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I went into a master's program at SUNY CNSE back in 2014 for "nanoscale engineering" hoping to do some research in MEMS/NEMS. Turns out there were no research s

I went into a master's program at SUNY CNSE back in 2014 for "nanoscale engineering" hoping to do some research in MEMS/NEMS. Turns out there were no research spots available with the groups working on that stuff so I ended up in a group working on EUV photoresists. I ended up not doing much actual "nanoscale research" and mostly just did some data science/engineering for the group since all the data processing code they had took 10+ hours to run for each experiment trial. I fixed that code to run in under 10 minutes and decided I should probably just start looking for jobs in software. Couldn't be happier. Every person I interacted with in the semiconductor space was either an academic who was stuck in a lab 12+ hours a day or some line manager for Intel/IBM/TSMC/etc. that was on-call 24/7 if something went wrong. Both of those sounded terrible to me regardless of the pay.

jjoonathan 4y ago
If they paid me to be on-call as much as they payed my father (doctor) to be on-call, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Maybe I would have regretted it in 10 years -- he sure did -- but I'd have loved it for a while. Terrible pay and terrible hours and long school and hard work is just irredeemable.
scrlk 4y ago
This reminds me of my path: wanted to study EE because I thought that designing chips, working in a fab etc. would be cool, started studying EE and realised I would need to get a PhD to do the more interesting work (frankly I'm not smart enough to do a PhD), plus tepid job prospects in the UK. Ended up as a power systems engineer, which is the complete opposite in terms of scale from semiconductors!
bluelan949 4y ago
Likewise, I graduated from a very similar program to CNSE. It was a program attached to the main engineering school. The work seemed so interesting and I felt I would end up doing impactful research. That was until I did an internship following a grad student doing work on solar cells. Every day was sitting 8+ hours in one room doing CVD then XRD. It was soul crushing. I realized the program was more of a PhD-prep program and most people I know who graduated and didn’t go for a PhD either 1) went into software or 2) work as some menial process engineer working the “assembly line” with no meaningful upwards mobility.
- lcvw 4y ago
  Intel (and similar fab companies as well) is famous for even treating it’s phds as menial process engineers. When I graduated the only Intel fab jobs I was qualified for were in Indonesia or some other SE Asian country, and descriptions were basically “you are the SEM person, you do SEM all day.” I know a surprising amount of people who came out of CNSE (without following up with grad school) and are now landscapers, waiters, or similar. The skillset is so specialized as to be almost worthless unless you can find the right role imo. Also the program there CNSE/SUNY Poly is absolute hot garbage, I advise active looking at this field to go into conventional EE, ChemE, or Materials.
  - hackernews1134 4y ago
    What is SEM? What does doing SEM all day entail?
    - namibj 4y ago
      Scanning electron microscope, I assume. And it's basically getting samples prepped and operating the microscope stage and image controls (focus, contrast, etc.). Sounds like it quickly gets boring. I expect in less than one week.
lcvw 4y ago
CNSE class of 2017. The usual career progression of people I talked to was: get a phd, work 12 hour shifts (including nights), be underpaid because you “are not an expert yet”, be fired after 2 years because the company abruptly changed technologies and didn’t need you anymore. Repeat steps 2-4 until you eventually get frustrated enough to leave the field. So yeah I do software now.
IMECASeek 4y ago
Hi there, I'm a PhD candidate major in photoresist. I just wonder what kind of software company would hire us and are there any must-have abilities like program languages if I want to get a job in software?

jjoonathan 4y ago

If they paid me to be on-call as much as they payed my father (doctor) to be on-call, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Maybe I would have regretted it in 10 years -- he sure did -- but I'd have loved it for a while. Terrible pay and terrible hours and long school and hard work is just irredeemable.

scrlk 4y ago

This reminds me of my path: wanted to study EE because I thought that designing chips, working in a fab etc. would be cool, started studying EE and realised I would need to get a PhD to do the more interesting work (frankly I'm not smart enough to do a PhD), plus tepid job prospects in the UK. Ended up as a power systems engineer, which is the complete opposite in terms of scale from semiconductors!

bluelan949 4y ago

Likewise, I graduated from a very similar program to CNSE. It was a program attached to the main engineering school. The work seemed so interesting and I felt I would end up doing impactful research. That was until I did an internship following a grad student doing work on solar cells. Every day was sitting 8+ hours in one room doing CVD then XRD. It was soul crushing. I realized the program was more of a PhD-prep program and most people I know who graduated and didn’t go for a PhD either 1) went into software or 2) work as some menial process engineer working the “assembly line” with no meaningful upwards mobility.

lcvw 4y ago
Intel (and similar fab companies as well) is famous for even treating it’s phds as menial process engineers. When I graduated the only Intel fab jobs I was qualified for were in Indonesia or some other SE Asian country, and descriptions were basically “you are the SEM person, you do SEM all day.” I know a surprising amount of people who came out of CNSE (without following up with grad school) and are now landscapers, waiters, or similar. The skillset is so specialized as to be almost worthless unless you can find the right role imo. Also the program there CNSE/SUNY Poly is absolute hot garbage, I advise active looking at this field to go into conventional EE, ChemE, or Materials.
- hackernews1134 4y ago
  What is SEM? What does doing SEM all day entail?
  - namibj 4y ago
    Scanning electron microscope, I assume. And it's basically getting samples prepped and operating the microscope stage and image controls (focus, contrast, etc.). Sounds like it quickly gets boring. I expect in less than one week.

lcvw 4y ago

CNSE class of 2017. The usual career progression of people I talked to was: get a phd, work 12 hour shifts (including nights), be underpaid because you “are not an expert yet”, be fired after 2 years because the company abruptly changed technologies and didn’t need you anymore. Repeat steps 2-4 until you eventually get frustrated enough to leave the field. So yeah I do software now.

IMECASeek 4y ago

Hi there, I'm a PhD candidate major in photoresist. I just wonder what kind of software company would hire us and are there any must-have abilities like program languages if I want to get a job in software?