4 ms·

Also worth reading: "Don't Become a Scientist!" by Jonathan Katz [1], "Women in Science" by Philip Greenspun [2], and "What Does Any of This Have To Do with Phy

Also worth reading: "Don't Become a Scientist!" by Jonathan Katz [1], "Women in Science" by Philip Greenspun [2], and "What Does Any of This Have To Do with Physics?" by Bob Henderson [3]. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20181018063835/http://katz.fastmail.us/scientist.html https://web.archive.org/web/20181018063835/http://katz.fastm... [2]: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science [3]: https://nautil.us/what-does-any-of-this-have-to-do-with-physics-5626/ https://nautil.us/what-does-any-of-this-have-to-do-with-phys...

TuringNYC 5y ago
>> Typical postdoctoral salaries begin at $27,000 annually in the biological sciences and about $35,000 in the physical sciences (graduate student stipends are less than half these figures). Yes, but if they go to Wall St with the same credential, they make 20x that.
- loeg 5y ago
  With a biology PhD?
  - kurthr 5y ago
    Well, I know some really biologists who code really well, but you're right only pharma/medicine are likely to pay off your college debts, the first requires a lot of luck, and the other a lot more school. Biology is well known to be a terrible investment (by people in gradschool).
  - guga42k 5y ago
    yes. with massive capital investments in bio/pharma sector some in-house expertise required to improve ROI. ps: basic python and prob theory won't hurt.
- b215826 5y ago
  The essay is from 1999, so the salaries are a little off -- it's something like $50,000 +/- $15,000 for most postdoctoral positions now. Yes, you can go to Wall St with a physics PhD and have a great career. But the thing is that many students (especially in elite institutions) enter graduate school with the hopes of becoming an actual scientist, not a Wall St analyst.
- pmags 5y ago
  This is absolutely not a "typical postdoctoral salary", and hasn't been for more than two decades. Most major research institutions follow NIH guidelines for postdoc salaries: https://www.training.nih.gov/postdoctoral_irta_stipend_ranges https://www.training.nih.gov/postdoctoral_irta_stipend_range...
  - jasone 5y ago
    When I was finishing up a bioinformatics doctoral program in 2009 I looked far and wide for postdoc positions in the field. My recollection is that the typical salary range was $27k-$30k. What surprised me was that I dug far back in a systematics-specific newsgroup and found the same salary range being advertised for the previous 10+ years. I can't speak to what has happened over the past 12 years, since the low postdoc salaries pushed me to industry, but I can say that you're off with the "more than two decades" claim, at least as a universal claim.
    - pmags 5y ago
      I just pulled three actual postdoc offer letters out of my email archives from the 2008-2009 period. Salary offers ranged from $38K-$48K with the higher end representing a starting bioinformatics postdoc position. NIH minimum in 2009 was >$37K. If you were getting offers in the $27K-$30K range coming out of a comp bio/bioinformatics PhD program, you were unfortunately getting seriously low-balled.
openknot 5y ago
Professor Katz's piece is highly flawed. From the article: "What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyone who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue another career. This will spare you the misery of disappointed expectations. Young Americans have generally woken up to the bad prospects and absence of a reasonable middle class career path in science and are deserting it. If you haven't yet, then join them. Leave graduate school to people from India and China, for whom the prospects at home are even worse. I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs." Two issues: I'm not up-to-date about opportunities in India, but I can certainly say that the remark about prospects in China are outdated for Chinese citizens. Secondly, the remark, "I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs," is more indicative of the professor living in a bubble, instead of a serious assertion that a physics PhD is worse than a drug addiction. With a PhD in physics, one could work for an investment bank; the government (e.g. NIST in the United States); the space industry; the private sector (e.g. optics, quantum computing); national security; and many other fields. Katz's article reads as out-of-touch and unimaginative [edit: though thanks for sharing for the discussion]. The false premise is that the only opportunity you can get with a physics PhD is the opportunity to pursue a tenured professorship, which takes many years at low pay, and if you don't get a professorship, the only backup plan is computer programming.
- valarauko 5y ago
  As an Indian working as a biology postdoc, I can't speak to the experiences for people in physics, but at least in biology at this level Americans don't seem very interested. At my midsize institute that's got a reasonable reputation, I would be hard pressed to name a single American postdoc. Almost all the PhD students are American, and almost none of the postdocs. Chinese & Indians alone account for probably 60-70% of the postdocs, and they are the ones who stick around the longest (probably due to the extremely high bar both these nationalities face in terms of getting work visas). Speaking to the American PhDs the most common refrain I hear is an unwillingness to accept a postdoc salary for a couple of years (currently around ~ $55K) - when industry jobs are relatively easy to get for American nationals, and come with double the salary.
- 5y ago
urthor 5y ago
"What Does Any Of This Have To Do With Physics" is an absolute blessing. Thank you for the link.

