4 ms·

Doctoral Candidates Anticipate Hard Times

25 points by nickb 18y ago

robak 18y ago
I don't want to be rude or anything, but this is the function of recessions: clean up excesses and un-effectivness. Sorry, hoping for easy life people who got their whatevers in Women Studies, Sociology, Psychology, etc, etc. You must have skills that are useful for people to earn money. The party is over. Mr. Market saw enough "professionals" whose only advantage is to talk, talk, talk and talk. Now there is time of doing things that benefit others.
ezf 18y ago
My weed dealer is a PhD Candidate in film studies. Can't wait until I can tell people my dealer is a doctor.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
time_management 18y ago
This isn't really new. Academia has been in this recession for almost 3 decades. Universities are just using the recession an an excuse to ramp up the same garbage one more notch. One reason universities get away with this horseshit is that they're able to take advantage of very smart people who caught an idea very early in life-- that schooling opens doors and improves one's life-- and failed to disavow themselves of it when it was no longer true.
- timr 18y ago
  "One reason universities get away with this horseshit is that they're able to take advantage of very smart people who caught an idea very early in life-- that schooling opens doors and improves one's life-- and failed to disavow themselves of it when it was no longer true." You went too far -- education does open doors, and if we're going to have any hope for the future, we need to continue to strive for a world where that's a fact. I know that it's fashionable to bash higher education in this forum, but an economy that's driven by technological progress takes more than high-school kids who know Python and HTML. At any rate, I sincerely hope that this isn't the first generation where education no longer correlates positively with economic success. That said, I agree that Universities are taking advantage of naive young people -- especially when it comes to PhD programs. But if we're going to have a serious discussion about the flaws in higher education system, we have to start from the premise that higher education is itself a virtue.
  - tokenadult 18y ago
    But if we're going to have a serious discussion about the flaws in higher education system, we have to start from the premise that higher education is itself a virtue. To the contrary, I would say that if we're going to have a serious discussion about the flaws in higher education system, we can correctly start from a premise that LEARNING is a virtue, a personal virtue that has positive externalities for society. But then we have to ask if institutions of higher education are effective at all, and economically efficient if shown to be effective, at providing learning. Learning is a wonderful thing, but much of learning occurs outside school walls, and some very socially useful learning doesn't gain the learner a credential such as a Ph.D.
    - bbgm 18y ago
      The research you end up doing, the collaborations you end up fostering, those are not possible in any other environment. Of course, a lot of learning occurs outside school boundaries, but some very important learning occurs within those walls, and that learning is hard. Plus, not all learning (I would say the most important bits) have anything to do with economics or being socially useful, especially in the natural sciences.
  - pg 18y ago
    I don't think universities deliberately take advantage of either students or professors. I think the people who run them are for the most part genuinely idealistic. The problem is that universities (through lack of competition and inelasticity of demand) got to be terribly inefficient, and thus gradually and unintentionally ended up in a position where they were taking advantage of people.
