7 ms·

Over 5,000 Ph.D. graduates work as janitors – Why?

34 points by nreece 13y ago

pjaun 13y ago
I know one who does it because he is an alcoholic and a pedophile. Point being, having a Ph.D. doesn't mean you can't screw up your life in a variety of ways that limit your career options.
- mathattack 13y ago
  The point of the article is many of these folks actually want to be janitors. They have no debt and want a job that pays for 8 hours, but requires only 2 or 3 of actual work.
zacinbusiness 13y ago
I have a masters degree in English and earn an average of $3k a month, putting me on the low-end of the income spectrum. But I also work about...15-20 hours a week, from home, and take regular naps and generally just screw around a lot of the time. It's not the same as being a janitor, but it's similar in that there's very little oversight and the work isn't really too bad. So I can really understand the FU mindset, especially as I've worked B.S. jobs where the manager is an idiot and where the work isn't important but the boss acts like you're holding the keys to the nukes or something. I think a lot of the guys that go into super science aren't really looking for huge pay checks anyway. They love the science and the challenge, and they don't want to be burdened with all the BS that comes with dealing with "regular people" because we will get in their way. So I can respect that sort of decision.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  I've worked B.S. jobs where the manager is an idiot and where the work isn't important but the boss acts like you're holding the keys to the nukes or something. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/fourth-quadrant-work/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/fourth-quadra... I think a lot of the guys that go into super science aren't really looking for huge pay checks anyway. They love the science and the challenge, and they don't want to be burdened with all the BS that comes with dealing with "regular people" because we will get in their way. It ain't greener on the other side of the fence. Most software engineers work on pointless shit (and complain about idiotic or short-sighted management) as well. The problem isn't that these product executives and bikeshedding non-techs have low IQs. (We viciously lambast them as "retards" and "morons", but it ain't true. If they were physically limited we'd be dickheads for judging them. It's the willful stupidity that's the sin.) They're more than smart enough. The problem is that they (and half or more of all developers, to tell the truth) are willingly intellectually half-assed. Once they get power it's an excuse not to think. They do become genuinely stupid (in the low IQ sense) over time but that atrophy takes decades. In other words, it's not that "regular" people are the idiots who make our lives hell. It's something to do with power structures and the anti-intellectualism those seem to breed, even when filled with smart people.
  - zacinbusiness 13y ago
    I agree with your points whole heartedly. But when I say "bs" jobs I mean working 7pm to 7am at the gas station where prostitutes will offer to blow you for a cup of ice cream. And the manager acts like its a sign of the end times that you didn't wear your name badge or that you didn't shave.
    - IndieDevClub 13y ago
      You've described the Managers at my part-time job exactly. I spend 4 hours shoveling snow in near sub-zero temperatures and oops I missed a spot by the side of the dumpster... who cares? Do customers go by the dumpster? No. Is it affecting the garbage being picked up? No. Then why the hell do they have to write a 10 sentence angry note to me for the next time I work? They are so unbelievably insane. But I am more resolved than ever. I will stay at that job until I make the equivalent amount of money selling software. When I finally quit there it will probably be one of the best days of my life.
      - zacinbusiness 13y ago
        I worked several shit jobs. Late nite gas stations, food delivery to gang riddled neighborhoods, two factories, and a china warehouse. Not to mention retail, which is even worse because you have to deal with idiot customers on top of idiot managers. It can be an eye opening experience for sure.
27182818284 13y ago
Something I feel this article misses is the market outside of the coasts of the US. If you are one of those PhDs who isn't actively seeking to be a janitor for the relaxation involved, and you're struggling for work, please look at the Midwest or so-called No Coast. There are tons of well-paying jobs in the Midwest for talented people. Salaries are lower than a standard San Francisco job, but the quality of life is so much higher here it makes up for it. The multi-million dollar homes of Oakland and San Francisco can be yours here on a single person's salary working about 40 hours a week. (Admittedly winters here are worse, but if you do have to drive somewhere, wow you had to pay $5 or $9 for the whole day of parking in a garage 50ft from your door.) http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2014/03/it-manager-full-stack-developer-seo-specialist-and-45-more http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2014/03/it-manager-full-st...
- bane 13y ago
  If anybody wants to do a little virtual house hunting for no-coast housing, I highly recommend the show "House Hunters" (the International version "House Hunters International" is also great) on HGTV. They also have some similar companion shows like Property Virgins, Hawaii Life, "Buying and Selling" and "Property Borthers" and it's pretty informative as to what local markets are like all over the place. The format is basically the same every show, somebody wants to move someplace, in 30 minutes they give a brief description of what they're looking for and their budget to a real estate agent. The agent then shows them 3 homes in the area. They pick one of the homes and then finally you see how they've moved in and decorated the place 2 or 3 months later. Along the way you get to see a little bit of the area they're looking in. The other shows have similar, but slightly different formats or spins on the basic concept. But House Hunters has the show format down to a concise science. There are episodes where my jaw absolutely drops to the floor seeing how much house and property they can get for their money. For what my garage costs I've seen people get 2 floor 2500 sq ft homes with a detached garage structure and half an acre. Of course other places are equally depressing and have pretty much destroyed life-long dreams to move to a nicer climate for retirement. However, House Hunters International has shown me some new candidates that look like they'd work very well on a retirement income. http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv40/videos/index.html?xp=hh http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv40/videos/index.html?xp=hh
