13 ms·

> I don't understand why hiring in academia is so weird. Well do the math. In a steady-state where the number of academic positions is static, each professor

by gwd 5y ago

> I don't understand why hiring in academia is so weird. Well do the math. In a steady-state where the number of academic positions is static, each professor needs to train a single academia-focused PhD student in his entire career. OK, maybe make that 2 to account for attrition. But most professors are churning out far more PhDs looking to enter academia than there can possibly ever be jobs for. Then these highly-skilled and disciplined individuals end up working for peanuts for decades in the hopes of landing a "tenure" job. I have two close friends, one in their 40's, one around 50, who are in this situation, and I think it's absolutely shameful. Post-doc positions are fixed terms, so every two to three years they have to worry about getting more funding or being without a job. There's no reason someone as highly skilled and disciplined as these two should be 1) paid so low, and 2) worrying how they're going to support their families every few years. It's really like some kind of a cult. At this point I would honestly never advise anyone to enter academia, unless you're in a field like Computer Science, where industry does a good job competing with universities for PhDs. If you have the chops to get tenure in STEM, you have the chops to be paid more, with better job security, better work/life balance, better career trajectory, better everything, somewhere else.

NonEUCitizen 5y ago
Why are highly qualified folks like your friends not going into industry instead?
- ouid 5y ago
  Well, the post was written by someone who clearly doesn't understand their friends motives, yeah? Perhaps they don't want to work in ad-tech because that would not give them satisfaction.
  - gwd 5y ago
    I specifically said that the situation in CS was better, because industry does such a good job competing for PhDs. When I was finishing my PhD in CS 15 years ago, doing a post-doc before applying for a tenure-track position was pretty rare, and only done if you felt that you'd benefit from it in some way. My friends are in the sciences, which has far fewer opportunities in industry. They're not going to end up in ad-tech either way.
- gwd 5y ago
  I think there's a mix of reasons. One is that they see it as a kind of failure -- like, for them to pursue a job in industry is to admit that they just weren't good enough for academia. This is part of the "cult" aspect I was talking about. Another is the unknown -- they feel like they have a reasonable amount of freedom to choose what to do when they're in academia, and fear that when moving to industry they'll just have to do whatever they're told; not knowing that at their level, they'd have more freedom in industry (and they have more restrictions in academia) than they realize. Another I think is the "almost there" aspect: a combination of the sunk costs fallacy and optimism. If you'd told my friend at the age of 30 that he'd still be on 2-year contracts at the age of 50, he probably would have chosen a different career path. But at each stage, it always seems like getting something permanent might be 3-5 years away. Related to this is the known: one friend genuinely likes and respects his PE, and feels a loyalty to him. How can I tell him that in my opinion, if his PE actually cared about him, he would be shoving him out the door and telling him to go into industry, rather than making noises about possibly finding money for him to keep working for him for another 2-3 years (at which point he'll again have the prospect of losing his job)? I mean, I'm sure his PE actually is a good person and just hasn't thought seriously about the situation; but that doesn't really excuse him. I do try to hint at these things, but how do you tell someone that you think this thing that they are passionate about and in love with -- something they've invested decades of their life in -- is actually toxic and abusive?
  - dekhn 5y ago
    I took the attitude that moving to industry was just a phase in my academic career; in my case it opened up many new doors for my research. But this is not common. Also, the real reason to move it industry is better work life balance. If you choose your employer wisely you can work about 20% of a day and make 50% above market, then retire 5-10 years earlier.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Industry tends to have differing ideologies than academia. Generally academia is about open knowledge while industry is about closed knowledge driven by profits and greed. Not saying there aren't some greedy administrators in universities, it's definitely a growing problem, but in industry it's the defining characteristic.
