is academia a scam?

[gravenewworld]

If professor x graduates 5 students and those 5 students graduate 5 more, and so on and so forth won't we reach a point where there will be complete oversaturation? Professors don't retire fast enough to compete with exponential growth. Should faculty start telling more of their students to turn away from academia instead of pursuing post docs until they are 40?

[daveyinaz]

Yes to answer the post's title...but in my mind for entirely different reasons.

[DivisionByZro]

So...every student that graduates from professor X tries to get back into academia? I think not. In my experience, a lot of undergraduates steer away from grad school as their bachelor's was hard enough.

[Choppy]

I think we reached that point somewhere around 1972.

I don't think it's a scam though. It is what it is. The shortfall lies in the assumption that the only thing a student with a PhD should be doing is trying to work as a purely academic professor. The world is better off with more educated people in it, in my opinion.

The solution perhaps, lies in exploring ways in which schools can assist students (and students can assist themselves) into the transition out of academia.

[gravenewworld]

So...every student that graduates from professor X tries to get back into academia? I think not. In my experience, a lot of undergraduates steer away from grad school as their bachelor's was hard enough.

Of course not, but many professor xs graduate more than 5 students too. Why are there so many post docs these days that are in their late 30s?

[daveyrocket]

If professor x graduates 5 students and those 5 students graduate 5 more, and so on and so forth won't we reach a point where there will be complete oversaturation? Professors don't retire fast enough to compete with exponential growth. Should faculty start telling more of their students to turn away from academia instead of pursuing post docs until they are 40?

Yeah it's a scam. Not just because of the rate at which students get trained, but because professors know that if they were honest about job prospects, then they wouldn't have any postdocs to do their work.

[Pengwuino]

How is it a scam? At what point during a BS or PhD are students told they have to go into academia and become professors? A scam, by definition, must tell its targets of an attainable position/result when in fact, that position/result is impossible or nearly impossible to reach.

Thus, it is not a scam, despite some people deciding on their own that the only job they should be going for is a professorship.

[JakeBrodskyPE]

It is no more a scam than anything else that reaches an economic peak.

The real question is whether the education one receives in schools these days can truly make one a better, more productive person. And there is no easy answer to that question because it is too open ended. Certainly some educations are better at this than others.

And though I'll admit a very strong bias on this issue, I tend to think that educations in Science and Engineering tend to do just that. Some educations such as those that include philosophy, and classic literature can also go a long way toward that goal. Beyond that, I think that schools should ask themselves why the feel that such degrees are relevant...

[Vanadium 50]

but because professors know that if they were honest about job prospects, then they wouldn't have any postdocs to do their work.

I tell every postdoc applicant who the previous postdocs were, and where they are now. Furthermore, I don't understand how anyone can get a PhD and not be able to do gravenewworld's calculation.

[Mépris]

@Jake
If you say philosophy and classic literature (you mean a broad literature course or one focused on Ancient Greece and Rome?) degrees are worthwhile, then I'd take that a mile further and say that most academic disciplines in the arts have some kind of "academic value". Even Women's Studies...although I definitely wouldn't be paying any of my $$$ to major in that!

People just shouldn't expect that their university degree is a trade school diploma (as Vanadium 50 would say). There's a few degrees like physiotherapy (an undergraduate course in many countries), accounting, actuarial science or social work, that I just cannot understand the existence of. Those should be in trade schools. Heck, one doesn't even need an accounting/actuarial science degree to get that kind of job. Not sure about the US, but elsewhere, one needs to do take a set of exams by an external body, say the ACCA. The thing I'm not certain of is whether someone with a major in accounting can get an accounting gig without being certified by something like the ACCA. Likewise for an actuary.

[Pengwuino]

People just shouldn't expect that their university degree is a trade school diploma (as Vanadium 50 would say). There's a few degrees like physiotherapy (an undergraduate course in many countries), accounting, actuarial science or social work, that I just cannot understand the existence of. Those should be in trade schools. Heck, one doesn't even need an accounting/actuarial science degree to get that kind of job. Not sure about the US, but elsewhere, one needs to do take a set of exams by an external body, say the ACCA. The thing I'm not certain of is whether someone with a major in accounting can get an accounting gig without being certified by something like the ACCA. Likewise for an actuary.

Next thing you know, getting Microsoft's A+ certification will require a 2 year AS :biggrin:

[JakeBrodskyPE]

@Jake
If you say philosophy and classic literature (you mean a broad literature course or one focused on Ancient Greece and Rome?) degrees are worthwhile, then I'd take that a mile further and say that most academic disciplines in the arts have some kind of "academic value". Even Women's Studies...although I definitely wouldn't be paying any of my $$$ to major in that!

Yes, I'm speaking of a classical education in the arts. However, many courses in the arts take a post-modern approach without demonstrating why such an approach is required. The rigor of a classic education is important even if that rigor is not used for following studies. One should at least understand what assumptions their post-modern thinking comes from. Sadly, very few schools seem to be teaching that.


People just shouldn't expect that their university degree is a trade school diploma (as Vanadium 50 would say). There's a few degrees like physiotherapy (an undergraduate course in many countries), accounting, actuarial science or social work, that I just cannot understand the existence of. Those should be in trade schools. Heck, one doesn't even need an accounting/actuarial science degree to get that kind of job. Not sure about the US, but elsewhere, one needs to do take a set of exams by an external body, say the ACCA. The thing I'm not certain of is whether someone with a major in accounting can get an accounting gig without being certified by something like the ACCA. Likewise for an actuary.

I entirely agree. However, there is a stratification that I'm starting to see among many professional societies where they demand their specific club card of education. Heaven forbid that you should start with a degree in, say, Library Science, and move on to manage a zoo, or run a multi-billion dollar company.

That said, there are also many fools who believe that they're good at anything. These are the morons who think that a good manager can manage anything. If that's true then why do we not see more coaches of figure skating managing basketball teams? If a good manager can manage anything than I guess a good coach can coach anyone on anything, right?

We should seek a good education so that we can learn how to pursue the things we love to do. That is the point. If one can get there by attending classes in Women's Studies, so much the better. I tend to think, however, that more technical classes and more rigor in study are good things. We can always loosen up later; but if we don't start from the classics, very little that comes afterward will have a context against which one can understand it.

[ParticleGrl]

Furthermore, I don't understand how anyone can get a PhD and not be able to do gravenewworld's calculation.

Honestly, I was told over and over again up until maybe two years into my phd how good the career prospects were in science. I trusted the people advising me to know more than I did. The big surprise for me wasn't the poor prospects in academia- it was the poor prospects outside of academia. I got a phd in physics because I wanted a job that used some physics, and just sort of assumed that was normal for phds in physics.

I later found out that my undergraduate research advisor purposely kept his postdocs from interacting with his undergrads because he thought it was scaring undergrads away from the field. Both my undergraduate and grad institutions provided very misleading numbers in their information packet for potential physics majors,etc.

Do I think academia is a scam? Not fully, but I do think that there is a concerted effort to "sell" the major and the phd program, regardless of whether or not its a good idea for an individual. There is a huge moral hazard- every person in a position to offer advice to a student has an incentive to bring them into the program.

People just shouldn't expect that their university degree is a trade school diploma

BUT a phd is NOT a broad education. Its EXTREMELY narrow training in a specific discipline. In terms of the focus, its more like a trade school than a bachelors degree.

[mal4mac]

If professor x graduates 5 students and those 5 students graduate 5 more, and so on and so forth won't we reach a point where there will be complete oversaturation? Professors don't retire fast enough to compete with exponential growth. Should faculty start telling more of their students to turn away from academia instead of pursuing post docs until they are 40?

Any 12 year old who hangs around physics forums for five minutes soon knows the score! If someone want to pursue post docs until they are 40 then then that's their choice. I've met some like that, they are happy with their lot..., or at least reconciled..., or at least no more angst ridden than they would be in any other walk of life...

[ZapperZ]

If professor x graduates 5 students and those 5 students graduate 5 more, and so on and so forth won't we reach a point where there will be complete oversaturation? Professors don't retire fast enough to compete with exponential growth. Should faculty start telling more of their students to turn away from academia instead of pursuing post docs until they are 40?

There's a serious flaw with this assumption. It assumes that EVERY single person who goes through this process WANTS to go into academia. This is FALSE.

Only about 10% of the students that go through the program that I'm apart of go into academia. The rest go into private sectors or national labs. This alone should sufficiently destroy that assumption.

Zz.

[cdotter]

There's a serious flaw with this assumption. It assumes that EVERY single person who goes through this process WANTS to go into academia. This is FALSE.

Only about 10% of the students that go through the program that I'm apart of go into academia. The rest go into private sectors or national labs. This alone should sufficiently destroy that assumption.

Zz.


How competitive is permanent employment at a national lab?

[gravenewworld]

An interesting article to ponder:

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472280a.html

"Most of them are not going to make it." That was the thought that ran through Animesh Ray's mind 15 years ago, as he watched excellent PhD students — including some at his own institution, the University of Rochester in New York — struggle to find faculty positions in academia, the only jobs they had ever been trained for. Some were destined for perpetual postdoctoral fellowships; others would leave science altogether.

Within a few years, the associate professor was in a position to do something about it. A stint in a start-up company in California had convinced him that many PhD graduates were poor at working in teams and managing shifting goals, the type of skills that industrial employers demand. So he started to develop a programme that would give students at Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) in Claremont, California, these skills. "I was determined not to have to keep watching scientists struggle to find the jobs they were trained to do."

“I was determined not to have to keep watching scientists struggle.”
Ray is one of a number of researchers and administrators who are attempting to reshape graduate training. They want to save young scientists from falling into the postdoc holding pattern or taking jobs below their station. Here, Nature presents five approaches to shaking up the hallowed foundations of academia. They range from throwing scientists deep into independent study, to going interdisciplinary, to forgoing the PhD altogether.


Maybe institutions should start enforcing mandatory retirement after the age of 60 to give other people the opportunity to find work.

[Vanadium 50]

How competitive is permanent employment at a national lab?

Many labs have two tracks, with various names: staff/senior staff, physicist/applications physicist, etc. The fundamental difference is that the former usually gets to direct his or her own research, and the latter does not (although there are obviously shades of gray here). For the former, it's at least as competitive as a faculty position at a major research university, and possibly even more so. These are coveted positions: 100% of your time for research, and the full resources of a national lab behind you.

For the latter, it's "easier" in the sense that the skill set is broader. For example, people who are highly skilled in particular technologies can get lab positions, but are likely to be seen as too narrow or too specialized for a university position. But they are still very competitive. If you are the best guy in the world at making niobium RF cavities, you can write your own ticket. If you are the third best guy in the world, you can get a job. If you are the 10th best guy in the world, you will have a hard time.

[Vanadium 50]

Maybe institutions should start enforcing mandatory retirement after the age of 60 to give other people the opportunity to find work.

First, that's illegal in the US.

Second, it doesn't solve your problem: it just slightly changes the exponent.

Third, how does the field as a whole benefit from this? It's a myth that there are no faculty jobs. There are maybe 150 new positions opening up in PhD-granting universities yearly. Your system would allow 50 people who wouldn't be able to get faculty positions under the old system to get positions. Why is this better? Why is it better to force someone who is 61 and still effective to retire in order to hire someone who wouldn't be able to get a faculty job if there were only 150 of them?

[pi-r8]

I have to say I think the job statistics for science majors are a bit of a scam. Not that they're lying... they're just very, very deceptive.

For example, the BLS (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos052.htm) says that the median wage for physicists is $102,890. Wow, right??? Good money! But you have to look reaaaaally carefully to find this little nugget:
Physicists and astronomers held about 17,100 jobs in 2008. Physicists accounted for about 15,600 of these, while astronomers accounted for only about 1,500 jobs. In addition, there were about 15,500 physicists employed in faculty positions; these workers are covered in more detail in the statement on teachers—postsecondary elsewhere in the Handbook.
So they're not counting professors, post-docs, or graduate students as physicists, even though those people are the ones doing the vast majority of physics research. Heck, even Albert Einstein wouldn't count as a physicist according to that measure. They are taking data from a very narrow subsection of physicists, and reporting that as if it's representative.

Or perhaps we look at surveys (http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/phds1later.pdf)from the AIP (http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/bach2010.pdf). They tell us that people with either a bachelor's degree or a PhD in physics have only a 4% unemployment rate, and that 71% (http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/emp2010.pdf) of people with a bachelors degree get a job in a STEM field with a good salary. In this economy, that's fantastic! Economists would say that we're at full employment, so basically everyone who wants a job can find one quickly. There should not be any long-term unemployment except for very rare cases.

Except, again, we have to look at the fine print. Reading the survey methodology reveals that only 40% of new physics grads actually answered their survey. They do have data for 54% of new PhDs, but 31% of that came from their advisors rather than the PhDs themselves. Of course 40% is fine if this were a truly random sample... but it isn't. The people who voluntarily self-report will tend to be the people who have jobs that they can be proud of. I know that, for me, I didn't answer my university's career survey because I was too ashamed of being unemployed.

The best numbers I think come from Andrew Sum (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/the-college-majors-that-do-best-in-the-job-market/). He used US census data, which is important because it tracks everyone. He calculated that only 67.9% of new physical science grads are employed (!) 11.4% were employed in jobs that don't require any college degree at all. The median wage was only $14,607 or $20,687 depending on if you had a job that required a degree, which is frankly pathetic. Note that physical science majors earn less than almost all other fields of study, including humanities.

I know I wouldn't have bothered to work through a physics degree if I'd been told employment data like that. Should have just learned programming instead. But of course the schools want to make sure they have a plentiful supply of new graduate students available to do all the research and teaching work for a paltry salary...

Looking at these misleading statistics, I can't help but be reminded of what's happening at law schools. Law students take on an outrageous amount of debt, because they think that once they graduate they'll make a high salary as a lawyer. It turns out (http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/) that the "official" statistics from law schools are utterly worthless. Some law school graduates end up swamped with debt that they are literally committing suicide. The law schools hide this with the same kind of basic methodology mistakes that the AIP does, like relying on self-reported data with a very low response rate. (Ironically, it's my training in science that teaches me to identify what a huge error that is! I wouldn't have understood when I was a freshman how important a random sample is.)

If you want to encourage students to study science, make sure you're giving them accurate and clear information that won't mislead them. If the only defense is "caveat emptor- they should have done better research before they commited to this!" well that's pretty much the universal defense of scammers.

[Choppy]

An interesting post, Pi-r8.