- 13y ago
michaelochurch 13y ago
First, beyond about a 145 IQ (I'll side-step, for now, the difficulties of measuring beyond 140; note that I'm talking about the underlying "g" rather than test scores themselves) typical work boredom becomes a crippling, anxiety-inducing disability but, because few people can or want to sympathize with that problem, it often gets misconstrued as an attitude issue. After a few years of professional failure, a lot of those people go into blue-collar work where their bodies are worked but their minds are free. Second, while IQ and mental illness actually don't correlate, creativity (which is very helpful for getting a PhD in many fields) is correlated with mental health issues.
- dil8 13y ago
  > Second, while IQ and mental illness actually don't correlate, creativity (which is very helpful for getting a PhD in many fields) is correlated with mental health issues. Do you have any sources for this? I would like to read the some of the studies.
- bokonist 13y ago
  typical work boredom becomes a crippling, anxiety-inducing disability There is a secret for overcoming this boredom: podcasts. Ticket-munching isn't actually that bad if you have a bunch of queued up podcasts and audiobooks that you can listen to. I recommend bloggingheads.tv, C-Span AfterWords, C-Span Q&A, and if you like sports, the B.S. Report. Though if you listen to podcasts, you must be quick to pause when your work actually requires all 145+ IQ points, otherwise quality will suffer.
dm2 13y ago
I don't see how they can group electricians in the same category as front desk clerks and parking lot attendants. What are the disciplines of the PhD graduates? Were any of them earned online or at an unaccredited university? These are important pieces of the puzzle. There are 2 - 3 million people with doctorates in the US. I don't think it's unreasonable to have a small percentage of that number in a low-paying job because of whatever reasons they have (mental illness, committed crime, not good in field, did something unethical in field. With a few exceptions, if you have a PhD and the desire and ability to work, it's not difficult to find a job.
- doktrin 13y ago
  > I don't see how they can group electricians in the same category as front desk clerks and parking lot attendants. Yeah, I wasn't sure if I had mis-read that statement. It makes absolutely no sense. Financially, many electricians make more than I do (software engineer working in research). Money aside, I'm pretty sure I could find electrical work stimulating and fulfilling. The same is most certainly not true of low level customer service.
  - cheald 13y ago
    Well, those who find electrical work stimulating usually aren't very good at it.
    - doktrin 13y ago
      What is this statement based on?
      - cheald 13y ago
        It's a joke. If you're being "stimulated" (ie, electrocuted), then you might be doing it wrong. :P
        doktrin 13y ago
pistle 13y ago
Brilliance is great for party tricks, but requires a whole set of other personality traits and social conditions to be valuable to the individual or the society.
starmanjones 13y ago
janitors are often gov't jobs. Blue collar jobs pay well, esp. govt blue collar jobs, and they come with benefits. These PhDs were smart enough to figure out that the college grads employment and salary stats being put out by CorpGovMedia are fake, bogus, and massaged to a fare thee well. Blue collar is where it is at.
samiheinross 13y ago
This article doesn't seem right to me. At least 90% of my friends studying Ph.D. only because they couldn't find a decent job. They just postponed their misery for five years living with the grant they get every month for researching.
crazy1van 13y ago
Getting paid more in a job is about providing more value to your employer. Getting an advanced degree is about test taking, writing papers, and research. They are not necessarily correlated. This is akin to wondering why excelling at juggling doesn't make you more money in a programming job. Juggling just doesn't add more value to that particular job.
- tn13 13y ago
  A lot of times it is just "paying fees".
  - pavanred 13y ago
    I must agree, I am a Computer Science graduate student and one thing I have noticed is that the only courses that always run out of registrations within a minute (literally) of registration open are the ones in which the Professor is known to hand out A grades to almost everyone who takes up his course. Needless to say many students graduate with high GPA scores. At least in this case, its just "paying fees".
    - arghnoname 13y ago
      Programs differ. I'm a CS grad student (PhD) and it seems like most people don't even bother registering at all until a month before class or so. No one cares about class all that much and for most courses getting an A or a B (anything else is failing) is the expected course of action, though that isn't to say the coursework is easy. You effectively couldn't graduate with less than a 3.5 anyway, though again, no one cares about GPA. If you elect to do a MS, the comp exams are another matter. For the PhD, it's all research, research, research. For that same reason, some people try to take classes that are reportedly less work or where active research work can count toward a class project because otherwise, it takes too much away from research time. It's a very different experience for me than undergraduate because of the low regard for class work (though doing poorly will invite mockery).
tn13 13y ago
"College Degree" is a meaningless phrase. I run a business which employs engineers, electricians, mechanical hardware designers as well as technical writes and so on. Now, if any of those hotel front desk staff or Janitors had any monetizable skill I would hired them for a price higher than that of Janitor but less what what I have been paying to my current employers and thus increase my profits. A lot of those hotel front desk staff and janitors simply wasted their money on college degrees and the so called Phds. They should have taken a bit more realistic education.
