6 ms·

My brother is a scientist - a damned good one at that. He's scraping by in an academic research position making well below the poverty line. He's unmarried, fr

My brother is a scientist - a damned good one at that. He's scraping by in an academic research position making well below the poverty line. He's unmarried, frugal and has few expectations (well, years as a student in the sciences prepares you for that), so he's managing well under the circumstances. I do know though that it bothers him that his parents are paying for his $500 flight back to visit during Christmas. He's nearly 30. Engineers are doing alright - but scientists have not done well for a long, long time. It's cut-throat, employment is anything but sure, and even if you have a job, good salaries are few and far between. And every year the output from colleges continues to far outstrip positions available.

rdl 15y ago
Presumably he could use a science degree and mathematical mind to get a higher paying job in industry, tech, etc. If he values research more than money, that makes sense too, but I would think he has more options than these people.
- rjd 15y ago
  No science is historical a place of people working in poverty for the love of the job. I myself did a degree in Microbiology and started working at a research lab as an assistant. One thing caught me very quickly, people I worked with, some of the leading geneticists on the planet.. I'm talking about people who where splicing human DNA in animals to cure Parkinson's... where earning minimum wage. These people literally fought for basic funding, maybe they got a million dollar cheque, but boy that had to last, if the results didn't come through or you got 80% of the way there, there was no second cheque. Failing to deliver could also cost you further funding. So everyone was accounting for every cent, and there was no spending on anything extravagant. The head of my department wrote some of the text books I read through high school, thats how he made his living, he earned maybe $10k more than the rest of the scientists but that was still next to nothing. The only perk was a contract we had testing wine for pesticides. Which meant taking a 5ml sample from each bottle of wine and prepping it for testing. We literally had a shed full of wine which a research centre of several hundred scientists couldn't drink fast enough :) I was told by one scientist you had around 15 years to make a breakthrough and then it was more or less over. You trained till you where 30 to get a PHD so you could get funding, worked till you where in your 40s, then started writing text books, being a manager, or a teacher/professor. Decided I didn't have the constitution for a life like that and retrained as an artist and some how ended up a programmer. I could have always moved in the commercial of being a food technician or something, OK money doing that, but its crap work... unless you are inventing new ice cream flavours... otherwise you are more or less loading samples into a machine and waiting for the results... overkill for a scientist really.
  - wisty 15y ago
    So why don't scientists get other jobs in the private sector? People with Arts degrees don't whinge about the lack of "Historian" positions, they just get jobs where they can utilize their amazing skills at churning out 5000 word faux-essays about why their cherry-picked positive paragraphs outnumber the negative paragraphs they threw in for "balance" (arts hater, sorry, but haters gotta hate). Maybe they are HR officers, or Marketing Stooges, or Strategic Analysts, or Project Officers, or even Software Engineers. There seems to be an utterly moronic disconnect betweens science students who want a job with "research" in the title, and businesses who don't want to reach out to smart, hard-working, honest candidates. Science students do have skills - the ability to read massive amounts of technically difficult work (for example, research articles, government regulations), math skills, statistics skills, and a deep understanding of physical and / or biological processes. I understand that they don't want to head-hunt full professors into C-level positions, but surely there's some scope for people crossing over. I mean, does anyone really think that science grads are less business ready than business grads, and if so, why?
