15 ms·

Postdocs under pressure: ‘Can I even do this any more?’

93 points by sasvari 6y ago

ebg13 6y ago
Postgraduate student depression and suicidality is at horrifying proportions. The universities don't care. No one cares. Academia is super fucked and super fucked up, and it just keeps marching onward with blindfold on and fingers in ears, yelling "LA LA LA LA" as loud as possible. Academic positions are basically gone. Whatever didn't vanish completely after the 2009 recession is definitely gone now. Universities continue to purge full professorship as a possibility and continue to shovel more work for less pay onto adjuncts and graduate students making less than minimum wage. And then they put on a big smile for the kids and say "One day you will be a college professor. Look how nice it is. You should join us." A huge lie. A huge malicious pyramid scheme of a scam. Every program churns out PhDs by the dozens every year. Which academic positions are they going to fill? Which of their advisors are retiring? There aren't any positions. Nobody is retiring. And if you think that _science_ is bad, try a non-science field. There's lots of machines being built out there in the world. There's not a lot of people these days giving enough shits to pay historians. I can't think of any other area where it's the _norm_ to need a support group to not quit or kill yourself because a fortress of gold has gaslit you into a deathmarch toward a tiny-fraction-of-a-percent chance of success.
- krastanov 6y ago
  I can easily agree with part of what you are saying, but the fatalistic exaggerated tone of your claims makes it rather hard to start a constructive discussion and definitely does not prompt people to discuss how things can improve.
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    > definitely does not prompt people to discuss how things can improve One problem is there is plenty of discussion and no action to address the problems of the parent comment. It's difficult to understand what action is possible, since the people holding the power to change the system are highly motivated to keep it as it is. But of course, we can discuss this all day.
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    In a tournament increasing funding will increase the number of winners but suffering will increase further if the greater number of winners leads to more entrants. Academia is a tournament. Most people who get a Ph.D. are aiming at a professorship and they’re not going to get it. They’re not going to get it after sourcing six years of their life, perhaps twelve or fourteen single mindedly chasing that goal. If you increase funding for a brief period there will be more spots but competition will re-emerge quickly. Things aren’t going to improve. The only people with the power to change anything are those who won under the current system. They have no motivation to change it so they won’t.
- sudosteph 6y ago
  On a personal level, I feel empathy for you and your struggling peers. You should not hate your life that severely, no matter what your line of work is. And it's not right to be lied to by people who should be looking for out for you. But to be honest - as someone who was born and raised working class and has a perspective colored by that - I can't for the life of me understand why you do this to yourself. Why don't you quit and learn a skill that's actually in demand? Is it just sunk-cost fallacy? Or do you feel that hard work and some degree of intelligence entitles you to a career that's meaningful, respectable, ethical, and well-paid - regardless of it's value and demand as determined by the rest of the world? It's hard to say, but either your position is more valuable than you're getting paid for - which means you all need to unionize, or it's not actually that valuable and you need to quit. Or maybe it's worth exactly what you're getting paid, because so many others will line up right behind you, and take those terrible odds because they like the environment / self-pride / respectability they get from working in academia.
  - jiggawatts 6y ago
    To play the devil's advocate: We really, truly, desperately need academics. The human race would be very much worse off if there weren't a significant number of people spending their lives on purely intellectual pursuits in the name of curiosity instead of quarterly profits. The problem is not the role of academics in the world, that's clearly very important. The problem is the current economic situation of Universities and their relationship to post-docs. It's more akin to a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme than a valid career. The music hasn't quite stopped, but it's already fading, and the people that are paying attention are starting to cry foul. I luckily escaped this death march, but I still keep up with Physics research, and I've noticed that the political structure of modern academia has caused fundamental research to stagnate. Risk is no longer rewarded. The tall poppy is the first to be cut. Small, incremental improvements are rewarded, big theoretical leaps are never approved for funding. High energy particle physics in particular has completely stalled since the 1970s! Similarly, we still don't quite understand how high-temperature superconductors work. Fusion research has burnt a lot more money than helium. The efforts to marry GR and QM have produced a lot of papers, but no results. Take a casual stroll through ArXiV, and you'll discover that 99% of the stuff that is published is a total waste of time. It's "diploma mill", "publish or perish" garbage. This means that sifting through the endless torrent of worthless papers for the occasional insightful one would be a full time job all by itself. This alone is sufficient to stall progress! Scientists are no longer standing on each others' shoulders, they are now trampling each other in a mad scramble for funding and tenure.
- treeman79 6y ago
  In various art groups there are always the people that want to spend 100-200k on an art Degree, or have and now sell coffee. I try and give the advice that for most artist, you need to treat it as a hobby. Actual income needs to come from elsewhere. It’s weird that science is becoming the same same thing. Many are better off as hobby scientists.
  - s5300 6y ago
    If you're a hobby scientist who happens to have money and goes off in an attempted to create something that would truly advance our technological understanding of the world/generally make the world a better place with whatever you're making - you'll probably be arrested by the FBI long before you ever get to succeed. This is a bad thing. If science is to be seen as simply a hobby by the coming generations, the world as we know it is truly doomed to complete stagnation.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  > I can't think of any other area where it's the _norm_ to need a support group to not quit or kill yourself because a fortress of gold has gaslit you into a deathmarch toward a tiny-fraction-of-a-percent chance of success. Early startups?
  - ebg13 6y ago
    Startups tend to at least pay you for your time and effort, I think? But I wouldn't call startup culture healthy either.
- Mmrnmhrm 6y ago
  I can relate. I just read this at 3am while trying to stop wondering what to do with my life. I had the childhood dream of being a professor, and after a short stint in industry, when someone gave me the chance to do a PhD I took it. Life got in the way and got my PhD at 36 years old. Nobody guided me, and did not optimize my publication schedule, so it is impossible to land a job in academia. Now I am postdoc 39, non hirable bc I'm old and my cv compares badly to anyone elses. No clue how to provide for my family. Last month we helped clean the room of a colleague after he "passed away" after 10 years of post doc. Another colleague got a job at 36 as a bare programmer after a very successful PhD where he wrote books and was invited to conferences. At 40 he rage quit this job after a bout of frustration and we haven't heard from him since. Luckily they didn't have kids. Wouldn't I have kids I would definitely follow their path.
  - NalNezumi 6y ago
    I'm curious, what advice would you give to a person that is in that position you were when the opportunity of PhD was given? (and have a childhood dream of being a professor) I met one person at my Master's degree lab who went on to PhD, he said his childhood dream was to be a professor (and his father was a professor). I also have a father that is a professor (and have been very curious about PhD - although that window is getting narrower as I'm getting closer to 30:s) but he have multiple times told me that "it's not worth it", "it's a waste of time, the opportunity cost lost is too high", yet in my field I often see job post that requires a PhD, so I get mixed signals.
    - azalemeth 6y ago
      Doing a PhD is definitely not the same thing as becoming an academic. If anything, the PhD is a direct career boost: it's a recognised, high-level qualification that is known the world over (and, incidentally, if you go outside the US, you can probably get it done an awful lot quicker...). If you love the subject -- and you have to love the subject -- do it. It's like being paid to play. Going from PhD to Prof though, is a difficult, unlikely path of awkward postings: for every 100 PhDs expect ~1 successful academic. Oh, and once you are a professor, expect a salary....less than that you'd get in a starting job straight out of your PhD.
- NalNezumi 6y ago
