8 ms·

The US already produces too many scientists measured by people with PhDs. As someone who finished their PhD during the pandemic and faced a bad job market for r

The US already produces too many scientists measured by people with PhDs. As someone who finished their PhD during the pandemic and faced a bad job market for research jobs, I feel that without increasing the federal science budget, the current generation of US PhD graduates will have to compete with more experienced Russian scientists entering the US job market. From what I understand exactly that happened during the early 90s and many new PhD graduates found themselves without a job related to their degree. I don't recommend to anyone to get a PhD these days.

azinman2 4y ago
And yet everyone says they can’t find enough talent. It can’t be both. PhDs can do more things this just become a professor, which does have a fixed number of spots.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  > everyone says a vigorous and unending renegotiation between management, the agents of management, and people who "do it", in action.. advanced negotiating tactic - broadly give public opinion in mainstream media about "shortages" of whatever it is that you want more control over.. next, read carefully for market change and new entrants.. rewards, feast on newbs and do-gooders with special offers and limited term deals.. repeat..
- bluGill 4y ago
  I need specifc talent. I don't care how great you are a physics, pharmacy, mechanical engineering, or any of dozens of other PhDs that you might have, I'm hiring people who program and your degree isn't the right one.
  - btrettel 4y ago
    Don't be too quick to write someone off for their degree. The best Python programmer I know has a PhD in civil engineering. And I've certainly got the impression that people write me off as a programmer far too soon because my PhD is in mechanical engineering.
  - akhmatova 4y ago
    Obviously a PhD is not a substitute for actual programming skills. But what is so specific about your needs that the candidate absolutely must have a CS degree -- and for which it simply will not suffice, as is nearly universally standard throughout the industry, to have "equivalent experience"?
    - bluGill 4y ago
      I didn't say I'm hiring CS degrees. I just said a non CS degree isn't anything. There are lots of great programmers with many different backgrounds. However if you don't have a CS degree you need to prove you can program. Even those with a CS degree need to prove they can program, but odds are a bit better they can.
      - akhmatova 4y ago
        I just said a non CS degree isn't anything. A strange view of the world (even the world programming), to say the least.
        bluGill 4y ago
        Some PhDs are great programmers. Some read half of how to learn YYY language in 24 hours and think they are god's gift to programming. In general I find people without a CD degree don't get why clean code is important. Since I'm on a project with tens of millions of lines of code (big, but I'm well aware that other projects are much bigger) clean code is important.
        akhmatova 4y ago
        With you basically, but I phrase it as: "Without a CS degree or equivalent experience."
  - azinman2 4y ago
    The good news is there are more employment opportunities than just programming for these folks.
- okaram 4y ago
  Meh ... PhD are super-specialized, which is great if that's what you are looking for, but may not be particularly good if not. For example, a person with a PhD in history will probably be a good writer and researcher, but may need a couple of years training and experience before they're an amazing journalist, for example, and may only be OK at PR, even after a couple of years. If you want PR 'talent' then the history PhDs would not be very helpful. A bio PhD would be amazing at many things, but would probably suck as a nurse. So it's not just the raw talent, but also training and inclination.
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    This depends. I know people doing/with PhDs who are great theoreticians and good programmers but I also know people who (will) have all the creds in the world but simply know fuck all about actually making useful software/anything. Even in an industrial research context they'd be less useful than you'd think because they wouldn't be able to translate it into useful business applications.
  - sjg007 4y ago
    >PhD are super-specialized Yes they have specific expertise in some field. But also they know how to do intendent research. This is the critical skill.
  - azinman2 4y ago
    Why do people need to change professions?
exdsq 4y ago
My wife working in research at the moment and wouldn't recommend that either (as she works her thousandth weekend in a row for low pay getting stressed about output to find the next research position)
sdenton4 4y ago
There's too many phd's for the number of available academic jobs, but that has nothing to do with broader hiring...
- btrettel 4y ago
  I'm thinking of non-academic jobs too. There are a lot of research positions requiring a PhD in my area. There's still a massive surplus of PhDs in my area despite this.
Dma54rhs 4y ago
It always amazes me that when the upper class is bothered by the more competitive job market the "immigrants are stealing our jobs" is fine and tolerated idea. When it's the lower class its no one is taking your job, they are creating jobs. Similar discussions when people talk about IT and Indian visa holders.
- btrettel 4y ago
  I didn't say they were "stealing" my job, just that new graduates won't be able to compete well against more experienced folks. A PhD is a bad deal even without more immigration. Edit: I don't think your comment is fair. My recommended solution was not to cut immigration or anything like that.
  - petermcneeley 4y ago
    Here is Eric Weinstein on the subject. https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-government-universities-industry-create-domestic-labor-shortages-of-scientists-high-tech-workers https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-gove... My personal view is more similar to yours. We simply dont fund science almost at all. The economy is simply dysfunctional.
    - sjg007 4y ago
      We do need a big ARPA like investment in research. Right now we depend on defense spending but we are simply not spending enough on research.
      - blip54321 4y ago
        MIT has an endowment of $20M per professor. We spend plenty on research, just inequitably, and with bizarre pyramid schemes.
        closeparen 4y ago
        I will be very worried for the future of civilization when these hundred-year institutions that were supposed to be at least partly self-funding acquiesce to the popular demand to bankrupt themselves over not even a generation. MIT could spend that much… for 8 years. Then what?
robonerd 4y ago
PhDs aren't fungible.
2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
Get good. Artificial scarcity of PhDs (or really anything) is not the answer. We want meritocracies right?
- btrettel 4y ago
  I think the quality of my research is considerably above average. Unfortunately the people making hiring decisions mostly look at things like number of publications and years of experience and rarely the actual publications themselves.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    Their loss? Do you want to work with organizations that hire that way? What is your goal?
    - btrettel 4y ago
      It is their loss, and I don't want to work with organizations that hire like that. But that's how hiring is done in academia. A lot of the non-academic research labs work similarly. (Classified research does not have strict publication requirements in my experience, though.) Having a job doing valuable research would be nice. I'm not too picky about the topic, but it seems that most employers view the capabilities of a candidate very narrowly. So I'm probably stuck with things like what I did during my PhD.
sjg007 4y ago
I use to think this way. I do not anymore. A PhD is independent research training which is by far the most important skill for new knowledge and hence new business and new technology creation. We need way more PhDs than we have if we are to survive and thrive as a species.
- btrettel 4y ago
  I agree that a PhD is training, though I will disagree that it's independent research training as few PhD graduates can do truly independent research in the sense of not needing to collaborate with others. Academia emphasizes collaboration far too much in my view. I don't think a PhD is necessary to learn how to do research, however, and I think it's actually a bad way to learn how to do research. The system is quite abusive in my view and pays poorly. I think it's likely someone could do better by taking a well-paid job and going on long research sabbaticals every once in a while. A while back I recall someone on HN comparing a PhD to an apprenticeship, which is not consistent with my experience. My PhD advisor did not provide a lot of value I couldn't have got on my own.
wrp 4y ago
From what I remember of the academic job market in the 1990s, this was a real issue. You had all these top level researchers filling positions that would have been taken by newly minted PhDs. It resulted in a spurt of quality work being produced at the destination institutions, but I was even then concerned about the effect on the younger generations both in the West and the ex-USSR.
ssnistfajen 4y ago
There's a Chinese American mathematician who had the exact thing happen to him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang Dude obtained his PhD in 1991 and had some bad blood with his advisor. Coupled with the influx of Soviet talent and some stubborness with staying in academia, he had to deliver food and make sandwiches for almost a decade before finally landing a lecturer job and eventually academic breakthrough more than a decade after that.

