Jessica at Bioephemera posts a provocative quote about the way we train and employ young people who are seeking careers in academia:
They’re doing exactly what we always complain our brightest students don’t do: eschewing the easy bucks of Wall Street, consulting or corporate law to pursue their ideals and be of service to society. Academia may once have been a cushy gig, but now we’re talking about highly talented young people who are willing to spend their 20s living on subsistence wages when they could be getting rich (and their friends are getting rich), simply because they believe in knowledge, ideas, inquiry; in teaching, in following their passion. To leave more than half of them holding the bag at the end of it all, over 30 and having to scrounge for a new career, is a human tragedy.
— William Deresiewicz, The Nation
The author goes on to bemoan this “colossal waste of human capital” — all those talented young people spending time getting Ph.D.’s, then not eventually landing faculty jobs, when they could be going right into productive careers in some other field.
I’m sincerely unsure what to think about the occasional complaints one hears along these lines. On the one hand, I firmly believe that the grad school/postdoc/junior faculty years should be enjoyable ones, not days of peril and gloom living under a cloud of uncertainty. If there were a way to make the journey easier, I would be all for it. I can think of small ways to do so, and am certainly in favor of such incremental improvements.
But on the other hand, I really can’t think of any sensible major improvements, for a simple reason: there are many people who would like to be academics, and few available jobs. Short of multiplying the number of college professorships by a factor of three or so, I’m not sure how to address the primary cause of this anxiety — the difficulty in getting jobs. If you knew you were going to land a tenured spot at a good place, it would be much easier to bear the indignities of grad-student/postdoc level salaries for a few years. Deresiewicz says, “If we don’t make things better for the people entering academia, no one’s going to want to do it anymore.” But if that were true, why are there so many “highly talented young people who are willing to spend their 20s living on subsistence wages when they could be getting rich”? These seem to be contradictory worries.
Obviously one thing to do would be to dramatically cut down on the number of people who get into graduate school. But that just moves the bottleneck around, it doesn’t change its overall size. And I don’t want to be the one who says to a somewhat-promising-but-not-superstar-quality grad school applicant, “Sorry, I’d enjoy working with you, but we’ve decided not to admit you because in our judgement your chances of eventually getting a faculty job aren’t quite as good as some of our other applicants. So you see, it’s for your own good.” Generally the people who advocate this kind of strategy are the ones who have already been admitted to grad school. (If you’re waiting for Deresiewicz’s solution, here it is: “The answer is to hire more professors.” Well, okay then.)
Again, I honestly don’t know what should be done. I would love to improve the lifestyle and general well-being of students and postdocs in any feasible way. Not sure what that way would be.
Knowledge of the subject is all well and good (I value it, too), but at some point you have to support yourself and, potentially, a family, pay back those student loans, etc. That’s where knowledge for knowledge sake fails.
Physics is fortunate in that it prepares people for several other jobs (let’s not forget that physicists who fail to get post-docs, tenure, etc. benefit from another massive misallocation of human capital: finance). But that’s not true for Ph.D.s in all fields, many of whom become pretty irrelevant if they fail to get an academic job. Not many sociology Ph.D.s valuing derivatives on bank trading floors.
Knowledge for knowledge sake idealism is part of the problem: undergrads in deep denial and/or ignorance about life in the economy can easily rationalize away any facts about the academic job market by employing knowledge for knowledge sake arguments. Idealism is certainly not in short supply among potential grad students.
Professors giving potential students the “scared straight” treatment is also a good idea, but it’s not systematic and is thus limited. I benefited from such a talk, myself.
TimG: Exactly. Those who argue that the solution is to restrict grad-school entry are implicitly buying into the notion that the only point of getting a Ph.D. is to be a tenure-track professor. This is simply not true. There are plenty of good reasons to get a Ph.D. and then go do something else, not least the opportunity to deeply study something you’re interested in for a little while. And there are plenty of jobs outside of academia that either require or prefer you to have a Ph.D.
I’m 34 and about to jump to a new career. I have absolutely no regrets about the decade I’ve spent studying cosmology, though. It’s been wonderful. I don’t mind having taken the pay hit to do something I loved. I just wish we were more honest and forthright about the fact that my career path is much more common than a professor’s these days.
The idea that professors can’t help their grad students find non-academic careers, just because they themselves stayed in academia, is BS. When it comes to undergraduate education, a professor’s job is (at least nominally) to prepare students for non-academic careers. Why can’t the same be true for some fraction of grad students?
The best piece of advice I ever got came years after I had gotten a Ph.D.: Know where you’re going to work after you graduate BEFORE you start the program. Which is just another way of saying that you should be career-oriented the entire way through your program. Have this conversation with your potential advisor. And don’t be afraid to jump ship if your advisor can’t ‘show you the ropes’ with respect to the kind of career you want. My advisor was horrible about getting his work published. As his work was also to an extent my work, this meant that I had fewer publications to my credit upon graduation. I worked with another professor for a year and had my name on two publications by the end of that year.