  >I can't think of any other area where it's the _norm_ to need a support group to not quit or kill yourself because a fortress of gold has gaslit you into a deathmarch toward a tiny-fraction-of-a-percent chance of success. I can think of plenty: Musics, Arts, Game development, (in some area) startups, "No college-degree nor drive & mid 30:s as cashier hoping for the middle-class life" people. Academia is just like arts/musics: You only see the final result, and often from the top people; You won't see the struggling low/middle in their fields, largely being ignored in both their result & struggle.
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flobosg 6y ago
I’m currently writing my dissertation and still debating whether to stay in academia or not. I mean, even if I had not been academically unsuccessful during grad school I will get a piece of paper saying "You have a PhD" in the end. If you fail during your postdoc you are left with basically nothing. That’s a huge burden.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > If you fail during your postdoc you are left with basically nothing. Can't you go into industry? You'll have a PhD + more papers done along the way in your postdoc.
  - flobosg 6y ago
    Yes, of course one can do that and it’s probably the most reasonable strategy (as opposed to another postdoc, for example). But then, what was the point of the postdoc? I’d rather move earlier into industry. It’s ultimately a gamble.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > But then what was the point of the postdoc? To continue to develop as a researcher and build up your research skills, publication portfolio, and network, ready to move into industry. If you do an ok PhD you could spend a couple of years as a postdoc refining that research and building on your foundation to really making a name for yourself and then apply to industry at your peak into a senior position.
      - marta_morena_9 6y ago
        Into a senior position straight from university? That's going to be interesting.
        chrisseaton 6y ago
        That's pretty normal for hiring PhDs in my practical experience. My first job was 'senior' and it's the same for everyone else I can think of. You are senior - you've been part of the community for around four years by that point and by graduation you're probably part of several committees and starting to mentor others. Why isn't that 'senior'?
bransonf 6y ago
Serious question: Why don’t they leave? I’m not saying that they should, or that conditions shouldn’t improve, but if academia is that stressful to you, why stick with it? The only potential outcomes sticking with it are that you will fail later on, or you will fill a role with an increasing amount of stressors.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > or you will fill a role with an increasing amount of stressors I think when you gain a fellowship or professorship in academia it does suddenly get a lot more relaxed and you get time and space to do what you want - which is the goal these postdocs are working towards.
  - aaronblohowiak 6y ago
    If you get lucky in academia you get the possibility of tenure track which is a made race to publish and that means not only doing your research, but grant writing, dealing with internal politics and discovering life as a manager of grad students... oh yea, and can you lecture these undergrads too?
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      This isn't what I see in practice. Most professional researchers at the level of being a professor teach a couple of masters lectures for topics they're genuinely interested in and the rest of the time enjoy working on their research.
      - azalemeth 6y ago
        At Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, an explicit part of the system is that almost every senior academic teaches common, first/second-year "core" courses and spends a significant amount of time -- 6 or 12 hours a week in full term -- directly teaching 18-21 year olds. In addition to running a group and everything else. It is very rarely negotiable, and usually not.
      - 6y ago
golemiprague 6y ago
18% consider themselves a minority but 24% report racial discrimination which means some of the discrimination is by the minority against the majority? Also 40% discrimination against women, there was so much hassle about women in tech and discrimination against them, usually perpetrated by all kind of academic types, now it turns out that almost every second woman is discriminated against in the academy world also? I am sorry but all this data looks bogus to me, either it is wrong or we just back in the 17th century or something.
throwaway67853 6y ago
IMHO the big problem in experimental sciences is what the article kindly describes as power imbalances. I'd call it perhaps neofeudalism. I've seen many cases where principal investigators / professors are completely disconnected from research, including an absolute lack of any basic knowledge related to the field. They are just middlemen. For someone coming from pure mathematics, where professors routinely come up with great results themselves, this was incredibly shocking. Those I've met who don't know much always run the same scheme. They have a few postdocs doing all work and writing all grant proposals, but never getting their names on them. They always work towards some vague promotion that never comes. Whenever they obtain any good result, the professor or principal investigator will take all credit. Usually they will get diluted quickly, by simply pushing follow up experiments to others. Bell Labs, MRC LMB and Cold Spring Harbor were somewhat successful in preventing this kind of middlemen behavior. Among other things, they banned anyone from supervising more than 5 people. It worked.
- dgb23 6y ago
  Seniority shouldn’t just imply power, but responsibility over others. A master should be judged by the success of his apprentice just as much as his own skill. It’s saddening to see that people are being exploited in such a direct, obvious way. And it just happily goes on?
- mattkrause 6y ago
  Outside of a class, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for any feedback about a professor, program, or department, neither as a grad student nor postdoc. If I were king of academia, I’d make this an important part of hiring and funding decisions. Right now, individual fellowships to grad students and postdocs are scored, in part, on the “training environment” but weirdly, research grants to a professor (to hire grad students and postdocs) are not. This would be an easy thing to flip. Faculty applicants could submit a letter from a trainee as part of their package too.
supernova87a 6y ago
I mean, isn't it clear, ever since the bulk creation / funding of so many colleges (and faculty positions) pre + post WW2, the US faculty job market has been on a decline ever since -- (that is, from the average postdoc's point of view of success % when seeking a faculty position). It is structurally not a growing, dynamic market where you're going to have an easy time. I would call it stagnant, or in the worst case, cutthroat. You do understand right, that the faculty system relies on a pyramid of people entering and leaving the system? And only a certain fraction getting to the top, and people having to vacate the top of the pyramid for anyone else to get there? (for stable, or in other words, stagnant fields) When the US was in a college-building phase (funded by economic stimulus / public programs), all these posts were new and empty, waiting to be filled. So it enabled a generation of new professors to fill those ranks. As that became stable, now instead of a fresh pyramid you fill with eager people (who think that's still how easy it is), you have grad students and postdocs seeing who can outlast each other (or publish more) to get to the top through attrition or publishing prowess. Certain fields, let's say, pure math, or history, until a professor retires or dies, there's just no spot for the people below even to compete for. That's why you see people going to Asia, Middle East, etc. where the new money and universities are. Follow the money. I mean this is pure population pyramid, demographic stuff that you can predict. You almost don't even need to know the student's thesis topic to say what chance he/she has of becoming a professor. Joining the climb up the ladder in a generally stable pyramid -- it's not going to end well for the bulk majority, or be enjoyable while you do it. Especially if you have visible proof of friend, etc. following much easier paths.
- echelon 6y ago
  It's suddenly dawned on me in the past month or so that the era of growth for many American ways of life is at an end. Not just academia. The post-war, post-energy boom should have been obvious. Millennials have been complaining about lack of job growth, housing, and affordable education. Their parents had lower-hanging fruit to pluck. (I'm assuming this isn't just some myth I've been told about the 60's - 90's.) The blame is sometimes placed on "bad Boomer policies", but I'm not so sure. It feels as though we burned through the "easy" years. In academia, international students aren't flocking to US institutions anymore. The playing field has been leveled. Asian tech is coming into prominence at full stride and is reminiscent of Japan's meteoric rise. The manufacturing story is obviously much different. Is this happening because the rest of the world caught up? Or did America put investments in the wrong places? What's causing this, and how do we get back to prosperity for all young Americans? Am I simply missing the areas where things have improved? Genuinely curious about thematic ideas / shifts, what we might change, or if my views are wrong.
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cft 6y ago