hawkharris 13y ago
the average Ph.D. is smarter...than their friend with a bachelor’s degree. This raises an interesting question: what is intelligence? A cursory Google search shows there's no solid consensus in academia. Having said that, there was a symposium years ago (1921) in which thirteen leading psychologists proposed definitions. [0] Here are a few of them: 1. the tendency to take and maintain a direction 2. judgment, otherwise called good sense, practical sense, initiative 3. adjustment or adaptation to the environment. . . 4. global capacity to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively. . . 5. the ability to plan and structure behavior. . . 6. the ability to solve genuine problems or difficulties. . . While Ph.D. students have an impressive amount of specialized knowledge, they don't seem to meet all of these criteria for intelligence. Some Ph.D. students are spending hundreds of thousands on degrees without having a clear career plan, then struggling to lead successful, productive lives once they graduate. This seems opposite in some ways to the qualities of practical sense, judgement and planning ability that characterize intelligence. [0] http://www.unc.edu/~rooney/iq.htm http://www.unc.edu/~rooney/iq.htm
- rdl 13y ago
  It's mostly that the lower bound to get a PhD (at least in a non-imaginary field) is higher than to merely get an SB. If you assume a non-pessimal distribution[1], the average pHD will be smarter than the average SB. [1] This isn't necessarily true of the smartest individuals, and you could imagine a distribution where the 120-130 IQ people stick around to get PhDs, but the SB people are 115-160 IQ, and they leave to go into other fields. Probably true of English, Political Science, etc. -- the smartest people of those undergrad programs probably go into law or finance rather than remaining as grad students and professors within the field itself.
michaelq 13y ago
About 50,000 PhDs are minted each year in the US. Assuming a working life of 40 years, that means there are about 2 million PhDs in the domestic labor market. Now take into account that: 1) For profit universities like University of Phoenix also issue PhDs. Most employers don't take them seriously, but USBLS measures them just the same. 2) We're in the midst of the worst job market in generations, and it may quickly become the worst job market since industrialization. Given these circumstances, having 5,000 people, or about 0.25% of the PhD-holding labor force, working as janitors does not sound like a particularly significant datum for making broader assumptions about the value of the PhD.
pbnjay 13y ago
I think the problem has more to do with students' motivation than the PhD itself. In fact most of the grad students I've talked to in various stages have no real plan for AFTER completing the degree. So they in turn have no motivation for actually understanding the subject they've picked, and no thought process for selecting a research project. They pick the easy topics (or let their advisor pick for them) and don't attempt to study or understand the stuff that will get them noticed or get them a job. The whole point of the PhD is (supposed to be) preparing you for academic work - it's a demonstration that you can do novel, creative, and independent research at a level of your peers. It's not just proof you completed the checklist like a BS. The problem is that many universities have turned it into that. The flipside of all this is that it's pretty easy to tell in an interview who just "did the PhD thing" without any plan for what happens next. If you ask me, that's what's going on here. The people who were aimless to begin with are still aimless. Source: I'm a recent PhD graduate, and work in an hybrid academic setting interacting with current MS/PhD students.
marincounty 13y ago
I'm not going to get Into the pile in hire and deeper, but honestly want is wrong with making a living as a Janitor. I have never understood the reason we identify ourselves by he we make our money? When I was looking for Skanks, and the "One", the one question that literally that was really irritating was,"What do you do??" I done many things in life, but I never once felt any need to internalize my job, career as wham I am as a person. I feel our need to ask "What to you do?" And have the person on the other end judging it is left over from the evolutionary mating ritual. Hear me out--girl wants a fast way of determining who will take care if her and baby--what better question? The question is usually a lie, along with how much said question elicits, but it is asked. When people ask am me why I do; my latest answer is a "recovering porn addict, alcoholic, and drug user. Oh, yea I'm a Animal rights activist, and spokesperson for the use of birth control". When I find a person who actually get's it I would slave away at any job in order to satisfy her consumerism, and need for a big cave. As to being a Janitor, I get it. It's solitary. You can think. In college, I always worked as a security guard, or mini storage manager; I didn't have to deal with anyone, and I could concentrate on what I was really interested in. (I looked for jobs where I knew I would be watching a building, or something other than people. And, mini storages are always 95% full. You can sit and read and code for eight hours). Good luck people, I hope judging people on what they do evolves into extinction. And please, when asked this rediculios question--try to verbally instruct the person on their shallow intellect.
- gregpilling 13y ago
  I hated that question when I was dating also. I usually answered "many things". I also do not think my work defines me. It also brings to mind the movie "Sabrina" with Audrey Hepburn, who father in the movie was a chauffeur so that he could spend his days reading books while between driving stints.
frozenport 13y ago
What if you got a PhD from Bulgaria in literature, left for the USA in 1991, and are 60 years old? Are you in the same category as a well connected graduate from a top computer science program. The lack of analysis and generalizations make this article meaningless. If your title is a question, give me a damn answer.

