5 ms·

Nice posts. I've nearly completed a PhD in engineering. A while back I decided that academia is likely a dead end unless you win the lottery. If the adjunct si

Nice posts. I've nearly completed a PhD in engineering. A while back I decided that academia is likely a dead end unless you win the lottery. If the adjunct situation won't improve until people stop taking those jobs, I'll do my part. I'd like to periodically teach a class or two, but I would never adjunct as my sole source of income.

ghaff 8y ago
Yeah. There are good jobs in academia. Get tenure at an elite university and it's a pretty good life. (Although not as rosy as it probably seems from the outside with politics, pursuing grants, etc.) But that's a pretty tiny proportion of the positions PhDs hope to fill.
- jostmey 8y ago
  People don't understand how hard it is to get tenure. You have to win grants from the NIH to get tenure. Why? Because for every grant the NIH gives to scientist, the Universities tack on indirect costs (whatever that means) allowing them collect upwards of 50% of the grant for the University. Research grants are a cast cow, and it's really f* up
  - colechristensen 8y ago
    They take 50% and spend it on flashy buildings and ballooning administrative salaries.
    - apathy 8y ago
      It’s adorable that people think a research university would settle for just 50% indirects. Try 90% and almost all of it goes to the football coach or the dean’s legal fees.
      - newen 8y ago
        What university takes 90% of grant money for overhead? 30-50% for overhead is what I familiar with.
        apathy 8y ago
        At one point it was typical — looks like scrutiny has driven indirects down massively outside of dedicated research institutes in the past few years. https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates HMS declared rate is 58% but there are a lot of loopholes (as at other R1s with Institutes)
    - davidmr 8y ago
      I’m absolutely not defending academia as an industry. I did my time there, and I would never go back. To say that the overhead goes to flashy buildings and fat admin paychecks is a bit of a misrepresentation. Those buildings almost always have a major donor and a substantial endowment component. The academic (especially physical and biological science) divisions do actually need to pay for office space, lab space, heat, staff to run it, clean it, make the computers go, etc. If you think my salary was ballooning while building and running everyone’s HPC clusters, I can assure you it wasn’t in any sense other than perhaps slowly deflating over time. Compared to whatever the football coach and president are being paid, there are thousands of people on staff who aren’t getting those fat paychecks.
  - secabeen 8y ago
    Indirect costs are everything that you need to do research that can't be directly allocated to the research. So you use research funds to pay a researcher, buy chemicals or equipment, etc. Indirect funds cover everything else: real estate costs, power, water, sewer, trash collection, Internet, WiFi and phone, building maintenance, HVAC, etc. When we build buildings to house researchers, all of the costs related to those buildings and space are covered by indirect funds. It also covers a bunch of human costs, such as the staff handling payroll, grant reporting and other compliance costs around the grant, the campus fire protection and police departments, etc. etc.
  - hpcjoe 8y ago
    Well, for those of us in the Physical Sciences, winning NIH grants isn't quite what we aimed for ... but your point is valid. For any of the granting agencies, NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, etc. your grant is loaded with overhead/indirect costs.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - emmelaich 8y ago
    djb has a good series on this https://cr.yp.to/uic.html https://cr.yp.to/uic.html
hpcjoe 8y ago
This. Exactly. I took my Ph.D. and joined industry rather than try tenure track lotto. Back when I was thinking on pathways, I was a fresh faced noob with a few papers to my name competing against senior scientists with decades of publications from the former soviet union. This made the decision much easier.
- sgillen 8y ago
  Do you think getting a PhD is worth it if you already plan on going into industry?
  - sgt101 8y ago
    It depends. If you are single and doing it without massive financial risk (if you get good support or if you have independent wealth) then I would say absolutely. I was extremely lucky and landed a assistants job at a small uni and this allowed me to scrape by (actually it was ok, just not long term sustainable). If you have a partner that could be good or bad depending. Your relationship will be stressed, I have seen several relationships flounder due to the process and pressure, but also I've seen several come through ok, and a couple blossom. Alot of these observations correlate with normal tracks for romantic relationships, life is full of surprises and challenges, but the big fact is that people who have lost lovers and spouses during Ph.D's often blame the Ph.D (in my experience). If you have (young) kids I strongly recommend that you think really carefully. The difference here is that no matter what happens you have dependants, and you will have to be very lucky not to get compromised by this relationship and the Ph.D process. Something will have to give, and this might mean that your work is devalued or derailed. Always remember that a Ph.D is a gamble and an indulgence. No one needs one, and no one is guaranteed success. On the other hand it gives you skills and training that I think are very hard to get any other way and for me it was one of the best periods of my life (one of!) Good luck.
  - foldr 8y ago
    Depends greatly on the field, but I would definitely say that you shouldn't do it if your main motivation is to advance your career.