Most of the time when people challenge the statistics they come up with some pretty lame arguments that aren't supported by anything more than anecdotal evidence. Here you have presented something a little more concrete.

Of course you have to be just as suspiscious with the census data. For example, does it consider someone who is currently in graduate school or professional school unemployed?

There is also the implication that being employed in a position where a degree is not necessary equates to underemployment. It doesn't require a degree to be an entrepreneur, or to be a programmer or to work in network admimistration, for example. For a while I really wanted to be a cop before I started my PhD. If that would have worked out, I wouldn't have considered myself underemployed even though I had a master's degree because that education would have been useful in gaining promotions. I'm not saying that underemployment doesn't exist though. I knew one guy with a physics MSc who was driving cabs.

And then there's the theory that self-reporting is skewed because only people who are proud of their jobs report. One, admittedly anecdotal piece of evidence against this is that if you spend a fair amount of time reading the posts on these boards it would seem that the people who aren't happy with their job prospects after a physics degree are quite vocal about it. Further, what about a skew the other way - that people who are busy with fullfilling jobs don't have time to fill out surveys?

What is interesting is that the data you've provided seems to be a little more recent than the numbers I've seen from the AIP, ie. we're comparing pre- and post-recession data.

[pi-r8]

To be honest, Choppy, the main reason I distrust the official statistics is simply that they don't match up with my own anecdotal experiences. Just judging by people I've talked to, it seems hard to believe that we're really in a 4% unemployment labor market. But I know that anecdotal evidence isn't very convincing, and I've spent a long time thinking about how to find real evidence.

According to the BLS, "people are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey week." and "Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work."

To be honest, I'm not sure how grad students would fit into that definition, and I can't find any details that address grad students specifically. It might be up to the individual to decide how they choose to report themselves to the census taker.

You're right that it's hard to neatly classify all jobs as "college" or "not-college" but the news article says they decided based on if the job "typically requires a college degree" which should be good enough for a general picture. I would assume that programmer and network administration are considered college jobs, in that report.

There's definitely a lot of different possibilities for skew, which is why self-reported data is so unreliable. But if you read any surveys of the psychological affects of unemployment, they all agree that it tends to make people become depressed, lose energy, and lose their normal connections to society. Especially when people have internalized the idea that they should have succeeded because "everyone else in my field has a good job", but something was wrong with them. Again I think the law schools scamblog movement is interesting in this respect, because it seems like so many students were being silently ashamed of themselves until they made contact through the internet and realized that many others were in the same situation- that's when they finally began to speak out.

[twofish-quant]

I have to say I think the job statistics for science majors are a bit of a scam. Not that they're lying... they're just very, very deceptive.

It's also because the reality is complicated. One problem with statistics is that people have this idea that one number will tell you everything, when in fact it won't.

themselves. Of course 40% is fine if this were a truly random sample... but it isn't. The people who voluntarily self-report will tend to be the people who have jobs that they can be proud of. I know that, for me, I didn't answer my university's career survey because I was too ashamed of being unemployed.

On the other hand, that number "makes sense" to me. Among the physics Ph.D.'s that I know of, I don't know of anyone that is unemployed, and since I know 20-30 personally, that's consistent with an unemployment rate of about 5%.

He calculated that only 67.9% of new physical science grads are employed (!) 11.4% were employed in jobs that don't require any college degree at all. The median wage was only $14,607 or $20,687 depending on if you had a job that required a degree, which is frankly pathetic.

That's also mixing apples and oranges. If you count physics bachelors, you are likely to see a huge number of people in graduate school which pulls down salary figures.

I know I wouldn't have bothered to work through a physics degree if I'd been told employment data like that. Should have just learned programming instead.

I did both.

Looking at these misleading statistics, I can't help but be reminded of what's happening at law schools.

Yes, and one thing that I think that you'll find is that the statistics for physicists are *less* fudged than statistics for most other fields. That's an important thing to keep in mind when choose major and buying used cars. Yes, the salesman is probably lying to you, but the question is whether or not they are lying to you more or less than the person across the street.

If you have to choose people physics and law, and you "unfudge" physics stats but don't "unfudge" law stats, then you looks bad, but if you "unfudge" both, physics starts looking good again.

It's fine to be cynical, but you have to be even handed.

If you want to encourage students to study science, make sure you're giving them accurate and clear information that won't mislead them.

Sure, but the person getting that information has to realize that accurate information is more complicated than just one number.

One big problem with salary data, is that what you really want to know is median salary in 2016, and *no one* has that information.

[twofish-quant]

To be honest, Choppy, the main reason I distrust the official statistics is simply that they don't match up with my own anecdotal experiences. Just judging by people I've talked to, it seems hard to believe that we're really in a 4% unemployment labor market.

For physics Ph.D.'s it matches my experience. Note that most Ph.D.'s I know are in their 30's, and I don't know the current situation for people fresh out of school. But the unemployment rate for Ph.D.s is substantially lower than people without Ph.D.'s.

But I know that anecdotal evidence isn't very convincing, and I've spent a long time thinking about how to find real evidence.

We can compare anecdotes. If you know large numbers of unemployed physics Ph.D.'s, I'd be interested in knowing more. We can compare notes to see what is going on.

Again I think the law schools scamblog movement is interesting in this respect, because it seems like so many students were being silently ashamed of themselves until they made contact through the internet and realized that many others were in the same situation- that's when they finally began to speak out.

On the other hand seeing the agony that law students are going through now makes me thank my stars that I went into science and engineering.

[twofish-quant]

First, that's illegal in the US.

Second, it doesn't solve your problem: it just slightly changes the exponent.

It also kills my career plans. One thing that gives me a lot of hope is that I've seen productive physicists in their 80's and 90's, so my "worst case scenario" is that I work until I'm 59 1/2, at which point my 401(k) and IRA's open up, and then I spend the rest of my life doing astrophysics.

[Pyrrhus]

One important difference is typically no debt after grad school for Science and Engineering graduates. Also, for some social science graduates like Econ.

[pi-r8]

On the other hand, that number "makes sense" to me. Among the physics Ph.D.'s that I know of, I don't know of anyone that is unemployed, and since I know 20-30 personally, that's consistent with an unemployment rate of about 5%.


Bear in mind that statistic is only for people who got their degree in the previous year. Do you really know 20-30 people that got a physics PhD last year?


That's also mixing apples and oranges. If you count physics bachelors, you are likely to see a huge number of people in graduate school which pulls down salary figures.

Well that data is basically just for new bachelors degrees (including all physical sciences, not just physics). There's so many more bachelors compared to PhDs that they get swamped. And I guess I should mention that I only have a physics bachelors myself, so that's mostly what I'm concerned about. Besides... I know that having a BS in physics is nothing special on this website, but to most people it is. Everyone says like "wow that must have been really hard! You must have been so smart!" And hey, it was really hard. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that most people who get a physics BS (or any kind of science BS really) should be able to quickly find a decent job once they're done.

Anyway, since the reported salary is actually lower than what most grad students get as a stipend, wouldn't they actually be pulling the salary figures up?



I did both.

That's probably what everyone should do. It just feels like such a kick in the pants to hear that all the core classes you take to get a physics degree are almost totally unrelated to any kind of job. It's like "Oh we forgot to tell you that if you want any money you need to teach yourself programming in your spare time."


Yes, and one thing that I think that you'll find is that the statistics for physicists are *less* fudged than statistics for most other fields. That's an important thing to keep in mind when choose major and buying used cars. Yes, the salesman is probably lying to you, but the question is whether or not they are lying to you more or less than the person across the street.

True. I'm annoyed at the AIP for not having better data, but I have to admit that they are far better in this respect than almost any other major. Most departments just give the exact same spiel "we teach you critical thinking that will prepare you for absolutely any job. And even if the job numbers are tough right now, don't worry, because any minute now a whole bunch of baby boomers are about to retire and then you'll find a great job in our field easily."

For physics Ph.D.'s it matches my experience. Note that most Ph.D.'s I know are in their 30's, and I don't know the current situation for people fresh out of school. But the unemployment rate for Ph.D.s is substantially lower than people without Ph.D.'s.

Well again, their data is only for people with a fresh PhD, and they don't have much data for post-recession. Also, they don't track what happens after the post-doc, which seems like a major problem. Right now the main career path in physics seems to be:

Bachelors -> PhD -> postdoc -> ?????

Being a postdoc is fine, but you can't stay a postdoc forever. At some point you have to transition to a permanent job, and that's the really hard part.


We can compare anecdotes. If you know large numbers of unemployed physics Ph.D.'s, I'd be interested in knowing more. We can compare notes to see what is going on.

I'm too young- pretty much everyone I know is still in grad school (geez, academia is slow!). What really worries me is that grad school just seemed like the default choice for every physics student who had halfway decent grades. I went for a while, but quit after I realized I had lost interest in it.

Of the 13 people that I can think of who graduated in my class, eight are in grad school, three of us were unemployed for a long time before finding (not very good) jobs, one is still unemployed, and one is a ski instructor (admittedly that sounds like a lot of fun).


On the other hand seeing the agony that law students are going through now makes me thank my stars that I went into science and engineering.
Ain't that the truth. Apparently there's such a "critical shortage" of scientists that the government was willing to pay for my studies so I could graduate debt-free. I'm only now starting to realize how amazingly lucky I was in that respect. It just seems bizarre that they'll pay for people to learn science, but not to actually [i]do[i/] science.

On a personal note, twofish, I've read a lot of your other posts in this forum and I think they're gold. Thanks a lot for some very insightful advice. I don't always agree with you but it's still very helpful.

[pi-r8]

It also kills my career plans. One thing that gives me a lot of hope is that I've seen productive physicists in their 80's and 90's, so my "worst case scenario" is that I work until I'm 59 1/2, at which point my 401(k) and IRA's open up, and then I spend the rest of my life doing astrophysics.

One possibility (for everyone) would be to just work a part-time job to pay the bills and work on science research the rest of the time. I know that people who try to submit physics research from outside academia are usually cranks- especially the ones for theoretical astrophysics- but this really might be feasible in the future. If you've got a PhD you've got all the training you need, the internet lets you collaborate with everyone else in the field, and a theorist won't need much equipment. Is there anything impossible with that plan?

[twofish-quant]

Bear in mind that statistic is only for people who got their degree in the previous year. Do you really know 20-30 people that got a physics PhD last year?

No, but there is a professor in my department that keeps track of these things. A 4% unemployment rate among Ph.D. seems reasonable, and I don't see any reason to question that number.

Besides... I know that having a BS in physics is nothing special on this website, but to most people it is. Everyone says like "wow that must have been really hard! You must have been so smart!" And hey, it was really hard. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that most people who get a physics BS (or any kind of science BS really) should be able to quickly find a decent job once they're done.

It's not unreasonable, but you happen to have had the misfortunate of graduating into the aftermath of the worst economic calamity in the last eighty years. You are screwed. The question is "how screwed are you" and I think that you are less screwed with a physics bachelors than with most other degrees.

Your demand are not unreasonable, but sometimes reality turns out to be unreasonable.

Anyway, since the reported salary is actually lower than what most grad students get as a stipend, wouldn't they actually be pulling the salary figures up?

I don't think it is lower.

That's probably what everyone should do. It just feels like such a kick in the pants to hear that all the core classes you take to get a physics degree are almost totally unrelated to any kind of job. It's like "Oh we forgot to tell you that if you want any money you need to teach yourself programming in your spare time."

Not just programming, but there are about a thousand other skills that you have to teach yourself. School is just part of your education. Now if you thought that a degree was just a meal ticket, in which you do what you are told, and then at the end there is a nice job waiting for you. That's not the way that it works.

One of the things that I very strongly tell people is to take humanities very seriously. Learn history and economics and philosophy and art. The reason for that is that those also give you about a dozen skills that you need for the workplace.

Something that you have to realize is that sometimes no one has the answers. We are in an economic mess and no one knows the way out, but the point of a college education is to give you enough background so that you can figure out what to do next.

True. I'm annoyed at the AIP for not having better data, but I have to admit that they are far better in this respect than almost any other major. Most departments just give the exact same spiel "we teach you critical thinking that will prepare you for absolutely any job.

Which is more or less true. Now we have the problem that the jobs aren't there, and no one seems to know what to do about it. *That's* when the critical thinking skills really need to kick in.

Well again, their data is only for people with a fresh PhD, and they don't have much data for post-recession. Also, they don't track what happens after the post-doc, which seems like a major problem. Right now the main career path in physics seems to be:

Bachelors -> PhD -> postdoc -> ?????

I know people that have done tracking. One thing that I think is cool about physics is that there *ISN'T* a main career path. I've figured out something that seems to work for me. It probably won't work for you.

Once you get to the level of Ph.D.'s, everyone is different. Also one thing that you learn when you do Ph.D. tracking over a long period of time is that the path changes from decade to decade. If you are starting graduate school right now, I haven't the foggiest clue what your career path will look like. So you better be prepared for anything, either good or bad.

Being a postdoc is fine, but you can't stay a postdoc forever. At some point you have to transition to a permanent job, and that's the really hard part.

No you don't. You never have a permanent job. I've switched fields every five years or so. There is no such thing as a permanent job. I hear rumors that they existed once before, but that was before my time. I've never had a permanent job. My current job pays well, but I could be out the door tomorrow.

It just seems bizarre that they'll pay for people to learn science, but not to actually [i]do[i/] science.

It depends on how broadly you define science.

[twofish-quant]

One possibility (for everyone) would be to just work a part-time job to pay the bills and work on science research the rest of the time.

Thought of that myself. It doesn't work.

The problem is that high paying jobs are invariably not part-time, and jobs that are part-time don't pay enough to allow any surplus. If this were viable, I'd be doing it.

I know that people who try to submit physics research from outside academia are usually cranks- especially the ones for theoretical astrophysics- but this really might be feasible in the future. If you've got a PhD you've got all the training you need, the internet lets you collaborate with everyone else in the field, and a theorist won't need much equipment. Is there anything impossible with that plan?

I haven't gotten this to work, because:

1) the key thing to do science to to have professional networks, Those are very hard to build up, and it's being physically outside of a university makes things difficult.
2) library/books are a problem. In astrophysics the journal articles are online, but some of the major books are not
3) the basic unit of research is a paper, and in order to write a paper you need to have several months free, and you can't carve that out easily when you are working full time

All of these are "engineering" problems and there is no law of physics that keeps people from restructuring the system to make it more friendly to part-time physicists, except that there isn't any political or economic incentive to do so. Right now there is a "glut" of scientists. Making it easier to do science will just increase the "glut" with no economic or political benefit that I can see.