- willis936 5y ago
  Because industry runs on profits. The dream is to have resources given to you to push forward human intellect without having to answer to short term profits. The most useful math today had limited applications when it was invented. Society doesn't highly value these highly valuable contributions, so there is a scarcity in research resources while having the most alluring work. The result? Highly talented people living in apartments with no prospect of affording a family. In support of my point: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/figure/18 https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/figure/18 Academia spends 13% of society's overall basic research money yet produces 48% of the overall performance. I don't think tripling public research funding should triple public research output. I think it would give some breathing room for the fantastical "meritocracy" belief to be closer to reality in one sector of society. Also, academia needs to cut the g&a chuff.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  The real actual answer might be around the idea of Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right when it comes to Left and Right cultural elites. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/137/1/1/6383014 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/137/1/1/6383014 Basically going into industry would be removing themselves from the Brahmin caste and trying to go into the Merchant caste and that just wont do.
  - hellisothers 5y ago
    I haven’t heard that way of saying it but this is exactly what I was going to say only better :)
captainmuon 5y ago
That math applies to literally every other profession. What one would need to do is to train less PhD students and have more scientific staff instead. Maybe one should even get rid of the current structure altogether, and just hire people as "scientists" and/or "lecturers" after their master's.
- gwd 5y ago
  > That math applies to literally every other profession. Um, not really? A single mechanical engineering prof trains thousands of mechanical engineering grads in his career because there are thousands more ME jobs than tenured professorships. > What one would need to do is to train less PhD students and have more scientific staff instead. Maybe one should even get rid of the current structure altogether, and just hire people as "scientists" and/or "lecturers" after their master's. As long as those jobs were proper jobs, with appropriate pay, job security, and genuine opportunities for advancement, yes. I wouldn't even mind if they all got PhDs if people were honest ahead of time about typical career progressions.
  - gota 5y ago
    Plus the vast majority of engineers formally train (and certify) zero pupils. They may teach on the job, but they don't hand out diplomas
  - captainmuon 5y ago
    As the sibling comment says, the 999 mechanical engineers will not train anybody. So it is still: one person trained replaces one person working. People with PhDs can already work on more than just scientific positions, so it is not a huge problem that we are producing too many. As you say, we should be more honest about career changes. I don't think we need hugely many professorships either. But we should open up the hiring pool. If professors do more and more admin work anyway as their career progresses, why do you need 15+ years experience and personal connections to do that job? In industry, you have the other extreme: MBAs with no knowledge about the subject matter get hired as managers. And if most of the labor is done by master and PhD students, why not open up the scientific hiring pool to people from other specializations or from outside academia? I would say my postdoc and research time was maximally 10% thinking about physics, 30% coding, 30% writing papers, 30% data analysis (and 20 bonus % meetings and people skill). You could easily train a good developer or engineer in a year to do this, about the same time I needed to get up to speed with the topic. So yeah, there is a shortage of positions. But to fix that, you need a lot more funding (and honestly I'm not sure it makes sense if society allocates too much more resources to research. A bit, certainly, but I'd allocate more to health care, primary education, etc. first.) But the second problem is the baroque way to get a career in science. To fix that, you'd need to start hiring like a tech company. And this could actually make the competition worse, but you would be selecting for the best, and not for the people who make the most personal concessions for their career.