When I was a postdoc at Stanford i simply stopped showing up at the department after 9 months. The chairman later told me that i was the first one in the entire history of the department to have done that. By the way there was absolutely no pressure; they kept paying me and in fact by mistake they raised my salary to $10,000 a month. Then they called me from the payroll office to ask if I would voluntarily return it and I said yes. I did get very depressed though and I became acquainted with all night cashiers in the Menlo Park Safeway that was then open 24 hours.
- fnbr 6y ago
  Why did you stop showing up?
guender 6y ago
I’ve mentored about 25 postdocs. I’ve found that some are just lazy and not interested in having any kind of career. I think that’s about 25%. Then there’s about 69% percent with too little talent or drive. 5% make it. And 1% is too genius to ever succeed.
newtonfractal 6y ago
Related link I wish I’d seen before starting in academia - What you need to know before considering a PhD [https://www.fast.ai/2018/08/27/grad-school/ https://www.fast.ai/2018/08/27/grad-school/] I especially like the point made about toxic grad schools being worse than other toxic jobs. Post docs are slightly better that way, with shorter time commitments but I suppose it adds to career uncertainty.
gspr 6y ago
I hope you'll forgive me ranting, but it's almost exactly a year ago since I left academia (was a postdoc), and I'm feeling very down about it and need to let out some thoughts. First the positives: academia has some amazing qualities. If you "make it" (or, alternatively, until you "fail" and drop out) you'll spend most of your time working on problems that you are truly passionate about. The kind of problems that you can't stop grinding over in the back of your head anyway. You get peace and quiet and a paycheck to sit and work on those all day. To me, doing this for life is an absolute dream!! Maybe a student two help you out. And then you get to travel the world and speak to other people who are equally passionate about this or similar problems. Yes there's teaching too. But unless you hate that, it's not a big downside. I for one enjoyed it. I've heard horror stories of the american teaching burden though, so maybe it's different if there's too much of it. And yes there's grant application pressure. Maybe I speak from too European a perspective, but I absolutely loved almost every week (every day would be an overstatement) of my 4 years as a postdoc. Every day I miss it. But the instability was killing me. I had the kindest most wonderful boss who shielded me from most of it, and in the end gave me 4 years of peace and quiet, and would have helped me go anywhere next. But I couldn't take the repeated uprooting. I wasn't good enough for a permanent position yet, or rather - not good enough for one in a place I could possibly imagine living - and forced uprootings crush my mental state. So I gave up. I don't wanna sound bitter. Hats off to those who make it. Truly! But the system has become so selective for a few "types" that I worry about its health: - Incredibly bright people. This is obviously good. - Incredibly hard working people. This is good, to a point. Not if the norm becomes giving up your life. - People who'll accept any terms. Not good, this is a slow march towards serfdom. - People who are fine with complete instability. I think academia is missing out on a lot by selecting for these. Rant over :-(
- azalemeth 6y ago
  I've just accepted a semi-permanent professorship after being a postdoc for several years. I've had a handful of grants accepted and the vast majority not -- some schemes have a <2% success rate (with applications coming from the best people on the planet) and the thing that just kills me is how the 'peer review' of grants tends to be "do I like you or not". I've been outright told that unless x- or y- is on the grant, it won't get funded. And, irritatingly, those complaints are right. I'm faced with the daunting -- but exciting -- prospect of trying to somehow be one of those academics who people do not hate. I very much think that the pressures are there on both sides; they're different, but being a postdoc does just suck for everything aside from the work – I think I was on my 13th short term contract (three of them 3 months or less!) before getting a permanent post. Naturally, this post is in a different country from my friends, family, and partner. I signed the paperwork last week. It's been three days and I desperately miss my partner -- who is also an academic -- and the cat. One (tenured) professor I knew left to go and work for his spin-out full time in industry. He told me that his belief was that academia was so bloody awful because it was a luxury: society wants you to continue to justify your existence sitting around and thinking every few years, whereas in a company, the $/€/£ is all the justification needed. I'm not sure to what extent I agree with that, but it's definitely plausible.
j7ake 6y ago
I think the academic path should be compared as analogous to other “creatives” paths (eg writer, musician, artists), although probably less extreme. People continue to do it because of the ownership of the work, the nearly unlimited potential upside from discovery, and the ability to build on serendipitous discoveries into your own portfolio. The downside is being stuck in a bad situation in academia can be psychologically damaging and difficult to recover from.
- ramraj07 6y ago
  "the nearly unlimited potential upside" is very low probability, and if people are being fully honest with themselves, they often already know before they start their postdoc whether it's going to be worth their time. The reality is that in academia, pedigree matters, being surrounded by very smart people matters, name matters. If you don't have all of these then your postdoc is doomed to be nothing more than a mediocre-paper-mill at best. Better to get out sooner rather than later.
  - DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
    It's like a weighting function to your research output: (Pedigree + Name of PI) * first author CNS papers. You sure can succeed with a ton of first author CNS papers, but if you have some good pedigree and name of PI you don't need any many.
    - mattkrause 6y ago
      And of course, your ability to get CNS papers is strongly determined by your Pedigree + PI too. It obviously matters when submitting a paper, but it even determines what sort of experiments you can afford to work on and for how long. An HHMI-funded megalab can keep throwing things at the wall until they find some CNS-bait. Smaller groups may have to publish something to keep the lights on, even if it's less "complete."
- arpa 6y ago
  Funny thing, a few weeks ago I read an opinion piece posted here on HN that gives pretty solid reasoning (imho) why people pursue academic careers: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/11/how-academia-resembles-a-drug-gang/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/11/ho...
marmaduke 6y ago
I’m a staff scientist and watch post docs and students get ground up into grant fodder in a regular basis. Sure there are discoveries but at what cost to our mental health? I think there are two politically convenient roles to academia: (1) allow a country to posture about money is has to spend, case in point are EU flagships which everyone agrees is a big waste but it puts EU on the map, research wise. (2) it keeps smart, will to power people occupied far enough away from real society problems such as racism, climate change, poverty and so on, to stabilize the status quo. Imagine what would happen if people who can do 80 hour weeks churning through genetic data to generate new insights (or similar for different fields) started working in earnest on evidence driven policy change? I think these roles are more explanatory for the funding of science than the discoveries themselves.
- sweezyjeezy 6y ago
  I don't buy (2) at all. a) I don't think the overlap between postdocs (especially STEM) and those that would work in politics is all that high. I think the vast majority would be working in tech/industry. b) if this were true we might expect republicans to support government funding for academia over democrats, and the opposite is true.
  - walleeee 6y ago
    I don't think the claim in 2) is that they'd necessarily be in politics. It's that they might be way more productive than incentive structures currently permit. The academy can encourage social climbing, pointless competition, and careerism to the detriment of intellectual honesty, sane policy, and good science. Academic institutions can be moral mazes just like other public or private organizations.
  - marmaduke 6y ago
    I think my reason (1) explains your (b). As for (a), I agree that a lot would not be in politics but, if you have seen it first hand, academia sucks the life and minds of out of early stage researchers in a way that other jobs do not. The salary means they are comfortable enough not to complain and no time for it anyway.
physicsguy 6y ago
For me, doing a postdoc would mean relocating regularly, my wife having to find new jobs with me (a big stress point for her), a huge amount of job insecurity, etc. By not doing a postdoc, I’ve been able to find a permanent job that pays significantly more, buy a house, and actually start to think about starting a family, which is more important to me. I think if you’re single and male then it’s OK but it’s not surprising for e.g. that there are underrepresented groups in some fields of science at lectureship level when they basically have to sacrifice any stability in order to get to that position. I grew up quite poor and do not want to get into that position again - and I can’t afford to not have a job gap for 4 months which is the sort of length I’ve seen friends endure while one contract ends and another starts.