When you are an undergraduate, you are money-poor but time-rich, once you get to age 40, you have more than enough money, but no time. I'm hoping things will change when I hit 50 or 60.

[Mépris]

^
If a reasonable number of physicists work together outside of universities, build their own internet community - an online department, if you will - and everybody meets on a fixed date and time, would problem 1) not be fixed?

[twofish-quant]

Also the fact that everyone can talk to everyone on the internet doesn't solve things. The problem with having everyone talk to everyone is that it results in a many shallow personal networks, whereas science research depends on having a few *deep* relationships. The other thing is that sometimes in order to have a conversation, you have to keep people out of the conversation.

Again, this is an "social engineering" problem, but it's not a trivial one to solve.

[twofish-quant]

^
If a reasonable number of physicists work together outside of universities, build their own internet community - an online department, if you will - and everybody meets on a fixed date and time, would problem 1) not be fixed?

Easier said then done. One problem is that if you have two professors from different universities swap ideas on their latest research online, this is considered good, and all non-trivial scientific collaborations go between different universities. If you have two people from competing companies do that, they'll get fired, assuming the regulators don't investigate you for anti-trust violations.

In order to have a department you need money and staff. And what's the point? It's not incredibly difficult to get an adjunct position once you have some status and reputation.

[Biosyn]

How is it a scam? At what point during a BS or PhD are students told they have to go into academia and become professors? A scam, by definition, must tell its targets of an attainable position/result when in fact, that position/result is impossible or nearly impossible to reach.

Thus, it is not a scam, despite some people deciding on their own that the only job they should be going for is a professorship.

Exactly what I was thinking.
Why would it be a scam? Students should do their due diligence. It's their choice. I don't think it's a scam.

[pi-r8]

Also the fact that everyone can talk to everyone on the internet doesn't solve things. The problem with having everyone talk to everyone is that it results in a many shallow personal networks, whereas science research depends on having a few *deep* relationships. The other thing is that sometimes in order to have a conversation, you have to keep people out of the conversation.

Again, this is an "social engineering" problem, but it's not a trivial one to solve.

That doesn't sound so hard to me. I've personally worked on several different kinds of projects with people that I've met through internet sites (it's a millenial thing- you old folks wouldn't understand :P). And after reading forums for a while, I start to get a feel for who is worth paying attention to and who I can safely ignore. You even have that special medal image to give you special recognition on this forum! I honestly think the only reason that nobody does "serious" science outside of academia is cultural inertia. We've internalized the idea that the only people outside academia who write science articles are cranks, and therefore the only people who do that tend to actually be cranks, which justifies our belief in ignoring those people.

[pi-r8]

Exactly what I was thinking.
Why would it be a scam? Students should do their due diligence. It's their choice. I don't think it's a scam.

"You should have done your due diligence" is not a valid justification of anything. Especially not when students are getting their heads filled with romantic advice like "follow your dreams", "trust your gut", and "just do what you love and don't worry about the money". I still say that it's unreasonably difficult for science students to get a realistic understanding of what a career path through academia is like.

One interesting thing I read recently is that higher education is in sort of a bizarre legal situation. They can't directly say that a college degree will help you get a job, because that would open them up to lawsuits if it doesn't. They also can't say that it won't help you get a job, because that's the main reason most people go to college. So instead they have to do sort of a "wink wink, nudge nudge" and let 3rd parties make the case that a college degree will get you a job.

[twofish-quant]

That doesn't sound so hard to me.

It's one of those things that sounds easier than it is. I do think that social networking will change the dynamics, but someone still needs to put the pieces together. Part of the reason that I'm telling people that the problems are X, Y, and Z is that I'd like to see someone work around X, Y, and Z.

You can writing someone an e-mail, but they don't have to reply.

I've personally worked on several different kinds of projects with people that I've met through internet sites (it's a millenial thing- you old folks wouldn't understand :P).

About 75% of the people that I work with, I've never met face-to-face. Everything at the office is instant messaging, e-mail, telephones, with the occasional teleconference.

I honestly think the only reason that nobody does "serious" science outside of academia is cultural inertia.

I don't think so. I haven't found any resistance at all from my peers toward me writing papers on my research. The problem is finding the time. If the *only* thing that was keeping me from publishing is "cultural inertia" then I would have done it already.

We've internalized the idea that the only people outside academia who write science articles are cranks, and therefore the only people who do that tend to actually be cranks, which justifies our belief in ignoring those people.

Who is "we"?

There is some internalization involved. From time to time, I get these crazy ideas about how I've solved the deep mysteries of the universe. However, usually I take a deep breath, get a good nights sleep, and in the morning I realize that my idea was crap. So if I have a new idea, I'm going to spend a few weeks kicking it to pieces before I even think of uploading to Archvix, and since I know what quality looks like, that keeps me from publishing something that I know is bad. And getting something good takes time and effort.

The thing that I could easily get at the university which I don't have now is a bunch of people to bounce ideas off of. So I have this crap idea that doesn't work. I mention it to someone else who agrees that it is crap, but then it might solve this other problem that they are working on, at which point we try to mold it into something interesting.

[twofish-quant]

"You should have done your due diligence" is not a valid justification of anything. Especially not when students are getting their heads filled with romantic advice like "follow your dreams", "trust your gut", and "just do what you love and don't worry about the money".

A bit of history. What happened in 2008 was not supposed to happen. In 1991, the Soviet Union fell, the web was invented and with technology and democracy, we were supposed to march to utopia, and what people put in your head (and in my head) was based on the assumption that we understand how economies worked and that recessions were impossible.

It didn't work out that way. One reason I never bought into this idea completely was that I knew enough history to look at the last dozen times people promised utopia. Also, you don't have to look far. The 1950's were one of those periods. The other thing is that a lot of the "romantics" came of age in the 1960's.

I still say that it's unreasonably difficult for science students to get a realistic understanding of what a career path through academia is like.

Sure, and part of it is that no one *knows* what a career path through academia looks like. You are asking for someone to package the future and give it to you, and this is just not possible. I can't tell you what you'll be doing in ten years, because I can't tell you what I'll be doing in ten years.

If you want an answer, the answer is "I don't know."

So instead they have to do sort of a "wink wink, nudge nudge" and let 3rd parties make the case that a college degree will get you a job.

Which is pretty common in business. The other thing that's a problem is that often the people that tell you these sorts of things actually believe them.

Also sometimes its true. As bad as the situation is, do you think that you would be better off without a college degree? Yes, most jobs that people get *could* be done without a degree, but a lot of times the first resume pass gets rid of people that don't have a degree.

[Vanadium 50]

Does anyone have the actual paper by Sum? I keep reading how wonderful his methodology is, but can only find things in blogs. I'd like to see what his methodology actually is, rather than judge it by how near I think he comes to the "right" answer.

[D H]

Does anyone have the actual paper by Sum? I keep reading how wonderful his methodology is, but can only find things in blogs. I'd like to see what his methodology actually is, rather than judge it by how near I think he comes to the "right" answer.
I've looked. I can't find it.
Not here: http://www.northeastern.edu/clms/publications/
Not here, either: http://www.employmentpolicy.org/people/andrew-m-sum

I can find lots of blogs that quote these wonderful statistics, but not one that references the source of these statistics in the form of a white paper or journal paper. The only references provided are links to Sum's home page.


I am very curious: How did he count graduate students? A good percentage of physical science (physics, chemistry, geology, meteorology, ...) undergrads proceed on to graduate school rather than getting a job armed only with their undergraduate degree.

[Vanadium 50]

Exactly one of the questions I have. Note that the difference between the two sets of numbers is approximately the number of people who go on to graduate school.

[daveyinaz]

"You should have done your due diligence" is not a valid justification of anything. Especially not when students are getting their heads filled with romantic advice like "follow your dreams", "trust your gut", and "just do what you love and don't worry about the money".


True dat homie! Like someone said...the tenet of all those too afraid to admit they are scamming someone.

[Locrian]

There's a few degrees like physiotherapy (an undergraduate course in many countries), accounting, actuarial science or social work, that I just cannot understand the existence of. Those should be in trade schools. Heck, one doesn't even need an accounting/actuarial science degree to get that kind of job. Not sure about the US, but elsewhere, one needs to do take a set of exams by an external body, say the ACCA. The thing I'm not certain of is whether someone with a major in accounting can get an accounting gig without being certified by something like the ACCA. Likewise for an actuary.

In the US you really can't get most accounting jobs without an accounting degree, and the majority will require a CPA for any real progression. There are some accounting jobs that are little more than book keeping that one can get without an accounting degree, but those are best avoided.

The only requirement to work as an actuary in the US are the actuarial designations, which do not require a college degree. However, they do require a lot of mathematical background. No one I know has ever heard of anyone becoming a credentialled actuary without a college degree.

IMNSHO, neither of those professions belong in trade schools in the US.

[nickyrtr]

A thought about postdocs ...

The money is not great, but it's enough to live on, and anyone who has chosen a career in science isn't in it for the money anyway. The work itself can be quite interesting and rewarding. Not so much if you have a bad boss, but the same is true of any profession. One could be a postdoc indefinitely and count it as a satisfying career if only a couple of things changed:

- Change the view in our science subculture that a postdoc is just an apprenticeship for something else. Modern science apparently needs lots of people doing what postdocs do, and far fewer doing what tenure-track faculty do. The former should therefore be viewed as a worthy career destination for most science PhD's.

- Give the postdoc role some measure of temporal and geographic stability. One should not have to move halfway across the country (or world) every couple of years to stay employed. Lifetime employment at one institution is probably too much to hope for, but at least give science workers as much job stability as in other professional fields.

[Locrian]

The money is not great, but it's enough to live on, and anyone who has chosen a career in science isn't in it for the money anyway.

False.

But what do you expect from statements like these? It would be miraculous if it were true.

[Choppy]

A thought about postdocs ...

The money is not great, but it's enough to live on, and anyone who has chosen a career in science isn't in it for the money anyway. The work itself can be quite interesting and rewarding. Not so much if you have a bad boss, but the same is true of any profession. One could be a postdoc indefinitely and count it as a satisfying career if only a couple of things changed:

- Change the view in our science subculture that a postdoc is just an apprenticeship for something else. Modern science apparently needs lots of people doing what postdocs do, and far fewer doing what tenure-track faculty do. The former should therefore be viewed as a worthy career destination for most science PhD's.

- Give the postdoc role some measure of temporal and geographic stability. One should not have to move halfway across the country (or world) every couple of years to stay employed. Lifetime employment at one institution is probably too much to hope for, but at least give science workers as much job stability as in other professional fields.

I'm not sure what Locrian is disagreeing with. I think Nickyrtr's opening statement is reasonable. There are situations where a high cost of living or supporting a large family or extravagant lifestyle would be impractical on a post-doctoral salary, but for the most part "enough to live on" is a fair statement, in my opinion. It is also fair to assume that most scientists are not primarily driven by earning potential. There are some..., but they usually become scientist-entrepreneurs.

With respect to NickyRTR's second point giving stability to the postdoc role - it's a nice idea, but the implementation is the difficult part. HOW would you propose we do this? Post-docs are generally hired to work on specific, time-limited projects. Once a project is completed, keeping a post-doc is just an extra cost with no added value. When new projects come up, often people with different skill sets are needed and you have a pool of newly trained, freshly graduated students who can walk in and start working on day one with little to no investment in training on your part.

[deRham]

No you don't. You never have a permanent job. I've switched fields every five years or so. There is no such thing as a permanent job. I hear rumors that they existed once before, but that was before my time. I've never had a permanent job. My current job pays well, but I could be out the door tomorrow.

This leads/relates to one of my questions for a long time, which is why there is a chasm between truly permanent jobs in academia and purely temporary ones. Someone brought up that they pay for people to learn but not to do (at least not in the exact same sense they learn - that is, if you learn theoretical topics in QFT, you have a high chance of ending up not doing QFT).

I have sometimes wondered what would happen if there were an intermediate, non-permanent position between a postdoc and a full professorship, and maybe even fewer "tenure" positions...but someone can feel free to vehemently object, provided a good reason is given. The reason is that I daresay a fair number of individuals leave academia not just because it's hard to find a job, but rather that it's hard to find a job you have *any* reasonable likelihood of keeping. Nothing is permanent. Even full professorships aren't, because you can die. But the point is an expectation of a reasonable chance at some security.

on specific, time-limited projects. Once a project is completed, keeping a post-doc is just an extra cost with no added value

Presumably when someone is hired, he/she has some long term tasks to perform. I imagine what would happen is you have some senior faculty member with whom you discuss what you plan to do in the future after some reasonable stage of time (maybe a year), and you get to stay if you've made good enough progress to convince the faculty member of your ability to follow through.

[LogicX]

So, this thread is making me very worried. How hard are chemistry jobs to come by compared to physics? I feel like chemistry has a lot of industrial application, or are all those jobs populated by chemical engineers?

[JDoolin]

Well, what do you love? If you love money, you'll probably find a way to make money, whatever you do. If you love chemistry and money, you'll find a way to make money doing chemistry. If you love chemistry, and don't love money, you'll probably enjoy doing chemistry, and not make a lot of money.

[Pyrrhus]

Salary for postdoc is about what in Physics?

I saw several postdocs in my field about 80k-90k USD.

[ParticleGrl]

Salary for postdoc is about what in Physics?

I saw several postdocs in my field about 80k-90k USD.

The salary for physics is about half that, maybe 40-45k. The spread is very large however. Theorists as a group tend to be on the low side, experimentalists on the higher side.

If you have postdocs at 80-90k, can I hazard a guess that a postdoc isn't necessary for many who pursue careers in your field? For physics, you generally have to do 1 or 2 postdocs to have a shot at any job in the field (at least in theoretical physics, the average is 6 years of postdocing for those who land tenure track positions).

[Pyrrhus]

The salary for physics is about half that, maybe 40-45k. The spread is very large however. Theorists as a group tend to be on the low side, experimentalists on the higher side.

If you have postdocs at 80-90k, can I hazard a guess that a postdoc isn't necessary for many who pursue careers in your field? For physics, you generally have to do 1 or 2 postdocs to have a shot at any job in the field (at least in theoretical physics, the average is 6 years of postdocing for those who land tenure track positions).

In my field, postdocs are not the norm. Many find jobs in industry at banks, consulting firms, research centers, federal reserve, government... and Others (mostly those at the top Econ schools) find faculty positions right after graduating.

Postdoc are nice if you want to learn from a top scientist (usually a nobel laureate in econ).

