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Good. Academia is done growing. We're in a steady state, which means if you're in grad school, look at your advisor. Look at the other grad students who have hi

Good. Academia is done growing. We're in a steady state, which means if you're in grad school, look at your advisor. Look at the other grad students who have him. Look at the work of the grad students who came before you, with this advisor. Think about the ones that will come after. Only ONE of you will take your advisor's place, statistically speaking. If you an afford to pursue a PHD for the sake of doing the work and getting the education, go for it. If you have to make the PhD pencil out financially, think long and hard before enrolling. And if your ambition is to be a full professor, reread the first paragraph.

sangnoir 2y ago
Instructors ⊂ Academia
musicale 2y ago
> Only ONE of you will take your advisor's place, statistically speaking The academic pyramid was never sustainable. However, for some fields (science and engineering being good examples) there are decent jobs outside of academia.
- lthornberry 2y ago
  Most academics teach in departments that don’t grant phds. They’re at liberal arts Colleges or regional state universities. True that statistically only a small percentage of grad students will go on to have their own PhD students, but that doesn’t mean there are no jobs for the rest.
  - analog31 2y ago
    That may have been true in the past, but at this point even the smaller colleges are flooded with applicants for faculty jobs.
    - chefandy 2y ago
      A billion applicants for 2 full-time faculty jobs, but they’ve always got a billion adjunct openings that pay shit, offer no benefits, and have no job security.
      - musicale 2y ago
        There can even be competition for those lousy adjunct positions.
        analog31 2y ago
        Indeed, and those positions have had semi-legitimate purposes in the past but have now become a treadmill. For instance, they often served as "academic spouse" jobs. I have a friend who had an English degree, and his wife was a high level science professor. Teaching classes wasn't hopelessly taxing, and they kept re-upping his contract year after year. The flexible schedule allowed him to manage their kids. I used an adjunct job as a stopgap when I was an "academic spouse" too. It was in the EE department at a Big Ten university. I spent my time networking, and one of the other teachers helped me get a permanent job in local industry.
        chefandy 2y ago
        I worked for a household-name-prestigious school (not as an academic) and they essentially used adjuncts for their cash-cow open enrollment classes knowing that people that were passionate and/or wanted to get the big name on their resume would essentially work for free compared to what even full-time non-tenured faculty got. They made a lot of noise about the university “community” and wellness but I guess that didn’t include adjuncts. It wasn’t UPenn, but the conditions are similar: https://www.openculture.com/2013/09/death-of-an-adjunct-a-sobering-and-true-story.html https://www.openculture.com/2013/09/death-of-an-adjunct-a-so...
- foobarian 2y ago
  > The academic pyramid was never sustainable Theoretically it wasn't, or every human on Earth would be a PhD candidate within the century. However there was a period after WW2 where a lot of empty professor chairs needed to be filled and so I believe that people came to expect the growth. So for example you would have the post-war generation push their kids into it, saying "but of course you can be a professor like me, they will be beating down your door to get you hired!" But of course that seems to have stopped around the end of the century.
  - analog31 2y ago
    My dad got a chemistry PhD in the mid 1950s. He said that by that point, it was already widely known that most PhDs would have no chance of landing an academic position. He went into industry and had a good career. I got my PhD in physics, in the mid 90s. Same story.
  - grandempire 2y ago
    The period after WW2 wasn’t empty seats to be filled, it was the government funding science, engineering, and some social science. That changed the shape of universities forever.
    - ocschwar 2y ago
      It was both. The universities needed help recovering from WW2, and they got that plus more thanks to Vannevar Bush.
  - ocschwar 2y ago
    First there was the expansion to recover from WW2. Then there was expansion in science to prepare for the Cold War. There was also expansion from the Great Society's education efforts. And the influx of women and minorities into college. And expansion from other countries sending students to the US to kickstart their own universities. It kept the academic sector growing for decades, gradually, and people just forgot the mindset you have to have for the day the growth stops. And that day came.
robotelvis 2y ago
If your advisor is one of the stars of their field, then probably more than one of their grad students will be professors. If not, then probably none of them will. Otherwise this point is indeed correct.
- LarsDu88 2y ago
  This is more accurate. The productive fraction of professors still follow the Pareto principle or 80/20 rule. And even then, these professors aggregate into the elite institutions making it even more skewed. To get an academic position, you need to have a star advisor either for your degree or postdoc.
  - Balgair 2y ago
    I think it was The Atlantic a few years back that ran the numbers on professors and their PhD alma maters. But I can't find the article, so please accept my bad recollection. Essentially, in nearly all of the humanities, if you did not go to a top 10 PhD program, you had a 0% chance of getting tenure. Not 'like' a 0% chance, an actual 0%. There are no professors at all, anywhere in the US, in nearly all the humanities departments that did not go to a top 10 school. The distribution followed a power law, of course. However, most universities have PhD programs that will accept students. The hubris (?) is just amazing to me. Both on the students and the advisors sides. Like, guys, what are we doing here? This isn't STEM, there's like no difference in the job market between a humanities PhD and a BA.
    - a123b456c 2y ago
      I've known some English PhDs. They were more focused on self-education rather than external rewards. Many of them were training to become high school teachers eventually, and they knew it. They saw no hurry to begin that career.
t-writescode 2y ago
Isn't one of the requirements to work for Microsoft Research that you have a PhD? PhDs might not be working in schools, but there's plenty doing meaningful research outside of academia. I'm sure 3M hires plenty of PhDs; and venture-capital-backed health device companies; and oil companies looking for new ways to capture oil; and so on.
- grandempire 2y ago
  Yes, for engineering and science a PhD is a path to stable employment, especially if you need to get past international gate keepersz (Microsoft research is top tier researchers though. PhD is just getting started)
- juniperus 2y ago
  even the company making King's Hawaiian bread probably has a food science PhD, and a materials science PhD, maybe a chemistry PhD, the grain is produced probably with products developed by another chemistry PhD, with a biotech PhD developing the seed, and a crop science PhD running the trials on these altered seeds, treated with pesticides developed by another chemistry PhD working with an entomology PhD sprayed with a machine using programs developed by a CS PhD, on a field monitored by a soil science PhD, then milled on machinery overseen by a mechanical engineering PhD, later using yeast developed by a fermentation science PhD... and maybe there are some math and statistics and economics and marketing PhDs involved somewhere in this. lol Not that every job in the supply chain requires a PhD, but look at any big company, and it's not like having a PhD in a STEM field is going to hurt your job opportunities for private industry. You just may end up competing for fewer, but better paying jobs. The situation with humanities PhDs, where you only have an academic position to hope for if you want to use your philosophy PhD or medieval studies PhD or art PhD is a very different situation from someone studying a hard science at the PhD level. Kind of confuses people who only know the infamous situation with humanities PhDs when they realize a STEM PhD can actually lead to a well-paying private industry job.
TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
Education? The PhD path commits you to learn more and more about less and less. The opportunity cost isn’t just in life-time earnings, it’s also the time you sunk hyper focused on one very specific topic.
- squigz 2y ago
  This strikes me as a really strange take on acquiring expertise and experience in one's field?