Do it because you love it, but do it with your eyes on the big picture.
“Again, I honestly don’t know what should be done. I would love to improve the lifestyle and general well-being of students and postdocs in any feasible way. Not sure what that way would be.”
Umm, this really isn’t that hard. You want better job opportunities for scientists, hmm, how about more funding for basic scientific research! Duh!
I haven’t read through all the comments yet, so I’m probably repeating what’s already said, but I think it’s important.
I’m about halfway through my first postdoc now, coming up to the time where I have to decide whether I want to carry on this track — applying for another postdoc position with the hope of getting on the tenure track in a few years time or leaving academia. In the 4 years of undergrad, 3 years of grad school and now 2 years of a postdoc I have NEVER been able to get reasonable careers advice from anyone regarding what is possible outside academia. The standard response is “I don’t know, I’ve never done anything else”. No one has been able to suggest anyone to talk to. I’ve done my own research but outside the generic graduate finance programs, it’s not clear what is out there. That is one of the reasons I’ve stayed in research. It’s not the only reason — if I didn’t enjoy it I would be doing something else.
However, “enjoying it” isn’t the be all and end all. I moved from the UK to Pasadena for this job. In two years I will more than likely have to relocate again. I have a partner (who is also an astronomy postdoc) and we have plans. We have resigned ourselves to the fact that the next few years will probably suck and that our plans are on hold as we move around, panic about where our next jobs will be, if our grants will be approved, if we’ll ever get tenure.
Yes, we were told in grad school that 50% of us would not go past postdoc level. But if anyone believed they would be in the 50% that didn’t no-one would go for it. The fact that no guidance or advice is ever given regarding alternative careers makes it even less believable. I mean, if they were really going to get rid of 50% of us, then surely they’d help us work out what else we can do, right?
My point is that the system is broken. We employ thousands of grad students and postdocs to do the science, keep them working hard by telling them that they only way they can keep their jobs for another year is to be the best of the best. And then even when they are the best, we get rid of them and hire a new postdoc in their place, because we can’t have a postdoc doing the same thing for too long, even if that means the person who put in all the initial work doesn’t want to leave and NOW HAS NO JOB. The system makes no sense, and right now it makes me very sad to be a part of it.
This problem can be boiled down thusly, if we think economically:
–The supply of Ph.Ds outpaces demand for them. Thus, economic conditions for Ph.Ds is poor: low pay, low placement rate, indentured servitude.
–In a normal market place, these conditions would cause the supply of Ph.Ds to fall via lowering demand for graduate school.
However, this mechanism seems to be blocked by these factors: lack of information (many undergrads going to grad school are ignorant of the forward path); idealism (I don’t care about the job characteristics; I just want to learn psychology, e.g.).
Additionally, there is another factor gumming up this mechanism: demand for grad school is not a direct map to supply of Ph.Ds.
For those faculty reading this message: if the number of applicants to your Ph.D program fell, would your department reduce the number it accepts accordingly? I’d bet not, thus, even a sharp decline in demand for graduate school would likely have a minimal effect on the supply of Ph.Ds.
This suggests that even full knowledge of the hardships of seeking academic tenure may not dent the problem.
clayton: You are assuming that the problem is simply an oversupply of PhDs. I would argue that it’s a lack of information about non-academic career options for those to choose to get PhDs. At least in physics, my experience is that most people who leave have little trouble finding a job. So the demand is there–it just happens to be in a different market from the one where most PhDs are trying to “sell.”
I’m just annoyed that this discussion generally flippantly paints all PhD students, regardless of major or graduate school, with the same brush. It’s this sort of stupid mass-generality that will discourage the brightest people from getting PhDs.
Want to be honest? Don’t imply that a Stanford CS PhD is going to have the same job prospects as a [insert mediocre state university here] [insert obscure liberal arts field here] PhD.
The problem with this discussion is that it’s taking place at basically an astronomy blog, and there isn’t much of a job market for astronomers outside academia. If you really didn’t know that before going in, you really shouldn’t have that professorship.
BFG: Not necessarily assuming that. I address the physics issue in a previous post above (yeah, it’s not so bad in physics because you can’t go to another sector rife with major economic imbalances: finance). Art history Ph.Ds or sociology Ph.Ds struggle on bank trading floors, however.
BFG: My point was not that it’s impossible for an astrophysicist to land *any* industry job, but that it’s impossible for an astrophysicist to land a job doing astronomy (ie stuff that he spent 10 years studying). I’m glad that you don’t have any regrets spending a decade doing cosmology, now that you’re moving on to a better paying field. But it’s still very wrong.
