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>> I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs. > Ruined, really? The "I" in that sentence is doing a lo

>> I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs. > Ruined, really? The "I" in that sentence is doing a lot of work, and Katz is a sort of generally a foolish know-it-all on everything outside of his field. See, e.g., his defense of the Iraq war. Sounds like he knows everything, but the blind spots are astounding (and now, two decades later, finally obvious to even the least informed layman.) I remember reading it and shaking my head at the time -- 'this is what dunning-kruger looks like!'. The piece aged about as well as I would've predicted at the time. From what I've heard about Katz and his advising... style... the selection bias of this "I" is particularly perverse. That said... > Like living on the street ruined? Yes, and this is a MUCH more serious problem than you're giving it credit for. PhD stipends are NOT normal salaries/wages! AFAIK it's literally the only full-time position where the employer does not have to pay FICA taxes. That means no unemployment benefits. That means homelessness if you don't find a job immediately after graduation. Why might you not find a job immediately after completing a physics phd? Perhaps you graduate during a multi-year hiring slow-down caused by a global pandemic or a financial crisis. I.e., you're one of roughly a third of recent cohorts. I've known many people who failed to find a post-doc and ended up homeless for a period of time because they didn't realize that they couldn't even rely on federal unemployment as a stop-gap. One of my wife's former peers slept on our couch for a couple months. I've know many, MANY more people who would've been homeless for a period of time in their late 20s after half a decade of working full-time had it not been for family support. Truly astounding numbers. Perhaps 1/2 to 2/3rds of my wife's graduating cohort fell into that category. I opted out of academia with TT offers in hand because I don't understand how people can run a group staffed by grad students and look themselves in the mirror in the morning.

lnwlebjel 5y ago
Interesting comment. Perhaps I've not been paying enough attention? > PhD stipends are NOT normal salaries/wages! I always saw it as a really good deal to be getting paid to go to school! > I don't understand how people can run a group staffed by grad students and look themselves in the mirror in the morning. The several that I know do this by helping them find jobs --after-- before they are done. And if the jobs are outside of academia, they are usually well paying (engineering, or software engineering etc, in the defense industry).
- InefficientRed 5y ago
  > I always saw it as a really good deal to be getting paid to go to school! Ugh. You and I both know that PhD students spend very little time in coursework, and that the quantity and quality of that coursework in nowhere near the differential in their earnings. You later mention Software Engineering. Those jobs can be had with a BA/BS and no graduate coursework. So the earning differential is what? Lowest end 30K/yr and up to 100K/yr? Over 5 years, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's WAAAY more graduate coursework that the typical PhD student takes during their program. And that's assuming the employee pays for coursework. Do you know what I pay my "junior employees who just finished undergraduate"? At least six figures. AND our company pays tuition if they decide they want to take some graduate coursework. Which isn't exactly a rare benefit. I'm also highly confident I do a better job at mentoring than a huge portion of R1 faculty. Many of my direct reports have more first author papers than the average PhD candidate. Pay your junior employees what they're worth. Or, if you can't, at least pay into their federal disability/uneumployment insurance so that if they get hit by a bus and can't work they aren't completely fucked! Or, if you can't do either, at least be honest about how horridly exploitative the situation is, both with them and with yourself. Again, if R1 professors are not exploiting these poor kids, then why are R1 professors the ONLY mid-level managers in the entire country whose direct reports don't receive unemployment insurance? Seeking out the only exemption in the entire country to paying your direct report's Social Security, Disability, and Unemployment is absolutely absurd and horridly unethical if you stop and think about it for even a second. I don't know how people who work in the academic industry are able to convince themselves that what they are dong isn't reprehensible. I guess if you're smart enough it's easy to talk yourself into anything. > The several that I know do this by helping them find jobs --after-- before they are done. That's totally irrelevant. It's the years of absurdly underpaid labor that I would feel guilty about, not the job prospects at graduation. > And if the jobs are outside of academia, they are usually well paying (engineering, or software engineering etc, in the defense industry). I find that most academics who say this are full of shit and did very little to actually help their students find employment. I once had a conversation with a math professor who told me that he tells his phd grads to just "go into finance" if they can't find an academic job. This was in 2009. That aside, all of those jobs are available by simply dropping out after year two with a masters degree. Or, often, right after undergraduate. Again, I don't get how academics look themselves in the mirror in the morning. I'm glad I turned down the R1 TT.
deleted 5y ago
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lnwlebjel 5y ago

Interesting comment. Perhaps I've not been paying enough attention? > PhD stipends are NOT normal salaries/wages! I always saw it as a really good deal to be getting paid to go to school! > I don't understand how people can run a group staffed by grad students and look themselves in the mirror in the morning. The several that I know do this by helping them find jobs --after-- before they are done. And if the jobs are outside of academia, they are usually well paying (engineering, or software engineering etc, in the defense industry).

InefficientRed 5y ago
> I always saw it as a really good deal to be getting paid to go to school! Ugh. You and I both know that PhD students spend very little time in coursework, and that the quantity and quality of that coursework in nowhere near the differential in their earnings. You later mention Software Engineering. Those jobs can be had with a BA/BS and no graduate coursework. So the earning differential is what? Lowest end 30K/yr and up to 100K/yr? Over 5 years, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's WAAAY more graduate coursework that the typical PhD student takes during their program. And that's assuming the employee pays for coursework. Do you know what I pay my "junior employees who just finished undergraduate"? At least six figures. AND our company pays tuition if they decide they want to take some graduate coursework. Which isn't exactly a rare benefit. I'm also highly confident I do a better job at mentoring than a huge portion of R1 faculty. Many of my direct reports have more first author papers than the average PhD candidate. Pay your junior employees what they're worth. Or, if you can't, at least pay into their federal disability/uneumployment insurance so that if they get hit by a bus and can't work they aren't completely fucked! Or, if you can't do either, at least be honest about how horridly exploitative the situation is, both with them and with yourself. Again, if R1 professors are not exploiting these poor kids, then why are R1 professors the ONLY mid-level managers in the entire country whose direct reports don't receive unemployment insurance? Seeking out the only exemption in the entire country to paying your direct report's Social Security, Disability, and Unemployment is absolutely absurd and horridly unethical if you stop and think about it for even a second. I don't know how people who work in the academic industry are able to convince themselves that what they are dong isn't reprehensible. I guess if you're smart enough it's easy to talk yourself into anything. > The several that I know do this by helping them find jobs --after-- before they are done. That's totally irrelevant. It's the years of absurdly underpaid labor that I would feel guilty about, not the job prospects at graduation. > And if the jobs are outside of academia, they are usually well paying (engineering, or software engineering etc, in the defense industry). I find that most academics who say this are full of shit and did very little to actually help their students find employment. I once had a conversation with a math professor who told me that he tells his phd grads to just "go into finance" if they can't find an academic job. This was in 2009. That aside, all of those jobs are available by simply dropping out after year two with a masters degree. Or, often, right after undergraduate. Again, I don't get how academics look themselves in the mirror in the morning. I'm glad I turned down the R1 TT.

deleted 5y ago

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