6 ms·

These are good arguments about phd's not going into academia. But a postdoc at a university is an underpaid training position for the most part. Not a worthwhil

These are good arguments about phd's not going into academia. But a postdoc at a university is an underpaid training position for the most part. Not a worthwhile sacrifice if you want to work in the private sector in my field. Maybe it's more important for industry jobs in biology or something. Personally I think it's a warped system that takes advantage of cheap labor from developing countries. And it feeds itself. The more temporary research staff professors can hire, the less permanent research staff universities need.

godelski 2y ago
> But a postdoc at a university is an underpaid training position for the most part. That's not really true or fair. You're talking about a person who's done likely 4 years of undergraduate and between 4 and 8 (median 5?) years of graduate studies and gained a Ph.D. This person is without a doubt "an expert" in their field. Does that person still need training? Sure. But who doesn't? You're also talking about someone who is probably in their early to mid 30's. Eventually people want to start having a life. And you're expecting them to make pennies? I'm not joking. Here's a list of CS Post Doc stipends[0]. Go to Berkeley or Stanford and make $66k-$80k? I've gotten more money as a PhD Intern! You're going to get more than double that in industry before we talk about RSUs. I think this is something we need to take quite seriously here. There aren't really good reasons for people to choose this path, especially considering how disruptive it is to your life (have fun moving again in a few years :). Maybe we can hope that those who go are just really dedicated to research and following their passions. So dedicated that they are willing to put off normal human things like starting a family, maintaining relationships[1], or even just building one's net worth (or paying off student debt). Some people want to become a professor[2] so will do that. But the big thing I see is that there's nothing to attract the best people. (We can extend this to even just professorships[3]). So who are becoming the postdocs and professors? Who are becoming the people that educate the next wave of people? If you are at the top, you likely aren't going the professor route, you're likely going to industry where you'll likely get 2x-3x the pay AND more freedom in your research. Even if you're pretty mid you can get 2x-3x the pay in industry with an honestly less stressful life (but you may not be doing research or likely have more restriction of what research you can pursue). This, seems pretty disastrous. At best, unstable. There's not a lot of professor spots but I think we need to have some incentive system such that people at the top are encouraged to carry on their research for the public as well as educate future researchers. As a business you want to be greedy and capture top talent, but that's also because you should be thinking much shorter term. At social levels, we have to think generations. TLDR: So are we confident we are getting "cream of the crop" (even if shared with industry) in academic positions? Are we sure that's even true at highly prestigious institutions? I think the answer is "no", we should not be confident in that outcome. [0] https://vspa.berkeley.edu/faculty-staff/compensation/postdoc-compensation https://vspa.berkeley.edu/faculty-staff/compensation/postdoc... [1] Good chance you met your partner while doing a PhD and yay now you both need to find post docs but they are competitive and so good luck finding one in the same place? Hope you like long distance relationships or are willing to let one partner make a bigger sacrifice. [2] Which weird thing that we train someone to become an expert researcher and then as a professor we give them such high and diverse workloads that they will often have little time for research and instead will more be managers. The research skill degrades with time and only keeping up at a high level is not sufficient. [3] In CS a post doc is also often a way to elevate your status. Like you got your PhD from a lower tier university and so doing a Post Doc at a much higher tier can make you employable at a more prestigious university. Because prestige still matters a lot, especially since it is tightly coupled with things like equipment access. [side note]: I think with the competitiveness that it is a bit odd we still have these strong notions of prestige. Just to put things in perspective, if every graduating PhD at the number 1 school, they likely graduate enough people that you could fill all available faculty positions available. Given how prestige matters, it should be clear how high prestige graduates permeate into lower prestige positions. More clear when you start to consider things like how many top universities are in not the greatest living locations. https://drafty.cs.brown.edu/csopenrankings/placement-rank.html https://drafty.cs.brown.edu/csopenrankings/placement-rank.ht... https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/ https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/
- ricree 2y ago
  >And you're expecting them to make pennies? I don't think the person you are replying to was expecting this. Rather, I read their comment as agreeing with you that the benefits and compensation were low enough that few people would be interested in the position except as a stepping stone into a better faculty position.
  - godelski 2y ago
    That usage of "you" was more in the proverbial sense. My bigger disagreement with the parent was about calling it training.
- absolutelastone 2y ago
  Training is how the low pay is justified. I certainly agree it's not a good deal, more of a supply and demand effect. Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 I do agree it probably gets used more as an easy way to get experience, the usual thing organizations crave in their new hires. But it isn't the only way. Top graduates can get temporary research faculty positions or even go directly to tenure track. Or in STEM fields, a few years in industry is seen as positive. Industry and Government research labs also have their own "postdoc" positions which can be pretty much normal pay.
  - godelski 2y ago
    > Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 Yes, I would say it is inaccurate to say that a post doc position is about training. Unless you're referring to them training undergrads and grads. I think there are 2 key things we need to note about your source >> Which items or job requirements are most commonly used by institutions to define postdocs? This is in the context of __hiring__. So they are looking at listings. I don't think just because you are saying that this job will provide training means the job is a training position. Or what we'd commonly associate with a training program, a junior, or anything like that. >> Is intended to provide training in research? The wording here is important. Personally, if you asked if a postdoc was __intended__ for training, I would agree. But if you asked if I thought you should expect to be trained during a postdoc I'd be more hesitant. Certainly that depends. If I hired you as an L4 at Google, and said there would be training, what would that mean to you? Do you think it would be fair to say? What about at an L5 (senior)? L6? L7? L8? Certainly not at L9 or L10, right? There's lots of things that have an __intended__ outcome but don't have the outcome. Momentum is a bitch and when we're talking about institutions, well momentum is a really powerful force. So I wouldn't take that source as a cout de eta for concluding that a post doc is about training the post doc. Honestly, I feel like a postdoc is closer to taking a L5 and saying we're training you to become an L6 or eventually L7. And certainly that's not a "training position" in the context of paying someone as if they are inexperienced. You can always gain more experience. > Government research labs also have their own "postdoc" positions which can be pretty much normal pay. FWIW, if you work at a government lab like LBNL or LLNL and take a __staff__ position then your compensation is going to be much closer to the base pay of a big tech. It's quite common to see these people jump ship and triple their salaries (sometimes they return. Often because it is nice to work at labs). I've seen people do this fresh out of PhDs, no postdoc involved. The postdoc positions pay lower.
abdullahkhalids 2y ago
That's mostly reasonable. But for some people at least, the PhD doesn't give them all the skills they are looking for, so they might do another post-doc (2-3 years at slightly better than PhD lifestyle), before jumping ship.
- wesselbindt 2y ago
  It's entirely anecdotal, but in my experience in academia (which consisted of 4 years of post-master's PhD), I've seen this happen exactly 0 times.
  - maiar 2y ago
    In a lot of fields, postdocs are required if you want a shot at a tenure-track position. For the most part, it’s just another artificial rung the system uses to justify exploiting people.
    - KingMob 2y ago
      Crazy to think that 50 years ago, postdocs were rare.
      - maiar 2y ago
        They should have stayed rare, but they’re a way for universities to get free money from the government as well as a temporary (but sadly permanent) fix for academia’s deep structural problems.
        musicale 2y ago
        Why pay for more of those expensive, unruly, hard-to-fire professors when you can hire cheap adjuncts and postdocs to do teaching and research? The administrative organization continues to expand, and it must be paid for somehow.
        2y ago
currymj 2y ago
generally you are somewhat right, but it's complicated by country. for example it would be less surprising that a UK-style 3 year PhD might want a couple more years training after.