[ParticleGrl]

Here is an economics project then- why is the labor market for economists so much better than the labor market for scientists? Does this say anything about where our economy is headed?

[nickyrtr]

[...]
With respect to NickyRTR's second point giving stability to the postdoc role - it's a nice idea, but the implementation is the difficult part. HOW would you propose we do this? Post-docs are generally hired to work on specific, time-limited projects. Once a project is completed, keeping a post-doc is just an extra cost with no added value.

By that logic, a university science department should also hire its top tier faculty on a short-term, contract basis, rather than offering lifetime tenure, yet they don't. It's not for teaching purposes either, because most of the classes are taught by grad student TA's and part-time adjuncts.

Other organizations, outside academia, also serve diverse, time-limited projects but still manage to keep a permanent staff. The military never knows what war it will have to fight with what operational conditions, yet it has career officers and enlisted. A law firm never knows what cases will arise, but still manages to keep a permanent staff of lawyers and clerks. It can be done.

When new projects come up, often people with different skill sets are needed and you have a pool of newly trained, freshly graduated students who can walk in and start working on day one with little to no investment in training on your part.

Why would you expect a new graduate to be better trained than a postdoc that has recently completed a research project in the field? The only advantage that I can imagine for the new graduate is that s/he is younger and more energetic, with fewer family commitments. That is the reason the private sector often prefers to hire younger job applicants; such age preference is of course illegal in many countries, but it still happens and is difficult to prove.

[Mute]

By that logic, a university science department should also hire its top tier faculty on a short-term, contract basis, rather than offering lifetime tenure, yet they don't. It's not for teaching purposes either, because most of the classes are taught by grad student TA's and part-time adjuncts.

What university do you go do/department are you in? That's certainly not the case at either my undergrad or graduate university. Nearly all courses are taught by the main professorial faculty. Adjuncts might teach a course here or there, and they usually end up teaching the summer courses, but otherwise it's the main faculty. Graduate students do of course teach discussion/tutorial sections and often grades quizzes, homework and exams, but they rarely teach the main course, at least in physics. I'm really not sure how your claim is justified.

[nickyrtr]

What university do you go do/department are you in? That's certainly not the case at either my undergrad or graduate university. Nearly all courses are taught by the main professorial faculty. Adjuncts might teach a course here or there, and they usually end up teaching the summer courses, but otherwise it's the main faculty. Graduate students do of course teach discussion/tutorial sections and often grades quizzes, homework and exams, but they rarely teach the main course, at least in physics. I'm really not sure how your claim is justified.

Most undergrad courses do have a professor who lectures, but the bulk of the interactive teaching work is done by TA's in lab/quiz sections. Some universities rely more on their tenured faculty for teaching than others, but it does not change that fact that teaching is secondary in hiring and promoting professors. Those are primarily based on research accomplishments, at least at a research university.

Back to the original point -- research is a project-based enterprise, but that does not preclude longer-term employment for researchers, as demonstrated by the existence of research faculty appointments with lifetime tenure. Offering postdocs longer-term, more geographically stable employment is possible, if academic institutions so choose, or are induced to choose by legislation, collective bargaining, etc.

[ParticleGrl]

Offering postdocs longer-term, more geographically stable employment is possible, if academic institutions so choose, or are induced to choose by legislation, collective bargaining, etc.

But it defeats the whole reason postdocs are desirable. A university needs professors to set the research agenda, and to apply for grants. Those professors need skilled people to actually do the work. As soon as postdocs aren't simple low-wage migrant labor, their usefulness is reduced.

The phd system isn't designed to give scientists stable careers, its designed to push wages down to get as much science done as cheaply as possible. You're essentially saying "if postdocs weren't designed as low-wage contingent labor jobs, they'd be better." This is true, but not particularly profound.

[LogicX]

I did not go into science to become a banker after wasting 10 years of my life. Reading this thread is really making me consider going to med school instead. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and if what I want to do is really a toss up between medicine and research, medicine just seems like a much better field. Or maybe an MD/PhD program.

[Choppy]

By that logic, a university science department should also hire its top tier faculty on a short-term, contract basis, rather than offering lifetime tenure, yet they don't. It's not for teaching purposes either, because most of the classes are taught by grad student TA's and part-time adjuncts.

Other organizations, outside academia, also serve diverse, time-limited projects but still manage to keep a permanent staff. The military never knows what war it will have to fight with what operational conditions, yet it has career officers and enlisted. A law firm never knows what cases will arise, but still manages to keep a permanent staff of lawyers and clerks. It can be done.



Why would you expect a new graduate to be better trained than a postdoc that has recently completed a research project in the field? The only advantage that I can imagine for the new graduate is that s/he is younger and more energetic, with fewer family commitments. That is the reason the private sector often prefers to hire younger job applicants; such age preference is of course illegal in many countries, but it still happens and is difficult to prove.

Sorry - I had an intricate response for you, but then my service provider hiccuped.

Anyway, the point is that I don't disagree with your idea. I just don't see how it's practical. And it will be a lot of work to convince the people who hold the purse strings to provide stable jobs when (a) the precendent is that they don't have to, (b) there is no practical evidence to suggest that doing so will have any major benefit, and (c) even the theory that it would be helpful is debatable.

[deRham]

Those professors need skilled people to actually do the work. As soon as postdocs aren't simple low-wage migrant labor, their usefulness is reduced.

While this makes sense in some areas of research, my impression is there are areas of research where there is very little work that can be relegated to the postdocs. I've found in mathematics for instance, it isn't at all uncommon to see a postdoc doing something nobody else in the department is doing.

I imagine there are at least some areas of theoretical physics where the same sort of remark holds.

Yet, why is the system roughly the same in that case? I don't see the benefit of having so many more postdocs than tenure-track (that is, people with a reasonable chance of remaining at the university given that their research is strong).

Why would you expect a new graduate to be better trained than a postdoc that has recently completed a research project in the field?

Exactly, I agree with this. I'm not sure if I'm missing something, but I see almost no reason not to believe this.

there is no practical evidence to suggest that doing so will have any major benefit, and (c) even the theory that it would be helpful is debatable.

If expendable labor that full-time faculty can relegate to those of lower rank is the goal, then this is true.

But in the cases where little such relegation of labor is practical, I'd presume the obvious goal to strive for is to get the most and best research output possible for the amount you pay your researchers. Perhaps it is true that those who obtain tenure at, say, MIT are so absurdly above the leagues of most researchers that there's no reason to contemplate hiring too many others.

I have heard of systems where tenure-track positions are effectively not tenure-track, since nearly nobody gets tenure, but I only hear of these much at universities like Princeton. I wonder if a better model than lots of expendable postdocs and a reasonable number of tenured faculty is to have more in the middle, and fewer at top. I think it would encourage more of the bright postdocs with good ideas to stick it out and produce lots of things. Maybe they won't get tenure, but if they aren't sent away in favor of a newbie every few years, maybe they'll stick it out longer and produce things they really couldn't have as newbies (or, for that matter, disgruntled people who walked away from academia to a different career).

After all, universities pour a lot of money into graduate students (paying tuition + for TA duties), and they offer tenured faculty significant benefits, so I can't help but wonder why there's less in between, since I've heard time and again that the in between phase produces a lot of the best research (in between when you're too old and too young to do anything impressive).

[nickyrtr]

[...] The phd system isn't designed to give scientists stable careers, its designed to push wages down to get as much science done as cheaply as possible. [...]

Many other industries, if you could call science an industry, are or were similarly designed. Historically, when an economic relationship is unbalanced to the severe detriment of one group of people, that group eventually changes the relationship, one way or another.

What's probably going to happen in science is that the science PhD glut will become better and better publicized, and fewer students will pursue science PhDs in years to come. Fewer PhD graduates means a smaller supply of postdocs and therefore less science getting done, if postdoc labor really is essential to research. Ironically, it may also mean better wages and working conditions for the postdocs that remain, due to the laws of supply and demand.

[ParticleGrl]

What's probably going to happen in science is that the science PhD glut will become better and better publicized, and fewer students will pursue science PhDs in years to come.

This already happened decades ago- the number of US citizens getting phds in the sciences started dropping off as the job opportunities shrank. So what happens? We dramatically expanded foreign enrollment in phd programs. It will be a long time before we run out of people willing to pursue a phd entirely for the chance to immigrate. I doubt the situation in science will change in my lifetime. Which leads to the question- why do we encourage careers in science as if they are good jobs?

[czelaya]

I wonder whether there has been a push to make PhD's in science a professional degree program with a license. I would assume, if done right, whatever institutions grant the license could artificially decrease the poll of graduating students and cause an increase in salary. Much like the AMA limits the poll of doctors.

[czelaya]

So, this thread is making me very worried. How hard are chemistry jobs to come by compared to physics? I feel like chemistry has a lot of industrial application, or are all those jobs populated by chemical engineers?

It's just as bad from my point of view and according to what the ACS is stating in the latest journals-job prospects are not well. I should be graduating with my PhD soon in chemical physics and already have masters in theoretical chemistry, and I'm worried. I choose to pursue the PhD, primarily, because I couldn't find a job. Choosing to continue my education was a no brainier. My stipend with a local grant was paying 30K-plus the free tuition.

As far as job prospects... well, lets say I'm glad that part of my research included some exposure to both analytical and organic chemistry. I picked up skills in HPLC analysis, gas chromatography, exposure to synthesis chemistry(which I hated with a passion), and some exposure to chemical engineering that are more marketable in the local job market. From my short exposure to job hunting-these seem to be the only jobs that are available locally. What's even worse is a good portion of these jobs could be picked up by engineers, Ms. Science majors (including biologist), and anyone with exposure to these fields. I'm pretty limited to moving because I have young daughter, and don't wish to leave her anytime soon, so I'm really stuck in a rut.

What's interesting is when I look at my research committee. It consist of a PhD in chemical engineering who is doing organic and analytical chemistry research for the FDA. He basically tells me it's no what he wants to do but, hey, it's what pays the bills. However he gets to control his research to a large degree. Two of the professors in my committee graduated in theoretical physics and have slowly migrated to biophysics and computational chemistry. I also have a computational physicist in the committee that only recently got into academics (he was doing work in financial econometrics before his tenure into our department). Only my major professor began and still is in solid state physics research.

[Pyrrhus]

What's interesting is when I look at my research committee. It consist of a PhD in chemical engineering who is doing organic and analytical chemistry research for the FDA. He basically tells me it's no what he wants to do but, hey, it's what pays the bills. However he gets to control his research to a large degree. Two of the professors in my committee graduated in theoretical physics and have slowly migrated to biophysics and computational chemistry. I also have a computational physicist in the committee that only recently got into academics (he was doing work in financial econometrics before his tenure into our department). Only my major professor began and still is in solid state physics research.

This is true. I know some professors that have Ph.D. in Physics but are faculty in Econ programs. I guess they decided to migrate.

Also for some perspective, a good portion of my classmates while I was taking courses at the PhD level in Econ had a Bachelor in Physics/Math/Engineering (I have a Bachelor in Engineering). Some even had a Master's in some cases (I have a Master's in Engineering).

[ParticleGrl]

This is true. I know some professors that have Ph.D. in Physics but are faculty in Econ programs. I guess they decided to migrate.

"Decided" is probably not strong enough. The better phrase is "lack of opportunity forced them to"

[chill_factor]

It's just as bad from my point of view and according to what the ACS is stating in the latest journals-job prospects are not well. I should be graduating with my PhD soon in chemical physics and already have masters in theoretical chemistry, and I'm worried. I choose to pursue the PhD, primarily, because I couldn't find a job. Choosing to continue my education was a no brainier. My stipend with a local grant was paying 30K-plus the free tuition.

As far as job prospects... well, lets say I'm glad that part of my research included some exposure to both analytical and organic chemistry. I picked up skills in HPLC analysis, gas chromatography, exposure to synthesis chemistry(which I hated with a passion), and some exposure to chemical engineering that are more marketable in the local job market. From my short exposure to job hunting-these seem to be the only jobs that are available locally. What's even worse is a good portion of these jobs could be picked up by engineers, Ms. Science majors (including biologist), and anyone with exposure to these fields. I'm pretty limited to moving because I have young daughter, and don't wish to leave her anytime soon, so I'm really stuck in a rut.

What's interesting is when I look at my research committee. It consist of a PhD in chemical engineering who is doing organic and analytical chemistry research for the FDA. He basically tells me it's no what he wants to do but, hey, it's what pays the bills. However he gets to control his research to a large degree. Two of the professors in my committee graduated in theoretical physics and have slowly migrated to biophysics and computational chemistry. I also have a computational physicist in the committee that only recently got into academics (he was doing work in financial econometrics before his tenure into our department). Only my major professor began and still is in solid state physics research.

you sound like you have experience in the physical biosciences. how is the employment in experimental physical biosciences? you seem like have the same background as i so i am very interested. i am in the process of selecting a research project and the decision between inorganic crystalline materials (superconductors) and bio is very hard since they're in different schools and i will not be able to change until graduation.

[czelaya]

you sound like you have experience in the physical biosciences. how is the employment in experimental physical biosciences? you seem like have the same background as i so i am very interested. i am in the process of selecting a research project and the decision between inorganic crystalline materials (superconductors) and bio is very hard since they're in different schools and i will not be able to change until graduation.

My graduate program is a concerted effort between the physics and chemistry department. I have a molecular biology/biochemistry BS(this is where I got my exposure to organic, biochemistry, and laboratory training) and a physics BS. So that's the extent of my course work/laboratory exposure to biology.

As far as physical biochemistry, it overlaps heavily with biophysics, physical chemistry, chemical physics, and theoretical modeling. The majority of all students in these concentrations take overlapping course work (thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry, atomic physics, mathematical methods, and so forth). My only exposure to these fields were course work, and working on small projects consisting of molecular dynamics of water in protein cavities and statistical mechanical applications to large proteins (the protein folding problem).

My only insight to these fields is that out of academia, physical bio-sciences are becoming less frequent in industry. We already had two guest speakers from large pharmaceutical companies and other related industries, and they all basically said the same thing. Companies are downsizing, and jobs are being shipped outside the US. So job prospects, overall, are not well in these fields.

As far as inorganic chemistry, solid state physics, and materials sciences, the job market is flourishing (meaning you should get a job in about a year). There are a lot of grants being given, and money is being pumped into these field at both the public and private sector.