TuringNYC 5y ago

>> Typical postdoctoral salaries begin at $27,000 annually in the biological sciences and about $35,000 in the physical sciences (graduate student stipends are less than half these figures). Yes, but if they go to Wall St with the same credential, they make 20x that.

loeg 5y ago
With a biology PhD?
- kurthr 5y ago
  Well, I know some really biologists who code really well, but you're right only pharma/medicine are likely to pay off your college debts, the first requires a lot of luck, and the other a lot more school. Biology is well known to be a terrible investment (by people in gradschool).
- guga42k 5y ago
  yes. with massive capital investments in bio/pharma sector some in-house expertise required to improve ROI. ps: basic python and prob theory won't hurt.
b215826 5y ago
The essay is from 1999, so the salaries are a little off -- it's something like $50,000 +/- $15,000 for most postdoctoral positions now. Yes, you can go to Wall St with a physics PhD and have a great career. But the thing is that many students (especially in elite institutions) enter graduate school with the hopes of becoming an actual scientist, not a Wall St analyst.
pmags 5y ago
This is absolutely not a "typical postdoctoral salary", and hasn't been for more than two decades. Most major research institutions follow NIH guidelines for postdoc salaries: https://www.training.nih.gov/postdoctoral_irta_stipend_ranges https://www.training.nih.gov/postdoctoral_irta_stipend_range...
- jasone 5y ago
  When I was finishing up a bioinformatics doctoral program in 2009 I looked far and wide for postdoc positions in the field. My recollection is that the typical salary range was $27k-$30k. What surprised me was that I dug far back in a systematics-specific newsgroup and found the same salary range being advertised for the previous 10+ years. I can't speak to what has happened over the past 12 years, since the low postdoc salaries pushed me to industry, but I can say that you're off with the "more than two decades" claim, at least as a universal claim.
  - pmags 5y ago
    I just pulled three actual postdoc offer letters out of my email archives from the 2008-2009 period. Salary offers ranged from $38K-$48K with the higher end representing a starting bioinformatics postdoc position. NIH minimum in 2009 was >$37K. If you were getting offers in the $27K-$30K range coming out of a comp bio/bioinformatics PhD program, you were unfortunately getting seriously low-balled.

openknot 5y ago

Professor Katz's piece is highly flawed. From the article: "What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyone who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue another career. This will spare you the misery of disappointed expectations. Young Americans have generally woken up to the bad prospects and absence of a reasonable middle class career path in science and are deserting it. If you haven't yet, then join them. Leave graduate school to people from India and China, for whom the prospects at home are even worse. I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs." Two issues: I'm not up-to-date about opportunities in India, but I can certainly say that the remark about prospects in China are outdated for Chinese citizens. Secondly, the remark, "I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs," is more indicative of the professor living in a bubble, instead of a serious assertion that a physics PhD is worse than a drug addiction. With a PhD in physics, one could work for an investment bank; the government (e.g. NIST in the United States); the space industry; the private sector (e.g. optics, quantum computing); national security; and many other fields. Katz's article reads as out-of-touch and unimaginative [edit: though thanks for sharing for the discussion]. The false premise is that the only opportunity you can get with a physics PhD is the opportunity to pursue a tenured professorship, which takes many years at low pay, and if you don't get a professorship, the only backup plan is computer programming.

valarauko 5y ago
As an Indian working as a biology postdoc, I can't speak to the experiences for people in physics, but at least in biology at this level Americans don't seem very interested. At my midsize institute that's got a reasonable reputation, I would be hard pressed to name a single American postdoc. Almost all the PhD students are American, and almost none of the postdocs. Chinese & Indians alone account for probably 60-70% of the postdocs, and they are the ones who stick around the longest (probably due to the extremely high bar both these nationalities face in terms of getting work visas). Speaking to the American PhDs the most common refrain I hear is an unwillingness to accept a postdoc salary for a couple of years (currently around ~ $55K) - when industry jobs are relatively easy to get for American nationals, and come with double the salary.
5y ago

urthor 5y ago

"What Does Any Of This Have To Do With Physics" is an absolute blessing. Thank you for the link.