- dendodge 6y ago
  I'm finishing my PhD in the next couple of months, and am fortunate enough to have a fiancée and a house. I interviewed for one postdoc and found myself hoping I wouldn't get it because it would mean living apart for a few years, or else uprooting our lives and moving across the country, only to repeat the process in a few years' time, with no guarantee of ever finding a permanent position. I'm completely lost now, I have no job lined up and no idea what I'll be doing with my life in 3 months' time, but I do know I'm getting out. I love science, I love the research I do, but it's not a steady career. It's nice to hear someone else who feels the same way - inside the academic bubble, anything other than giving your life to the broken system is seen as failure.
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  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    On the other hand how can you become an experienced researcher if you just work in your own bubble? By spending time in other places, you see different ways of working, thinking, organization, approach to problems, focus etc. It looks like as college has become standard that everyone "needs" or even "deserves", we are getting to the point where academic positions should also be handed out on a basis of some social distributive program. Yes it's hard to do and involves sacrifices. But not everyone needs to do it. It's not immediately obvious that we gain a lot by opening the gates wide and accommodating any life choices to be compatible with any prestigious careers. Artists and scientists used to do this kind of traveling around and being under the patronage of various rich people or institutions. It isn't clear that making it into a steady stable job with orders of magnitude more people chipping away at it incrementally has brought proportional results at all. If it's not for you, why not find something that is?
LockAndLol 6y ago
The people expanding our scientific understanding of the world being undervalued by society and institutions is the epitome of our current state. We're burning out our engines and slowing down innovation... for what? Can any academics or postdocs express what they believe should change to improve their situations?
- darkhorse13 6y ago
  >The people expanding our scientific understanding of the world being undervalued by society I fully expect to get downvoted for this, but maybe it is because the expansion of scientific understanding produced by academia and academics has dwindled when it comes to applications in real life. Sure I will come across click-bait articles about new research on black holes and dark matter/energy/whatever every week, but it all seems so far from industry and application.
  - LockAndLol 6y ago
    Is that an opinion based on facts or mere impression? And if it's based on facts, would you be willing to share the source? Further, what is it that you're implying with that statement?
    - darkhorse13 6y ago
      Clearly it's based on impression, and not based on facts, and I gave no indication that it was. So no, I don't have a source for that.
- mattkrause 6y ago
  More staff scientist positions. Academia, especially in the US and Canada, only has one viable long-term job: a faculty position. Everything else is ostensibly “training” for that job and there’s increasing pressure to make that transition as quickly as possible, in part because the low pay and stability of the other positions. This is stupid. Since professors produce trainees, the competition gets exponentially worse. At the same time, using mostly new workers that are constantly churning over makes it hard to do good research. This is exacerbated by the emphasis on first/last author publications, which disincentivizes division of labor and teamwork. Furthermore, studies have found that outcome for the trainees are better when a mix of senior people are around. Despite this, the NIH funds virtually no staff scientists: only one institute (NCI) has a staff scientist mechanism and it’s very small (~50?) compared to the rest of the program. Give people longer contracts (5 years) renewable bases on the output of the teams they enable, and everyone would win.
yodsanklai 6y ago
> Long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science I've never encountered any form of bullying or discrimination in my 15 years academic career (in three different countries). What I witnessed a few times though where post-docs that just got disinterested in their work and unproductive for months. It's not uncommon for post-docs spending months looking for their next job, and usually, their advisors are fine with that. They understand well the difficulties of their students or post-docs. Academia is hard because it's extremely competitive, not because professors are some kind of bullies harassing their students. I'm certain it exists but it's far from the norm. It's competitive because you're competing with the whole world, and there are some people out there who are much smarter than you. And you are constantly reminded of this fact, when you go to a conference (or because you don't get to go because your paper isn't accepted), when you read your colleague's paper and so on. I've worked with well-known people (including a Turing award recipient), and even them were insecure at times. And of course, it's hard because you don't know if you'll find a job after your current post-doc. The more average you are, the more insecurity, the harder it gets.
- angrais 6y ago
  >> I've never encountered any form of bullying or discrimination in my 15 years academic career (in three different countries). Great to hear that you've not encountered bullying in the academy, but it absolutely does exist and is unfortunately thriving. Often when it occurs, the university will side with the academic rather than postdoc or PhD students, which puts them in an extremely difficult situation since their manager is often the bully. In addition, you're likely in a position of power since you've been in academy for 15+ years ... It could be that you do not interact with certain circles to observe this behaviour. Also, discrimination, particularly sexism also very much occurs, including to students. See for for example: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/07/third-cambridge-university-staff-experienced-bullying https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2...
  - yodsanklai 6y ago
    > but it absolutely does exist and is unfortunately thriving I'm sure it exists. I may be wrong since it's based on personal experience, but I can't believe it's thriving (at least, in my field, computer science). These things are taken more and more seriously. If anything, I can only imagine they occur less and less frequently.
Melchizedek 6y ago
This will (like several other factors in society) function like a form of reverse eugenics, where people way above average in intelligence (high heritability) and conscientiousness (moderate heritability) are prevented from having children, or start having them so late that they will not have many.
code4tee 6y ago
A long time ago the best talent from PhD programs tended to stay in academia. That was considered the “prize.” Over the last 15 years or so the tables have really turned. Not saying top people don’t stay, but I now see much if not most of the top talent continuing their careers in the private sector or elsewhere. We’re in an era where the most cutting edge and impactful research increasingly does not take place at academic institutions. Between that and the vastly different compensation structures in the private sector it’s not too surprising top people want to go elsewhere. As someone mentioned to me recently “Success in academia is defined by publishing papers mostly read only by a few other people that define success as publishing papers. Success outside academia is defined by doing amazing $&@! that has a measurable impact on the world.”
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  That's a bit biased. I could argue the other extreme by highlighting the quest for truth aspect in academia, the freedom from market influence and safety to pursue wherever the interesting research takes you etc. Contrast that with working at an adtech giant to increase measurable engagement by applying some amazing $&@! that make users addicted and miserable, your workers burned out and the upper classes even richer. Or work on some prototype that never gets in the hands of users, either because it's just a PR stunt pet project for a higher-up or it gets killed off for internal company politics reasons. You can pick your narrative by picking which academic and industry position to focus on. You can do awesome stuff at both and be miserable at both. The top of the top usually do both at the same time. They spend part time at a top university, but also advise top companies with top research groups.
- ichbinwiederda 6y ago
  You are confounding two things. The impact of research and the impact of the researcher. Increasingly more research is done in publicly funded academia, not the opposite at you claim. OTOH the relative impact of individual researchers has gone down, but this is mostly due to problems being tackled being increasingly harder. In industry you can have relatively more impact because you are not doing research but you are building things using knowledge somebody has already collected for you. Maybe that is what you wanted to say.
jbaber 6y ago
Reminds me of this classic letter to a post-doc: http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/ http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wr...