    - timr 18y ago
      I agree that it's not a conscious process, but I don't know if it's a matter of efficiency -- a lot of high-value work gets done cheaply at Universities. There's plenty of competition for grant money, too. The inelasticity seems to be on the labor side of the equation -- no matter how badly students and post-docs are treated, they keep coming back for more. My intuition is that stricter limits on fellowships (i.e. at most X years of government funding; more like the UK system), would provide less perverse incentives for everyone. But any politician to propose such a move would be pilloried for opposing science.
pg 18y ago
We'll take you! http://ycombinator.com/s2009.html http://ycombinator.com/s2009.html
- mynameishere 18y ago
  Come on. Look at the word "humanities" in the title. A sociology PhD application passes your desk and goes right into the round filing cabinet.
  - einarvollset 18y ago
    Chickenshit.
  - pg 18y ago
    Not true. We've funded people with all sorts of backgrounds. I was a philosophy major myself as an undergrad.
    - gaius 18y ago
      But by the time you started up Viaweb you already had many years practical experience, no?
      - pg 18y ago
        Yes, but I started a sw consulting firm (there were no Internet startups then) right out of college.
  - mnemonicsloth 18y ago
    A doctorate in some areas of the humanities is worse than useless, because it opts you out of most of the jobs that can be gotten through the resume-and-interview process. You're overqualified for everything except laughably scarce tenure-track teaching positions. You don't have to look at it that way, though. A PhD in a quantitative social science, or maybe a media studies program would be in a good position to start founding startups...
plinkplonk 18y ago
well, the article talks about doctoral candidates in the humanities (I think, I may have missed any non humanities candidates, I am too tired to read the article again right now). Perhpas doctoral candidates in the hard sciences/ engineering have more options?
- neilc 18y ago
  In my experience, there is a pretty enormous difference between doctoral programs in the humanities and in science/engineering. For that matter, there's a big difference between doctoral programs in something like chemistry (or physics, I'd guess) vs. computer science.
- madcaptenor 18y ago
  As far as the New York Times is considered, only the humanities exist. No, I'm not bitter. (I'm getting a PhD in math.)
  - ninguem2 18y ago
    Actually the article briefly mention that job postings are down 25% in the "American Mathematical Association's" (would that be the AMS?) "main job board" (would that be mathjobs.org?). I agree that the article is heavily slanted to the humanities though.
jayp 18y ago
Speaking only for myself, I anticipate the greatest of times ahead.
ggchappell 18y ago
> Chris Pieper began looking for an academic job in sociology about six months ago, sending off about two dozen application packets. The results so far? Two telephone interviews, and no employment offers. This doesn't sound like anything new to me. I did my first post-PhD search in 1996. Sent out 105 applications, got 5 interviews and 2 offers. (My degree is in math, BTW.) > "Many of the universities I applied to received more than 300 applications," he added. I heard "more than 1200" quoted back in '96. All this is dispiriting, to be sure, and it does point to troubles in academia. However, it should not be surprising, to anyone who has done their homework. And there is no need to blame the recent economic decline.