A contrast with, say, medicine can be made. 30-year old former medical student, having spent 4 years in medical school and 3-5 years in residency studying neurology or cardiology, is not expected by the society to forget all about neurology and go find a job “in a different market”. He has an ironclad guarantee of landing either a research job (in a university) or an industry job (as a neurologist in a hospital) where he will directly apply his acquired knowledge and skills, and he’ll be paid $200,000+ whatever he chooses. How did it happen? Because neurology is more relevant in the real world than astronomy, and medical schools formulate curricula which are directed primarily at industry demand, not at self-reproduction of professors. And also because medical doctors did what scientists failed to do – they formed a cartel and put a system in place that severely restricts the number of entering students, allowing just enough to ensure that all of them end up employed.
I’m now in my fourth year as a postdoc and I’m reaching the end of the road after traveling down it for almost 15 years. The problem as I see it is that the people who have the power to change the system, do not have it in their best interests to change it. Who benefits in the short term from having an oversupply of PhD’s working relentlessly to try to secure a reasonably secure job? Obviously the established institutions and funding agencies. Each department gets their choice of several hundred qualified candidates for every job that opens up. There is an endless supply of disposable labor. Grad students and postdocs do an enormous amount of teaching and research for very little cost. Short term contracts are easier to dish out. Just look at the NSF and other funding agencies…they still have a mindset that there is a shortage of people interested in going into science. This is obviously false.
Of course the problem is that it is extremely short-sighted. Research quality has gone down. The reputation of academia is slowly but surely catching up to the facts. My field is currently losing an entire generation of researchers and they haven’t caught on to it yet. New research programs aren’t popping up like they used to. Young scientists are forced to follow older programs if they want to stay in the field. I could go on…
clayton: There are many options besides finance (you might be surprised how many physics PhDs are behind those remarkably well-targeted ads from Google, for example.) Some of them even still have some relation to astrophysics (going to work for the satellite builders at Northrop comes to mind). I’m going in none of those directions, though, and I’m not getting an immediate pay increase, either. (I am getting a more secure career path, however.)
Look, I fully agree that there’s a problem: academia is ultimately a Ponzi scheme. I just don’t think that telling more people they can’t get PhDs is the solution. Instead we need to be clear with people from the outset about their chances of staying in the field of their PhD, their options afterwards, and the opportunity costs of following your passion for a little while. After that, shouldn’t we let people be adults and make their own life choices?
“After that, shouldn’t we let people be adults and make their own life choices?”
No, we shouldn’t. We’re talking about introverted, somewhat idealistic 22 year olds with no knowledge of the real world who spent the last 17 years of their life studying. For them, stayng in a rut and going on studying is an extremely attractive option, even if there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, even if they are informed of it.
The problem is that the productivity of faculty at research institutions rely on the relatively cheap labor of Post-Docs and graduate students. Therefore far too many PHDs are generated by the research grant system, to replace the few faculty at top universites getting the big grants. The solution is to provide for something in academia for these PHDs to do outside of becoming full professors themselves.
Once obtaining a pHD the only real chance a scientist has of ever following up on their own scientific ideas is to become a faculty member, because working for another professor usually means researching someone else’s ideas. Many scientists have great ideas, but are not suited to running large research groups. Science and progress would be favored by providing greater opportunity to do truly some truely independent research by experienced scientists that have passed through the Post-doc process, but do not have the desire to run a large research group or become full faculty members.
Increasingly grants are given to larger and larger projects, and the few grants given to independent single researchers, are generaly only avalible in the first few years after their pHD.
Nameless,
I’m afraid that in the end all we can really do is give people the best possible information: as complete and and as nuanced as we can muster — after that it really is up to them.
I’m the step-father of one of those 17 year-olds you mention (actually 18 now). He’s off at a top school doing a math/computer science undergrad major. And, although he’s extremely smart, he really is inexperienced, introverted and somewhat idealistic (don’t know if this last thing is all that bad — someone should keep idealism alive, and, for the most part, it won’t be people my age).
Anyway, here’s the thing: for a very long time we’ve had very little effective control over, or even substantial influence on, his decisions. We talk, sometimes he listens, sometimes he’s right not to listen. Sometimes he talks with and listens to his peers, his teachers and his close friends. I hope he investigates everything and processes all the information he comes into contact with.
Perhaps institutional changes can be engineered by reducing the number of school slots or by increasing the number of job positions, and that would be important facts and circumstances he could consider.
But here’s one thing that I know for sure: if he decides he wants to go on and do graduate work and then a post doc, it will be his decision, no one else’s. He’d have it no other way.
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The typical grad students I’ve known put in 60-80 hour weeks (not counting classes, i.e. lab work, “pedagogy”, etc.). If that doesn’t amount to below minimum wage, it’s close enough to be sobering.
