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Why would you want to get kids into science? It don’t pay for shit and career/life prospects are grim. Grind out a phd for 80k starting salary? Hard pass
by rdtwo 4y ago
Why would you want to get kids into science? It don’t pay for shit and career/life prospects are grim. Grind out a phd for 80k starting salary? Hard pass
- dislikedtom2 4y agoI'm not able to tell if this comment is satire and it worries me.
- auxym 4y agoI don't think it's satire. STEM is pushed hard, but realistically, science and math dont have that great career prospects. For one thing, a PhD, and the 4-7 year opportunity cost that comes with it, is pretty much required to get anything more than a lab tech job. After that PhD, where do you go? You can try for an insanely competitive tenure track faculty position. Or a very limited number of industry researcher jobs. The E in STEM (traditional engineering) isn't exactly tech in terms of salaries and job availability, but it mostly guarantees paying the bills with a decent WLB after "just" a bachelor's.
- QuadmasterXLII 4y agoI mean, usually you just end up trading stonk at Renaissance Technologies or PanAgora. I'm not studying anything finance related and haven't even finished my phd and they've still been actively after me to sell my soul for mid six figures. The worst part was, I did the interviews to get an offer and everyone I talked to was tangibly brilliant- like could really be changing the world instead of this. I almost did it for the money + chance to work with a bunch of actually smart people, but the moral implications barely won out.
- karmakurtisaani 4y agoKnowing what I know now, I would have jumped ship in your shoes in an instant. After 5 years of that work you could be free from working ever again and do whatever you feel like. I've heard that RT for example can pay you up to 1M per year for entry level, and looking at their profit margins I don't really doubt it.
- ourmandave 4y agoHad to look it up. The starting salary for a research scientist is $170 - $205K. https://www.rentec.com/Careers.action?researchScientist=true https://www.rentec.com/Careers.action?researchScientist=true
- vasco 4y agoAt those places the real money is made by being allowed to participate in the employee-only investment funds.
- karmakurtisaani 4y agoRT has a yearly return averaging around 40%, and the employees only portfolio averages around 70% per year (at least this was the case a few years ago still). I would imagine the major part of the compensation comes from bonuses and the opportunity to invest in the employees only fund. 170k-200k is not that different from ordinary banks, I can't imagine it's all RT would pay. Edit: had to look up the annual returns and they seem to be a bit different depending on where you look, so take those numbers with a grain of salt. In any case they're consistently the most profitable hedge fund out there.
- ProjectArcturis 4y agoWhat moral implications? Quants at RenTech are basically just card counters in the biggest casino in the world.
- QuadmasterXLII 4y agoI came to the conclusion that most likely, taking the job was morally neutral- barely hurting nor helping anyone outside the firm (not specifically RT- don't want to out myself); but that on a larger scale our country is rotting because our most capable thinkers are doing this instead of anything morally positive (solving healthcare, solving the climate crisis, leading the country), and I didn't want to participate in that brain drain. Looking at my own motivations, one of the big draws of the position was that everyone I talked to at the firm was competent and pleasant, while in domains solving real problems (again for example healthcare and climate) 70% of people I've interacted with are stupid, petty, or both. But stepping back, isn't that state of affairs existentially horrifying? If that status quo persists, will we even survive as a species?
- ProjectArcturis 4y agoFair. It's really a shame that society incentivizes its smartest to go into finance rather than a positive-sum endeavor. If it's any reassurance, the world has pretty much always been this way. And I'm pretty surprised everyone you met was pleasant -- that was certainly not my experience at a hedge fund.
- mcculley 4y agoThe current labor market is paying much better than before for scientists with just a B.S. I do agree that there is little economic value in most Ph.D. programs.
- Avicebron 4y agoFrom my experience working in biotech I would say certainly a B.S. in a scientific field (like biochemistry, etc.) There is often a hard cap in the career trajectory without a PhD. Often there are enough PhDs out there that moving into management in industry often requires this vs. Stagnating as a lab scientist without a huge upward spike in income/responsibilities.
- pdpi 4y agoA PhD in maths is _incredibly_ valuable. Anything abstract algebra related, and the likes of the NSA are all over you. Anything numerical analysis related will find plenty of opportunities in finance, and the industry just calls statistics specialists "Data Scientists".