34 points by nreece 13y ago

pjaun 13y ago

I know one who does it because he is an alcoholic and a pedophile. Point being, having a Ph.D. doesn't mean you can't screw up your life in a variety of ways that limit your career options.

mathattack 13y ago
The point of the article is many of these folks actually want to be janitors. They have no debt and want a job that pays for 8 hours, but requires only 2 or 3 of actual work.

zacinbusiness 13y ago

I have a masters degree in English and earn an average of $3k a month, putting me on the low-end of the income spectrum. But I also work about...15-20 hours a week, from home, and take regular naps and generally just screw around a lot of the time. It's not the same as being a janitor, but it's similar in that there's very little oversight and the work isn't really too bad. So I can really understand the FU mindset, especially as I've worked B.S. jobs where the manager is an idiot and where the work isn't important but the boss acts like you're holding the keys to the nukes or something. I think a lot of the guys that go into super science aren't really looking for huge pay checks anyway. They love the science and the challenge, and they don't want to be burdened with all the BS that comes with dealing with "regular people" because we will get in their way. So I can respect that sort of decision.

michaelochurch 13y ago
I've worked B.S. jobs where the manager is an idiot and where the work isn't important but the boss acts like you're holding the keys to the nukes or something. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/fourth-quadrant-work/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/fourth-quadra... I think a lot of the guys that go into super science aren't really looking for huge pay checks anyway. They love the science and the challenge, and they don't want to be burdened with all the BS that comes with dealing with "regular people" because we will get in their way. It ain't greener on the other side of the fence. Most software engineers work on pointless shit (and complain about idiotic or short-sighted management) as well. The problem isn't that these product executives and bikeshedding non-techs have low IQs. (We viciously lambast them as "retards" and "morons", but it ain't true. If they were physically limited we'd be dickheads for judging them. It's the willful stupidity that's the sin.) They're more than smart enough. The problem is that they (and half or more of all developers, to tell the truth) are willingly intellectually half-assed. Once they get power it's an excuse not to think. They do become genuinely stupid (in the low IQ sense) over time but that atrophy takes decades. In other words, it's not that "regular" people are the idiots who make our lives hell. It's something to do with power structures and the anti-intellectualism those seem to breed, even when filled with smart people.
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  I agree with your points whole heartedly. But when I say "bs" jobs I mean working 7pm to 7am at the gas station where prostitutes will offer to blow you for a cup of ice cream. And the manager acts like its a sign of the end times that you didn't wear your name badge or that you didn't shave.
  - IndieDevClub 13y ago
    You've described the Managers at my part-time job exactly. I spend 4 hours shoveling snow in near sub-zero temperatures and oops I missed a spot by the side of the dumpster... who cares? Do customers go by the dumpster? No. Is it affecting the garbage being picked up? No. Then why the hell do they have to write a 10 sentence angry note to me for the next time I work? They are so unbelievably insane. But I am more resolved than ever. I will stay at that job until I make the equivalent amount of money selling software. When I finally quit there it will probably be one of the best days of my life.
    - zacinbusiness 13y ago
      I worked several shit jobs. Late nite gas stations, food delivery to gang riddled neighborhoods, two factories, and a china warehouse. Not to mention retail, which is even worse because you have to deal with idiot customers on top of idiot managers. It can be an eye opening experience for sure.

