4 ms·

I did a Ph.D. (chemistry) and a M.A. (geology), both at UT-Austin. I have absolutely no regrets, and knew fully what I was signing up for, unlike many people w

by toddm 4y ago

I did a Ph.D. (chemistry) and a M.A. (geology), both at UT-Austin. I have absolutely no regrets, and knew fully what I was signing up for, unlike many people who are featured in articles like the one referenced here: that is a little puzzling, since you are an adult when you embark on the graduate school journey, and there is no shortage of readily-available information about employability, salary, and so on. But enough about the bewildered adults who awaken in the middle of their graduate program and wonder what happened and who to blame other than themselves. Neither graduate degree cost me a dime, as tuition was waived (really, paid by advisor at an in-state rate) and I had combinations of research assistant (RA)/teaching assistant (TA)/fellowship the whole time. There was no assistance at any point from my family. I lived well in Austin in the 1990s, and had a great social life. It was great. I knocked-out my Master's in just over 2 years, then breezed through my Ph.D. in 4 years. I published 6 first-authored papers by graduation time. My advisers were both nice guys, not overly hands-on with career guidance but I was headed towards a tenure-track position anyway. Research projects were reasonable and that was why I was able to go through smoothly. That and I wasn't walking around asking myself what the hell I was doing in grad school...anyway. My postdoctoral fellowships - first at UCSF, then at Princeton - were great with the notable exception that the ~$30K/year salaries did not go far in either location. My tenure-track journey ended with an appointment as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at a small school, and the salary was $52K/9 months. I didn't last long - those deferred student loans from undergrad were due, and the price was steep - but at the rate I was at, if I got a grant with summer salary, I was looking at $70K/year. Totally great experiences. Low salaries even now, and yes I don't bring in big bucks but I'm not a SWE at a FAANG, but that's not for me. Highly recommended.

jrochkind1 4y ago
It is much harder now to follow that path you described than it was 30 years ago. That is, fewer portion of people who would like that path successfully get it. (Yeah, the early 90s is 30 years ago. Shocking to me too). Whether students now "know what they were signing up for" or not (or should somehow be expected to or blamed if they didn't, which is not quite the same question), I couldn't say. None of the survey questions mentioned in the article seem to cover what their expectations were before enrolling, or if they have now changed. I wouldn't assume that they did, or didn't.
- toddm 4y ago
  Yes, I absolutely think that it is incumbent that adults who pursue graduate degrees do a perfunctory bit of research on their career options and what they can expect upon entering the job market.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    Sure, I mean of course, who could disagree with that statement. I'm curious. I don't know what field you are in, but if when you pursued a doctorate in the 90s, it had been the case that, say, only 5% of PhD graduates in your field wound up with a tenure-track job in your field (this is a realistic number for many fields/disciplines currently), would you have still done it? Figuring you'd be one of the 5%, or that you'd find a non-academic career path with the PhD instead if necessary? Or, armed with that perfunctory bit of research on the job market, would you have chosen an entirely different path?
    - toddm 4y ago
      I'm in every "data science" field except the one I want to be in (computational chemistry/drug discovery). Absolutely true that I would have still gone the way I did anyway. Although there wasn't access via the Internet to as much information as people have nowadays to do that perfunctory research, I was well aware of the low pay that the tenure track offered, mostly due to the fact that I assumed that my public school teacher parents (both of them, elementary school) made peanuts compared to the lawyers/doctors/stockbrokers at the time. My assumption that this translated to higher education was not entirely wrong. I just didn't care and thought that making maybe $80K/year sounded damned good to me to do something I loved. But the point is, I went into it coming from a background where there wasn't a lot of money and I wasn't interested in being a doctor or lawyer or getting an MBA. I might be accused of romanticizing the professorial lifestyle at the time, but I certainly fell in love with the research and the lifestyle. The other things to note are that my Master's in geology is a very, very employable degree from a top-ranked school. My Ph.D., not so much. So there was/is a fallback option to work in the geosciences - turns out I'm not much of an oil guy, and water doesn't pay much - and I could have gone into industry at any time. So, yes, I would still have made the decisions I made.
thwayunion 4y ago
The 1990s were a pretty good time for grad school compared to the 2000s. The 2000s were pretty good compared to the 2010s. Things are now at a breaking point. Last week I had a mentoring conversation with a first year grad student that ended with tears about looming eviction due to over-due rent (un-reimbursed conference travel from months ago) and was followed by a call to a friend who still lives in the area to drop off some food as well as a... perhaps unprofessional... letter to a dean. Those $30K/year stipends from the 90s were decent money; these days, at many institutions, it's still $30K/year. With a dependent and no family nearby, that's one late reimbursement from homelessness even in a comparatively cheap rust belt city. Remember: if you had a mortgage or owned a home before 2019, you feel basically none of the inflation happening in the USA. (And no, I wouldn't fault a mid-20 year old for not predicting double digit inflation in 2019.)
- toddm 4y ago
  That's very disheartening to hear. I can't help but wonder why anyone would go into a graduate program today, given the conditions you describe and the seemingly widening perspective that graduate degrees aren't worth it. Perhaps we're heading back to a time where the "gentleman scholar" from a monied family is the only person who can survive in that system. That would be a shame.
- YossarianFrPrez 4y ago
  100% Agreed. To make matters worse, the economic value of the data modeling / computational skills one can learn in graduate school has vastly eclipsed the typical graduate student stipend. Having recently started a graduate program after many years in Tech, I was a bit surprised to learn that most people in my department are implicit data scientists, or at the very least, data-science adjacent. The monetary opportunity cost is not great for society. In California, typical graduate student stipends are roughly on par with the state's minimum wage ($15 an hour). Good luck trying to buy a house with that money, or trying to recruit anyone who is not straight out of college.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    It turns out that before data science was a buzzword, it was called science and done by scientists.