azinman2 4y ago

And yet everyone says they can’t find enough talent. It can’t be both. PhDs can do more things this just become a professor, which does have a fixed number of spots.

mistrial9 4y ago
> everyone says a vigorous and unending renegotiation between management, the agents of management, and people who "do it", in action.. advanced negotiating tactic - broadly give public opinion in mainstream media about "shortages" of whatever it is that you want more control over.. next, read carefully for market change and new entrants.. rewards, feast on newbs and do-gooders with special offers and limited term deals.. repeat..
bluGill 4y ago
I need specifc talent. I don't care how great you are a physics, pharmacy, mechanical engineering, or any of dozens of other PhDs that you might have, I'm hiring people who program and your degree isn't the right one.
- btrettel 4y ago
  Don't be too quick to write someone off for their degree. The best Python programmer I know has a PhD in civil engineering. And I've certainly got the impression that people write me off as a programmer far too soon because my PhD is in mechanical engineering.
- akhmatova 4y ago
  Obviously a PhD is not a substitute for actual programming skills. But what is so specific about your needs that the candidate absolutely must have a CS degree -- and for which it simply will not suffice, as is nearly universally standard throughout the industry, to have "equivalent experience"?
  - bluGill 4y ago
    I didn't say I'm hiring CS degrees. I just said a non CS degree isn't anything. There are lots of great programmers with many different backgrounds. However if you don't have a CS degree you need to prove you can program. Even those with a CS degree need to prove they can program, but odds are a bit better they can.
    - akhmatova 4y ago
      I just said a non CS degree isn't anything. A strange view of the world (even the world programming), to say the least.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        Some PhDs are great programmers. Some read half of how to learn YYY language in 24 hours and think they are god's gift to programming. In general I find people without a CD degree don't get why clean code is important. Since I'm on a project with tens of millions of lines of code (big, but I'm well aware that other projects are much bigger) clean code is important.
        akhmatova 4y ago
        With you basically, but I phrase it as: "Without a CS degree or equivalent experience."
- azinman2 4y ago
  The good news is there are more employment opportunities than just programming for these folks.
okaram 4y ago
Meh ... PhD are super-specialized, which is great if that's what you are looking for, but may not be particularly good if not. For example, a person with a PhD in history will probably be a good writer and researcher, but may need a couple of years training and experience before they're an amazing journalist, for example, and may only be OK at PR, even after a couple of years. If you want PR 'talent' then the history PhDs would not be very helpful. A bio PhD would be amazing at many things, but would probably suck as a nurse. So it's not just the raw talent, but also training and inclination.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  This depends. I know people doing/with PhDs who are great theoreticians and good programmers but I also know people who (will) have all the creds in the world but simply know fuck all about actually making useful software/anything. Even in an industrial research context they'd be less useful than you'd think because they wouldn't be able to translate it into useful business applications.
- sjg007 4y ago
  >PhD are super-specialized Yes they have specific expertise in some field. But also they know how to do intendent research. This is the critical skill.
- azinman2 4y ago
  Why do people need to change professions?