93 points by sasvari 6y ago

Postgraduate student depression and suicidality is at horrifying proportions. The universities don't care. No one cares. Academia is super fucked and super fucked up, and it just keeps marching onward with blindfold on and fingers in ears, yelling "LA LA LA LA" as loud as possible. Academic positions are basically gone. Whatever didn't vanish completely after the 2009 recession is definitely gone now. Universities continue to purge full professorship as a possibility and continue to shovel more work for less pay onto adjuncts and graduate students making less than minimum wage. And then they put on a big smile for the kids and say "One day you will be a college professor. Look how nice it is. You should join us." A huge lie. A huge malicious pyramid scheme of a scam. Every program churns out PhDs by the dozens every year. Which academic positions are they going to fill? Which of their advisors are retiring? There aren't any positions. Nobody is retiring. And if you think that _science_ is bad, try a non-science field. There's lots of machines being built out there in the world. There's not a lot of people these days giving enough shits to pay historians. I can't think of any other area where it's the _norm_ to need a support group to not quit or kill yourself because a fortress of gold has gaslit you into a deathmarch toward a tiny-fraction-of-a-percent chance of success.

krastanov 6y ago
I can easily agree with part of what you are saying, but the fatalistic exaggerated tone of your claims makes it rather hard to start a constructive discussion and definitely does not prompt people to discuss how things can improve.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > definitely does not prompt people to discuss how things can improve One problem is there is plenty of discussion and no action to address the problems of the parent comment. It's difficult to understand what action is possible, since the people holding the power to change the system are highly motivated to keep it as it is. But of course, we can discuss this all day.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  In a tournament increasing funding will increase the number of winners but suffering will increase further if the greater number of winners leads to more entrants. Academia is a tournament. Most people who get a Ph.D. are aiming at a professorship and they’re not going to get it. They’re not going to get it after sourcing six years of their life, perhaps twelve or fourteen single mindedly chasing that goal. If you increase funding for a brief period there will be more spots but competition will re-emerge quickly. Things aren’t going to improve. The only people with the power to change anything are those who won under the current system. They have no motivation to change it so they won’t.
sudosteph 6y ago
On a personal level, I feel empathy for you and your struggling peers. You should not hate your life that severely, no matter what your line of work is. And it's not right to be lied to by people who should be looking for out for you. But to be honest - as someone who was born and raised working class and has a perspective colored by that - I can't for the life of me understand why you do this to yourself. Why don't you quit and learn a skill that's actually in demand? Is it just sunk-cost fallacy? Or do you feel that hard work and some degree of intelligence entitles you to a career that's meaningful, respectable, ethical, and well-paid - regardless of it's value and demand as determined by the rest of the world? It's hard to say, but either your position is more valuable than you're getting paid for - which means you all need to unionize, or it's not actually that valuable and you need to quit. Or maybe it's worth exactly what you're getting paid, because so many others will line up right behind you, and take those terrible odds because they like the environment / self-pride / respectability they get from working in academia.
- jiggawatts 6y ago
  To play the devil's advocate: We really, truly, desperately need academics. The human race would be very much worse off if there weren't a significant number of people spending their lives on purely intellectual pursuits in the name of curiosity instead of quarterly profits. The problem is not the role of academics in the world, that's clearly very important. The problem is the current economic situation of Universities and their relationship to post-docs. It's more akin to a pyramid scheme or a ponzi scheme than a valid career. The music hasn't quite stopped, but it's already fading, and the people that are paying attention are starting to cry foul. I luckily escaped this death march, but I still keep up with Physics research, and I've noticed that the political structure of modern academia has caused fundamental research to stagnate. Risk is no longer rewarded. The tall poppy is the first to be cut. Small, incremental improvements are rewarded, big theoretical leaps are never approved for funding. High energy particle physics in particular has completely stalled since the 1970s! Similarly, we still don't quite understand how high-temperature superconductors work. Fusion research has burnt a lot more money than helium. The efforts to marry GR and QM have produced a lot of papers, but no results. Take a casual stroll through ArXiV, and you'll discover that 99% of the stuff that is published is a total waste of time. It's "diploma mill", "publish or perish" garbage. This means that sifting through the endless torrent of worthless papers for the occasional insightful one would be a full time job all by itself. This alone is sufficient to stall progress! Scientists are no longer standing on each others' shoulders, they are now trampling each other in a mad scramble for funding and tenure.
treeman79 6y ago
In various art groups there are always the people that want to spend 100-200k on an art Degree, or have and now sell coffee. I try and give the advice that for most artist, you need to treat it as a hobby. Actual income needs to come from elsewhere. It’s weird that science is becoming the same same thing. Many are better off as hobby scientists.
- s5300 6y ago
  If you're a hobby scientist who happens to have money and goes off in an attempted to create something that would truly advance our technological understanding of the world/generally make the world a better place with whatever you're making - you'll probably be arrested by the FBI long before you ever get to succeed. This is a bad thing. If science is to be seen as simply a hobby by the coming generations, the world as we know it is truly doomed to complete stagnation.
quickthrower2 6y ago
> I can't think of any other area where it's the _norm_ to need a support group to not quit or kill yourself because a fortress of gold has gaslit you into a deathmarch toward a tiny-fraction-of-a-percent chance of success. Early startups?
- ebg13 6y ago
  Startups tend to at least pay you for your time and effort, I think? But I wouldn't call startup culture healthy either.
Mmrnmhrm 6y ago
I can relate. I just read this at 3am while trying to stop wondering what to do with my life. I had the childhood dream of being a professor, and after a short stint in industry, when someone gave me the chance to do a PhD I took it. Life got in the way and got my PhD at 36 years old. Nobody guided me, and did not optimize my publication schedule, so it is impossible to land a job in academia. Now I am postdoc 39, non hirable bc I'm old and my cv compares badly to anyone elses. No clue how to provide for my family. Last month we helped clean the room of a colleague after he "passed away" after 10 years of post doc. Another colleague got a job at 36 as a bare programmer after a very successful PhD where he wrote books and was invited to conferences. At 40 he rage quit this job after a bout of frustration and we haven't heard from him since. Luckily they didn't have kids. Wouldn't I have kids I would definitely follow their path.
- NalNezumi 6y ago
  I'm curious, what advice would you give to a person that is in that position you were when the opportunity of PhD was given? (and have a childhood dream of being a professor) I met one person at my Master's degree lab who went on to PhD, he said his childhood dream was to be a professor (and his father was a professor). I also have a father that is a professor (and have been very curious about PhD - although that window is getting narrower as I'm getting closer to 30:s) but he have multiple times told me that "it's not worth it", "it's a waste of time, the opportunity cost lost is too high", yet in my field I often see job post that requires a PhD, so I get mixed signals.
  - azalemeth 6y ago
    Doing a PhD is definitely not the same thing as becoming an academic. If anything, the PhD is a direct career boost: it's a recognised, high-level qualification that is known the world over (and, incidentally, if you go outside the US, you can probably get it done an awful lot quicker...). If you love the subject -- and you have to love the subject -- do it. It's like being paid to play. Going from PhD to Prof though, is a difficult, unlikely path of awkward postings: for every 100 PhDs expect ~1 successful academic. Oh, and once you are a professor, expect a salary....less than that you'd get in a starting job straight out of your PhD.
NalNezumi 6y ago
>I can't think of any other area where it's the _norm_ to need a support group to not quit or kill yourself because a fortress of gold has gaslit you into a deathmarch toward a tiny-fraction-of-a-percent chance of success. I can think of plenty: Musics, Arts, Game development, (in some area) startups, "No college-degree nor drive & mid 30:s as cashier hoping for the middle-class life" people. Academia is just like arts/musics: You only see the final result, and often from the top people; You won't see the struggling low/middle in their fields, largely being ignored in both their result & struggle.