27182818284 13y ago

Something I feel this article misses is the market outside of the coasts of the US. If you are one of those PhDs who isn't actively seeking to be a janitor for the relaxation involved, and you're struggling for work, please look at the Midwest or so-called No Coast. There are tons of well-paying jobs in the Midwest for talented people. Salaries are lower than a standard San Francisco job, but the quality of life is so much higher here it makes up for it. The multi-million dollar homes of Oakland and San Francisco can be yours here on a single person's salary working about 40 hours a week. (Admittedly winters here are worse, but if you do have to drive somewhere, wow you had to pay $5 or $9 for the whole day of parking in a garage 50ft from your door.) http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2014/03/it-manager-full-stack-developer-seo-specialist-and-45-more http://www.siliconprairienews.com/2014/03/it-manager-full-st...

bane 13y ago
If anybody wants to do a little virtual house hunting for no-coast housing, I highly recommend the show "House Hunters" (the International version "House Hunters International" is also great) on HGTV. They also have some similar companion shows like Property Virgins, Hawaii Life, "Buying and Selling" and "Property Borthers" and it's pretty informative as to what local markets are like all over the place. The format is basically the same every show, somebody wants to move someplace, in 30 minutes they give a brief description of what they're looking for and their budget to a real estate agent. The agent then shows them 3 homes in the area. They pick one of the homes and then finally you see how they've moved in and decorated the place 2 or 3 months later. Along the way you get to see a little bit of the area they're looking in. The other shows have similar, but slightly different formats or spins on the basic concept. But House Hunters has the show format down to a concise science. There are episodes where my jaw absolutely drops to the floor seeing how much house and property they can get for their money. For what my garage costs I've seen people get 2 floor 2500 sq ft homes with a detached garage structure and half an acre. Of course other places are equally depressing and have pretty much destroyed life-long dreams to move to a nicer climate for retirement. However, House Hunters International has shown me some new candidates that look like they'd work very well on a retirement income. http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv40/videos/index.html?xp=hh http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv40/videos/index.html?xp=hh
13y ago

michaelochurch 13y ago

First, beyond about a 145 IQ (I'll side-step, for now, the difficulties of measuring beyond 140; note that I'm talking about the underlying "g" rather than test scores themselves) typical work boredom becomes a crippling, anxiety-inducing disability but, because few people can or want to sympathize with that problem, it often gets misconstrued as an attitude issue. After a few years of professional failure, a lot of those people go into blue-collar work where their bodies are worked but their minds are free. Second, while IQ and mental illness actually don't correlate, creativity (which is very helpful for getting a PhD in many fields) is correlated with mental health issues.

dil8 13y ago
> Second, while IQ and mental illness actually don't correlate, creativity (which is very helpful for getting a PhD in many fields) is correlated with mental health issues. Do you have any sources for this? I would like to read the some of the studies.
bokonist 13y ago
typical work boredom becomes a crippling, anxiety-inducing disability There is a secret for overcoming this boredom: podcasts. Ticket-munching isn't actually that bad if you have a bunch of queued up podcasts and audiobooks that you can listen to. I recommend bloggingheads.tv, C-Span AfterWords, C-Span Q&A, and if you like sports, the B.S. Report. Though if you listen to podcasts, you must be quick to pause when your work actually requires all 145+ IQ points, otherwise quality will suffer.

