The e-Astronomer (Andy Lawrence) visited Caltech last week, but I missed his talks since I was traveling myself. He posits an interesting comparison between young hopefuls in academia and The Industry — hanging around, trying to get noticed in notoriously competitive milieus:
Caltech is famous for being a tad competitive shall we say. I got entertained at lunch by various grad students and postdocs. They seemed relaxed, but with a pushy edge. At that stage, young scientists are desperate to get noticed, and are simultaneously confident and insecure – will the world decide you are a genius or a dullard?
The next morning I was doing LA tourism with my family. I found myself on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine St, staring at the sidewalk-stars and trying hard to absorb the vibrations of Hollywood history. In the glory days, this was the spot where starry-eyed hopefuls would hang around, drinking coffee very very slowly, just waiting to be spotted and carried off to stardom.
In some significant ways, trying to make a career in artistic fields (movies, theater, art, music) is very similar to academia. Most obviously, the number of people who would like to have such jobs is much larger than the number of jobs. And that means competition, like it or not. Occasionally you will hear the claim that we should be producing fewer Ph.D.s, since there aren’t anywhere near enough jobs for everyone who graduates. This is just a clumsy attempt to hide the problem by re-arranging the bottleneck to before grad school rather than after. We certainly need to be absolutely honest about job prospects — they are always bad, no matter what specialty one chooses! But there is no way around the fact that somewhere along the line, most people who would like to be employed as professional scientists or scholars more generally are going to be disappointed.
Still, the ways in which the academic pipeline differs from the road to Hollywood superstardom are equally significant — and we have it much better than young actors. Even though the numbers are discouraging, we do have a highly structured system, in which training is taken seriously and — equally importantly — there is a fairly clear point past which one recognizes that the chances for success are extremely slim. Unlike a struggling actor who hangs around doing local theater and occasional commercials, perpetually hoping for that big break, the up-or-out nature of academia tends to let you know with relative clarity that it’s time to look elsewhere. Really, it’s more like professional sports than it’s like Hollywood — we have a structured minor-league/intercollegiate-sports system, with explicit coaching and well-known paths to advancement.
Indeed, one could argue that in recent years the relentless up-or-out pressure has gotten soft, as more people take multiple postdocs and linger on for a while. (Or, in fields where they are common, adjunct professors and lecturers, which is generally a much worse gig.) From the point of view of the universities that are choosing new faculty members, years of postdoctoral experience provide a lot of data on which to base hiring decisions, which one could at least argue helps the meritocratic case. It’s no fun to be stuck in postdocs for years and years, but nor is it fun to be told that you have passed your sell-by date, no more jobs for you.
So to all those grad students hanging around in the lounge, trying to say clever things to impress the visiting speaker — it could be worse! You could be hanging around soda shops, hoping to be discovered by wandering tenured professors.
Just to play devil’s advocate, given the numbers, if a PhD is for a high percentage a glorified vocational degree, maybe the training should be adjusted as such. Maybe there should be more classes and research directed toward students interested in the private sector, rather than spending a good chunk of your 6.5 years (average last time I checked) doing somebody else’s research. My only concern is that many students are being used to support somebody else’s research grant without getting proper training for the type of job they will likely end up in.
What I find really sad are all the kids who grow up being natural scientists and thinking the world is wonderful, only to have academics who act worse than corporate ladder climbers crush their dreams along with anyone who might make a real contribution to the world.
There is a better way, if only we can stop hitting our heads on the stairs like Whinnie the Pooh being dragged off to bed by Christopher Robin.
&E — The solution to what you’re suggesting is the physics masters program. UW runs a great one that offers evening classes, so people can work on their degree while still having jobs. They do much of the same coursework as during the first years of the PhD, but I there’s no qual. They also do a research project or two, but not a multi-year thesis. The program only takes about 2 years, and the coursework can be tailored for specific fields, including physics education. It’s a fantastic option.
When i promote graduate school to the students i mentor, i strongly advocate for the education part of the concept. No one, no matter how focussed and skilled they are at any task, can be guaranteed a life-supporting job in that vocation (ask yourself why the same Foley artists keep getting nominated for Oscars). This applies to skilled labors and to higher-level thinking. Receiving a graduate level education in the US is a rare gift, beyond par with many possible other experiences. The numbers are staggering (or in this case, lack thereof); so few Americans are afforded the chance to spend one, two, or seven years, in an environment dedicated to thought and idea. As Julianne says above, graduate education: “It’s a fantastic option.”
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Julianne, the physics master’s degree has always been perceived as a consolation prize for the grad student who couldn’t pass the quals. Unlike an engineering master’s, which carries a lot of weight in industry recruitment, I have never met an industry recruiter who values the physics master’s degree over the physics bachelor’s degree. Perhaps it has some value for teaching at the high school or community college level.
Julianne,
The fact that undergraduate schools are NOT useful filters as they stand is my point. So your observation about grad school admissions could be read either way.
I have three perhaps naive suggestions for (American) undergrad schools to better prepare prospective grads. 1. Make in-class exams more challenging. I am a firm believer that real-time problem solving skills are very important for grad school, at least in theoretical physics and american schools do a terrible job of this. “Take home” exams should be banned for most courses. 2. Focus more on depth and less on bredth. Undegrad schools should give a good student real skills, not leave them a jack of all trades. 3. Make sure that they have real research experience if they want to go on to grad school. Make it the students responsibility to find the advisor and find a project. This is the hardest, but the skills you get here will turn you into a doer and not merely a learner. That switch in mindset is the hardest.
In short, make it tougher in undergrad school, if you have a professed desire to go on to graduate school. Despite my dislike of Europeans who try to condescend everything American, I must say that undergraduate schools in the US are really wimping it. I would not send my kids there.
