3 ms·

this is exactly also true for grad students in the physical and biological sciences.

• achenet 5y ago
  Really? I’d have thought they would be out there inventing the world of tomorrow. The entire clothing industry is applied biochemistry. Electronics is applied physics and chemistry. How can there not be a demand for that?
  • dnautics 5y ago
    yep. You get paid higher if: - you go straight out of undergrad to industry - you only do a masters - you "drop out" after a masters - you are sponsored by industry to take a 5-6 year "sabbatical" to get a PhD (which is status-driven, but still tied to "demand", as you say). - you go to industry without doing a postdoc If you are in the PhD program to get into academia, it is very much a status-driven, low-paid pursuit (I got paid 26k/yr for ~80h/wk average 6 years, probably generally was working 100-days-straight) and all of the problems in the article apply (including tendency to groupthink in the service of promotion, attracting status-seeking; stupid 20-something men). As a grad student, the undergrad "dishwasher" lab tech was getting paid more than I was (raw; not dividing by hours). Even for postdocs the misery is true. I gave myself a pay raise and hours reduction when I quit being a postdoc and started driving for lyft full-time ~50h/wk on the road, but carve out about 10-ish for like logging off to do social things with friends because I was "in the city anyways".