    - gyardley 15y ago
      Oh, man, do I know a lot of people that whinge about the lack of historian positions. - former Ph.D. student in History.
      - ericd 15y ago
        Is there a good way to look for just those people? I feel like there are a lot of jobs out there that aren't specialized, but could really benefit from having really smart (in a general sense) people.
        gyardley 15y ago
        If there is, I don't know of one. History teaches all sorts of wonderful analytical skills that I use all the time as a start-up founder - it's great training for what I do. However, by the time you make it a significant way into a Ph.D. program, you get ruined culturally - you end up thinking you're going to get a job in academia, or you're a complete failure. Switching careers after your mid 20s feels like an impossible undertaking (it's not hard at all, but we're talking about feelings here), so you keep on slogging it out. If you do come across some all-but-dissertation from a good program who actually wants to try new things, snap them up.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  We've explored using his mathematic side in the private sector, but transitioning is non-trivial (a biology degree evidently makes one a pretty strong statistician). It's still on the table, but the sad truth is that it would probably involve going back for another degree. We've gone through a tremendous amount of "certificatization" in the past decades, to the point where simply having chops is not sufficient. So while he's a pretty damn good statistician, he would have trouble getting this acknowledged without getting a degree that is more in line with the field he's trying to break into. The plus side is that he lives in Canada, so going back to school, while burning time, would not be financially disastrous.
- pmiller2 15y ago
  You know, I hear this all the time ("get a higher paying job in industry...."). But, as one who has degrees in mathematics (but no professional experience in the field) and is actively looking for a job to apply them to, I'm not finding this to be the case. So, I'm left with one of two conclusions: either I'm "doing it wrong" with my job search, or the jobs don't exist. Whichever way it is, I'd sincerely like to know, so I can do something about it.
  - rdl 15y ago
    Do you live in SFBA or NYC? Do you have familiarity with a programming language? Can you build a simple standalone web or mobile app on your own, start to finish? Can you work in a team?
    - pmiller2 15y ago
      In order: SFBA or NYC? No, but I'm open to relocation (particularly out west) if there's a relocation package involved. Programming language? Yes. I'm pretty decent with Python and C. Web or mobile app? I've never done it, but I don't see why not. Work in a team? Yes. I have some (unrelated) professional experience, most of which involved working in a team. -- Honestly, I think my main problem is not having the right contacts. Being in the midwest, and having previously been on the academic track in grad school meant I wasn't naturally going to develop those contacts, either. My current plan is to put up a small Django-based site and find a Python-based OSS project to contribute some code to. With luck, in a few weeks, I'll be able to list "contributed to XYZ project" and at least a beginner's knowledge of Django on my CV. :)
      - rdl 15y ago
        email me please: ryan@venona.com :) (selfish reasons too, obviously, but I'd be happy to introduce you to some other people who are hiring as well)
ginzasparrow 15y ago
So he's a postdoc? Boohoo. He'll be making 6 figures by age 40 if he puts in his time like other scientists.

