3 ms·

> Numbers-wise, something like 3% of phds lead to professorships: it's not quite as competitive as becoming a professional athlete, but not far. Peak competitio

by 3np 4y ago

> Numbers-wise, something like 3% of phds lead to professorships: it's not quite as competitive as becoming a professional athlete, but not far. Peak competition. This is a false conclusion since less than 100% of PhDs have the ambission of professorship. It probably varies a lot by field but from anecdote most PhDs I know don't aim at staying longer that possibly postdoc, and even those are in minority - most are aiming for industry or research. I have no idea if it's a significant fraction or not but IMO you'd need to to at least have some estimate to follow that assumption.

shmel 4y ago
Agreed. Most of my labmates lost the desire to stay in academia by the end of PhD. Some of them didn't have it even in the beginning. Myself, I went from "I am not sure if academia is the right place for me" to "I am out of here and will never look back" in a span of two years.
light_hue_1 4y ago
> This is a false conclusion since less than 100% of PhDs have the ambission of professorship. It probably varies a lot by field but from anecdote most PhDs I know don't aim at staying longer that possibly postdoc, and even those are in minority - most are aiming for industry or research. You can't say that without factoring in that by the end of their PhDs they realize that they cannot be professors. There aren't any positions for them. Competition tends to be nasty. The career wears them down. If most PhDs had the option to stay, like say, 100 years ago, and conditions were better, the statistics would likely be very different!
- lmeyerov 4y ago
  Yep. Something like a masters is different, which explicitly is about not continuing in academic research. In contrast, the number of folks going on to a phd with one of their potential outcomes being a professorship is probably closer to 97% end or say 30-50% when the numbers get revealed, than the current 3% end.

by 3np 4y ago

shmel 4y ago

Agreed. Most of my labmates lost the desire to stay in academia by the end of PhD. Some of them didn't have it even in the beginning. Myself, I went from "I am not sure if academia is the right place for me" to "I am out of here and will never look back" in a span of two years.

light_hue_1 4y ago

> This is a false conclusion since less than 100% of PhDs have the ambission of professorship. It probably varies a lot by field but from anecdote most PhDs I know don't aim at staying longer that possibly postdoc, and even those are in minority - most are aiming for industry or research. You can't say that without factoring in that by the end of their PhDs they realize that they cannot be professors. There aren't any positions for them. Competition tends to be nasty. The career wears them down. If most PhDs had the option to stay, like say, 100 years ago, and conditions were better, the statistics would likely be very different!

lmeyerov 4y ago
Yep. Something like a masters is different, which explicitly is about not continuing in academic research. In contrast, the number of folks going on to a phd with one of their potential outcomes being a professorship is probably closer to 97% end or say 30-50% when the numbers get revealed, than the current 3% end.