sangnoir 2y ago

Instructors ⊂ Academia

musicale 2y ago

> Only ONE of you will take your advisor's place, statistically speaking The academic pyramid was never sustainable. However, for some fields (science and engineering being good examples) there are decent jobs outside of academia.

lthornberry 2y ago
Most academics teach in departments that don’t grant phds. They’re at liberal arts Colleges or regional state universities. True that statistically only a small percentage of grad students will go on to have their own PhD students, but that doesn’t mean there are no jobs for the rest.
- analog31 2y ago
  That may have been true in the past, but at this point even the smaller colleges are flooded with applicants for faculty jobs.
  - chefandy 2y ago
    A billion applicants for 2 full-time faculty jobs, but they’ve always got a billion adjunct openings that pay shit, offer no benefits, and have no job security.
    - musicale 2y ago
      There can even be competition for those lousy adjunct positions.
      - analog31 2y ago
        Indeed, and those positions have had semi-legitimate purposes in the past but have now become a treadmill. For instance, they often served as "academic spouse" jobs. I have a friend who had an English degree, and his wife was a high level science professor. Teaching classes wasn't hopelessly taxing, and they kept re-upping his contract year after year. The flexible schedule allowed him to manage their kids. I used an adjunct job as a stopgap when I was an "academic spouse" too. It was in the EE department at a Big Ten university. I spent my time networking, and one of the other teachers helped me get a permanent job in local industry.
        chefandy 2y ago
        I worked for a household-name-prestigious school (not as an academic) and they essentially used adjuncts for their cash-cow open enrollment classes knowing that people that were passionate and/or wanted to get the big name on their resume would essentially work for free compared to what even full-time non-tenured faculty got. They made a lot of noise about the university “community” and wellness but I guess that didn’t include adjuncts. It wasn’t UPenn, but the conditions are similar: https://www.openculture.com/2013/09/death-of-an-adjunct-a-sobering-and-true-story.html https://www.openculture.com/2013/09/death-of-an-adjunct-a-so...
foobarian 2y ago
> The academic pyramid was never sustainable Theoretically it wasn't, or every human on Earth would be a PhD candidate within the century. However there was a period after WW2 where a lot of empty professor chairs needed to be filled and so I believe that people came to expect the growth. So for example you would have the post-war generation push their kids into it, saying "but of course you can be a professor like me, they will be beating down your door to get you hired!" But of course that seems to have stopped around the end of the century.
- analog31 2y ago
  My dad got a chemistry PhD in the mid 1950s. He said that by that point, it was already widely known that most PhDs would have no chance of landing an academic position. He went into industry and had a good career. I got my PhD in physics, in the mid 90s. Same story.
- grandempire 2y ago
  The period after WW2 wasn’t empty seats to be filled, it was the government funding science, engineering, and some social science. That changed the shape of universities forever.
  - ocschwar 2y ago
    It was both. The universities needed help recovering from WW2, and they got that plus more thanks to Vannevar Bush.
- ocschwar 2y ago
  First there was the expansion to recover from WW2. Then there was expansion in science to prepare for the Cold War. There was also expansion from the Great Society's education efforts. And the influx of women and minorities into college. And expansion from other countries sending students to the US to kickstart their own universities. It kept the academic sector growing for decades, gradually, and people just forgot the mindset you have to have for the day the growth stops. And that day came.