godelski 2y ago

> But a postdoc at a university is an underpaid training position for the most part. That's not really true or fair. You're talking about a person who's done likely 4 years of undergraduate and between 4 and 8 (median 5?) years of graduate studies and gained a Ph.D. This person is without a doubt "an expert" in their field. Does that person still need training? Sure. But who doesn't? You're also talking about someone who is probably in their early to mid 30's. Eventually people want to start having a life. And you're expecting them to make pennies? I'm not joking. Here's a list of CS Post Doc stipends[0]. Go to Berkeley or Stanford and make $66k-$80k? I've gotten more money as a PhD Intern! You're going to get more than double that in industry before we talk about RSUs. I think this is something we need to take quite seriously here. There aren't really good reasons for people to choose this path, especially considering how disruptive it is to your life (have fun moving again in a few years :). Maybe we can hope that those who go are just really dedicated to research and following their passions. So dedicated that they are willing to put off normal human things like starting a family, maintaining relationships[1], or even just building one's net worth (or paying off student debt). Some people want to become a professor[2] so will do that. But the big thing I see is that there's nothing to attract the best people. (We can extend this to even just professorships[3]). So who are becoming the postdocs and professors? Who are becoming the people that educate the next wave of people? If you are at the top, you likely aren't going the professor route, you're likely going to industry where you'll likely get 2x-3x the pay AND more freedom in your research. Even if you're pretty mid you can get 2x-3x the pay in industry with an honestly less stressful life (but you may not be doing research or likely have more restriction of what research you can pursue). This, seems pretty disastrous. At best, unstable. There's not a lot of professor spots but I think we need to have some incentive system such that people at the top are encouraged to carry on their research for the public as well as educate future researchers. As a business you want to be greedy and capture top talent, but that's also because you should be thinking much shorter term. At social levels, we have to think generations. TLDR: So are we confident we are getting "cream of the crop" (even if shared with industry) in academic positions? Are we sure that's even true at highly prestigious institutions? I think the answer is "no", we should not be confident in that outcome. [0] https://vspa.berkeley.edu/faculty-staff/compensation/postdoc-compensation https://vspa.berkeley.edu/faculty-staff/compensation/postdoc... [1] Good chance you met your partner while doing a PhD and yay now you both need to find post docs but they are competitive and so good luck finding one in the same place? Hope you like long distance relationships or are willing to let one partner make a bigger sacrifice. [2] Which weird thing that we train someone to become an expert researcher and then as a professor we give them such high and diverse workloads that they will often have little time for research and instead will more be managers. The research skill degrades with time and only keeping up at a high level is not sufficient. [3] In CS a post doc is also often a way to elevate your status. Like you got your PhD from a lower tier university and so doing a Post Doc at a much higher tier can make you employable at a more prestigious university. Because prestige still matters a lot, especially since it is tightly coupled with things like equipment access. [side note]: I think with the competitiveness that it is a bit odd we still have these strong notions of prestige. Just to put things in perspective, if every graduating PhD at the number 1 school, they likely graduate enough people that you could fill all available faculty positions available. Given how prestige matters, it should be clear how high prestige graduates permeate into lower prestige positions. More clear when you start to consider things like how many top universities are in not the greatest living locations. https://drafty.cs.brown.edu/csopenrankings/placement-rank.html https://drafty.cs.brown.edu/csopenrankings/placement-rank.ht... https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/ https://jeffhuang.com/computer-science-open-data/