I’ve never known a grad student in the sciences whose only alternative would have been McDonalds.
Again, all’s fair, as long as everyone knows what they’re getting themselves into. My impression is there’s little incentive for institutions to portray the nature of the beast accurately.
In response to Woit’s above assertions, I happen to be in both mathematics and physics (PhD in math). I’m finishing up a postdoc in physics, and am unemployed next year. I can tell you: the situation is NOT much better in math departments. It’s all terrible. This is after applying over the past 3 years to hundreds of math and physics departments. Math is also a pyramid scheme – don’t delude yourselves.
I’d also like to point out that I (along with 90% of the postdocs that I know) make $35-40K per year (I personally make $33K). Trust me, you can’t support even a tiny family on that wage. To add insult to injury, I was finally offered a postdoc for $20K/year next year! I have turned it down. Those NSF salaries that you are referencing only apply to the few who are lucky enough to get one.
I am leaving academia. For those who think that finance is a backup plan, I can also tell you (after a dozen interviews at multiple places) that the finance alternative is basically a thing of the past. They’re not hiring anymore. I currently know more unemployed quants than working ones. Furthermore, there are now so many specialized programs in mathematical finance that the approach “I have a PhD in physics/math, I’m smart, hire me” doesn’t work now.
In case you are thinking “maybe this guy isn’t good enough” I’ll say, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I am good – really good (since this is anonymous I can just be straightforward about it and say the truth). As somebody said earlier: there comes a time in life when you are done proving yourself. Science needs to make a commitment, because some of their best young people (yes, me included) are leaving.
Maybe you want try it: http://www.mathfeats.com
Brainetics is an educational program, was recently released. This is just a very controversial product, which sense, it does brainetics work items and your children are very advanced methods in memory.
With Brainetics It allows you to achieve it, but there are so many benefits. It, we can use our minds better, faster, and now we just need to spend 20 minutes a day to master these skills. Brainetics math tricks through the use of mathematics. This indicates that the figure is not just boring old numbers.
An alternative to the traditional academic route might be a life of freelance research. It certainly isn’t without problems but it does present a model interpolating between current-style faculty positions and the “real world”. I discuss the proposal in some detail here:
http://cosmoaims.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/radical-research-iii-a-freelance-market-for-post-docs/
Hell, I can look at a PhD paper and come up with improvements in a few minutes, but I can’t even get a degree with the funding (read: loans) and deliberately meandering prerequisite courses, much less getting higher qualifications that would actually be useful.
I’ll support academia once it’s publishing all it’s papers free to everyone, and provides equal opportunities to everyone for advancement. At the moment, it seems to be more about corrupt/selfish research “opportunities”, making money off students, and protectionism. In its current form, academia doesn’t deserve to survive.
@55, Vicky: “Yes, we were told in grad school that 50% of us would not go past postdoc level. ”
Each professor has on average ten students during his or her career.
Since physics is in a steady-state situation, the number of professorships does not increase.
Hence 90% of the physics students will not become professors.
This was obvious to pretty much everyone when I was a student in the 1980s. But it depends on the school, of course. If you’re from Harvard or Stanford your odds are better.
“Math is just as bad” is right that the job situation in finance is different than it used to be. You can’t just show up with a math/physics Ph.D. and expect to be hired, which was the way it was ten years ago. There are still jobs though, students who go through our department’s one-year master’s program in math finance are doing very well on the job market.
The job market in math is less than ideal, especially in mathematical physics, but is on the whole very different than in physics. This year we had quite a few finishing Ph.Ds, and I believe they all found jobs, many of them quite good ones. As always, moving on to a tenure-track job is harder.
Entry-level jobs in math are somewhat different than entry-level jobs in physics, since they almost always involve some amount of teaching. On the other hand, they do pay better, with typical pay scale at top institutions this fall around 65K/year for fresh Ph.Ds. I’ve never heard of anyone trying to hire a math Ph.D. for 20K/year at a research university, this seems to be the kind of thing that occurs in physics due to the grotesque oversupply of Ph.Ds. there. There may be cases where institutions are hiring adjuncts to teach at that kind of pay, but that’s another story…
BFG: Didn’t mean to limit physicist’s opportunities to finance, of course. The point remains: not many history or theology Ph.Ds in Silicon Valley, either. Some disciplines provide better outs than others.
I have one of those financial mathematics degrees Math is just as bad … was talking about above, and it doesn’t surprise me to here that finance is a lot harder to get in to for folks with Ph.Ds in other fields.
I also have had the experience of working a Christmas season at Border’s about 12 years ago. Out of about 30-40 employees there, at least 6 had Ph.Ds in English. They were making minimum wage (or just above it) and stocking shelves. Brutal.
I would say, “there’s always Border’s”, but there really isn’t that anymore either.