4 ms·

I recently finished a pure math ph.d at at a highly, but not THAT highly, ranked public school in the US. I didn't continue in academia, but based on my classma

I recently finished a pure math ph.d at at a highly, but not THAT highly, ranked public school in the US. I didn't continue in academia, but based on my classmates, most of whom did, the market is not as much of a pyramid as you're portraying it. Most of them ended up with postdocs at equally or more prestigious institutions than the one we graduated from. Edit: to be clear, this is based on the pre-covid experience. I gather that this year things indeed look pretty bleak.

samstave 6y ago
So what are you doing with that ph.d?
throwawaygh 6y ago
> postdocs ...are fixed term soft money positions. Check back in 2 years.
- W-Stool 6y ago
  The soft money vs. tenure track / tenured positions is a huge difference in money, future, and security, and it is supprising to me how many future doctorate students don't understand the difference until it is too late. Next stop for many of those postdocs after the soft money runs out - teaching at a community college on semester contracts at a fraction of a university salary, probably not what they had in mind when they started their professional acedemic journey.
  - barumi 6y ago
    > (...) and it is supprising to me how many future doctorate students don't understand the difference until it is too late. Oh don't be confused. I assure you each and every single one of the understands the difference very well. What it seems you're not understanding is that to them it's not a matter of having picked the soft money track over the tenure track. No, that choice was never on the table. Their choice was between the soft money track and no track at all. Thus the ones who are fortunate enough to be in a position to choose will pick the soft money track in hopes that it puts them in a better position to transition to a tenure one.
baron_harkonnen 6y ago
You do realize it wasn’t that long ago that most PhD graduates went straight into a faculty position right? The fact that you think getting a postdoc is some indication that things are going okay is just a sign of how broken things really are. Look at the CVs of some of your full professors and older faculty. You won’t see nearly as many “postdoc” years on there.
- woopwoop 6y ago
  Just did this exercise with three senior faculty who are all ams fellows. They all did 2-4 years of postdocs, including one guy who now is quite famous.
  - rjsw 6y ago
    How old are they ? You may need to ask people who have retired.
- Nimitz14 6y ago
  This does not match my experience at all.
dasudasu 6y ago
In the "good old days", postdocs weren't even really a thing and you only did one if your PhD was too marginal to get a position straight away. It's pretty telling though that some fields are so bad that even getting a postdoc is considered hard.
BeetleB 6y ago
> Most of them ended up with postdocs at equally or more prestigious institutions than the one we graduated from. And then another postdoc. And then another postdoc. And then another postdoc. This is not an example of doing OK. To give you context, in the 80's, the math department at my (average) undergrad routinely hired faculty members straight out of their PhD. Postdocs were only for people aiming for a faculty position at a top school. I just checked all the new faculty members there since 2010. Most had 2 postdocs before they got in. A few had only one postdoc. And this much trouble for a no name school.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Fuck. Are we already up to when everybody does 3-4 postdocs? What's next, the "ten-year'ed" postdoc? Yeah, I 'member when postdocs were not a thing for math. I 'member internships for math majors weren't really a thing, either. I think internships were barely a thing, but, I'm not sure.
  - woopwoop 6y ago
    I've seen it claimed now several times in this thread that in the post-war period it was typical for mathematicians to get hired into tenure-track, or even tenured, positions directly after graduating. I don't see any evidence that this was true. Checking the cvs of three randomly chosen very famous mathematicians who graduated in this period (Stein, Atiyah, Mumford), it looks like they all did postdocs.
    - BeetleB 6y ago
      > I don't see any evidence that this was true. Checking the cvs of three randomly chosen very famous mathematicians who graduated in this period (Stein, Atiyah, Mumford), it looks like they all did postdocs. This was addressed in my comment: > Postdocs were only for people aiming for a faculty position at a top school. Don't look at people who are outliers. Pick a random university in Oklahoma, Kansas, etc. Find someone who joined in the 80's or earlier. Check their CV. Did they do a postdoc?
fakedang 6y ago
Being a PostDoc isn't an endpoint. Heck, being a non-tenure track professor is not an endpoint. It's just licensed intellectual slavery.
barumi 6y ago
> Most of them ended up with postdocs at equally or more prestigious institutions than the one we graduated from. Postdocs are not a tenured position. They are just another step in the temp job/contract work level of the food chain. To put it differently, no one retires from a postdoc. In my days in academic research, postdocs were humorously described as paid positions to send out CVs and file job applications. The faculty also gave postdocs their own office so that they wouldn't bother undergrads with their crying.
- tajd 6y ago
  Similar experience in the U.K. from me. Senior faculty appeared to be a little out of touch when I finished the contract early in favour of a job in industry which utilised my skill set. No one else was surprised.
gampleman 6y ago
Hah, in some fields things are much worse. My wife was actually (seriously!) offered two postdoc positions in her field. One was unpaid (!) and the other was even worse: the university wanted her to pay a fee for the honour of a postdoc position. Needless to say, she did not accept.
- croissants 6y ago
  What field of this? I've literally never heard of a field where unpaid postdocs are common.

samstave 6y ago

So what are you doing with that ph.d?

throwawaygh 6y ago

> postdocs ...are fixed term soft money positions. Check back in 2 years.