ghaff 8y ago

Yeah. There are good jobs in academia. Get tenure at an elite university and it's a pretty good life. (Although not as rosy as it probably seems from the outside with politics, pursuing grants, etc.) But that's a pretty tiny proportion of the positions PhDs hope to fill.

jostmey 8y ago
People don't understand how hard it is to get tenure. You have to win grants from the NIH to get tenure. Why? Because for every grant the NIH gives to scientist, the Universities tack on indirect costs (whatever that means) allowing them collect upwards of 50% of the grant for the University. Research grants are a cast cow, and it's really f* up
- colechristensen 8y ago
  They take 50% and spend it on flashy buildings and ballooning administrative salaries.
  - apathy 8y ago
    It’s adorable that people think a research university would settle for just 50% indirects. Try 90% and almost all of it goes to the football coach or the dean’s legal fees.
    - newen 8y ago
      What university takes 90% of grant money for overhead? 30-50% for overhead is what I familiar with.
      - apathy 8y ago
        At one point it was typical — looks like scrutiny has driven indirects down massively outside of dedicated research institutes in the past few years. https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates https://osp.mit.edu/facilities-and-administrative-fa-rates HMS declared rate is 58% but there are a lot of loopholes (as at other R1s with Institutes)
  - davidmr 8y ago
    I’m absolutely not defending academia as an industry. I did my time there, and I would never go back. To say that the overhead goes to flashy buildings and fat admin paychecks is a bit of a misrepresentation. Those buildings almost always have a major donor and a substantial endowment component. The academic (especially physical and biological science) divisions do actually need to pay for office space, lab space, heat, staff to run it, clean it, make the computers go, etc. If you think my salary was ballooning while building and running everyone’s HPC clusters, I can assure you it wasn’t in any sense other than perhaps slowly deflating over time. Compared to whatever the football coach and president are being paid, there are thousands of people on staff who aren’t getting those fat paychecks.
- secabeen 8y ago
  Indirect costs are everything that you need to do research that can't be directly allocated to the research. So you use research funds to pay a researcher, buy chemicals or equipment, etc. Indirect funds cover everything else: real estate costs, power, water, sewer, trash collection, Internet, WiFi and phone, building maintenance, HVAC, etc. When we build buildings to house researchers, all of the costs related to those buildings and space are covered by indirect funds. It also covers a bunch of human costs, such as the staff handling payroll, grant reporting and other compliance costs around the grant, the campus fire protection and police departments, etc. etc.
- hpcjoe 8y ago
  Well, for those of us in the Physical Sciences, winning NIH grants isn't quite what we aimed for ... but your point is valid. For any of the granting agencies, NSF, NIH, DOE, DOD, etc. your grant is loaded with overhead/indirect costs.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- emmelaich 8y ago
  djb has a good series on this https://cr.yp.to/uic.html https://cr.yp.to/uic.html

hpcjoe 8y ago

This. Exactly. I took my Ph.D. and joined industry rather than try tenure track lotto. Back when I was thinking on pathways, I was a fresh faced noob with a few papers to my name competing against senior scientists with decades of publications from the former soviet union. This made the decision much easier.

sgillen 8y ago
Do you think getting a PhD is worth it if you already plan on going into industry?
- sgt101 8y ago
  It depends. If you are single and doing it without massive financial risk (if you get good support or if you have independent wealth) then I would say absolutely. I was extremely lucky and landed a assistants job at a small uni and this allowed me to scrape by (actually it was ok, just not long term sustainable). If you have a partner that could be good or bad depending. Your relationship will be stressed, I have seen several relationships flounder due to the process and pressure, but also I've seen several come through ok, and a couple blossom. Alot of these observations correlate with normal tracks for romantic relationships, life is full of surprises and challenges, but the big fact is that people who have lost lovers and spouses during Ph.D's often blame the Ph.D (in my experience). If you have (young) kids I strongly recommend that you think really carefully. The difference here is that no matter what happens you have dependants, and you will have to be very lucky not to get compromised by this relationship and the Ph.D process. Something will have to give, and this might mean that your work is devalued or derailed. Always remember that a Ph.D is a gamble and an indulgence. No one needs one, and no one is guaranteed success. On the other hand it gives you skills and training that I think are very hard to get any other way and for me it was one of the best periods of my life (one of!) Good luck.
- foldr 8y ago
  Depends greatly on the field, but I would definitely say that you shouldn't do it if your main motivation is to advance your career.