem we have.
  - T-A 11y ago
    Because realistically, most of those dual citizens started out as foreigners and were eventually naturalized as a consequence of pursuing an academic career in the US.
  - omginternets 11y ago
    Because many foreign cultures value education more than the U.S., overall.
  - omginternets 11y ago