W-Stool 6y ago
The soft money vs. tenure track / tenured positions is a huge difference in money, future, and security, and it is supprising to me how many future doctorate students don't understand the difference until it is too late. Next stop for many of those postdocs after the soft money runs out - teaching at a community college on semester contracts at a fraction of a university salary, probably not what they had in mind when they started their professional acedemic journey.
- barumi 6y ago
  > (...) and it is supprising to me how many future doctorate students don't understand the difference until it is too late. Oh don't be confused. I assure you each and every single one of the understands the difference very well. What it seems you're not understanding is that to them it's not a matter of having picked the soft money track over the tenure track. No, that choice was never on the table. Their choice was between the soft money track and no track at all. Thus the ones who are fortunate enough to be in a position to choose will pick the soft money track in hopes that it puts them in a better position to transition to a tenure one.

baron_harkonnen 6y ago

You do realize it wasn’t that long ago that most PhD graduates went straight into a faculty position right? The fact that you think getting a postdoc is some indication that things are going okay is just a sign of how broken things really are. Look at the CVs of some of your full professors and older faculty. You won’t see nearly as many “postdoc” years on there.

woopwoop 6y ago
Just did this exercise with three senior faculty who are all ams fellows. They all did 2-4 years of postdocs, including one guy who now is quite famous.
- rjsw 6y ago
  How old are they ? You may need to ask people who have retired.
Nimitz14 6y ago
This does not match my experience at all.

dasudasu 6y ago

In the "good old days", postdocs weren't even really a thing and you only did one if your PhD was too marginal to get a position straight away. It's pretty telling though that some fields are so bad that even getting a postdoc is considered hard.

BeetleB 6y ago

> Most of them ended up with postdocs at equally or more prestigious institutions than the one we graduated from. And then another postdoc. And then another postdoc. And then another postdoc. This is not an example of doing OK. To give you context, in the 80's, the math department at my (average) undergrad routinely hired faculty members straight out of their PhD. Postdocs were only for people aiming for a faculty position at a top school. I just checked all the new faculty members there since 2010. Most had 2 postdocs before they got in. A few had only one postdoc. And this much trouble for a no name school.

pmiller2 6y ago
Fuck. Are we already up to when everybody does 3-4 postdocs? What's next, the "ten-year'ed" postdoc? Yeah, I 'member when postdocs were not a thing for math. I 'member internships for math majors weren't really a thing, either. I think internships were barely a thing, but, I'm not sure.
- woopwoop 6y ago
  I've seen it claimed now several times in this thread that in the post-war period it was typical for mathematicians to get hired into tenure-track, or even tenured, positions directly after graduating. I don't see any evidence that this was true. Checking the cvs of three randomly chosen very famous mathematicians who graduated in this period (Stein, Atiyah, Mumford), it looks like they all did postdocs.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    > I don't see any evidence that this was true. Checking the cvs of three randomly chosen very famous mathematicians who graduated in this period (Stein, Atiyah, Mumford), it looks like they all did postdocs. This was addressed in my comment: > Postdocs were only for people aiming for a faculty position at a top school. Don't look at people who are outliers. Pick a random university in Oklahoma, Kansas, etc. Find someone who joined in the 80's or earlier. Check their CV. Did they do a postdoc?

fakedang 6y ago

Being a PostDoc isn't an endpoint. Heck, being a non-tenure track professor is not an endpoint. It's just licensed intellectual slavery.

barumi 6y ago

> Most of them ended up with postdocs at equally or more prestigious institutions than the one we graduated from. Postdocs are not a tenured position. They are just another step in the temp job/contract work level of the food chain. To put it differently, no one retires from a postdoc. In my days in academic research, postdocs were humorously described as paid positions to send out CVs and file job applications. The faculty also gave postdocs their own office so that they wouldn't bother undergrads with their crying.

tajd 6y ago
Similar experience in the U.K. from me. Senior faculty appeared to be a little out of touch when I finished the contract early in favour of a job in industry which utilised my skill set. No one else was surprised.

gampleman 6y ago

Hah, in some fields things are much worse. My wife was actually (seriously!) offered two postdoc positions in her field. One was unpaid (!) and the other was even worse: the university wanted her to pay a fee for the honour of a postdoc position. Needless to say, she did not accept.

croissants 6y ago
What field of this? I've literally never heard of a field where unpaid postdocs are common.