- 4ad 4y ago> NSA > finance You're not selling it.
- annyeonghada 4y agoYeah, I remember my Physics degree: "With a Physics degree you will have lots of employment opportunities... but not in Physics!"
- auxym 4y agoYeah, to be fair, my perspective is from Canada, which I probably should have mentioned. I mean, we do have the RCMP and Bay Street, but I don't think it's comparable (in number of positions, salaries offered, etc) to NSA and Wall Street.
- insightcheck 4y agoI heard that if you studied math with applications to computer science, you can find great opportunities with technology too (if not moving to the US for places like Google, there are quantum computing startups like Xanadu in Canada, along with other technology startups in Canada’s big cities too). In addition, outside of the RCMP, various ministries of the Canadian government could need the skillset too (Statistics Canada being the one that first comes to mind, though any teams that do economic analyses could benefit from someone with the background).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- wbl 4y agoGS pay isn't that competitive
- jleyank 4y agoThere are a fair number of phd’s employed in biotech/pharma. Who do you think makes the stuff? Bs/ms are their techs. The ads in the states publishes salary history every year for those who care. It’s not SV salary but it’s way more useful than selling ads and scarfing data - you can actually end up curing a cancer or other diseases… And before you go about just curing symptoms, remember that many real cures would require gene modification and people aren’t all that interested in being a gmo. Ask RA sufferers about drugs like Humera re curing symptoms.
- runeblaze 4y agoDefinitely not a satire but the hard truth. Your kid might end up having a strong existential crisis about why pursuing a "science" field ends up with 80k salary jobs when with that effort you could just go to FAANG as a SWE with a much higher salary with a bachelor's degree. If you don't get there as a bachelor's, just go there with a master's. The "strategy" is to get your kid interested in science enough so that they make a strong resume to a good college and have a strong foundation, then sway them to learn CS and get a SWE job.
- europeanguy 4y agoBecause it's interesting.
- karmakurtisaani 4y agoThis is a very much valid point. Science is amazingly cool, but gives you a pretty shit life. I'll encourage my kids towards science as much as needed and let their develop their thinking while they're at it, and congratulate them for the enlightenment when they come tell me that working as a scientist sucks. It's still really good for them to pursue that career early, if it's what they enjoy.
- mcculley 4y agoI think your assessment is not based on the current labor market. I am aware of scientists with a fresh B.S. making that much. I do agree that there is little economic value in most Ph.D. programs.
- chriskanan 4y agoAs a scientist, I'd say this claim doesn't hold true for many scientific disciplines. I know scientists working in biopharma earning over $1M per year. That said, I do think the salary mentioned is accurate as a starting salary in academia for a research faculty position (tenure track starting salary in USA is ~50% higher though), but academia pays much worse than industry. You give up salary for huge amounts of autonomy.
- jbsimpson 4y agoYou also have to factor in how terrible post-doc pay and job security is, just to have a shot at getting on the tenure track. In the US it's half of that 80k number in bio research.
- counters 4y agoWe also need to dispel the myth that tenure track academic roles are the only jobs for scientists. In my field, one can have a wonderful, decently-paying career working in some of the most desirable places in the US if they go the national lab route. There's also a thriving private sector which will just get bigger. This doesn't even factor in the exit ramp careers if, late in the game, a student realizes that "science" isn't quite what they want to do for their 9-5 - e.g., trading in all of those hundreds or thousands of hours grinding data analyses for their Masters/PhD for a career in data science or software engineering. We should make sure that folks understand a modern career in science may look, from a salary and QoL perspective, quite like a doctor or other professional. High-stress, relatively low-pay, challenging from your late teens to late twenties, then a rapid increase in earning power and opportunity into your early thirties.
- insightcheck 4y agoI completely agree, but I think most people who arrive at this perspective only reach this view after spending time in industry or adjacent to people working there. A lot of the focus on tenure track jobs comes from professors and academics who dedicate their life almost solely in academic environments (so in their view, it’s a rather unhealthy attitude of academic tenure or bust). I’m not sure how feasible this is, but perhaps a work-study private sector summer internship could be an encouraged part of certain PhD, to widen perspectives and help both students and professors better understand the possibilities out there, which someone can be motivated to strive for, rather than settle for.