exdsq 4y ago

My wife working in research at the moment and wouldn't recommend that either (as she works her thousandth weekend in a row for low pay getting stressed about output to find the next research position)

sdenton4 4y ago

There's too many phd's for the number of available academic jobs, but that has nothing to do with broader hiring...

btrettel 4y ago
I'm thinking of non-academic jobs too. There are a lot of research positions requiring a PhD in my area. There's still a massive surplus of PhDs in my area despite this.

Dma54rhs 4y ago

It always amazes me that when the upper class is bothered by the more competitive job market the "immigrants are stealing our jobs" is fine and tolerated idea. When it's the lower class its no one is taking your job, they are creating jobs. Similar discussions when people talk about IT and Indian visa holders.

btrettel 4y ago
I didn't say they were "stealing" my job, just that new graduates won't be able to compete well against more experienced folks. A PhD is a bad deal even without more immigration. Edit: I don't think your comment is fair. My recommended solution was not to cut immigration or anything like that.
- petermcneeley 4y ago
  Here is Eric Weinstein on the subject. https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-government-universities-industry-create-domestic-labor-shortages-of-scientists-high-tech-workers https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-gove... My personal view is more similar to yours. We simply dont fund science almost at all. The economy is simply dysfunctional.
  - sjg007 4y ago
    We do need a big ARPA like investment in research. Right now we depend on defense spending but we are simply not spending enough on research.
    - blip54321 4y ago
      MIT has an endowment of $20M per professor. We spend plenty on research, just inequitably, and with bizarre pyramid schemes.
      - closeparen 4y ago
        I will be very worried for the future of civilization when these hundred-year institutions that were supposed to be at least partly self-funding acquiesce to the popular demand to bankrupt themselves over not even a generation. MIT could spend that much… for 8 years. Then what?

robonerd 4y ago

PhDs aren't fungible.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago

Get good. Artificial scarcity of PhDs (or really anything) is not the answer. We want meritocracies right?

btrettel 4y ago
I think the quality of my research is considerably above average. Unfortunately the people making hiring decisions mostly look at things like number of publications and years of experience and rarely the actual publications themselves.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Their loss? Do you want to work with organizations that hire that way? What is your goal?
  - btrettel 4y ago
    It is their loss, and I don't want to work with organizations that hire like that. But that's how hiring is done in academia. A lot of the non-academic research labs work similarly. (Classified research does not have strict publication requirements in my experience, though.) Having a job doing valuable research would be nice. I'm not too picky about the topic, but it seems that most employers view the capabilities of a candidate very narrowly. So I'm probably stuck with things like what I did during my PhD.

sjg007 4y ago

I use to think this way. I do not anymore. A PhD is independent research training which is by far the most important skill for new knowledge and hence new business and new technology creation. We need way more PhDs than we have if we are to survive and thrive as a species.

btrettel 4y ago
I agree that a PhD is training, though I will disagree that it's independent research training as few PhD graduates can do truly independent research in the sense of not needing to collaborate with others. Academia emphasizes collaboration far too much in my view. I don't think a PhD is necessary to learn how to do research, however, and I think it's actually a bad way to learn how to do research. The system is quite abusive in my view and pays poorly. I think it's likely someone could do better by taking a well-paid job and going on long research sabbaticals every once in a while. A while back I recall someone on HN comparing a PhD to an apprenticeship, which is not consistent with my experience. My PhD advisor did not provide a lot of value I couldn't have got on my own.

wrp 4y ago

From what I remember of the academic job market in the 1990s, this was a real issue. You had all these top level researchers filling positions that would have been taken by newly minted PhDs. It resulted in a spurt of quality work being produced at the destination institutions, but I was even then concerned about the effect on the younger generations both in the West and the ex-USSR.

ssnistfajen 4y ago

There's a Chinese American mathematician who had the exact thing happen to him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang Dude obtained his PhD in 1991 and had some bad blood with his advisor. Coupled with the influx of Soviet talent and some stubborness with staying in academia, he had to deliver food and make sandwiches for almost a decade before finally landing a lecturer job and eventually academic breakthrough more than a decade after that.