5 ms·

> Permanent jobs in academia are scarce, and someone needs to let PhD students know. If you are studying on a PhD level and have not figured that out already,

> Permanent jobs in academia are scarce, and someone needs to let PhD students know. If you are studying on a PhD level and have not figured that out already, that's kinda on you.

voltooid 9y ago
These are usually people that have always been the best in their class through their academic careers. The idea that they might be the ones to not get a position, because they are not good enough for it may not be something they have experienced /consider possible for themselves.
- afarrell 9y ago
  They may consider the possibility, feel intense despair about it, and work to avoid thinking about it in order to avoid feeling the intense negative feelings that come with something they regard as catastrophic.
eradicatethots 9y ago
What’s your point?
mattkrause 9y ago
Someone posts this glib comment every time academic careers are discussed. It's true, and yet harder than you'd think. Suppose you know that only 1 in 10 PhDs in your field end up in a tenure track job. A decent fraction of your classmates are interested in industry--or never want to see the inside of a lab again. Maybe this reduces the competition down to one in six or seven. You're in a pretty good program, definitely in the top 15 percent of the field. It's certainly not that easy, but...you're not obviously worse than most of your classmates, you work on a hot topic and you work hard. What are your chances? Very few grad students get any kind of personalized career advice or discussion of their prospects. They should obviously think about this, but more senior scientists also have a responsibility to provide mentorship and frank assesments.
- noobermin 9y ago
  >but more senior scientists also have a responsibility to provide mentorship and frank assesments. And they won't do it because they are a) biased due to survivorship bias, and b) they are disincentivized to do so as that would scare away their cheap labor.
  - s0rce 9y ago
    I believe that b) is the key issue here. They need the cheap labor so it needs to appear that the PhD will get you somewhere. In the end only industry is benefiting from being able to hire highly trained people without have to pay anything to train them.
- hobofan 9y ago
  The average age of a PhD student is 33 years and even at normal speed, no breaks/hurdles and starting right out of high-school, you are 25(?). Something about applying this babysitting attitude of "somebody needs to tell them" to highly educated individuals of that age just doesn't sit right with me. If I were a PhD supervisor, I would probably find it ridiculous that one of my responsibilities would be "pointing people to the universities careers service". I'm also not sure why you would expect a supervisor to be able to give good career advice when some of them have only ever experienced academia themselves.
  - hycaria 9y ago
    That's higher than I thought, but I guess that's US numbers. Are they starting it way later (and if so what are they doing in between) ? Or is it simply a long time spent in PhD ?
    - jogundas 9y ago
      Europe Physics adds up as follows: finish school at 18 + 4 BSc + 2 MSc + 4 PhD = 28
  - chestervonwinch 9y ago
farseer 9y ago
You are bound to get down voted for this comment, however I do agree with you. I am one of those people who managed to realize by a good stroke of luck that perusing a Phd in my field would severely limit my earning potential. It was all the Phd grad students always talking about their money problems in the college cafeteria that gave them away.
wolfgke 9y ago
> > Permanent jobs in academia are scarce, and someone needs to let PhD students know. > If you are studying on a PhD level and have not figured that out already, that's kinda on you. The problem rather is if you really are scientifically better than your peers - so from an "objective" perspective you should be really good enough to obtain such a position. But then you realize how much of a political game (it is much more about politics than scientific achievements) getting such a position is. And I know many great scientists who are bad politicians... They are often much better than the persons who got the tenured positions (the latter ones were great bootlickers and politicians).
- s0rce 9y ago
  Exactly, I quit after a Science and Nature paper, just didn't want to do a 2nd postdoc and prioritize a tenure-track job over everything else in life.

> Permanent jobs in academia are scarce, and someone needs to let PhD students know. If you are studying on a PhD level and have not figured that out already, that's kinda on you.

voltooid 9y ago

These are usually people that have always been the best in their class through their academic careers. The idea that they might be the ones to not get a position, because they are not good enough for it may not be something they have experienced /consider possible for themselves.

afarrell 9y ago
They may consider the possibility, feel intense despair about it, and work to avoid thinking about it in order to avoid feeling the intense negative feelings that come with something they regard as catastrophic.

eradicatethots 9y ago

What’s your point?

mattkrause 9y ago

Someone posts this glib comment every time academic careers are discussed. It's true, and yet harder than you'd think. Suppose you know that only 1 in 10 PhDs in your field end up in a tenure track job. A decent fraction of your classmates are interested in industry--or never want to see the inside of a lab again. Maybe this reduces the competition down to one in six or seven. You're in a pretty good program, definitely in the top 15 percent of the field. It's certainly not that easy, but...you're not obviously worse than most of your classmates, you work on a hot topic and you work hard. What are your chances? Very few grad students get any kind of personalized career advice or discussion of their prospects. They should obviously think about this, but more senior scientists also have a responsibility to provide mentorship and frank assesments.

noobermin 9y ago
>but more senior scientists also have a responsibility to provide mentorship and frank assesments. And they won't do it because they are a) biased due to survivorship bias, and b) they are disincentivized to do so as that would scare away their cheap labor.
- s0rce 9y ago
  I believe that b) is the key issue here. They need the cheap labor so it needs to appear that the PhD will get you somewhere. In the end only industry is benefiting from being able to hire highly trained people without have to pay anything to train them.
hobofan 9y ago
The average age of a PhD student is 33 years and even at normal speed, no breaks/hurdles and starting right out of high-school, you are 25(?). Something about applying this babysitting attitude of "somebody needs to tell them" to highly educated individuals of that age just doesn't sit right with me. If I were a PhD supervisor, I would probably find it ridiculous that one of my responsibilities would be "pointing people to the universities careers service". I'm also not sure why you would expect a supervisor to be able to give good career advice when some of them have only ever experienced academia themselves.
- hycaria 9y ago
  That's higher than I thought, but I guess that's US numbers. Are they starting it way later (and if so what are they doing in between) ? Or is it simply a long time spent in PhD ?
  - jogundas 9y ago
    Europe Physics adds up as follows: finish school at 18 + 4 BSc + 2 MSc + 4 PhD = 28
- chestervonwinch 9y ago

farseer 9y ago

You are bound to get down voted for this comment, however I do agree with you. I am one of those people who managed to realize by a good stroke of luck that perusing a Phd in my field would severely limit my earning potential. It was all the Phd grad students always talking about their money problems in the college cafeteria that gave them away.

wolfgke 9y ago

> > Permanent jobs in academia are scarce, and someone needs to let PhD students know. > If you are studying on a PhD level and have not figured that out already, that's kinda on you. The problem rather is if you really are scientifically better than your peers - so from an "objective" perspective you should be really good enough to obtain such a position. But then you realize how much of a political game (it is much more about politics than scientific achievements) getting such a position is. And I know many great scientists who are bad politicians... They are often much better than the persons who got the tenured positions (the latter ones were great bootlickers and politicians).

s0rce 9y ago
Exactly, I quit after a Science and Nature paper, just didn't want to do a 2nd postdoc and prioritize a tenure-track job over everything else in life.