6 ms·

My own experience from academia tells me that a big part of the problem is the fact that everyone is competing for a small pool of faculty positions and those p

by jorleif 13y ago

My own experience from academia tells me that a big part of the problem is the fact that everyone is competing for a small pool of faculty positions and those positions are filled based on individual performance. This means you can never win as a team, only as an individual, and everyone needs to get their share. Only a professor can build a team, but even those teams are temporary. Add to this the fact that only new things count as science, which means that good work can easily turn out worthless if the desired results are not achieved. For this reason, science then is naturally elitist, and has big differences in the status of participants (tenured vs not), and heavy competition. Might it be that this environment breeds nasty behavior such as misogyny and bullying? If a professor treats a student badly (I don't mean harassment, I mean overwork and bad guidance) then that is rarely punished in any way, it is probably beneficial for his career.

chalst 13y ago
I think it's easier to have such an exploitative regime in sciences that depend on "big lab" research: a higher body of graduate-student subordinates trying to get PhDs makes it easier to treat them as interchangeable components; the success of the lab depends on maximisation of (competent) labour hours put in; the lab equipment is seriously expensive and a high return on the costs must be shown to justify the next round of research applications; the graduate students are rather more dependent on the PI's goodwill to get the research done for their PhD.
- jorleif 13y ago
  I agree, my own experiences in CS are not at all as bad as those of the OP, but still it took a long time for me to figure out how the system works, and why senior people might choose to leave students to their own devices when the student clearly does not know what to do, and how to be productive.
Fede_V 13y ago
A very famous Harvard Nobel prize winning scientist had a phd student commit suicide while in his lab: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/magazine/lethal-chemistry-at-harvard.html http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/magazine/lethal-chemistry-... Still there, still incredibly famous, still untouched. Oh, and speaking specifically of chemistry, who can forget this brilliant gem? http://www.chemistry-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/a40kI.png http://www.chemistry-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/a40... That's real by the way.
- bigd 13y ago
  here's one right out of my mailbox (edit added subject): Subject: CORE HOURS -- effective NOW Group, It seems my efforts to communicate to you the importance of putting in the time and focusing on * your * research -- again, your, not mine -- are being ignored. I just saw a group of three graduate students going merrily to gym at 4 PM. At the same time, the lab is empty -- most of the day, not to mention evenings. Here is what is going to happen, effective immediately: The CORE HOURS for EVERYONE in the lab are from 10 AM to 6 PM. If you prefer to come early I can -- on an individual basis -- allow 9 AM -- 5 PM. During core hours, I want to see EVERYONE WORKING, if you are not at your desk, you must leave a note where you can be found. Saturday is the SAME core hours as the rest of the week. The minumum number of WORK hours I expect -- not schmoozing around, going to gym etc -- is 60 per week, This means that in addition to 6 * 8 core hours, I expect to see you in the lab for at least additional 12 hrs a week. Vacation in the group is TWO weeks a year -- in line with the Grad School policy. In special circumstances, I might consider an extra week. There are NO exceptions to the policy outlined above. If you have any questions s to the "legality" of these requirements, I suggest you talk to ____ or to the Graduate School officials. I am sorry it had to come to that but it appears other means of persuation simply fail.
  - badman_ting 13y ago
    Wow, nice.
  - jkimmel 13y ago
    I'm currently considering graduate school, and have unfortunately read too many stories quite like this. Do you have an idea of how prevalent this kind of micromanagement is for peers in your cohort? Do you just have a particularly unreasonable PI?
    - bigd 13y ago
      Our PI is renewed for being one of the worst in the planet, but he's also a really famous one. (average is 1 science + 1 nature / year) Is hard to find someone this bad, but the worst part was not the micromanagement. That is pretty common. It was the constant lack of appreciation, being blackmailed over the visas, his holding papers hostage for years until your loyalty was proven. A colleague has been there for 4 years of post-doc, and has 0 papers published, 6 ready to go on his desk. And the first one is from 3 years ago. I can go on all day over this. I resigned yesterday at the second post-doc.
collyw 13y ago
In agree, the idea that science is a meritocracy is flawed. Working in a bioinformatics lab, I saw two PHD students, one motivated, smart and very hard working. The other, well I guess he was reasonably smart. The second one chose a relatively easy subject, and got his PHD after 7 years, without really trying. The first one was in the lab late most nights for 6 years, but kept on being beaten to publish his results by other groups. So after 5 years, one would have a few papers to his name, while the other wouldn't have. Which one would have made the better researcher, the one willing to put in the extra hours and dedication or the one who wasn't? Based on papers published (which is largely what science does), then the less dedicated one would have been chosen.
- gohrt 13y ago
  Good. Work smarter not harder. Don't cultivate a culture of competing for more hours.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    In that case it's: solve an easy problem, forget the hard ones. Whatever is the gain of solving each problem, is not relevant.
  - collyw 13y ago
    I agree in working smarter not harder, but they were both equally smart. Maybe the harder working one more so.
- humanrebar 13y ago
  Seems like academia doesn't value reproduction of results and other corroborating research enough.