dm2 13y ago

I don't see how they can group electricians in the same category as front desk clerks and parking lot attendants. What are the disciplines of the PhD graduates? Were any of them earned online or at an unaccredited university? These are important pieces of the puzzle. There are 2 - 3 million people with doctorates in the US. I don't think it's unreasonable to have a small percentage of that number in a low-paying job because of whatever reasons they have (mental illness, committed crime, not good in field, did something unethical in field. With a few exceptions, if you have a PhD and the desire and ability to work, it's not difficult to find a job.

doktrin 13y ago
> I don't see how they can group electricians in the same category as front desk clerks and parking lot attendants. Yeah, I wasn't sure if I had mis-read that statement. It makes absolutely no sense. Financially, many electricians make more than I do (software engineer working in research). Money aside, I'm pretty sure I could find electrical work stimulating and fulfilling. The same is most certainly not true of low level customer service.
- cheald 13y ago
  Well, those who find electrical work stimulating usually aren't very good at it.
  - doktrin 13y ago
    What is this statement based on?
    - cheald 13y ago
      It's a joke. If you're being "stimulated" (ie, electrocuted), then you might be doing it wrong. :P
      - doktrin 13y ago

pistle 13y ago

Brilliance is great for party tricks, but requires a whole set of other personality traits and social conditions to be valuable to the individual or the society.

starmanjones 13y ago

janitors are often gov't jobs. Blue collar jobs pay well, esp. govt blue collar jobs, and they come with benefits. These PhDs were smart enough to figure out that the college grads employment and salary stats being put out by CorpGovMedia are fake, bogus, and massaged to a fare thee well. Blue collar is where it is at.

samiheinross 13y ago

This article doesn't seem right to me. At least 90% of my friends studying Ph.D. only because they couldn't find a decent job. They just postponed their misery for five years living with the grant they get every month for researching.

crazy1van 13y ago

Getting paid more in a job is about providing more value to your employer. Getting an advanced degree is about test taking, writing papers, and research. They are not necessarily correlated. This is akin to wondering why excelling at juggling doesn't make you more money in a programming job. Juggling just doesn't add more value to that particular job.

tn13 13y ago
A lot of times it is just "paying fees".
- pavanred 13y ago
  I must agree, I am a Computer Science graduate student and one thing I have noticed is that the only courses that always run out of registrations within a minute (literally) of registration open are the ones in which the Professor is known to hand out A grades to almost everyone who takes up his course. Needless to say many students graduate with high GPA scores. At least in this case, its just "paying fees".
  - arghnoname 13y ago
    Programs differ. I'm a CS grad student (PhD) and it seems like most people don't even bother registering at all until a month before class or so. No one cares about class all that much and for most courses getting an A or a B (anything else is failing) is the expected course of action, though that isn't to say the coursework is easy. You effectively couldn't graduate with less than a 3.5 anyway, though again, no one cares about GPA. If you elect to do a MS, the comp exams are another matter. For the PhD, it's all research, research, research. For that same reason, some people try to take classes that are reportedly less work or where active research work can count toward a class project because otherwise, it takes too much away from research time. It's a very different experience for me than undergraduate because of the low regard for class work (though doing poorly will invite mockery).

tn13 13y ago

"College Degree" is a meaningless phrase. I run a business which employs engineers, electricians, mechanical hardware designers as well as technical writes and so on. Now, if any of those hotel front desk staff or Janitors had any monetizable skill I would hired them for a price higher than that of Janitor but less what what I have been paying to my current employers and thus increase my profits. A lot of those hotel front desk staff and janitors simply wasted their money on college degrees and the so called Phds. They should have taken a bit more realistic education.