ricree 2y ago
>And you're expecting them to make pennies? I don't think the person you are replying to was expecting this. Rather, I read their comment as agreeing with you that the benefits and compensation were low enough that few people would be interested in the position except as a stepping stone into a better faculty position.
- godelski 2y ago
  That usage of "you" was more in the proverbial sense. My bigger disagreement with the parent was about calling it training.
absolutelastone 2y ago
Training is how the low pay is justified. I certainly agree it's not a good deal, more of a supply and demand effect. Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 I do agree it probably gets used more as an easy way to get experience, the usual thing organizations crave in their new hires. But it isn't the only way. Top graduates can get temporary research faculty positions or even go directly to tenure track. Or in STEM fields, a few years in industry is seen as positive. Industry and Government research labs also have their own "postdoc" positions which can be pretty much normal pay.
- godelski 2y ago
  > Are you saying I'm wrong about the definition? It's pretty universal: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21327 Yes, I would say it is inaccurate to say that a post doc position is about training. Unless you're referring to them training undergrads and grads. I think there are 2 key things we need to note about your source >> Which items or job requirements are most commonly used by institutions to define postdocs? This is in the context of __hiring__. So they are looking at listings. I don't think just because you are saying that this job will provide training means the job is a training position. Or what we'd commonly associate with a training program, a junior, or anything like that. >> Is intended to provide training in research? The wording here is important. Personally, if you asked if a postdoc was __intended__ for training, I would agree. But if you asked if I thought you should expect to be trained during a postdoc I'd be more hesitant. Certainly that depends. If I hired you as an L4 at Google, and said there would be training, what would that mean to you? Do you think it would be fair to say? What about at an L5 (senior)? L6? L7? L8? Certainly not at L9 or L10, right? There's lots of things that have an __intended__ outcome but don't have the outcome. Momentum is a bitch and when we're talking about institutions, well momentum is a really powerful force. So I wouldn't take that source as a cout de eta for concluding that a post doc is about training the post doc. Honestly, I feel like a postdoc is closer to taking a L5 and saying we're training you to become an L6 or eventually L7. And certainly that's not a "training position" in the context of paying someone as if they are inexperienced. You can always gain more experience. > Government research labs also have their own "postdoc" positions which can be pretty much normal pay. FWIW, if you work at a government lab like LBNL or LLNL and take a __staff__ position then your compensation is going to be much closer to the base pay of a big tech. It's quite common to see these people jump ship and triple their salaries (sometimes they return. Often because it is nice to work at labs). I've seen people do this fresh out of PhDs, no postdoc involved. The postdoc positions pay lower.

abdullahkhalids 2y ago

That's mostly reasonable. But for some people at least, the PhD doesn't give them all the skills they are looking for, so they might do another post-doc (2-3 years at slightly better than PhD lifestyle), before jumping ship.

wesselbindt 2y ago
It's entirely anecdotal, but in my experience in academia (which consisted of 4 years of post-master's PhD), I've seen this happen exactly 0 times.
- maiar 2y ago
  In a lot of fields, postdocs are required if you want a shot at a tenure-track position. For the most part, it’s just another artificial rung the system uses to justify exploiting people.
  - KingMob 2y ago
    Crazy to think that 50 years ago, postdocs were rare.
    - maiar 2y ago
      They should have stayed rare, but they’re a way for universities to get free money from the government as well as a temporary (but sadly permanent) fix for academia’s deep structural problems.
      - musicale 2y ago
        Why pay for more of those expensive, unruly, hard-to-fire professors when you can hire cheap adjuncts and postdocs to do teaching and research? The administrative organization continues to expand, and it must be paid for somehow.
        2y ago

currymj 2y ago

generally you are somewhat right, but it's complicated by country. for example it would be less surprising that a UK-style 3 year PhD might want a couple more years training after.