The only piece of advice I would give myself, when I started my program, extrapolate how marketable your degree specialty is. However that piece of advice, at times, is worth a grain of salt. Why? Because changes are always coming, and you don't know where industries are steering next. When I got into graduate school fields like x-ray crystallography, molecular physics, chemical physics, quantum chemistry, and so forth were hot (well that's what I was told and most students graduating in these fields were finding employment in academics, industry, USDA, and the FDA) but then the downturn in the economy changed everything. My second piece of advice is learn as much as you can. Try to pick up skills that may work to your benefit across the board like programming language, laboratory instrumentation, and anything that has applications to industry. I'm glad I learned industrial chemical analysis. I'm not very good at chemistry but I've done enough to get some job interviews. I'm sure there are far more knowledgeable and well seasoned people on this web site that would give you better advice. Good luck.

[twofish-quant]

Here is an economics project then- why is the labor market for economists so much better than the labor market for scientists?

Part of it is the "second Einstein effect". Once you have one Einstein that works out general relativity, then there isn't a job left for a second Einstein. One other thing is that in physics, once you figure out some fundamental law, you are done. Once you've worked out string theory or quantum gravity, you let everyone know, and you are finished.

In economics, the rules change so often, that knowing how derivative markets worked in 1980 is only of marginal benefit to knowing the rules in 2012. So you have to rederive all your models every few months.

Does this say anything about where our economy is headed?

Has headed. The bus left decades ago.

The US became a post-industrial service economy decades ago. Citigroup has roughly the same head count as GM, and Morgan-Stanley has roughly the same head count as Chrysler. One thing that changes public perceptions of finance is the fact that finance is not unionized. When you talk about an auto company, the fact that you have a union makes people aware that not every in an auto company is a auto executive.

Because financial companies are tight lipped and non-unionized, the only people that people on the outside see are the top executives, which makes people assume that everyone that works in a bank is a managing director.

[twofish-quant]

Back to the original point -- research is a project-based enterprise, but that does not preclude longer-term employment for researchers, as demonstrated by the existence of research faculty appointments with lifetime tenure. Offering postdocs longer-term, more geographically stable employment is possible, if academic institutions so choose, or are induced to choose by legislation, collective bargaining, etc.

The problem here is that if you do that, then you've just destroyed the tenure system. Once you have postdocs having long term contracts, and getting into positions of authority, then pretty soon, that's going to be the standard practice. One thing about legislation is that when it comes to politicians, both post-docs and tenured faculty are on the same side. No one wants politicians to start mandating terms of employment.

I'm reminded of the conversation between Bryant and Deckard in Bladerunner in which it's mentioned that androids why have a programmed four year life span.

One other thing to note is that tenure was not unusual in most unionized industries in the 1950's. It's only because of changes in the labor market that made professors have different hiring practices.

[twofish-quant]

Companies are downsizing, and jobs are being shipped outside the US. So job prospects, overall, are not well in these fields.

One thing that's good about a Ph.D. is that it will get you at the head of a queue if you want to switch countries. This works if you want to get into the US, but it also works if you want to get out.

Something else that is happening is the decline of relative US power. If you have a committee full of Americans, you can appeal to patriotism to keep jobs in the US. If it turns out that the people who are running the company aren't American, then appeals to American patriotism aren't going to work, and increasingly the people that make decisions about where the jobs are, aren't American.

I've seen this dynamic in multi-national companies. If you want to make a decision as to whether to move a plant from the US to India, then it's going to *have* to be based on economic decisions rather than on nationalism, because appeals to "keep jobs in America" won't appeal to the Indians involved in making the decision.

[twofish-quant]

What's probably going to happen in science is that the science PhD glut will become better and better publicized, and fewer students will pursue science PhDs in years to come.

At which point you may have a boom-bust cycle which just wrecks the system.

Or you end up with an economic death spiral. Fewer Ph.D.'s -> less economic growth -> fewer Ph.D.'s -> less economic growth

Ironically, it may also mean better wages and working conditions for the postdocs that remain, due to the laws of supply and demand.

Supply and demand aren't "iron laws" rather like everything else in economics, they can be modeled. The rules of supply and demand that work in perfect markets don't work with science hiring, but it's not hard to come up with other models.

[twofish-quant]

I wonder whether there has been a push to make PhD's in science a professional degree program with a license. I would assume, if done right, whatever institutions grant the license could artificially decrease the poll of graduating students and cause an increase in salary. Much like the AMA limits the poll of doctors.

1) Personally, I think that would be a horrible thing to do. One thing about physics Ph.D.'s is that out of necessity, they often are employed in industries with weak or non-existent professional licensing which gives people a strong dislike for professional licensing.

2) It's not going to work because graduate students are cheap labor for the tenured faculty. If you reduce the number of people coming in, then a lot of research just isn't going to get done. Also why would tenured faculty *want* to increase graduate student salaries?

3) And also, I think it would be bad for research. Once you start limiting the number of people coming in then things are going to get even more political than they are. This has been really horrible for economics academic research.

4) And then you have to get to "core values." Something that I've always been taught is that education is good for society, and if the economic system doesn't reflect this thing something is massively messed up with the system and it's gotta get changed.

[twofish-quant]

After all, universities pour a lot of money into graduate students (paying tuition + for TA duties), and they offer tenured faculty significant benefits, so I can't help but wonder why there's less in between, since I've heard time and again that the in between phase produces a lot of the best research (in between when you're too old and too young to do anything impressive).

Karl Marx answered this quite nicely. People with power make up the rules so they'll make them up to maximize their power at the expense of people with no power. So what ends up happening is that either you have power or you don't, and that kills any sort of "middle class." I studied a lot of Marxism, and much of what he had to say makes sense. The big problem is that the obvious solution that he gave for how to fix the problem i.e. "have a revolution and shoot the old guard" doesn't work, so it's not clear what to do from a social point of view.

From a personal point of view, if we are in a situation in which the rich get richer and the poor are getting poorer, then first priority is self-preservation and do what I can to get in the door, and then once I get in, figure out what to do next.

[chill_factor]

Part of it is the "second Einstein effect". Once you have one Einstein that works out general relativity, then there isn't a job left for a second Einstein. One other thing is that in physics, once you figure out some fundamental law, you are done. Once you've worked out string theory or quantum gravity, you let everyone know, and you are finished.

In economics, the rules change so often, that knowing how derivative markets worked in 1980 is only of marginal benefit to knowing the rules in 2012. So you have to rederive all your models every few months.



Has headed. The bus left decades ago.

The US became a post-industrial service economy decades ago. Citigroup has roughly the same head count as GM, and Morgan-Stanley has roughly the same head count as Chrysler. One thing that changes public perceptions of finance is the fact that finance is not unionized. When you talk about an auto company, the fact that you have a union makes people aware that not every in an auto company is a auto executive.

Because financial companies are tight lipped and non-unionized, the only people that people on the outside see are the top executives, which makes people assume that everyone that works in a bank is a managing director.

the 2nd einstein effect is for mostly theoretical and basic sciences, i assume?

what about for experimental applied sciences?

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Has headed. The bus left decades ago.

"An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today." --Laurence J. Peter

[Locrian]

the 2nd einstein effect is for mostly theoretical and basic sciences, i assume?

what about for experimental applied sciences?

It's not even really true for theoretical science. Most of physics (materials, condensed matter, etc.) doesn't function by producing a few huge discoveries that leave everyone else with nothing to do. Most of physics discovery is incremental in nature.

Negative index metamaterials, giant magnetoresistance, high temperature superconductivity. . . these things created tremendous numbers of jobs in their areas, many including permanent positions.

Even Einstein doesn't really demonstrate this stuff about the second Einstein effect. In many cases - special relativity, brownian motion, Bose-Einstein condensates, possibly even general relativity - Einstein was the "second Einstein".

It's complete nonsense that has no basis in fact.

[Locrian]

Organic electronics is another awesome example. Twofish wants you to believe that the field died when Heeger created it, but it's the exact opposite. The discovery of the way those materials function has been the basis of tremendous amounts of research.

Saying that "once you figure out a fundamental law, you are done" reflects this absurd reductionist philosophy that our universe can be pared down to a few simple rules from which all else forms, and if we could discover those rules we'd be finished. The past 60 years of physics has been a triumph largely because that philosophy has been such a failure.

[czelaya]

1) Personally, I think that would be a horrible thing to do. One thing about physics Ph.D.'s is that out of necessity, they often are employed in industries with weak or non-existent professional licensing which gives people a strong dislike for professional licensing.

2) It's not going to work because graduate students are cheap labor for the tenured faculty. If you reduce the number of people coming in, then a lot of research just isn't going to get done. Also why would tenured faculty *want* to increase graduate student salaries?

3) And also, I think it would be bad for research. Once you start limiting the number of people coming in then things are going to get even more political than they are. This has been really horrible for economics academic research.

4) And then you have to get to "core values." Something that I've always been taught is that education is good for society, and if the economic system doesn't reflect this thing something is massively messed up with the system and it's gotta get changed.

I'm not asserting that licensing would be a good thing. Personally, I think the strict licensing of many professions does exactly what you're stating. It protects a few at the cost of others. However, I'm in no way saying that certain benchmarks should not be achieved by practitioners of a particular field, but to large a degree, I feel that current licensing laws don't add outstanding benefits to society.

1.) Could you elaborate on your 1st comment?

2.) Couldn't post docs fulfill those obligations in the form of an accreditation program once you receive a doctoral degree? Much like a residency.

3.) Really? But economic programs aren't professional licensed programs... are they? Please elaborate? What about medical physics programs? Don't they pay generous salaries and it seems that research in that particular field is advancing.

4.) Well it seems that the market is over saturated with PhD's and is primarily due to the to easy access students have to fund their education (well-from my point of view anyway). However it does seem that society is not kind to researchers. Is it society or the researchers themselves that need to change?

I've always been more drawn to free market oriented views and not been fond of Keynesian or socialist economic schools, respectfully. In all honesty, my adherence to libertarian views is driven from my personal experience and the morals I've cultivated from those experiences. The price mechanism is far too powerful of an efficient system to allocating scarce sources.

[chill_factor]

Organic electronics is another awesome example. Twofish wants you to believe that the field died when Heeger created it, but it's the exact opposite. The discovery of the way those materials function has been the basis of tremendous amounts of research.

Saying that "once you figure out a fundamental law, you are done" reflects this absurd reductionist philosophy that our universe can be pared down to a few simple rules from which all else forms, and if we could discover those rules we'd be finished. The past 60 years of physics has been a triumph largely because that philosophy has been such a failure.

Would you recommend condensed matter physics as a good field to go into if the final goal is employment in this specific technical field in industry?

[Choppy]

2.) Couldn't post docs fulfill those obligations in the form of an accreditation program once you receive a doctoral degree? Much like a residency.

3.) Really? But economic programs aren't professional licensed programs... are they? Please elaborate? What about medical physics programs? Don't they pay generous salaries and it seems that research in that particular field is advancing.


I think one of the key differences is that medicine and medical physics provide very specific services that require those rendering them to assume a lot of responsibility. Ultimately that is one major factor that puts them/us in a favourable negotiating position when it comes time to work out salaries.

In medical physics the residency is where the physicist is supposed to be learning all the practical, clinical aspects of the profession. Thus you can take people who know all the theory they need and then place them in various practical scenarios where they are supervised by someone competant who is ultimately willing to assume responsibility for the services provided.

How would an analog of this work for academic research? I can tell you (or at least make a reasonably objective argument for) what makes someone competant as a clinical medical physicist. In academia, the traditional credential for "competant researcher" has always been the PhD. So what would a post-doc 'resident' be working towards? And what issue would a 'residency' solve?

[twofish-quant]

It's not even really true for theoretical science. Most of physics (materials, condensed matter, etc.) doesn't function by producing a few huge discoveries that leave everyone else with nothing to do. Most of physics discovery is incremental in nature.

A lot depends on the area of physics. There are some areas (string theory and mathematical physics) that are prone to the "second Einstein effect" than others. But even in areas that are more communal, the number of jobs produced is relatively small, and the jobs that are produced are often not directly related to research.

If you increase the number of string theorist from 5 to 100, then you can use the extra ones to research other approaches, but if you increase them from 100 to 10000, it's not clear what the other people will do.

Negative index metamaterials, giant magnetoresistance, high temperature superconductivity. . . these things created tremendous numbers of jobs in their areas, many including permanent positions.

But we are still talking about thousands of jobs in a nation with 30 million people.

Even Einstein doesn't really demonstrate this stuff about the second Einstein effect. In many cases - special relativity, brownian motion, Bose-Einstein condensates, possibly even general relativity - Einstein was the "second Einstein".

But we are still talking about 100 or so people that changed the world. The fact that a small number of physicists can change the world is paradoxically not a good thing when it comes to generating large number of things for physicists to do.

[twofish-quant]

Organic electronics is another awesome example. Twofish wants you to believe that the field died when Heeger created it, but it's the exact opposite. The discovery of the way those materials function has been the basis of tremendous amounts of research.

Yes, lots of research, but how many new spots for researchers? Hundreds? Thousands? The point is that physics is something that a small number of people can do lots of stuff.

Saying that "once you figure out a fundamental law, you are done"

Once you figure out a fundamental law, you are done figuring out the fundamental law, and you don't have to pay someone to rediscover it.

You can find people to figure out something else, but it's not like building a car in which you have to keep making new stuff to replace old stuff from breaking down.

[twofish-quant]

1.) Could you elaborate on your 1st comment?

With a physics Ph.D., I can't get hired as a doctor, lawyer, accountant, or civil engineer because of licensing (not to say that it's a bad thing for the world that I can't be hired). However, I can get hired as a software engineer, car salesman, and without too much trouble as a stockbroker, because those either have no licensing or minimal licensing requirements.

Couldn't post docs fulfill those obligations in the form of an accreditation program once you receive a doctoral degree? Much like a residency.

Trouble is that the "accreditation" is a Ph.d. Also there isn't a well defined set of skills, like being a doctor or lawyer.

Really? But economic programs aren't professional licensed programs... are they?

Effectively they are. You get a job based on what peer reviewed publications. The problem with economists (and to a lesser degree physicists) is that it's hard to come up with objective criteria for competence so when you have to make decisions, it can get very subjective, very quickly.

4.) Well it seems that the market is over saturated with PhD's and is primarily due to the to easy access students have to fund their education (well-from my point of view anyway).

And for physics Ph.D.'s people have easy access because it's necessary to have graduate students to do research. The other thing is that I *don't* think that there are too many Ph.D.'s. The problem is an issue of market structure and demand.

However it does seem that society is not kind to researchers. Is it society or the researchers themselves that need to change?

It depends. Personally, if the US isn't kind to researchers, then eventually people will move elsewhere, and that will be bad for the US.

