6 ms·

Postgraduate student depression and suicidality is at horrifying proportions. The universities don't care. No one cares. Academia is super fucked and super fuck

by 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.

by ebg13 6y ago

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

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.