by jorleif 13y ago

chalst 13y ago

I think it's easier to have such an exploitative regime in sciences that depend on "big lab" research: a higher body of graduate-student subordinates trying to get PhDs makes it easier to treat them as interchangeable components; the success of the lab depends on maximisation of (competent) labour hours put in; the lab equipment is seriously expensive and a high return on the costs must be shown to justify the next round of research applications; the graduate students are rather more dependent on the PI's goodwill to get the research done for their PhD.

jorleif 13y ago
I agree, my own experiences in CS are not at all as bad as those of the OP, but still it took a long time for me to figure out how the system works, and why senior people might choose to leave students to their own devices when the student clearly does not know what to do, and how to be productive.

Fede_V 13y ago

A very famous Harvard Nobel prize winning scientist had a phd student commit suicide while in his lab: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/magazine/lethal-chemistry-at-harvard.html http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/magazine/lethal-chemistry-... Still there, still incredibly famous, still untouched. Oh, and speaking specifically of chemistry, who can forget this brilliant gem? http://www.chemistry-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/a40kI.png http://www.chemistry-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/a40... That's real by the way.

bigd 13y ago
here's one right out of my mailbox (edit added subject): Subject: CORE HOURS -- effective NOW Group, It seems my efforts to communicate to you the importance of putting in the time and focusing on * your * research -- again, your, not mine -- are being ignored. I just saw a group of three graduate students going merrily to gym at 4 PM. At the same time, the lab is empty -- most of the day, not to mention evenings. Here is what is going to happen, effective immediately: The CORE HOURS for EVERYONE in the lab are from 10 AM to 6 PM. If you prefer to come early I can -- on an individual basis -- allow 9 AM -- 5 PM. During core hours, I want to see EVERYONE WORKING, if you are not at your desk, you must leave a note where you can be found. Saturday is the SAME core hours as the rest of the week. The minumum number of WORK hours I expect -- not schmoozing around, going to gym etc -- is 60 per week, This means that in addition to 6 * 8 core hours, I expect to see you in the lab for at least additional 12 hrs a week. Vacation in the group is TWO weeks a year -- in line with the Grad School policy. In special circumstances, I might consider an extra week. There are NO exceptions to the policy outlined above. If you have any questions s to the "legality" of these requirements, I suggest you talk to ____ or to the Graduate School officials. I am sorry it had to come to that but it appears other means of persuation simply fail.
- badman_ting 13y ago
  Wow, nice.
- jkimmel 13y ago
  I'm currently considering graduate school, and have unfortunately read too many stories quite like this. Do you have an idea of how prevalent this kind of micromanagement is for peers in your cohort? Do you just have a particularly unreasonable PI?
  - bigd 13y ago
    Our PI is renewed for being one of the worst in the planet, but he's also a really famous one. (average is 1 science + 1 nature / year) Is hard to find someone this bad, but the worst part was not the micromanagement. That is pretty common. It was the constant lack of appreciation, being blackmailed over the visas, his holding papers hostage for years until your loyalty was proven. A colleague has been there for 4 years of post-doc, and has 0 papers published, 6 ready to go on his desk. And the first one is from 3 years ago. I can go on all day over this. I resigned yesterday at the second post-doc.

collyw 13y ago

In agree, the idea that science is a meritocracy is flawed. Working in a bioinformatics lab, I saw two PHD students, one motivated, smart and very hard working. The other, well I guess he was reasonably smart. The second one chose a relatively easy subject, and got his PHD after 7 years, without really trying. The first one was in the lab late most nights for 6 years, but kept on being beaten to publish his results by other groups. So after 5 years, one would have a few papers to his name, while the other wouldn't have. Which one would have made the better researcher, the one willing to put in the extra hours and dedication or the one who wasn't? Based on papers published (which is largely what science does), then the less dedicated one would have been chosen.

gohrt 13y ago
Good. Work smarter not harder. Don't cultivate a culture of competing for more hours.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  In that case it's: solve an easy problem, forget the hard ones. Whatever is the gain of solving each problem, is not relevant.
- collyw 13y ago
  I agree in working smarter not harder, but they were both equally smart. Maybe the harder working one more so.
humanrebar 13y ago
Seems like academia doesn't value reproduction of results and other corroborating research enough.