I've always been more drawn to free market oriented views and not been fond of Keynesian or socialist economic schools, respectfully.

I'm a free market Marxist that looks as markets from a physics point of view. You can mathematically prove that assuming A, B, and C with definitions D and E that F must occur. However, reality is messy in that you never have exactly A, B, and C and you have to be careful about definitions D and E because the technical meaning of D might be different from the meaning that most people assign to it.

In all honesty, my adherence to libertarian views is driven from my personal experience and the morals I've cultivated from those experiences.

One trouble with extrapolating from personal views is that economics has a nasty habit of changing. Based on the experience of the Soviet Union in 1960, one could naturally assume (incorrectly) that central planning was the ideal economic system. Similarly the fall of the Soviet Union led people to assume that free market capitalism was the way to go, but that hasn't seem to work that well recently.

The price mechanism is far too powerful of an efficient system to allocating scarce sources.

Under some mathematical situations, and under some definitions of "efficient" then yes it works very well, but because it works in some situations, doesn't mean that it's some universal law that works universally well in all situations. You look at a a market, you figure out how it works, you write some equations, and if you look really closely, you can often figure out a way of making money from that understanding.

The other thing is that "efficiency" isn't a unalloyed good. If you are juggling chain saws then you really want your shoes to have a lot of friction, because it means that you won't slip. We are at the point that many financial transactions happen in milliseconds and that makes people wonder if too much efficiency is a bad thing.

The other thing is that markets don't come into being fully formed, and a *lot* depends on the specific market rules. I know of one situation in which the behavior of the market is obviously impacted by what time the brokers go to lunch, and that has to be taken into account when writing equations that describe that market.

The fact that markets are incredibly complicated is I suppose a good thing, because it means lots of pretty high paying jobs for physicists trying to model them.

[deRham]

Karl Marx answered this quite nicely. People with power make up the rules so they'll make them up to maximize their power at the expense of people with no power

I kind of suspected this too; in some theoretical fields, I don't think it's possible to "exploit labor" from the lower level guys, but I think it makes a lot of sense that once the middle batch grow larger, it's probably the top that will have to take the cut (not the bottom, because it has, and always will, remain the largest in population). I imagine once someone gets tenure, there is little chance he/she will support the idea of fewer tenured faculty, at least not vocally.

I imagine some tenured faculty make ~ 100-120K, and I see no reason why it's not economical to reduce the number of those drastically, and have more researchers making around 70-80K who have not strictly temporary but far from permanent jobs. I admit these numbers are not necessarily reliable (I've heard of one tenured faculty member at a pretty top notch school state his salary as ~ 130K), but they at least serve to illustrate.

[twofish-quant]

I kind of suspected this too; in some theoretical fields, I don't think it's possible to "exploit labor" from the lower level guys, but I think it makes a lot of sense that once the middle batch grow larger, it's probably the top that will have to take the cut (not the bottom, because it has, and always will, remain the largest in population).

This is where economic growth and science comes in. If you can make the pie bigger, then there going to be less argument over who gets what, and you can have extremely unequal societies in which the people with power get most of the stuff, and it doesn't matter because there is so much stuff that everyone else ends up with something.

I imagine once someone gets tenure, there is little chance he/she will support the idea of fewer tenured faculty, at least not vocally.

Ahhh.... But the beauty of the system is that it's a system. If you had one person or a small group of people that made all of the decisions, you could protest and pressure them into changing their decisions. But the beauty of the system is that there isn't an easy choke point. Suppose people wanted to change the tenure system. It's not even clear where to start, even if people wanted it. In order to change something like that, you need a lot of people making coordinated decisions at the same time, and that's nothing that one or two people can do even if they wanted to, which they don't.

That makes it a clever system because you don't even have to feel guilty from benefiting from it. Someone that benefits from the system can say (and even say truthfully) that they can't do anything about it.

I imagine some tenured faculty make ~ 100-120K, and I see no reason why it's not economical to reduce the number of those drastically, and have more researchers making around 70-80K who have not strictly temporary but far from permanent jobs.

The problem with cutting is that once you start eliminating jobs, people stop spending, which eliminates more jobs which gets you in a vicious circle.

There are two political problems:

1) People who make 100-120K are going to fight the changes tooth and nail

2) People that don't make 100-120K also have an interest in fighting those changes. The problem is that the people that want to cut education and science spending aren't going to stop once they've reduced salaries. Once you've reduced salaries for tenured faculty to turn them into non-tenured, then the next step is going to eliminate those jobs so that no one makes anything.

This isn't an academic issue. Rick Perry in Texas has been very active at trying to cut spending to UT Austin, but his "war against tenure" hasn't been well received among adjuncts and graduate students, because he hasn't been able to convince anyone that he won't stop once he has gotten rid of tenured faculty. It doesn't help that the people that are in this camp tend to think that the world is 6000 years old.

I admit these numbers are not necessarily reliable (I've heard of one tenured faculty member at a pretty top notch school state his salary as ~ 130K), but they at least serve to illustrate.

A lot depends on the department. Business professors often make $200K/year and football coaches can make $1M/year.

[mal4mac]

With a physics Ph.D., I can't get hired as a doctor, lawyer, accountant, or civil engineer because of licensing (not to say that it's a bad thing for the world that I can't be hired). However, I can get hired as a software engineer, car salesman, and without too much trouble as a stockbroker

Is becoming a stockbroker that easy? In the UK, at least, daddy better have the contacts and money:

25% of UK merchant bankers and stockbrokers went to Eton.

96% of top stockbrokers went to public schools.
4% went to grammar schools
0% (The vast majority of kids!) went to comprehensive schools.

Figures from: "Money/space: geographies of monetary transformation" by Andrew Leyshon, N. J. Thrif"

... these are 1986 figures, but I don't think much has changed.

I went to comprehensive school and was seriously applying for jobs in technical industries & academia around 1986. I often wondered if I should have applied for a stockbroker job. Now I see that I would have had 0% chance! Makes me feel a bit better... I never had a chance of earning easy big bucks :)

I suppose it's obvious - those with big money and power are going to make sure that the jobs that easily provide big money and power are kept for their kids.

[Mute]

I imagine some tenured faculty make ~ 100-120K, and I see no reason why it's not economical to reduce the number of those drastically, and have more researchers making around 70-80K who have not strictly temporary but far from permanent jobs.

One of the major reasons people put up with the length of time required to land an academic job is because once you finally have it, you have it for as long as you want. If you eliminate the permanence of the position, it's harder to justify the years you spend going after this job. You have to make up for this somehow. You either have to retool the whole system so that people don't spend years of their lives trying to become professional researchers, or you have to increase salaries for the positions to remain worth going after. You might even have to do both.

[ParticleGrl]

One of the major reasons people put up with the length of time required to land an academic job is because once you finally have it, you have it for as long as you want. If you eliminate the permanence of the position, it's harder to justify the years you spend going after this job. You have to make up for this somehow. You either have to retool the whole system so that people don't spend years of their lives trying to become professional researchers, or you have to increase salaries for the positions to remain worth going after. You might even have to do both.

I strongly disagree. The current system is loaded with people who would pursue a career in physics regardless of how awful the outcome. If postdocs allowed for more a stable life, but tenured positions paid less, overall utility would improve. The worry is that if you cut tenured pay, you still won't do anything to improve the generally poor postdoc conditions, so nothing changes.

But even if tenured profs made half of what they do now, you'd still have people chasing the positions. CS and economics professors make substantially more than theoretical physics professors, even at liberal arts colleges, and yet the physics professorships are much more competitive.

[George Jones]

football coaches can make $1M/year.

See
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1086.

[Vanadium 50]

I don't see what problem making postdoctory a career solves. Yes, if you were one of the lucky few who landed such a position, you'd be in good shape, but once those positions filled up, they will become exactly as hard to get as faculty positions are today.

Some things to think about:

Each professor graduates of order 10 students. Only one of them is needed to replace him. That fact that many of the other 9 would also like to replace him doesn't change how many are needed. In times of growth, that 1 might become 1.5 or even 2, but it can't be 10.

Next, the normal path for PhDs is to enter industry. That's why the political bodies are funding physics. Congress does not care about the spectrum of glopolium, but they understand that research on he spectrum of glopolium produces PhDs that then go on to aerospace, energy, finance and other fields. They know, as do the leaders of these industries, that this might not be the PhDs first choice. Their attitude is 'So what? As that great philosopher, Willie Nelson once said, "Ninety-nine percent of the world's lovers are not with their first choice. That's what makes the jukebox play."'

For some reason, physics graduate students are amazing at denial. They read the above and are sure that because they have been at or near the top of their class all their lives, that the odds don't apply to them. It's impossible to get a PhD in physics and not understand exponential growth, and anyone who is even slightly observant can compare the number of faculty hires in their department with the number of graduates.

Finally, I am continually astounded at the number of people who confuse the purpose of a research university with the purpose of a trade school.

[chill_factor]

A lot depends on the area of physics. There are some areas (string theory and mathematical physics) that are prone to the "second Einstein effect" than others. But even in areas that are more communal, the number of jobs produced is relatively small, and the jobs that are produced are often not directly related to research.

If you increase the number of string theorist from 5 to 100, then you can use the extra ones to research other approaches, but if you increase them from 100 to 10000, it's not clear what the other people will do.



But we are still talking about thousands of jobs in a nation with 30 million people.



But we are still talking about 100 or so people that changed the world. The fact that a small number of physicists can change the world is paradoxically not a good thing when it comes to generating large number of things for physicists to do.

whats wrong with non-research technical fields? just like mechanical engineering needs people mostly to size a valve and design nails (exaggerating here but you know what I mean) and not to design new rockets, physics, especially condensed matter/materials, biomedical and optics, needs people to build, design and operate complex machinery or complex processes in semi-routine jobs, and do so competently.

even some high school level problems in physics, are very hard for many people to actually apply to real world applications.

[deRham]

If you eliminate the permanence of the position, it's harder to justify the years you spend going after this job.

You wouldn't be "spending years going after this job" - why should you? As ParticleGrl suggests, a lot of people pursue the career because heck, researching physics is just pretty awesome to some people. So they wouldn't be doing it just to get a permanent job.

because he hasn't been able to convince anyone that he won't stop once he has gotten rid of tenured faculty.

Yikes. Yeah, obviously we don't want to just get rid of researchers altogether. I don't even propose getting rid of tenure myself. What I do believe is that tenure is an elite thing, and it isn't so bad if the middle is widened and the elite is slimmer; after all, the IAS consists of some of the most elite positions around, yet its faculty is downright scarily accomplished, and I can hardly complain that they're put on a pedestal.

My main problem is that the current system just seems less efficient in a way. For a field like theoretical mathematics, I just can't see a graduate student or postdoc providing enough "cheap labor" to justify even having them around; they're around because they're steadily building publications and skills that will hopefully result in significant results. Keeping more of these people around to actually continue with their research can only result in better productivity overall.

But the beauty of the system is that there isn't an easy choke point.

Very good point. At least I'm beginning to see why it's so hard to change the system.



The crux of my belief is this: whether it be admission to an undergraduate or graduate school, getting a job, etc, at some point when you just make it too hard to get a position, you'll weed out talent and introduce a high level of luck and randomness. Some of that is always there, but pointedly creating a lottery-jackpot scenario is crazy. I never used to object when I was young and thought the reason it's so hard to get is that only the most talented are chosen. {This goes back to my point about the IAS. I'm not complaining how they're treated. They're probably the reason the fields I study even exist.}

[Mute]

I strongly disagree. The current system is loaded with people who would pursue a career in physics regardless of how awful the outcome.

By why are they willing to pursue it? Part of it is a misguided love of science above everything else, perhaps, but part of a person's ability to rationalize doing multiple postdocs upon postdocs at all is that they can potentially ultimately obtain a permanent position. If you were to take away the permanence of that position, then it becomes harder to rationalize spending so much of your life to go after it. If professors then start getting fired because they no longer have that job security, then it becomes much harder to rationalize to yourself that you should spend all of your youth going after this job. Sure, some people will still do it, but I think most people would opt at that point to look at more lucrative options, since you'd have just as much job security in industry but a much higher salary. A love of science can only carry you so far. I think that the number of quality candidates going after faculty positions would drop in this case. As a result, to really remain competitive with industry, the salaries of non-permanent faculty jobs would have to go up - or hiring from other countries will increase. If university administrations could get away with eliminating tenure without increasing salaries or foreign hirings and still have quality candidates, why haven't they tried?

But even if tenured profs made half of what they do now, you'd still have people chasing the positions. CS and economics professors make substantially more than theoretical physics professors, even at liberal arts colleges, and yet the physics professorships are much more competitive.

To a certain point I'm sure you can decrease a tenured prof's salary and people will still chase the positions, but there is a limit to how much you can decrease it - and that's if the position is permanent. If the position is not permanent I suspect that eventually the salary will have to increase to remain competitive with other options, all other things being kept the same.

Under the current system you can exploit some people all of the time, but if you change the system by removing one of the best 'rewards' of the long and arduous process of getting a faculty position, I think most people won't be as willing to be exploited anymore.

[deRham]

but once those positions filled up, they will become exactly as hard to get as faculty positions are today.

I suppose it comes down to a judgment call; it will certainly become just as hard to get for those remaining. However, I'm hardly proposing that every last person in the planet should have a faculty position.

To be totally honest, I think many people who pursue a PhD in, say, theoretical mathematics (I imagine this is true for physics) would not even want to put up with the stress of achieving amazing publications at the levels which many mathematicians work at. For instance, I think even if you offered them a position at Harvard pure mathematics PhD, they'd probably end up leaving or something, because it's intense enough that few would even want to keep up with that pace (despite the many who would like to try to get admitted).

I think the problem is when people show themselves very capable of handling the pace, rigor, etc and still have an absurdly low chance at continuing their research. It's hard to deny that's wasteful.

[deRham]

If you were to take away the permanence of that position, then it becomes harder to rationalize spending so much of your life to go after it.

To be clear: we don't even have to reduce tenured professors' salaries or the permanence. I just mean that tenure sounds like hitting a jackpot, and a few superstars can have that. I think we'd just have a total of more productive researchers if they had a reasonable way of pursuing their research other than hitting that jackpot.

If you were to take away the permanence of that position,

There is clearly something between permanent and strictly temporary, which probably would be a desirable enough alternative for someone who spent 7 years doing a physics PhD out of liking it, instead of doing a different job which pays much more for roughly that energy.