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flobosg 6y ago

I’m currently writing my dissertation and still debating whether to stay in academia or not. I mean, even if I had not been academically unsuccessful during grad school I will get a piece of paper saying "You have a PhD" in the end. If you fail during your postdoc you are left with basically nothing. That’s a huge burden.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> If you fail during your postdoc you are left with basically nothing. Can't you go into industry? You'll have a PhD + more papers done along the way in your postdoc.
- flobosg 6y ago
  Yes, of course one can do that and it’s probably the most reasonable strategy (as opposed to another postdoc, for example). But then, what was the point of the postdoc? I’d rather move earlier into industry. It’s ultimately a gamble.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > But then what was the point of the postdoc? To continue to develop as a researcher and build up your research skills, publication portfolio, and network, ready to move into industry. If you do an ok PhD you could spend a couple of years as a postdoc refining that research and building on your foundation to really making a name for yourself and then apply to industry at your peak into a senior position.
    - marta_morena_9 6y ago
      Into a senior position straight from university? That's going to be interesting.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        That's pretty normal for hiring PhDs in my practical experience. My first job was 'senior' and it's the same for everyone else I can think of. You are senior - you've been part of the community for around four years by that point and by graduation you're probably part of several committees and starting to mentor others. Why isn't that 'senior'?

bransonf 6y ago

Serious question: Why don’t they leave? I’m not saying that they should, or that conditions shouldn’t improve, but if academia is that stressful to you, why stick with it? The only potential outcomes sticking with it are that you will fail later on, or you will fill a role with an increasing amount of stressors.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> or you will fill a role with an increasing amount of stressors I think when you gain a fellowship or professorship in academia it does suddenly get a lot more relaxed and you get time and space to do what you want - which is the goal these postdocs are working towards.
- aaronblohowiak 6y ago
  If you get lucky in academia you get the possibility of tenure track which is a made race to publish and that means not only doing your research, but grant writing, dealing with internal politics and discovering life as a manager of grad students... oh yea, and can you lecture these undergrads too?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    This isn't what I see in practice. Most professional researchers at the level of being a professor teach a couple of masters lectures for topics they're genuinely interested in and the rest of the time enjoy working on their research.
    - azalemeth 6y ago
      At Oxford and Cambridge in the UK, an explicit part of the system is that almost every senior academic teaches common, first/second-year "core" courses and spends a significant amount of time -- 6 or 12 hours a week in full term -- directly teaching 18-21 year olds. In addition to running a group and everything else. It is very rarely negotiable, and usually not.
    - 6y ago

golemiprague 6y ago

18% consider themselves a minority but 24% report racial discrimination which means some of the discrimination is by the minority against the majority? Also 40% discrimination against women, there was so much hassle about women in tech and discrimination against them, usually perpetrated by all kind of academic types, now it turns out that almost every second woman is discriminated against in the academy world also? I am sorry but all this data looks bogus to me, either it is wrong or we just back in the 17th century or something.

throwaway67853 6y ago

IMHO the big problem in experimental sciences is what the article kindly describes as power imbalances. I'd call it perhaps neofeudalism. I've seen many cases where principal investigators / professors are completely disconnected from research, including an absolute lack of any basic knowledge related to the field. They are just middlemen. For someone coming from pure mathematics, where professors routinely come up with great results themselves, this was incredibly shocking. Those I've met who don't know much always run the same scheme. They have a few postdocs doing all work and writing all grant proposals, but never getting their names on them. They always work towards some vague promotion that never comes. Whenever they obtain any good result, the professor or principal investigator will take all credit. Usually they will get diluted quickly, by simply pushing follow up experiments to others. Bell Labs, MRC LMB and Cold Spring Harbor were somewhat successful in preventing this kind of middlemen behavior. Among other things, they banned anyone from supervising more than 5 people. It worked.

dgb23 6y ago
Seniority shouldn’t just imply power, but responsibility over others. A master should be judged by the success of his apprentice just as much as his own skill. It’s saddening to see that people are being exploited in such a direct, obvious way. And it just happily goes on?
mattkrause 6y ago
Outside of a class, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for any feedback about a professor, program, or department, neither as a grad student nor postdoc. If I were king of academia, I’d make this an important part of hiring and funding decisions. Right now, individual fellowships to grad students and postdocs are scored, in part, on the “training environment” but weirdly, research grants to a professor (to hire grad students and postdocs) are not. This would be an easy thing to flip. Faculty applicants could submit a letter from a trainee as part of their package too.

supernova87a 6y ago

I mean, isn't it clear, ever since the bulk creation / funding of so many colleges (and faculty positions) pre + post WW2, the US faculty job market has been on a decline ever since -- (that is, from the average postdoc's point of view of success % when seeking a faculty position). It is structurally not a growing, dynamic market where you're going to have an easy time. I would call it stagnant, or in the worst case, cutthroat. You do understand right, that the faculty system relies on a pyramid of people entering and leaving the system? And only a certain fraction getting to the top, and people having to vacate the top of the pyramid for anyone else to get there? (for stable, or in other words, stagnant fields) When the US was in a college-building phase (funded by economic stimulus / public programs), all these posts were new and empty, waiting to be filled. So it enabled a generation of new professors to fill those ranks. As that became stable, now instead of a fresh pyramid you fill with eager people (who think that's still how easy it is), you have grad students and postdocs seeing who can outlast each other (or publish more) to get to the top through attrition or publishing prowess. Certain fields, let's say, pure math, or history, until a professor retires or dies, there's just no spot for the people below even to compete for. That's why you see people going to Asia, Middle East, etc. where the new money and universities are. Follow the money. I mean this is pure population pyramid, demographic stuff that you can predict. You almost don't even need to know the student's thesis topic to say what chance he/she has of becoming a professor. Joining the climb up the ladder in a generally stable pyramid -- it's not going to end well for the bulk majority, or be enjoyable while you do it. Especially if you have visible proof of friend, etc. following much easier paths.

echelon 6y ago
It's suddenly dawned on me in the past month or so that the era of growth for many American ways of life is at an end. Not just academia. The post-war, post-energy boom should have been obvious. Millennials have been complaining about lack of job growth, housing, and affordable education. Their parents had lower-hanging fruit to pluck. (I'm assuming this isn't just some myth I've been told about the 60's - 90's.) The blame is sometimes placed on "bad Boomer policies", but I'm not so sure. It feels as though we burned through the "easy" years. In academia, international students aren't flocking to US institutions anymore. The playing field has been leveled. Asian tech is coming into prominence at full stride and is reminiscent of Japan's meteoric rise. The manufacturing story is obviously much different. Is this happening because the rest of the world caught up? Or did America put investments in the wrong places? What's causing this, and how do we get back to prosperity for all young Americans? Am I simply missing the areas where things have improved? Genuinely curious about thematic ideas / shifts, what we might change, or if my views are wrong.

