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All of your reasons are valid. I would add one more: 5. Academic success has been rewarded every step of the way. I look at my high school classmates who I k

All of your reasons are valid. I would add one more: 5. Academic success has been rewarded every step of the way. I look at my high school classmates who I know went on to get Phds. (Sample size of 8) All of them were among the smartest few percent in the class. Every success that they got through the end of undergrad was due to academic performance. But afterwards things slowed down. Only 2 of 8 stayed through to tenure. The two smartest got Phds in math and wound up in non-faculty positions. One other got a science industry job. One wound up at a hedge fund. And two teach high school. All things considered it's not a bad lot in life, but these were amongst the best and brightest of my peer group. Five of Seven would have been better served taking other paths to their end destinations. There is a systemic incentives problem going on. Every individual school has an incentive to push as many people as possible into academia. This is for both cheap labor, and because their brand goes up when absolute #s of their grads go on to big things. The schools in aggregate also benefit when there are more Phd grads than job applicants. (Again keeps costs down) The systemic over-supply punishes the graduates as a whole. It's a case where the individuals who have gotten the most mileage listening to their teachers, are also the ones who most need to stop listening to them. :-)

civilian 10y ago
Yeah! I did my senior thesis in an 8-person biochemistry lab, graduated in 2009. I was probably solidly in the bottom 2 students of the group. I was just as smart as my labmates, and I had a lack of attention to detail and a weak work ethic. A handful of them went on to more education, and most of them stayed in the field. I think I might be doing the best, career-wise, unless any of them pivoted to be a medical doctor. I got fired from a biotech job (that pesky work-ethic...) and learned python while working data-entry. Being a C student in college kinda paid off, if it helped me dodge a career in the life sciences. Linkedin/FB stalked, of the 8 of us we have: Research Associate (has a Masters now), Phd/MD Student, Scientist II, Research Lab Tech (might be unemployed & traveling the world?), Research Lab Tech, PhD Student, Physician's Assistant, Senior Software Eng. All but one of these people are harder-working than I am, and all are just as smart. I just lucked out by having an economist for my dad, who planted the idea that I should look at switching to a field in demand.
- collyw 10y ago
  Yeah, science careers kind of suck. The problem is by the time you realize this you have probably invested quite a lot of time already.
sbardle 10y ago
Yes, the Profski Scheme, as it's known (although IME it's the administrators who are behind the inflation of the scheme). I think there is fundamentally something morally wrong with the HE system in the US and now the UK, which lands young people in so much debt before the start of their working lives (I would make exceptions for vocational qualifications like medicine). The sooner this space is disrupted, the better - it is a moral imperative.

civilian 10y ago

Yeah! I did my senior thesis in an 8-person biochemistry lab, graduated in 2009. I was probably solidly in the bottom 2 students of the group. I was just as smart as my labmates, and I had a lack of attention to detail and a weak work ethic. A handful of them went on to more education, and most of them stayed in the field. I think I might be doing the best, career-wise, unless any of them pivoted to be a medical doctor. I got fired from a biotech job (that pesky work-ethic...) and learned python while working data-entry. Being a C student in college kinda paid off, if it helped me dodge a career in the life sciences. Linkedin/FB stalked, of the 8 of us we have: Research Associate (has a Masters now), Phd/MD Student, Scientist II, Research Lab Tech (might be unemployed & traveling the world?), Research Lab Tech, PhD Student, Physician's Assistant, Senior Software Eng. All but one of these people are harder-working than I am, and all are just as smart. I just lucked out by having an economist for my dad, who planted the idea that I should look at switching to a field in demand.

collyw 10y ago
Yeah, science careers kind of suck. The problem is by the time you realize this you have probably invested quite a lot of time already.

sbardle 10y ago

Yes, the Profski Scheme, as it's known (although IME it's the administrators who are behind the inflation of the scheme). I think there is fundamentally something morally wrong with the HE system in the US and now the UK, which lands young people in so much debt before the start of their working lives (I would make exceptions for vocational qualifications like medicine). The sooner this space is disrupted, the better - it is a moral imperative.