[ParticleGrl]

I don't see what problem making postdoctory a career solves. Yes, if you were one of the lucky few who landed such a position, you'd be in good shape, but once those positions filled up, they will become exactly as hard to get as faculty positions are today.

I think you don't understand the proposal. The idea is to have career postdocs who work in place of some of the graduate students. That means a team of 2 or 3 physicists (1 full professor, 1 or 2 "permenent postdocs") train 3 or 4 students over their careers, instead of 1 professor training 7 or 8 students. The hope is that the extra postdocs, because they are well-trained scientists, keep productivity in the lab up and reduce the need for students.

Next, the normal path for PhDs is to enter industry. That's why the political bodies are funding physics.

The implicit assumption I made when I heard "PhDs in physics enter industry" was that phds in physics enter industry TO DO PHYSICS. After all- most of the numbers report on the salary of "physicists" at early career, mid career, late career. You don't see numbers for "physics phd working in management consulting, physics phd working in insurance, physics phds working in finance."

The political bodies fund physics to get research done, not to produce physicists for the finance industry. The system is set up to get research done cheaply, hence the production of lots of students, most of which are just waste products of the research machine. The funding agencies don't care at all about the number of students leaving the field or else when professors write grants, they'd list all the phds they've sent into the world of finance/insurance,etc.

For some reason, physics graduate students are amazing at denial.

I think its more likely that the system is full of people suggesting that science is an amazingly great career path, and that not enough Americans go into math and science, etc. Look at the statistics the UT system uses to encourage its physics majors (posted earlier in this thread, I believe). If everyone (including your professors) tells you what a great career path science is, why wouldn't you believe them? If everyone says there is a huge shortage of American scientists, why wouldn't you believe them? The people I know in phd programs all put too much faith in what scientists told them about career prospects. You look around and say "well, not everyone gets to be a professor, but surely all these physicists go on to work as industrial physicists of some kind."

Very few people at the university seem to be willing to say "science is a dead end career path. Odds are, after a very short career you'll have to reinvent yourself to get a job in a field unrelated to science."

Finally, I am continually astounded at the number of people who confuse the purpose of a research university with the purpose of a trade school.

The problem is that companies doing hiring treat the research university like a trade school. Need an expert on finite element analysis of fluids? Hire a recent phd who did exactly that. Need an expert on RF electronics, hire a recent phd who did exactly that. So if you do a phd in an area without specific industrial demand, odds are you are just wasting your time honing a skill set you'll never get/need to use.

If you want to work in a traditional technical field and you don't treat the research university as a trade school, you aren't likely to find the job you want.

[Vanadium 50]

The political bodies fund physics to get research done, not to produce physicists for the finance industry.

That's simply not true. One of us has worked at the agencies, and one of us has discussed this in depth with members of Congress from both parties. The reason physics is funded better than, say, art history, is not because Congress is more interested in the spectrum of glopolium than the development of pre-Impressionism. It's because people who get degrees on glopolium are likely to work important projects in industry - projects that they can tax and projects that will employ others.

PI's are evaluated on how many students they produce and how well these students do post-PhD.

While in the past, they were interested in how many physicists worked at Raytheon and Schlumburger, now they are also looking at places like Chase.

I'm curious - did you really think that some place in industry would pay you to do particle phenomenology when you graduated? If not, did it not occur to you that developing some more immediately useful skills would be a good idea?

[deRham]

The reason physics is funded better than, say, art history, is not because Congress is more interested in the spectrum of glopolium than the development of pre-Impressionism. It's because people who get degrees on glopolium are likely to work important projects in industry - projects that they can tax and projects that will employ others.


On what basis? Is it clear that in a majority of such cases, the pursuit of a 5+ year physics graduate degree had them contribute to more/better projects in industry than would have been the case if they never obtained the degree?

I'm sure for many people the path is worth it even if they take jobs outside physics, but even for instance twofish-quant has said that he was developing useful skills even as an undergraduate (emphasis: quite distinct from getting a physics PhD), and that it wasn't forced and came somewhat naturally.

It's perfectly possible to obtain a physics PhD with an emphasis in representation theory, geometry and topology and hardly anything employable. That's exactly what at least some people I know (note, in a physics, NOT mathematics department) seem to do. How do these cases fit into the above scheme?

[ParticleGrl]

I'm curious - did you really think that some place in industry would pay you to do particle phenomenology when you graduated? If not, did it not occur to you that developing some more immediately useful skills would be a good idea?

No, I assumed having a broad physics background (thermo, electrodynamics,mechanics, etc) would make me nicely trainable for calculational/numerical work in engineering/science areas, or for inter-disciplanry work in engineering. When I asked several different professors in the field what their students did when they finished their phd, these were the examples they gave me. I took them at their word.

Oddly enough, neither my advisor nor any of my collaborators answered the question with the truth- i.e. "most of my students work for banks." I didn't find out until I started to track down former students to get advice on breaking into a work field. To be fair, this seems to be largely because they didn't know- which is another reason why I am doubtful that grants are awarded based on how many phd students an advisor sends to non-scientific companies (or to scientific ones, for that matter)- do the funding agencies have better data than my advisor and his collaborators have on where their own students ended up? If this information is useful for getting money, why don't professors keep really good track of it? If funding agencies are keeping track of this information, why isn't it published somewhere?

[chill_factor]

the thing with industry, according to someone working there (my closest experience was lab serf) is that they want VERY SPECIFIC PEOPLE.

if you want to do optical communication (for example) in industry at anything other than lab serf level, your MS or PHD thesis had better be, in optical communication. if you want to do OLEDs and displays, your MS/PhD had better be in OLEDS or display technology.

And if you did your MS/PHD in theoretical astrophysics, then start practicing your banker face.

[Vanadium 50]

If funding agencies are keeping track of this information, why isn't it published somewhere?

Do you remember the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the Ark is being placed in a huge warehouse of a million identical boxes? Same reason. You have information scattered across grant proposals, mail-in evaluations, panel reports, site visits, etc. Most of it is correct, but some of it is wrong, or even self-contradictory.

If your goal is to rank N proposals and not do too bad a job of it, this is fine. If you want publishable quality data, you're going to have to pay someone to sort this all out.

[dipole]

So it sounds like if you want to get a PhD and aren't the next Feynman, you should do it in a field that is valuable to people other than other Physicists?

Threads like this scare me.

[ParticleGrl]

You have information scattered across grant proposals, mail-in evaluations, panel reports, site visits, etc. Most of it is correct, but some of it is wrong, or even self-contradictory.

But that doesn't answer the fundamental question- how can they possibly have better information on where my advisor's former students are than my advisor does himself? It seems like the proposal information has to be mostly self-reported.

Also, consistently professors I interact with seem to be in touch with their students still in the field (for obvious reasons), but rarely do they know what the students who left are doing now. If this knowledge is lucractive I would assume they would at least keep a spreadsheet somewhere with what their students are doing. Is keeping track of students normal behavior, and I just had a particularly strange subset of collaborators?

[Pyrrhus]

ParticleGirl,

Why don't you try consulting?

Many of the big consulting groups hire PhDs (in pretty much any technical area).

[twofish-quant]

Is becoming a stockbroker that easy? In the UK, at least, daddy better have the contacts and money

US and UK have very, very different financial systems, and in the US it's pretty straight forward to be a stockbroker, but because it's not that hard, it's not a particularly high status position. (I'll avoid the temptation to explain why the US and UK systems are so different, but there are deep cultural, historical, geographical, and legal reasons for it.)

I often wondered if I should have applied for a stockbroker job. Now I see that I would have had 0% chance! Makes me feel a bit better... I never had a chance of earning easy big bucks :)

In the US, stock broker jobs are relatively easy to get, but they don't pay very well and aren't high status, and involve skills that I'm awful at. In the US, most retail stock brokers are glorified bank tellers, and you aren't going to make big bucks being a stock broker.

I suppose it's obvious - those with big money and power are going to make sure that the jobs that easily provide big money and power are kept for their kids.

Yes and no. There is a balance here, because if you keep money and power *only* for your kids, then eventually people on the outside will form their own counter-elite and you lose. So you have to keep the bulk of money and power for your kids, but you have to keep the system open enough (or at least provide the illusion of openness) so that people try to preserve the system rather than overthrow it.

Also, you are in trouble if your kids are idiots, and don't have the brains to preserve the system you hand down to them.

In China about a 1000 years ago, they figured out a way around this by creating an examination system, which evolved over the years and in my case "getting a Ph.D." became the functional and social equivalent of "passing the imperial examinations."

[twofish-quant]

whats wrong with non-research technical fields?

Or research technical fields.

A lot of the barriers turn out to be psychological. There is part of me that says "finance.... eehhhhhhwww", but after a lot of effort, I've managed to get that part of me to shut up.

Now getting around psychological barriers turns out to not be the easiest thing in the world, since you are going against decades of socialization. But it's doable, and changing the way that you look at the world is easier than changing the global economic and political system, and in a lot of situations, it's not as if you have much of a choice.

[twofish-quant]

To be clear: we don't even have to reduce tenured professors' salaries or the permanence.

Yes you do.

Once you have a department that is mostly long term researcher, then the next question is why those people aren't on the major committees and in administration. Once you put those people in positions of power, then the question comes up as to why the tenured professors have tenure.

Now you can reach a deal in which *current* tenured faculty are grandfathered, and tenure is dead for *new* hiring. But make no mistake, that this is the end of tenure. In some industries, notably the auto industry, this was the "grand bargain" that was reached in the 1980's, and even there you had to do a lot of financial stuff to keep paying pension and retiree medical benefits.

I just mean that tenure sounds like hitting a jackpot, and a few superstars can have that. I think we'd just have a total of more productive researchers if they had a reasonable way of pursuing their research other than hitting that jackpot.

One thing about tenure is that if you go back to the 1950's, it *wasn't* that unusual. Most unionized industrial workers in the 1950's were under contract with tenure like provisions. These mostly disappeared in the 1970's and 1980's.

OTOH, maybe it's not such a bad thing. The reason those provisions disappeared was the belief that inflexible labor regulations prevented economic flexibility by making it difficult for people to go into the industry where they would do the most economic and social good. One reason this argument needs to be taken seriously is that it might be true. I'm not doing exactly what I want, but it's hard to make an argument that I'd be generating more economic or social value working in university versus what I'm doing now.

There is clearly something between permanent and strictly temporary, which probably would be a desirable enough alternative for someone who spent 7 years doing a physics PhD out of liking it, instead of doing a different job which pays much more for roughly that energy.

I don't think there is politically. One other problem here is that one has to look from the point of view of society. My personal job satisfaction really isn't that important to most people in the grand scheme of things.

One other problem is that if there were a politician who could credibly argue for fewer tenure protections in exchange for better treatment of non-tenure faculty and graduate students, I'd at least listen to them, but the politicians that are anti-tenure are also strongly anti-academia, so I'm going to side with the tenured faculty when there is a dispute (and it's been a major issue in Texas.)

[twofish-quant]

If university administrations could get away with eliminating tenure without increasing salaries or foreign hirings and still have quality candidates, why haven't they tried?

Because most university administrators come from the tenured faculty, and political power in most universities is in the hands of the faculty committees who are composed of tenured faculty. The other thing is that professors aren't line workers, and if they get pushed too hard, they will strike, and get the President removed.

In the case of public universities, you have some power in the hands of politicians, and at least in Texas, there's been a major war on tenure, which Governor Perry (fortunately) has been losing.

Also *new* universities have effectively gotten rid of tenure. Witness University of Phoenix, that has a ton of adjuncts, and a very, very few permanent faculty.

[twofish-quant]

I suppose it comes down to a judgment call; it will certainly become just as hard to get for those remaining. However, I'm hardly proposing that every last person in the planet should have a faculty position.

I don't think it would be bad. Everybody has something to teach, and everybody has something to learn.

Personally, I think that the world would end up better off if instead of graduating 1000 physics Ph.D.'s/year it was graduating 100,000. Part of what I've been trying to figure out is what that sort of world would look like.

I think the problem is when people show themselves very capable of handling the pace, rigor, etc and still have an absurdly low chance at continuing their research. It's hard to deny that's wasteful.

It really depends on what else they end up doing. It's worked out pretty well for me.

[atyy]

Isn't it a good thing that most PhDs don't stay in academia? What good is it to society if they stay in the ivory tower? I think as long as students get realistic career advice, they won't be so bitter. (But really, are most bitter about academia because of bad career advising, or because of unfair treatment?)

To be fair, this seems to be largely because they didn't know

If they didn't know, they should have said they didn't know. They must have at least known how many students they had, and how many they knew and didn't know about. So they probably knew they didn't know, in which case they were fabricating numbers.

[chill_factor]

Or research technical fields.

A lot of the barriers turn out to be psychological. There is part of me that says "finance.... eehhhhhhwww", but after a lot of effort, I've managed to get that part of me to shut up.

Now getting around psychological barriers turns out to not be the easiest thing in the world, since you are going against decades of socialization. But it's doable, and changing the way that you look at the world is easier than changing the global economic and political system, and in a lot of situations, it's not as if you have much of a choice.

what if your math is anywhere from horrible to average? how is finance even remotely an option for those in experimental fields?

i do not think this is just a psychological barrier. sorry. most people in experimental aspects of biomedical engineering, materials science, condensed matter physics and chemistry would not be able to go to finance because they do not know enough math and programming.

[twofish-quant]

The hope is that the extra postdocs, because they are well-trained scientists, keep productivity in the lab up and reduce the need for students.

The trouble is that this starts looking a lot like how business and law schools work, and to me it seems that the cure is worse than the disease. Personally, I think that we are going the wrong way when we start talking about *reducing* the number of physics Ph.D.'s. We really should be talking about *vastly increasing* the number of physics Ph.D.'s.

There's an old joke. A genie shows up and tells a farmer that he can wish for anything. "My neighbor has a cow and I don't, I want you to kill his cow." If we are going to do fundamental social engineering, it would be better to increase demand than reduce supply.

The implicit assumption I made when I heard "PhDs in physics enter industry" was that phds in physics enter industry TO DO PHYSICS.

If the problem is definitions, then just tell my boss to change my business card to read "econophysicist." As far as I'm concerned, I'm doing physics.

The political bodies fund physics to get research done, not to produce physicists for the finance industry.

You know you have a good system when good things happen even though people didn't intend for it to happen. I need to point out that I don't sell insurance. I'm actually doing pretty cool physics research. My one big annoyance is that I can't publicly tell anyone exactly what I'm doing without getting into trouble with my boss and the SEC.

But it's cool.