25 points by nickb 18y ago

robak 18y ago

I don't want to be rude or anything, but this is the function of recessions: clean up excesses and un-effectivness. Sorry, hoping for easy life people who got their whatevers in Women Studies, Sociology, Psychology, etc, etc. You must have skills that are useful for people to earn money. The party is over. Mr. Market saw enough "professionals" whose only advantage is to talk, talk, talk and talk. Now there is time of doing things that benefit others.

ezf 18y ago

My weed dealer is a PhD Candidate in film studies. Can't wait until I can tell people my dealer is a doctor.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]

time_management 18y ago

This isn't really new. Academia has been in this recession for almost 3 decades. Universities are just using the recession an an excuse to ramp up the same garbage one more notch. One reason universities get away with this horseshit is that they're able to take advantage of very smart people who caught an idea very early in life-- that schooling opens doors and improves one's life-- and failed to disavow themselves of it when it was no longer true.

timr 18y ago
"One reason universities get away with this horseshit is that they're able to take advantage of very smart people who caught an idea very early in life-- that schooling opens doors and improves one's life-- and failed to disavow themselves of it when it was no longer true." You went too far -- education does open doors, and if we're going to have any hope for the future, we need to continue to strive for a world where that's a fact. I know that it's fashionable to bash higher education in this forum, but an economy that's driven by technological progress takes more than high-school kids who know Python and HTML. At any rate, I sincerely hope that this isn't the first generation where education no longer correlates positively with economic success. That said, I agree that Universities are taking advantage of naive young people -- especially when it comes to PhD programs. But if we're going to have a serious discussion about the flaws in higher education system, we have to start from the premise that higher education is itself a virtue.
- tokenadult 18y ago
  But if we're going to have a serious discussion about the flaws in higher education system, we have to start from the premise that higher education is itself a virtue. To the contrary, I would say that if we're going to have a serious discussion about the flaws in higher education system, we can correctly start from a premise that LEARNING is a virtue, a personal virtue that has positive externalities for society. But then we have to ask if institutions of higher education are effective at all, and economically efficient if shown to be effective, at providing learning. Learning is a wonderful thing, but much of learning occurs outside school walls, and some very socially useful learning doesn't gain the learner a credential such as a Ph.D.
  - bbgm 18y ago
    The research you end up doing, the collaborations you end up fostering, those are not possible in any other environment. Of course, a lot of learning occurs outside school boundaries, but some very important learning occurs within those walls, and that learning is hard. Plus, not all learning (I would say the most important bits) have anything to do with economics or being socially useful, especially in the natural sciences.
- pg 18y ago
  I don't think universities deliberately take advantage of either students or professors. I think the people who run them are for the most part genuinely idealistic. The problem is that universities (through lack of competition and inelasticity of demand) got to be terribly inefficient, and thus gradually and unintentionally ended up in a position where they were taking advantage of people.
  - timr 18y ago
    I agree that it's not a conscious process, but I don't know if it's a matter of efficiency -- a lot of high-value work gets done cheaply at Universities. There's plenty of competition for grant money, too. The inelasticity seems to be on the labor side of the equation -- no matter how badly students and post-docs are treated, they keep coming back for more. My intuition is that stricter limits on fellowships (i.e. at most X years of government funding; more like the UK system), would provide less perverse incentives for everyone. But any politician to propose such a move would be pilloried for opposing science.

pg 18y ago

We'll take you! http://ycombinator.com/s2009.html http://ycombinator.com/s2009.html

mynameishere 18y ago
Come on. Look at the word "humanities" in the title. A sociology PhD application passes your desk and goes right into the round filing cabinet.
- einarvollset 18y ago
  Chickenshit.
- pg 18y ago
  Not true. We've funded people with all sorts of backgrounds. I was a philosophy major myself as an undergrad.
  - gaius 18y ago
    But by the time you started up Viaweb you already had many years practical experience, no?
    - pg 18y ago
      Yes, but I started a sw consulting firm (there were no Internet startups then) right out of college.
- mnemonicsloth 18y ago
  A doctorate in some areas of the humanities is worse than useless, because it opts you out of most of the jobs that can be gotten through the resume-and-interview process. You're overqualified for everything except laughably scarce tenure-track teaching positions. You don't have to look at it that way, though. A PhD in a quantitative social science, or maybe a media studies program would be in a good position to start founding startups...

plinkplonk 18y ago

well, the article talks about doctoral candidates in the humanities (I think, I may have missed any non humanities candidates, I am too tired to read the article again right now). Perhpas doctoral candidates in the hard sciences/ engineering have more options?

neilc 18y ago
In my experience, there is a pretty enormous difference between doctoral programs in the humanities and in science/engineering. For that matter, there's a big difference between doctoral programs in something like chemistry (or physics, I'd guess) vs. computer science.
madcaptenor 18y ago
As far as the New York Times is considered, only the humanities exist. No, I'm not bitter. (I'm getting a PhD in math.)
- ninguem2 18y ago
  Actually the article briefly mention that job postings are down 25% in the "American Mathematical Association's" (would that be the AMS?) "main job board" (would that be mathjobs.org?). I agree that the article is heavily slanted to the humanities though.

jayp 18y ago

Speaking only for myself, I anticipate the greatest of times ahead.

ggchappell 18y ago

> Chris Pieper began looking for an academic job in sociology about six months ago, sending off about two dozen application packets. The results so far? Two telephone interviews, and no employment offers. This doesn't sound like anything new to me. I did my first post-PhD search in 1996. Sent out 105 applications, got 5 interviews and 2 offers. (My degree is in math, BTW.) > "Many of the universities I applied to received more than 300 applications," he added. I heard "more than 1200" quoted back in '96. All this is dispiriting, to be sure, and it does point to troubles in academia. However, it should not be surprising, to anyone who has done their homework. And there is no need to blame the recent economic decline.