hawkharris 13y ago

the average Ph.D. is smarter...than their friend with a bachelor’s degree. This raises an interesting question: what is intelligence? A cursory Google search shows there's no solid consensus in academia. Having said that, there was a symposium years ago (1921) in which thirteen leading psychologists proposed definitions. [0] Here are a few of them: 1. the tendency to take and maintain a direction 2. judgment, otherwise called good sense, practical sense, initiative 3. adjustment or adaptation to the environment. . . 4. global capacity to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively. . . 5. the ability to plan and structure behavior. . . 6. the ability to solve genuine problems or difficulties. . . While Ph.D. students have an impressive amount of specialized knowledge, they don't seem to meet all of these criteria for intelligence. Some Ph.D. students are spending hundreds of thousands on degrees without having a clear career plan, then struggling to lead successful, productive lives once they graduate. This seems opposite in some ways to the qualities of practical sense, judgement and planning ability that characterize intelligence. [0] http://www.unc.edu/~rooney/iq.htm http://www.unc.edu/~rooney/iq.htm

rdl 13y ago
It's mostly that the lower bound to get a PhD (at least in a non-imaginary field) is higher than to merely get an SB. If you assume a non-pessimal distribution[1], the average pHD will be smarter than the average SB. [1] This isn't necessarily true of the smartest individuals, and you could imagine a distribution where the 120-130 IQ people stick around to get PhDs, but the SB people are 115-160 IQ, and they leave to go into other fields. Probably true of English, Political Science, etc. -- the smartest people of those undergrad programs probably go into law or finance rather than remaining as grad students and professors within the field itself.

michaelq 13y ago

About 50,000 PhDs are minted each year in the US. Assuming a working life of 40 years, that means there are about 2 million PhDs in the domestic labor market. Now take into account that: 1) For profit universities like University of Phoenix also issue PhDs. Most employers don't take them seriously, but USBLS measures them just the same. 2) We're in the midst of the worst job market in generations, and it may quickly become the worst job market since industrialization. Given these circumstances, having 5,000 people, or about 0.25% of the PhD-holding labor force, working as janitors does not sound like a particularly significant datum for making broader assumptions about the value of the PhD.

pbnjay 13y ago

I think the problem has more to do with students' motivation than the PhD itself. In fact most of the grad students I've talked to in various stages have no real plan for AFTER completing the degree. So they in turn have no motivation for actually understanding the subject they've picked, and no thought process for selecting a research project. They pick the easy topics (or let their advisor pick for them) and don't attempt to study or understand the stuff that will get them noticed or get them a job. The whole point of the PhD is (supposed to be) preparing you for academic work - it's a demonstration that you can do novel, creative, and independent research at a level of your peers. It's not just proof you completed the checklist like a BS. The problem is that many universities have turned it into that. The flipside of all this is that it's pretty easy to tell in an interview who just "did the PhD thing" without any plan for what happens next. If you ask me, that's what's going on here. The people who were aimless to begin with are still aimless. Source: I'm a recent PhD graduate, and work in an hybrid academic setting interacting with current MS/PhD students.

marincounty 13y ago

I'm not going to get Into the pile in hire and deeper, but honestly want is wrong with making a living as a Janitor. I have never understood the reason we identify ourselves by he we make our money? When I was looking for Skanks, and the "One", the one question that literally that was really irritating was,"What do you do??" I done many things in life, but I never once felt any need to internalize my job, career as wham I am as a person. I feel our need to ask "What to you do?" And have the person on the other end judging it is left over from the evolutionary mating ritual. Hear me out--girl wants a fast way of determining who will take care if her and baby--what better question? The question is usually a lie, along with how much said question elicits, but it is asked. When people ask am me why I do; my latest answer is a "recovering porn addict, alcoholic, and drug user. Oh, yea I'm a Animal rights activist, and spokesperson for the use of birth control". When I find a person who actually get's it I would slave away at any job in order to satisfy her consumerism, and need for a big cave. As to being a Janitor, I get it. It's solitary. You can think. In college, I always worked as a security guard, or mini storage manager; I didn't have to deal with anyone, and I could concentrate on what I was really interested in. (I looked for jobs where I knew I would be watching a building, or something other than people. And, mini storages are always 95% full. You can sit and read and code for eight hours). Good luck people, I hope judging people on what they do evolves into extinction. And please, when asked this rediculios question--try to verbally instruct the person on their shallow intellect.

gregpilling 13y ago
I hated that question when I was dating also. I usually answered "many things". I also do not think my work defines me. It also brings to mind the movie "Sabrina" with Audrey Hepburn, who father in the movie was a chauffeur so that he could spend his days reading books while between driving stints.

frozenport 13y ago

What if you got a PhD from Bulgaria in literature, left for the USA in 1991, and are 60 years old? Are you in the same category as a well connected graduate from a top computer science program. The lack of analysis and generalizations make this article meaningless. If your title is a question, give me a damn answer.