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cft 6y ago

When I was a postdoc at Stanford i simply stopped showing up at the department after 9 months. The chairman later told me that i was the first one in the entire history of the department to have done that. By the way there was absolutely no pressure; they kept paying me and in fact by mistake they raised my salary to $10,000 a month. Then they called me from the payroll office to ask if I would voluntarily return it and I said yes. I did get very depressed though and I became acquainted with all night cashiers in the Menlo Park Safeway that was then open 24 hours.

fnbr 6y ago
Why did you stop showing up?

guender 6y ago

I’ve mentored about 25 postdocs. I’ve found that some are just lazy and not interested in having any kind of career. I think that’s about 25%. Then there’s about 69% percent with too little talent or drive. 5% make it. And 1% is too genius to ever succeed.

newtonfractal 6y ago

Related link I wish I’d seen before starting in academia - What you need to know before considering a PhD [https://www.fast.ai/2018/08/27/grad-school/ https://www.fast.ai/2018/08/27/grad-school/] I especially like the point made about toxic grad schools being worse than other toxic jobs. Post docs are slightly better that way, with shorter time commitments but I suppose it adds to career uncertainty.

gspr 6y ago

I hope you'll forgive me ranting, but it's almost exactly a year ago since I left academia (was a postdoc), and I'm feeling very down about it and need to let out some thoughts. First the positives: academia has some amazing qualities. If you "make it" (or, alternatively, until you "fail" and drop out) you'll spend most of your time working on problems that you are truly passionate about. The kind of problems that you can't stop grinding over in the back of your head anyway. You get peace and quiet and a paycheck to sit and work on those all day. To me, doing this for life is an absolute dream!! Maybe a student two help you out. And then you get to travel the world and speak to other people who are equally passionate about this or similar problems. Yes there's teaching too. But unless you hate that, it's not a big downside. I for one enjoyed it. I've heard horror stories of the american teaching burden though, so maybe it's different if there's too much of it. And yes there's grant application pressure. Maybe I speak from too European a perspective, but I absolutely loved almost every week (every day would be an overstatement) of my 4 years as a postdoc. Every day I miss it. But the instability was killing me. I had the kindest most wonderful boss who shielded me from most of it, and in the end gave me 4 years of peace and quiet, and would have helped me go anywhere next. But I couldn't take the repeated uprooting. I wasn't good enough for a permanent position yet, or rather - not good enough for one in a place I could possibly imagine living - and forced uprootings crush my mental state. So I gave up. I don't wanna sound bitter. Hats off to those who make it. Truly! But the system has become so selective for a few "types" that I worry about its health: - Incredibly bright people. This is obviously good. - Incredibly hard working people. This is good, to a point. Not if the norm becomes giving up your life. - People who'll accept any terms. Not good, this is a slow march towards serfdom. - People who are fine with complete instability. I think academia is missing out on a lot by selecting for these. Rant over :-(

azalemeth 6y ago
I've just accepted a semi-permanent professorship after being a postdoc for several years. I've had a handful of grants accepted and the vast majority not -- some schemes have a <2% success rate (with applications coming from the best people on the planet) and the thing that just kills me is how the 'peer review' of grants tends to be "do I like you or not". I've been outright told that unless x- or y- is on the grant, it won't get funded. And, irritatingly, those complaints are right. I'm faced with the daunting -- but exciting -- prospect of trying to somehow be one of those academics who people do not hate. I very much think that the pressures are there on both sides; they're different, but being a postdoc does just suck for everything aside from the work – I think I was on my 13th short term contract (three of them 3 months or less!) before getting a permanent post. Naturally, this post is in a different country from my friends, family, and partner. I signed the paperwork last week. It's been three days and I desperately miss my partner -- who is also an academic -- and the cat. One (tenured) professor I knew left to go and work for his spin-out full time in industry. He told me that his belief was that academia was so bloody awful because it was a luxury: society wants you to continue to justify your existence sitting around and thinking every few years, whereas in a company, the $/€/£ is all the justification needed. I'm not sure to what extent I agree with that, but it's definitely plausible.

j7ake 6y ago

I think the academic path should be compared as analogous to other “creatives” paths (eg writer, musician, artists), although probably less extreme. People continue to do it because of the ownership of the work, the nearly unlimited potential upside from discovery, and the ability to build on serendipitous discoveries into your own portfolio. The downside is being stuck in a bad situation in academia can be psychologically damaging and difficult to recover from.

ramraj07 6y ago
"the nearly unlimited potential upside" is very low probability, and if people are being fully honest with themselves, they often already know before they start their postdoc whether it's going to be worth their time. The reality is that in academia, pedigree matters, being surrounded by very smart people matters, name matters. If you don't have all of these then your postdoc is doomed to be nothing more than a mediocre-paper-mill at best. Better to get out sooner rather than later.
- DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
  It's like a weighting function to your research output: (Pedigree + Name of PI) * first author CNS papers. You sure can succeed with a ton of first author CNS papers, but if you have some good pedigree and name of PI you don't need any many.
  - mattkrause 6y ago
    And of course, your ability to get CNS papers is strongly determined by your Pedigree + PI too. It obviously matters when submitting a paper, but it even determines what sort of experiments you can afford to work on and for how long. An HHMI-funded megalab can keep throwing things at the wall until they find some CNS-bait. Smaller groups may have to publish something to keep the lights on, even if it's less "complete."
arpa 6y ago
Funny thing, a few weeks ago I read an opinion piece posted here on HN that gives pretty solid reasoning (imho) why people pursue academic careers: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/11/how-academia-resembles-a-drug-gang/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/12/11/ho...

marmaduke 6y ago

I’m a staff scientist and watch post docs and students get ground up into grant fodder in a regular basis. Sure there are discoveries but at what cost to our mental health? I think there are two politically convenient roles to academia: (1) allow a country to posture about money is has to spend, case in point are EU flagships which everyone agrees is a big waste but it puts EU on the map, research wise. (2) it keeps smart, will to power people occupied far enough away from real society problems such as racism, climate change, poverty and so on, to stabilize the status quo. Imagine what would happen if people who can do 80 hour weeks churning through genetic data to generate new insights (or similar for different fields) started working in earnest on evidence driven policy change? I think these roles are more explanatory for the funding of science than the discoveries themselves.

sweezyjeezy 6y ago
I don't buy (2) at all. a) I don't think the overlap between postdocs (especially STEM) and those that would work in politics is all that high. I think the vast majority would be working in tech/industry. b) if this were true we might expect republicans to support government funding for academia over democrats, and the opposite is true.
- walleeee 6y ago
  I don't think the claim in 2) is that they'd necessarily be in politics. It's that they might be way more productive than incentive structures currently permit. The academy can encourage social climbing, pointless competition, and careerism to the detriment of intellectual honesty, sane policy, and good science. Academic institutions can be moral mazes just like other public or private organizations.
- marmaduke 6y ago
  I think my reason (1) explains your (b). As for (a), I agree that a lot would not be in politics but, if you have seen it first hand, academia sucks the life and minds of out of early stage researchers in a way that other jobs do not. The salary means they are comfortable enough not to complain and no time for it anyway.