Also, I am not suggesting that this bootcamp is for everybody. But at least these should be an option for people who would like to go on to graduate school. I also focus on the US because that is the case I am familiar with. I went to grad school there (a while ago), and have taught in a big school etc.
I am a writer and actress with an interest in astronomy, and the only time I hang out in soda shops is when I need the caffeine in a Coke or Pepsi. Those of us in the creative arts do what we do because we love it–whether in a rinky dink theater or on Broadway. I’m guessing it’s the same way for science grad students and PhDs. Forget the issue of fearing you’re setting people up for “disappointment.” As long as a person finds a way of doing what he or she loves, there is no disappointment. And the only time to give up on a dream one loves is when one’s casket is being lowered into the ground. I’m not a naive 18-year-old saying this, but someone who strongly objects to this whole money-centered culture. Too many people give up their dreams, go to industry and do some finance thing and end up being the equivalent of the walking dead. It’s not a big break any of us need, it’s fulfillment of the soul.
Here in the US, we actually have a serious problem with the decline of education, especially in science. We need more, not fewer people with science backgrounds encouraging others to enter the field; we need to bring back the excitement of the Apollo days when kids wanted to go into science. In this information age, science writing is also an important option, as our populace is woefully under-informed in this area. We need to get universities to change their priorities from football to academics so they start hiring more scientists and creating these positions, which our 21st century world requires. Our schools are also quite deficient in teaching writing skills; as a result, we have insufficient people with the skills in both writing and science needed to communicate science with the public.
One thing the current economy makes obvious is that no career path is a sure thing. Going the corporate route may end up being more difficult than the performing arts or science. That is why it is so important that people of all ages pursue what they love and do so with a dogged persistence and determination to never, ever quit.
ST — What you’re proposing will definitely act as a filter, but again I’m not sure that what it’s filtering on correlates all that well with “getting a tenure track position”. It may be that excellent performance on timed analytical tests correlates strongly with success in theoretical physics, but I’d be surprised if it was as strongly correlated for experimental physics or astrophysics. Long term success frequently rests on many intangibles (creativity, drive, effort, social skills, adaptability), few of which we can assess reliably in undergraduates or even young graduate students. I can’t really see the changes you’re proposing (with the exception of research experience, which in fact almost all applicants in the US now have through various NSF REU programs) elucidating these.
Lauren, your exhortation to encourage science students is eloquent and clearly heartfelt. The concern that I have is this: maybe we shouldn’t get kids excited about becoming, say, astronomers, when astronomy is such a rare career option. Sure, the excitement about astronomy might propel those kids to become highly educated in science, and it’s good for our society and our economy when those kids move on to productive technical careers outside of astronomy. But that’s a small consolation to the kid who wanted to be an astronomer, and ended up as a life insurance actuary.
Sorry, I meant to address my reply to “Laurel”, not “Lauren”
How about focusing on creating more opportunities in astronomy and in related fields? That involves advocacy for more full time academic opportunities and also for new space exploration initiatives. We are at a point where our technology allows us to make incredible discoveries and breathroughs never before imaginable. The US is already falling behind in its space program and in science in general. As distasteful as some may find it, advocacy, lobbying and political action seem to be required here. I’m ashamed that my alma mater, Rutgers University, is cutting academics left and right while spending money like there is no tomorrow on its football program. Some may argue that football brings in money; however, the overwhelming majority of that money is funneled back to football and does nothing for academics. Universities are academic, not athletic institutions, and academics need to come first. At all levels, we as a culture need to be actively promoting academics and learning.
Another option for those interested in astronomy might be working with some of the private companies exploring commercial spaceflight. In the absence of government support, this may become the next big venue for these endeavors.
&E wrote:
From my experience, the problem is student awareness. It is not the university’s job to tell a student that he or she will never make it in academia prior to even entering grad school. From my perspective, I was not aware about the dismal prospects for landing an academic job basically up until the point when I was applying for postdocs.
Hmm. I agree it’s not the ‘job’ of the university accepting the student into their PhD program to tell the student that she won’t make it. But I do think that undergraduate advisors could say something about the prospects for physics PhDs. At my undergrad institution, the job market was not mentioned at all in the talks on applying to grad school given by physics faculty. I don’t think we should shift the bottleneck earlier by forcibly reducing the number of PhDs offered, but I think more could be done to give bright-eyed and bushy-tailed undergrads a realistic picture of the academic job market. This would encourage a self-selection process where those who are less willing to slog it out in the academic rat race can bow out at an early stage instead of going in with unrealistic expectations.
I first learned about the state of the academic job market through reading blogs like this one. None of my physics professors ever mentioned it without prompting. They were quite willing to admit to the dire state of the academic job market if you asked them specifically about it. But my worry is that many undergrads don’t even think to ask about it, because it doesn’t occur to them that it could be that bad.
My experience matches Lauren K’s observation: successful PhDs do research because they love it & can’t imagine doing anything else; much smarter PhD students who can do awesome math but don’t really care tend to drop out.
But this is all above some threshold of competence in doing research. Julianne says that getting an excellent Batchelor’s is not a guide to PhD. Very right. Doing science needs such a different attitude from learning course work that some folks just never get it.
So however many people you admit to PhD programs, some fraction would never make good researchers. We all know a bunch of people who got their PhDs, but barely. Which leads to the somewhat cruel truth: if we admitted PhD students at the same rate as research jobs opened up, we’d be stuck with a lot of underperforming researchers. The losses along the pipeline are necessary to keep the quality of the professors and researchers high. Kind of red in tooth and claw, and we should try to make the losses fair, but they seem inevitable.
So the edginess of the Caltech students talking to Andy is understandable, and appropriate.