- rcxdude 4y agoAn understanding of and willingness to do science is a broadly applicable skill across many different disciplines (even if you don't get a degree in it), as well as being a useful life skill. It's something kids absolutely should be exposed to even if it's not their passion nor do they wind up doing something as an adult which would be generally labelled 'science' (which is a shorthand usually meaning natural sciences specifically).
- Forge36 4y agoThis is a pretty techy group. Out of curiosity what do you do and what was your major?
- Nursie 4y agoBecause it gives them tools to understand the world. Because not everything you teach kids has to lead to a PhD or a specific career? Because 'science' plays into engineering, finance and tech sector careers? This has got to be some sort of satire.
- lawn 4y agoTo me, getting kids into science is not just a path to PhDs, but to engineering and technology in general, and that is a very lucrative area money wise.
- scrappyjoe 4y agoThis is the sort of comment that makes me really take a hard look at capitalism. The way I see it, scientific work is rewarding in and of itself. I don’t _need_ to make huge amounts of money if I’m doing something intellectually rewarding that contributes to our collective knowledge. Sure, add monetary compensation to your list of optimising constraints. But to make it the SOLE optimising constraint in your life? That’s tragic, IMO. Make enough. Do interesting things. Cultivate rewarding relationships. Be happy.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- watwut 4y agoPhDs are massively taken advantage of. The whole "do it for passion" thing is literally used as argument to abuse them. Little money, long hours, effectively up or out pyramid where most people gonl out, expectation that you will move in few years and partner will follow.
- OgAstorga 4y agoMore than half the American families earn less than 75k household income[1]. So the career/life prospects are grim either way. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri...
- rdtwo 4y agoThey won’t be Able to make it to a career in science. Since you need a PHD or at least a masters to do it you need to go through some top tier universities and invest some serious $$ into it. Science is for love is only a marginally better career choice than art.
- TexanFeller 4y agoMy family made noticeably less than that, even considering inflation since then. In my home town the average family income is around half that in today’s dollars. I’m a high income SWE now. Growing up in a <$75k HH income family doesn’t imply grim prospects, that’s typical middle class. Everyone I grew up with would consider $75k high income bordering on rich.
- tenpies 4y agoI had the same question, but my response was: "at the end of the day, authoritarian politicians will order you what to think, and their media/technology lackeys will enforce those orders".
- trashface 4y agoIts probably more reliable income though. Screw up in tech (not even big tech), or have some kind of life misfortune, and your salary can pretty quickly go to zero. Knowing how to reverse a tree on a whiteboard is not some kind of important skill that employers want.
- analog31 4y agoNot all people have the motivation and self discipline to force themselves through a career in something that they hate, solely for the money. I learned programming as a kid in 1981 and fell in love with it. I knew about the demand for programmers, as my mom was teaching programming at a nearby tech school. My college internship was at a large computing facility, which employed a number of programmers. I formed the impression that programming as a job was incredibly repetitive, stressful, and boring. I majored in math and physics, and ended up with a PhD in physics. I do plenty of programming today, but on my own terms. I work at a place that has a large programming department, and my opinion of programming as a job has not changed. On the other hand, if someone loves that kind of work, or can at least grind their way through it, they're welcome to the money. It may have taken me a bit longer to reach a decent salary level. Today, I'm the highest ranking "technical track" worker in one division of a F500. Had I gone into programming, I might have reached a plateau, or burnt out.
- aqsalose 4y agoI suspect interacting with the real physical world and its realities and to realize one can affect it would be good, no matter what career they'd pick later. Picking a career in software development has been a good choice for bright kids for several decades now. In the long term view, the past is full of "good career choices for bright kids" that at some point no longer were not. The physical world is not going anywhere.
- walleeee 4y agoan 80k starting salary is hardly grim and if you happen to become a decent scientist or technician along the way there is usually work to be found, but yes, the phd mill incentive matrix is a blight and demonstrates broader misalignments in microcosm