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Also see the "S" of STEM. Many people going into science at the graduate level believe the hype that there is a huge shortage of scientists and that they'll hav
by jhbadger 5y ago
Also see the "S" of STEM. Many people going into science at the graduate level believe the hype that there is a huge shortage of scientists and that they'll have no trouble getting a tenure-track job in the end. This isn't the case. The system is set up to generate many more Ph.D's than faculty positions because grad students and postdocs are useful sources of labor for faculty. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't go into science (there are jobs in industry and government for example), but realize that getting a faculty job is statistically unlikely.
- analog31 5y agoWhat I've observed is that virtually every science grad student is aware of the academic job situation, unless they are deluding themselves or have their heads in the sand. In fact, my dad (chemistry PhD) told me this was already common knowledge in the 1950s. Disclosure: Physics PhD.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- unemphysbro 5y agoAnother Physics adjacent PhD. When I was in my 20s, I was aware of the situation anecdotally from other grad students. However, I wanted to shoot my shot and by the time I hit my late 20s and 30 all of those weekend hours in the office and the low pay made those software jobs very alluring. So I jumped ship. I miss research in academia quite a bit, I still read papers and review articles if I'm contacted. However, I don't think I'll go back with the work-life balance and higher salaries in industry.
- NationalPark 5y agoMaybe your choice of field was fortunate here, don't they say if you don't have your Nobel in physics by 30 you never will?
- _game_of_life 5y agohttps://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/nobel-laureates-by-age/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/nobel-laureates-by-a... That saying doesn't seem to be true at all if you sort by age. If you have your nobel prize by 30 you are an outlier. There are similar sayings for mathematics that don't hold up. I don't really understand where the perception comes from when it is easily fact checked?
- wayoutthere 5y agoI think the phrasing is a little off; the way I’ve heard it is that most Nobel winners had done the majority of their research before they were 30. It just takes a few decades for their contributions to the field to become apparent.
- dnautics 5y agoIt may have been bad in the 1950s, but there was an acute acceleration of how bad it got in the 1990-2010 era.
- MontyCarloHall 5y agoYou can both be aware of the situation and delusional. Many people I’ve spoken to with tenure track aspirations genuinely believe they’re in the top 1% of their field, and thus have a good shot at making it. I’d wager that far more than 1% of graduate students/postdocs believe this about themselves. In general, the vast majority of people will rate themselves as above average for any given ability, even though that’s by definition impossible.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- enriquto 5y ago> the vast majority of people will rate themselves as above average for any given ability, even though that’s by definition impossible. Not "by definition". It's easy to build a probability distribution such that an arbitrarily large majority of samples are above average (e.g. if it has a long tail to the left).
- MontyCarloHall 5y agoFine, I should have said “above the median,” if you insist on being so pedantic about it ;-)
- ghaff 5y agoAnd PhDs and tenure track aside, many undergrad science degrees are probably not much more useful as a credential than liberal arts degrees that many here like to mock. There's nothing wrong with majoring in biology if that's your thing. But unless you're pre-med or plan to get a PhD, it's probably not a more useful major than history or English--and may be less useful depending upon what sort of job you're looking for.
- analog31 5y agoIn my view, the undergrad degrees that are useful as credentials are exceptions: The licensed engineering and medical fields. Even the vaunted computer science degree is not a meal ticket: You still have to prove that you can code, and are competing with people who are self taught. Now there are some things that, while not formal credentials, are still hard to avoid for certain occupations. People with math and physics degree can be quite competitive for certain kinds of quantitative work. Oddly enough a music performance degree is almost unavoidable if you want to be a working classical musician. Those are areas where it's possible to be self trained, but almost prohibitively difficult.
- dmch-1 5y agoVery true. When I was doing PhD in pure maths I had random people explain to me that a PhD would not necessarily give me an advantage in the job market. Like I would come to do a PhD without figuring that out.
- ironSkillet 5y agoI have found that having a PhD in pure math has been enormously helpful in making me look more attractive to the job market.
- SilurianWenlock 5y agoFor what sort of jobs?
- ironSkillet 5y agoFor me, data science, quantitative finance, software engineering jobs. A large part of software development is about identifying and building abstractions to solve problems, which is also what mathematicians do. A common sentiment I've seen expressed by hiring managers is that someone with a strong math background can become very competent in a wide variety of technical fields.
- dmch-1 5y agoNot specifically in pure maths, but agree I also found that a math PhD is good to have for jobs in AI, finance etc. But an equivalent industry experience might be worth the same at least.
- rpmisms 5y agoI know several PhDs who actually thought a doctorate in music theory or similar fields was a ticket to a good job.