rdl 15y ago

Presumably he could use a science degree and mathematical mind to get a higher paying job in industry, tech, etc. If he values research more than money, that makes sense too, but I would think he has more options than these people.

rjd 15y ago
No science is historical a place of people working in poverty for the love of the job. I myself did a degree in Microbiology and started working at a research lab as an assistant. One thing caught me very quickly, people I worked with, some of the leading geneticists on the planet.. I'm talking about people who where splicing human DNA in animals to cure Parkinson's... where earning minimum wage. These people literally fought for basic funding, maybe they got a million dollar cheque, but boy that had to last, if the results didn't come through or you got 80% of the way there, there was no second cheque. Failing to deliver could also cost you further funding. So everyone was accounting for every cent, and there was no spending on anything extravagant. The head of my department wrote some of the text books I read through high school, thats how he made his living, he earned maybe $10k more than the rest of the scientists but that was still next to nothing. The only perk was a contract we had testing wine for pesticides. Which meant taking a 5ml sample from each bottle of wine and prepping it for testing. We literally had a shed full of wine which a research centre of several hundred scientists couldn't drink fast enough :) I was told by one scientist you had around 15 years to make a breakthrough and then it was more or less over. You trained till you where 30 to get a PHD so you could get funding, worked till you where in your 40s, then started writing text books, being a manager, or a teacher/professor. Decided I didn't have the constitution for a life like that and retrained as an artist and some how ended up a programmer. I could have always moved in the commercial of being a food technician or something, OK money doing that, but its crap work... unless you are inventing new ice cream flavours... otherwise you are more or less loading samples into a machine and waiting for the results... overkill for a scientist really.
- wisty 15y ago
  So why don't scientists get other jobs in the private sector? People with Arts degrees don't whinge about the lack of "Historian" positions, they just get jobs where they can utilize their amazing skills at churning out 5000 word faux-essays about why their cherry-picked positive paragraphs outnumber the negative paragraphs they threw in for "balance" (arts hater, sorry, but haters gotta hate). Maybe they are HR officers, or Marketing Stooges, or Strategic Analysts, or Project Officers, or even Software Engineers. There seems to be an utterly moronic disconnect betweens science students who want a job with "research" in the title, and businesses who don't want to reach out to smart, hard-working, honest candidates. Science students do have skills - the ability to read massive amounts of technically difficult work (for example, research articles, government regulations), math skills, statistics skills, and a deep understanding of physical and / or biological processes. I understand that they don't want to head-hunt full professors into C-level positions, but surely there's some scope for people crossing over. I mean, does anyone really think that science grads are less business ready than business grads, and if so, why?
  - gyardley 15y ago
    Oh, man, do I know a lot of people that whinge about the lack of historian positions. - former Ph.D. student in History.
    - ericd 15y ago
      Is there a good way to look for just those people? I feel like there are a lot of jobs out there that aren't specialized, but could really benefit from having really smart (in a general sense) people.
      - gyardley 15y ago
        If there is, I don't know of one. History teaches all sorts of wonderful analytical skills that I use all the time as a start-up founder - it's great training for what I do. However, by the time you make it a significant way into a Ph.D. program, you get ruined culturally - you end up thinking you're going to get a job in academia, or you're a complete failure. Switching careers after your mid 20s feels like an impossible undertaking (it's not hard at all, but we're talking about feelings here), so you keep on slogging it out. If you do come across some all-but-dissertation from a good program who actually wants to try new things, snap them up.
potatolicious 15y ago
We've explored using his mathematic side in the private sector, but transitioning is non-trivial (a biology degree evidently makes one a pretty strong statistician). It's still on the table, but the sad truth is that it would probably involve going back for another degree. We've gone through a tremendous amount of "certificatization" in the past decades, to the point where simply having chops is not sufficient. So while he's a pretty damn good statistician, he would have trouble getting this acknowledged without getting a degree that is more in line with the field he's trying to break into. The plus side is that he lives in Canada, so going back to school, while burning time, would not be financially disastrous.
pmiller2 15y ago
You know, I hear this all the time ("get a higher paying job in industry...."). But, as one who has degrees in mathematics (but no professional experience in the field) and is actively looking for a job to apply them to, I'm not finding this to be the case. So, I'm left with one of two conclusions: either I'm "doing it wrong" with my job search, or the jobs don't exist. Whichever way it is, I'd sincerely like to know, so I can do something about it.
- rdl 15y ago
  Do you live in SFBA or NYC? Do you have familiarity with a programming language? Can you build a simple standalone web or mobile app on your own, start to finish? Can you work in a team?
  - pmiller2 15y ago
    In order: SFBA or NYC? No, but I'm open to relocation (particularly out west) if there's a relocation package involved. Programming language? Yes. I'm pretty decent with Python and C. Web or mobile app? I've never done it, but I don't see why not. Work in a team? Yes. I have some (unrelated) professional experience, most of which involved working in a team. -- Honestly, I think my main problem is not having the right contacts. Being in the midwest, and having previously been on the academic track in grad school meant I wasn't naturally going to develop those contacts, either. My current plan is to put up a small Django-based site and find a Python-based OSS project to contribute some code to. With luck, in a few weeks, I'll be able to list "contributed to XYZ project" and at least a beginner's knowledge of Django on my CV. :)
    - rdl 15y ago
      email me please: ryan@venona.com :) (selfish reasons too, obviously, but I'd be happy to introduce you to some other people who are hiring as well)

ginzasparrow 15y ago

So he's a postdoc? Boohoo. He'll be making 6 figures by age 40 if he puts in his time like other scientists.