by gwd 5y ago

NonEUCitizen 5y ago

Why are highly qualified folks like your friends not going into industry instead?

ouid 5y ago
Well, the post was written by someone who clearly doesn't understand their friends motives, yeah? Perhaps they don't want to work in ad-tech because that would not give them satisfaction.
- gwd 5y ago
  I specifically said that the situation in CS was better, because industry does such a good job competing for PhDs. When I was finishing my PhD in CS 15 years ago, doing a post-doc before applying for a tenure-track position was pretty rare, and only done if you felt that you'd benefit from it in some way. My friends are in the sciences, which has far fewer opportunities in industry. They're not going to end up in ad-tech either way.
gwd 5y ago
I think there's a mix of reasons. One is that they see it as a kind of failure -- like, for them to pursue a job in industry is to admit that they just weren't good enough for academia. This is part of the "cult" aspect I was talking about. Another is the unknown -- they feel like they have a reasonable amount of freedom to choose what to do when they're in academia, and fear that when moving to industry they'll just have to do whatever they're told; not knowing that at their level, they'd have more freedom in industry (and they have more restrictions in academia) than they realize. Another I think is the "almost there" aspect: a combination of the sunk costs fallacy and optimism. If you'd told my friend at the age of 30 that he'd still be on 2-year contracts at the age of 50, he probably would have chosen a different career path. But at each stage, it always seems like getting something permanent might be 3-5 years away. Related to this is the known: one friend genuinely likes and respects his PE, and feels a loyalty to him. How can I tell him that in my opinion, if his PE actually cared about him, he would be shoving him out the door and telling him to go into industry, rather than making noises about possibly finding money for him to keep working for him for another 2-3 years (at which point he'll again have the prospect of losing his job)? I mean, I'm sure his PE actually is a good person and just hasn't thought seriously about the situation; but that doesn't really excuse him. I do try to hint at these things, but how do you tell someone that you think this thing that they are passionate about and in love with -- something they've invested decades of their life in -- is actually toxic and abusive?
- dekhn 5y ago
  I took the attitude that moving to industry was just a phase in my academic career; in my case it opened up many new doors for my research. But this is not common. Also, the real reason to move it industry is better work life balance. If you choose your employer wisely you can work about 20% of a day and make 50% above market, then retire 5-10 years earlier.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Industry tends to have differing ideologies than academia. Generally academia is about open knowledge while industry is about closed knowledge driven by profits and greed. Not saying there aren't some greedy administrators in universities, it's definitely a growing problem, but in industry it's the defining characteristic.
willis936 5y ago
Because industry runs on profits. The dream is to have resources given to you to push forward human intellect without having to answer to short term profits. The most useful math today had limited applications when it was invented. Society doesn't highly value these highly valuable contributions, so there is a scarcity in research resources while having the most alluring work. The result? Highly talented people living in apartments with no prospect of affording a family. In support of my point: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/figure/18 https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20201/figure/18 Academia spends 13% of society's overall basic research money yet produces 48% of the overall performance. I don't think tripling public research funding should triple public research output. I think it would give some breathing room for the fantastical "meritocracy" belief to be closer to reality in one sector of society. Also, academia needs to cut the g&a chuff.
namelessoracle 5y ago
The real actual answer might be around the idea of Brahmin Left vs Merchant Right when it comes to Left and Right cultural elites. https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/137/1/1/6383014 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/137/1/1/6383014 Basically going into industry would be removing themselves from the Brahmin caste and trying to go into the Merchant caste and that just wont do.
- hellisothers 5y ago
  I haven’t heard that way of saying it but this is exactly what I was going to say only better :)

captainmuon 5y ago

That math applies to literally every other profession. What one would need to do is to train less PhD students and have more scientific staff instead. Maybe one should even get rid of the current structure altogether, and just hire people as "scientists" and/or "lecturers" after their master's.

gwd 5y ago
> That math applies to literally every other profession. Um, not really? A single mechanical engineering prof trains thousands of mechanical engineering grads in his career because there are thousands more ME jobs than tenured professorships. > What one would need to do is to train less PhD students and have more scientific staff instead. Maybe one should even get rid of the current structure altogether, and just hire people as "scientists" and/or "lecturers" after their master's. As long as those jobs were proper jobs, with appropriate pay, job security, and genuine opportunities for advancement, yes. I wouldn't even mind if they all got PhDs if people were honest ahead of time about typical career progressions.
- gota 5y ago
  Plus the vast majority of engineers formally train (and certify) zero pupils. They may teach on the job, but they don't hand out diplomas
- captainmuon 5y ago
  As the sibling comment says, the 999 mechanical engineers will not train anybody. So it is still: one person trained replaces one person working. People with PhDs can already work on more than just scientific positions, so it is not a huge problem that we are producing too many. As you say, we should be more honest about career changes. I don't think we need hugely many professorships either. But we should open up the hiring pool. If professors do more and more admin work anyway as their career progresses, why do you need 15+ years experience and personal connections to do that job? In industry, you have the other extreme: MBAs with no knowledge about the subject matter get hired as managers. And if most of the labor is done by master and PhD students, why not open up the scientific hiring pool to people from other specializations or from outside academia? I would say my postdoc and research time was maximally 10% thinking about physics, 30% coding, 30% writing papers, 30% data analysis (and 20 bonus % meetings and people skill). You could easily train a good developer or engineer in a year to do this, about the same time I needed to get up to speed with the topic. So yeah, there is a shortage of positions. But to fix that, you need a lot more funding (and honestly I'm not sure it makes sense if society allocates too much more resources to research. A bit, certainly, but I'd allocate more to health care, primary education, etc. first.) But the second problem is the baroque way to get a career in science. To fix that, you'd need to start hiring like a tech company. And this could actually make the competition worse, but you would be selecting for the best, and not for the people who make the most personal concessions for their career.