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Most young scientists I know don't have much of a career plan. They get a research grant to continue to do something that interest them after the PhD, apply fo

Most young scientists I know don't have much of a career plan. They get a research grant to continue to do something that interest them after the PhD, apply for another grant after that, and continues until either they fail to get a new grant, they get tenure, or they get to tired of the process and go for a non-research position. Maybe they get kids and feel the need for a more stable source of income. I'm just saying that it is not the hope of a big reward that keep them going, but a genuine interest in their current work. So knowing about the tournament market doesn't make much of a difference.

davi 18y ago
I'm just saying that it is not the hope of a big reward that keep them going, but a genuine interest in their current work. So knowing about the tournament market doesn't make much of a difference. There's an intermediate state between flaming out, and winning the Nobel prize, that most people in the biosciences believe is accessible to them. They think that if they follow the 'rules', which most of them have followed, to good effect, for their whole lives (good grades, good work, etc.), they will with high reliability be able, over the course of their careers, to keep getting funded for doing interesting work, and that they will be able to have at least lower middle class lifestyles while doing so. It's not clear to me that this is the case. It can work out this way, but not necessarily very reliably. And I think a good number of people entering grad school would make different choices if they knew this; and the ones who were passionate enough, and tolerant enough of risk to enter science anyway, would probably end up doing some pretty amazing stuff. Which they likely will end up doing anyway, so it's not that the system is broken. It just ends up attracting a pretty large group of people who aren't necessarily cut out for it. [related: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470181 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470181]

davi 18y ago

I'm just saying that it is not the hope of a big reward that keep them going, but a genuine interest in their current work. So knowing about the tournament market doesn't make much of a difference. There's an intermediate state between flaming out, and winning the Nobel prize, that most people in the biosciences believe is accessible to them. They think that if they follow the 'rules', which most of them have followed, to good effect, for their whole lives (good grades, good work, etc.), they will with high reliability be able, over the course of their careers, to keep getting funded for doing interesting work, and that they will be able to have at least lower middle class lifestyles while doing so. It's not clear to me that this is the case. It can work out this way, but not necessarily very reliably. And I think a good number of people entering grad school would make different choices if they knew this; and the ones who were passionate enough, and tolerant enough of risk to enter science anyway, would probably end up doing some pretty amazing stuff. Which they likely will end up doing anyway, so it's not that the system is broken. It just ends up attracting a pretty large group of people who aren't necessarily cut out for it. [related: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470181 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470181]