robotelvis 2y ago

If your advisor is one of the stars of their field, then probably more than one of their grad students will be professors. If not, then probably none of them will. Otherwise this point is indeed correct.

LarsDu88 2y ago
This is more accurate. The productive fraction of professors still follow the Pareto principle or 80/20 rule. And even then, these professors aggregate into the elite institutions making it even more skewed. To get an academic position, you need to have a star advisor either for your degree or postdoc.
- Balgair 2y ago
  I think it was The Atlantic a few years back that ran the numbers on professors and their PhD alma maters. But I can't find the article, so please accept my bad recollection. Essentially, in nearly all of the humanities, if you did not go to a top 10 PhD program, you had a 0% chance of getting tenure. Not 'like' a 0% chance, an actual 0%. There are no professors at all, anywhere in the US, in nearly all the humanities departments that did not go to a top 10 school. The distribution followed a power law, of course. However, most universities have PhD programs that will accept students. The hubris (?) is just amazing to me. Both on the students and the advisors sides. Like, guys, what are we doing here? This isn't STEM, there's like no difference in the job market between a humanities PhD and a BA.
  - a123b456c 2y ago
    I've known some English PhDs. They were more focused on self-education rather than external rewards. Many of them were training to become high school teachers eventually, and they knew it. They saw no hurry to begin that career.

t-writescode 2y ago

Isn't one of the requirements to work for Microsoft Research that you have a PhD? PhDs might not be working in schools, but there's plenty doing meaningful research outside of academia. I'm sure 3M hires plenty of PhDs; and venture-capital-backed health device companies; and oil companies looking for new ways to capture oil; and so on.

grandempire 2y ago
Yes, for engineering and science a PhD is a path to stable employment, especially if you need to get past international gate keepersz (Microsoft research is top tier researchers though. PhD is just getting started)
juniperus 2y ago
even the company making King's Hawaiian bread probably has a food science PhD, and a materials science PhD, maybe a chemistry PhD, the grain is produced probably with products developed by another chemistry PhD, with a biotech PhD developing the seed, and a crop science PhD running the trials on these altered seeds, treated with pesticides developed by another chemistry PhD working with an entomology PhD sprayed with a machine using programs developed by a CS PhD, on a field monitored by a soil science PhD, then milled on machinery overseen by a mechanical engineering PhD, later using yeast developed by a fermentation science PhD... and maybe there are some math and statistics and economics and marketing PhDs involved somewhere in this. lol Not that every job in the supply chain requires a PhD, but look at any big company, and it's not like having a PhD in a STEM field is going to hurt your job opportunities for private industry. You just may end up competing for fewer, but better paying jobs. The situation with humanities PhDs, where you only have an academic position to hope for if you want to use your philosophy PhD or medieval studies PhD or art PhD is a very different situation from someone studying a hard science at the PhD level. Kind of confuses people who only know the infamous situation with humanities PhDs when they realize a STEM PhD can actually lead to a well-paying private industry job.

TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago

Education? The PhD path commits you to learn more and more about less and less. The opportunity cost isn’t just in life-time earnings, it’s also the time you sunk hyper focused on one very specific topic.

squigz 2y ago
This strikes me as a really strange take on acquiring expertise and experience in one's field?