by toddm 4y ago

jrochkind1 4y ago

It is much harder now to follow that path you described than it was 30 years ago. That is, fewer portion of people who would like that path successfully get it. (Yeah, the early 90s is 30 years ago. Shocking to me too). Whether students now "know what they were signing up for" or not (or should somehow be expected to or blamed if they didn't, which is not quite the same question), I couldn't say. None of the survey questions mentioned in the article seem to cover what their expectations were before enrolling, or if they have now changed. I wouldn't assume that they did, or didn't.

toddm 4y ago
Yes, I absolutely think that it is incumbent that adults who pursue graduate degrees do a perfunctory bit of research on their career options and what they can expect upon entering the job market.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Sure, I mean of course, who could disagree with that statement. I'm curious. I don't know what field you are in, but if when you pursued a doctorate in the 90s, it had been the case that, say, only 5% of PhD graduates in your field wound up with a tenure-track job in your field (this is a realistic number for many fields/disciplines currently), would you have still done it? Figuring you'd be one of the 5%, or that you'd find a non-academic career path with the PhD instead if necessary? Or, armed with that perfunctory bit of research on the job market, would you have chosen an entirely different path?
  - toddm 4y ago
    I'm in every "data science" field except the one I want to be in (computational chemistry/drug discovery). Absolutely true that I would have still gone the way I did anyway. Although there wasn't access via the Internet to as much information as people have nowadays to do that perfunctory research, I was well aware of the low pay that the tenure track offered, mostly due to the fact that I assumed that my public school teacher parents (both of them, elementary school) made peanuts compared to the lawyers/doctors/stockbrokers at the time. My assumption that this translated to higher education was not entirely wrong. I just didn't care and thought that making maybe $80K/year sounded damned good to me to do something I loved. But the point is, I went into it coming from a background where there wasn't a lot of money and I wasn't interested in being a doctor or lawyer or getting an MBA. I might be accused of romanticizing the professorial lifestyle at the time, but I certainly fell in love with the research and the lifestyle. The other things to note are that my Master's in geology is a very, very employable degree from a top-ranked school. My Ph.D., not so much. So there was/is a fallback option to work in the geosciences - turns out I'm not much of an oil guy, and water doesn't pay much - and I could have gone into industry at any time. So, yes, I would still have made the decisions I made.

thwayunion 4y ago

The 1990s were a pretty good time for grad school compared to the 2000s. The 2000s were pretty good compared to the 2010s. Things are now at a breaking point. Last week I had a mentoring conversation with a first year grad student that ended with tears about looming eviction due to over-due rent (un-reimbursed conference travel from months ago) and was followed by a call to a friend who still lives in the area to drop off some food as well as a... perhaps unprofessional... letter to a dean. Those $30K/year stipends from the 90s were decent money; these days, at many institutions, it's still $30K/year. With a dependent and no family nearby, that's one late reimbursement from homelessness even in a comparatively cheap rust belt city. Remember: if you had a mortgage or owned a home before 2019, you feel basically none of the inflation happening in the USA. (And no, I wouldn't fault a mid-20 year old for not predicting double digit inflation in 2019.)

toddm 4y ago
That's very disheartening to hear. I can't help but wonder why anyone would go into a graduate program today, given the conditions you describe and the seemingly widening perspective that graduate degrees aren't worth it. Perhaps we're heading back to a time where the "gentleman scholar" from a monied family is the only person who can survive in that system. That would be a shame.
YossarianFrPrez 4y ago
100% Agreed. To make matters worse, the economic value of the data modeling / computational skills one can learn in graduate school has vastly eclipsed the typical graduate student stipend. Having recently started a graduate program after many years in Tech, I was a bit surprised to learn that most people in my department are implicit data scientists, or at the very least, data-science adjacent. The monetary opportunity cost is not great for society. In California, typical graduate student stipends are roughly on par with the state's minimum wage ($15 an hour). Good luck trying to buy a house with that money, or trying to recruit anyone who is not straight out of college.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  It turns out that before data science was a buzzword, it was called science and done by scientists.