physicsguy 6y ago

For me, doing a postdoc would mean relocating regularly, my wife having to find new jobs with me (a big stress point for her), a huge amount of job insecurity, etc. By not doing a postdoc, I’ve been able to find a permanent job that pays significantly more, buy a house, and actually start to think about starting a family, which is more important to me. I think if you’re single and male then it’s OK but it’s not surprising for e.g. that there are underrepresented groups in some fields of science at lectureship level when they basically have to sacrifice any stability in order to get to that position. I grew up quite poor and do not want to get into that position again - and I can’t afford to not have a job gap for 4 months which is the sort of length I’ve seen friends endure while one contract ends and another starts.

dendodge 6y ago
I'm finishing my PhD in the next couple of months, and am fortunate enough to have a fiancée and a house. I interviewed for one postdoc and found myself hoping I wouldn't get it because it would mean living apart for a few years, or else uprooting our lives and moving across the country, only to repeat the process in a few years' time, with no guarantee of ever finding a permanent position. I'm completely lost now, I have no job lined up and no idea what I'll be doing with my life in 3 months' time, but I do know I'm getting out. I love science, I love the research I do, but it's not a steady career. It's nice to hear someone else who feels the same way - inside the academic bubble, anything other than giving your life to the broken system is seen as failure.
- deleted 6y ago
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- bonoboTP 6y ago
  On the other hand how can you become an experienced researcher if you just work in your own bubble? By spending time in other places, you see different ways of working, thinking, organization, approach to problems, focus etc. It looks like as college has become standard that everyone "needs" or even "deserves", we are getting to the point where academic positions should also be handed out on a basis of some social distributive program. Yes it's hard to do and involves sacrifices. But not everyone needs to do it. It's not immediately obvious that we gain a lot by opening the gates wide and accommodating any life choices to be compatible with any prestigious careers. Artists and scientists used to do this kind of traveling around and being under the patronage of various rich people or institutions. It isn't clear that making it into a steady stable job with orders of magnitude more people chipping away at it incrementally has brought proportional results at all. If it's not for you, why not find something that is?

LockAndLol 6y ago

The people expanding our scientific understanding of the world being undervalued by society and institutions is the epitome of our current state. We're burning out our engines and slowing down innovation... for what? Can any academics or postdocs express what they believe should change to improve their situations?

darkhorse13 6y ago
>The people expanding our scientific understanding of the world being undervalued by society I fully expect to get downvoted for this, but maybe it is because the expansion of scientific understanding produced by academia and academics has dwindled when it comes to applications in real life. Sure I will come across click-bait articles about new research on black holes and dark matter/energy/whatever every week, but it all seems so far from industry and application.
- LockAndLol 6y ago
  Is that an opinion based on facts or mere impression? And if it's based on facts, would you be willing to share the source? Further, what is it that you're implying with that statement?
  - darkhorse13 6y ago
    Clearly it's based on impression, and not based on facts, and I gave no indication that it was. So no, I don't have a source for that.
mattkrause 6y ago
More staff scientist positions. Academia, especially in the US and Canada, only has one viable long-term job: a faculty position. Everything else is ostensibly “training” for that job and there’s increasing pressure to make that transition as quickly as possible, in part because the low pay and stability of the other positions. This is stupid. Since professors produce trainees, the competition gets exponentially worse. At the same time, using mostly new workers that are constantly churning over makes it hard to do good research. This is exacerbated by the emphasis on first/last author publications, which disincentivizes division of labor and teamwork. Furthermore, studies have found that outcome for the trainees are better when a mix of senior people are around. Despite this, the NIH funds virtually no staff scientists: only one institute (NCI) has a staff scientist mechanism and it’s very small (~50?) compared to the rest of the program. Give people longer contracts (5 years) renewable bases on the output of the teams they enable, and everyone would win.

yodsanklai 6y ago

> Long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science I've never encountered any form of bullying or discrimination in my 15 years academic career (in three different countries). What I witnessed a few times though where post-docs that just got disinterested in their work and unproductive for months. It's not uncommon for post-docs spending months looking for their next job, and usually, their advisors are fine with that. They understand well the difficulties of their students or post-docs. Academia is hard because it's extremely competitive, not because professors are some kind of bullies harassing their students. I'm certain it exists but it's far from the norm. It's competitive because you're competing with the whole world, and there are some people out there who are much smarter than you. And you are constantly reminded of this fact, when you go to a conference (or because you don't get to go because your paper isn't accepted), when you read your colleague's paper and so on. I've worked with well-known people (including a Turing award recipient), and even them were insecure at times. And of course, it's hard because you don't know if you'll find a job after your current post-doc. The more average you are, the more insecurity, the harder it gets.

angrais 6y ago
>> I've never encountered any form of bullying or discrimination in my 15 years academic career (in three different countries). Great to hear that you've not encountered bullying in the academy, but it absolutely does exist and is unfortunately thriving. Often when it occurs, the university will side with the academic rather than postdoc or PhD students, which puts them in an extremely difficult situation since their manager is often the bully. In addition, you're likely in a position of power since you've been in academy for 15+ years ... It could be that you do not interact with certain circles to observe this behaviour. Also, discrimination, particularly sexism also very much occurs, including to students. See for for example: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2020/jan/07/third-cambridge-university-staff-experienced-bullying https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2...
- yodsanklai 6y ago
  > but it absolutely does exist and is unfortunately thriving I'm sure it exists. I may be wrong since it's based on personal experience, but I can't believe it's thriving (at least, in my field, computer science). These things are taken more and more seriously. If anything, I can only imagine they occur less and less frequently.

Melchizedek 6y ago

This will (like several other factors in society) function like a form of reverse eugenics, where people way above average in intelligence (high heritability) and conscientiousness (moderate heritability) are prevented from having children, or start having them so late that they will not have many.

code4tee 6y ago

A long time ago the best talent from PhD programs tended to stay in academia. That was considered the “prize.” Over the last 15 years or so the tables have really turned. Not saying top people don’t stay, but I now see much if not most of the top talent continuing their careers in the private sector or elsewhere. We’re in an era where the most cutting edge and impactful research increasingly does not take place at academic institutions. Between that and the vastly different compensation structures in the private sector it’s not too surprising top people want to go elsewhere. As someone mentioned to me recently “Success in academia is defined by publishing papers mostly read only by a few other people that define success as publishing papers. Success outside academia is defined by doing amazing $&@! that has a measurable impact on the world.”

bonoboTP 6y ago
That's a bit biased. I could argue the other extreme by highlighting the quest for truth aspect in academia, the freedom from market influence and safety to pursue wherever the interesting research takes you etc. Contrast that with working at an adtech giant to increase measurable engagement by applying some amazing $&@! that make users addicted and miserable, your workers burned out and the upper classes even richer. Or work on some prototype that never gets in the hands of users, either because it's just a PR stunt pet project for a higher-up or it gets killed off for internal company politics reasons. You can pick your narrative by picking which academic and industry position to focus on. You can do awesome stuff at both and be miserable at both. The top of the top usually do both at the same time. They spend part time at a top university, but also advise top companies with top research groups.
ichbinwiederda 6y ago
You are confounding two things. The impact of research and the impact of the researcher. Increasingly more research is done in publicly funded academia, not the opposite at you claim. OTOH the relative impact of individual researchers has gone down, but this is mostly due to problems being tackled being increasingly harder. In industry you can have relatively more impact because you are not doing research but you are building things using knowledge somebody has already collected for you. Maybe that is what you wanted to say.

jbaber 6y ago

Reminds me of this classic letter to a post-doc: http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/ http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wr...