If everyone (including your professors) tells you what a great career path science is, why wouldn't you believe them?

A lot depends on what you consider a "great career." I've had a great career so far, and it doesn't look like its going to stop anytime soon. Some of it is personal. For me "adventure" is more important than money, and it's been a wild and interesting adventure so far.

If I wanted a "connect the dots" life, I wouldn't have gone physics.

If everyone says there is a huge shortage of American scientists, why wouldn't you believe them?

I think that people stopped talking about a shortage of American scientists around 2005. Also, none of my professors talked a lot about the shortage of scientists, because they came from the generation that was screwed over in the physics crash of the 1970's.

You look around and say "well, not everyone gets to be a professor, but surely all these physicists go on to work as industrial physicists of some kind."

And physics Ph.D.'s that work in investment banks are industrial physicists.

[twofish-quant]

what if your math is anywhere from horrible to average? how is finance even remotely an option for those in experimental fields?

It depends on the meaning of average. If your math skills are "average or somewhat below average for a Ph.D." that's not a problem. Also people from experimental fields usually have lots of experience in computer programming, instrument design and statistics which is very, very useful in algorithmic trading.

There are some issues with finance:

1) People in finance are extremely closed lipped about what they are doing. Part of this is cultural (i.e. would you put your money in a bank that gives out account numbers to anyone that asks) some of it legal. For example, if you are working on an algorithm for a new financial product, even *hinting* that you are about to market the product will get a ton of lawyers, regulators, and compliance people on your case.

2) It changes from month to month. Asking someone about the employment situation is like asking about the weather.

3) The only near absolute requirement for physics Ph.D. finance is that you have to be winning to move to NYC, London, or some city in Asia.

[ParticleGrl]

Isn't it a good thing that most PhDs don't stay in academia? What good is it to society if they stay in the ivory tower?

That implies its better for society to have trained physicists doing something other are than physics. That isn't obvious to me. Isn't it better for physicists to be doing physics/engineering and laying the ground work for tomorrow's ipads than for them to be doing jobs that require no knowledge of physics?

Sure, a physicist can learn to do data mining or finance, but what does society gain from paying to teach someone physics, only for them to leave and teach themselves some other field? Sure, a physicist can learn finance or data mining, but what does society gain from the superfluous training? They could have totally skipped the learn physics step.

[atyy]

That implies its better for society to have trained physicists doing something other are than physics. That isn't obvious to me. Isn't it better for physicists to be doing physics/engineering and laying the ground work for tomorrow's ipads than for them to be doing jobs that require no knowledge of physics?

Sure, a physicist can learn to do data mining or finance, but what does society gain from paying to teach someone physics, only for them to leave and teach themselves some other field? Sure, a physicist can learn finance or data mining, but what does society gain from the superfluous training? They could have totally skipped the learn physics step.

It's not superfluous - it's basic facts about the universe that everyone should know - just like knowing the sun goes round the earth;) - ok, maybe not now, but in 20-30 years. By the same token, I assume that by now, physicists all know about the double helix and action potentials, which 60 years ago was cutting edge biology.

[chill_factor]

It depends on the meaning of average. If your math skills are "average or somewhat below average for a Ph.D." that's not a problem. Also people from experimental fields usually have lots of experience in computer programming, instrument design and statistics which is very, very useful in algorithmic trading.

There are some issues with finance:

1) People in finance are extremely closed lipped about what they are doing. Part of this is cultural (i.e. would you put your money in a bank that gives out account numbers to anyone that asks) some of it legal. For example, if you are working on an algorithm for a new financial product, even *hinting* that you are about to market the product will get a ton of lawyers, regulators, and compliance people on your case.

2) It changes from month to month. Asking someone about the employment situation is like asking about the weather.

3) The only near absolute requirement for physics Ph.D. finance is that you have to be winning to move to NYC, London, or some city in Asia.

A PHD in what? what if its not physics? what if its some other science or in engineering? and even if it is physics, there's alot of things different now.

i am working with a Physics grad student. He takes pictures with an AFM and measures DC conductivity. i'm responsible for device fabrication. These are commercial instruments. There's no need to design anything new with them, just know how to use them. i've never seen an experimentalist in materials science program much. everything is on commercial instruments. just know how to use them and interpret their results.

what statistics? we use excel and find mean, median, mode, standard dev and fit it to a curve. i don't think this is the type of statistics you had in mind, it certainly isn't enough for finance.

[twofish-quant]

Isn't it better for physicists to be doing physics/engineering and laying the ground work for tomorrow's ipads than for them to be doing jobs that require no knowledge of physics?

I think "keeping the world financial system from collapsing again" is socially useful, and trying to do that involves a ton of "econophysics." I know fairly senior people with physics/math Ph.D.'s that are involved in these sorts of "fate of the entire world" discussions.

Sure, a physicist can learn to do data mining or finance, but what does society gain from paying to teach someone physics, only for them to leave and teach themselves some other field?

Because everything in finance has already been written down in textbook, the typical physics Ph.D. can learn in about a month or so. The important stuff isn't in a textbook, because either it's "tacit unwritten knowledge" or its stuff that no one knows. Also the textbooks are often wrong.

So what you need is someone that is good at research and mathematical modelling. It also makes sense to train these people on "known unknowns." I can't train someone to do mathematical modelling of the world financial system of 2020 or even 2015, because I don't know what the problems are going to be. So have them work on black holes or stellar nucleosynthesis, so that they have the skills necessary to work on whatever comes up in 2020.

Sure, a physicist can learn finance or data mining, but what does society gain from the superfluous training? They could have totally skipped the learn physics step.

If investment banks didn't have to hire Ph.D.'s, they wouldn't. The have to so they do.

[ParticleGrl]

It's not superfluous - it's basic facts about the universe that everyone should know - just like knowing the sun goes round the earth;) - ok, maybe not now, but in 20-30 years. By the same token, I assume that by now, physicists all know about the double helix and action potentials, which 60 years ago was cutting edge biology.

I think you have an over-optimistic view of the speed of information propagation, at least in physics. Grab a dozen condensed matter physicists, and maybe 1 or 2 can describe the standard model, and that's decades old. Grab a few dozen college grads and ask them to describe general relativity and probably none can, and that's approaching a century old. You'd be lucky if half could get the laws of thermodynamics.

But what does society gain if the guy pricing financial derivatives once calculated a 2 loop diagram?

[twofish-quant]

A PHD in what? what if its not physics? what if its some other science or in engineering? and even if it is physics, there's alot of things different now.

Whatever is fun.

i've never seen an experimentalist in materials science program much. everything is on commercial instruments. just know how to use them and interpret their results.

My background is astrophysics and everything you build for a telescope has to be pretty much custom manufactured.

what statistics? we use excel and find mean, median, mode, standard dev and fit it to a curve. i don't think this is the type of statistics you had in mind, it certainly isn't enough for finance.

In HEP and astrophysics, there is a ton of what is essentially pattern recognition and time series analysis, along with dealing with massive databases.

[chill_factor]

Whatever is fun.



My background is astrophysics and everything you build for a telescope has to be pretty much custom manufactured.



In HEP and astrophysics, there is a ton of what is essentially pattern recognition and time series analysis, along with dealing with massive databases.

we have a totally different background then. that is why we have communication problems.

in materials science, almost everything is commercial and there's rarely statistics beyond excel. everything can be done on excel and mathematica. you don't need too much math.

[deRham]

I don't think it would be bad. Everybody has something to teach, and everybody has something to learn.


Yeah, I guess I should revise to say: I am not proposing every physics (or for that matter mathematics) PhD be given a faculty position in which the goal is to produce as much physics as possible (there may be other faculty positions to better suit them; heck, I may decide that one of these other positions better suits me some day, but of course, under the current system, that won't mean I'll even have a reasonable choice). Many will decide it simply isn't what they want to do, and the pace expected is not healthy for everyone. But I would definitely say (as I think many have probably said) that the current system seems to have certain obvious (yet still difficult to push for) avenues to encourage people who probably would do well for themselves in such a career.

It really depends on what else they end up doing. It's worked out pretty well for me.


Somehow, I get the feeling you're the odd one out :) I do not deny that doing a physics or math PhD is a tremendously enriching thing, but the question is how good the second or third or whatever next best thing to the ideal faculty position the given individual obtains. I find that for whatever reason (maybe just lack of the right knowledge), the option a lot of people end up with is far enough from ideal that I'd call the current system wasteful.

[deRham]

Once you have a department that is mostly long term researcher, then the next question is why those people aren't on the major committees and in administration. Once you put those people in positions of power, then the question comes up as to why the tenured professors have tenure.

There would definitely be more tenure-track researchers under my vision. In effect, you seem to suggest the middle will question who's at top. I say as someone at the bottom that I question who is in the middle.

I think my belief stems from the fact that there are definitely a few absurdly strong leaders in any field, whose tenure I simply couldn't question, simply because I could never claim to want to work alongside them at that level.

Effectively, I'd rather have more people actually doing research than worry about long-term researchers bickering about not having tenure. The reason I don't like the current system is that I find even at the graduate level, whoever made the cut went through a really strict screening process, and I'm sure the same holds for the next stage. I found there is a high level of randomness in this process except for a few truly stars who became virtually unquestioned authorities in their areas.

[chill_factor]

I think you have an over-optimistic view of the speed of information propagation, at least in physics. Grab a dozen condensed matter physicists, and maybe 1 or 2 can describe the standard model, and that's decades old. Grab a few dozen college grads and ask them to describe general relativity and probably none can, and that's approaching a century old. You'd be lucky if half could get the laws of thermodynamics.

But what does society gain if the guy pricing financial derivatives once calculated a 2 loop diagram?

condensed matter guys don't need to know the standard model of particle theory though. they don't even need to know that nuclei are anything except tiny positive blobs most of the time. i think you're right on relativity (i know nothing about relativity, at least) but thermo is easy and everyone should get that.

i think that excitement vs. pay and ease of study vs. easy of employment both follow inverse laws.

[twofish-quant]

But what does society gain if the guy pricing financial derivatives once calculated a 2 loop diagram?

Because anyone who has done a 2 loop diagram has experience dealing with path integrals.

If you take an interest rate curve and evolve it over time stochastically. You get very quickly into functional calculus and path integrals. Now add shocks, correlations, and defaults, you get into very complicated path integrals.

Now maybe there is a way of modelling interest rates without (implicitly) having a path integral, but it's going to take someone really good at modelling physical systems to work this all out. Hmmm..... I wonder were we can find those.

But wait there is more......

Once you've *finished* calculating the path integral, then you have to explain what you did to a regulator or manager that doesn't know what a 2 loop diagram is.

[mal4mac]

Yes and no. There is a balance here, because if you keep money and power *only* for your kids, then eventually people on the outside will form their own counter-elite and you lose...

Well it's not quite *only*. But 96% of stockbrokers from public schools is pretty blatant. So why haven't Brits developed a counter-elite? Please don't say not enough time! The British money & power elite has been going since 1066...

[mal4mac]

... what does society gain from the superfluous training? They could have totally skipped the learn physics step.

Society says that until BSc level you can get to learn what you want. If you love physics then you can do physics! This makes 'the establishment' look like nice people... it keeps the more educated youngsters from changing riots into revolutions. If society lets you 'play' until you are 21, then you lose a lot of motivation for attacking the establishment. "How can I burn down a bank?" I ask myself. "This society paid for me to have a wonderful eduction, to study exactly what I wanted well into adulthood." So the physicist moves meekly into a low level bank job, the stockbroker stays rich as Croesus, and everybody is happy, especially the stockbroker...

[atyy]

I think you have an over-optimistic view of the speed of information propagation, at least in physics. Grab a dozen condensed matter physicists, and maybe 1 or 2 can describe the standard model, and that's decades old. Grab a few dozen college grads and ask them to describe general relativity and probably none can, and that's approaching a century old. You'd be lucky if half could get the laws of thermodynamics.

But what does society gain if the guy pricing financial derivatives once calculated a 2 loop diagram?

Because he does many things other than pricing financial derivatives. Maybe one day he'll be president of the US. Already happened in Germany, but ironically I'm not sure many physicists are agreeing with a no nuclear policy!

[Vanadium 50]

No, I assumed having a broad physics background (thermo, electrodynamics,mechanics, etc)

Have you had thermo? Stat mech, sure, but actual, real thermo? Heat and mass transfer, and all that. Could you, for example, design a BTG (boiler-generator-turbine) system?

Also, if you decide that you want to graduate half as many students and double their chances to find their dream job, you'll move the bottleneck upstream, so getting into grad school will be twice as hard. People will complain "it's not fair! I got A's all through undergrad and I still didn't get into grad school!"

It also means that there will be less of a track record when you decide who moves on and who does not.

[ParticleGrl]

Have you had thermo? Stat mech, sure, but actual, real thermo? Heat and mass transfer, and all that. Could you, for example, design a BTG (boiler-generator-turbine) system?

Yes, I've had an honest-to-god thermo class. All the staring at steam tables I could take. I've done textbook/test calculations for boilers and engines, and I designed and built a small fridge for the lab I worked in during undergrad.

Also, if you decide that you want to graduate half as many students and double their chances to find their dream job, you'll move the bottleneck upstream, so getting into grad school will be twice as hard. People will complain "it's not fair! I got A's all through undergrad and I still didn't get into grad school!"

But that's much better for people overall. You burn less human capital. You tell them no before they've spent a decade or more being trained.

[deRham]

People will complain "it's not fair! I got A's all through undergrad and I still didn't get into grad school!"


In fact, I don't even think it's necessary to graduate fewer people. It's fine as long as they're honest and go: "Look at the faculty at nearly any school. Nearly everyone got a PhD from an awesome school that tons of straight A students get rejected from every single year"; I'm sure a lot of people would rather spend those years doing a PhD anyway. If someone told me I had no chance getting a faculty position today, I don't think I'd change paths.

People already get rejected from tons of strong programs after straight A's in undergrad. They still have a chance of attending a less selective program and publishing something great while there, to boost chances at getting a good job. In some cases, people with straight A's but little more to show really aren't researchers in the making - having straight A's simply doesn't mean someone will want to be on the forefront of researching physics.

The only thing I'm really against here is to take a bunch of people with similar talent and work ethic, and not only promote one but completely discard the rest. It seems too random, and it clearly loses people with good ideas without reason; well, twofish-quant gave good reasons why the system is hard to change (e.g. dealing with people who effectively don't value academia at all), but nobody has given good reasons thus far saying that the change wouldn't be welcome.

[Pyrrhus]

It's not like there are no jobs for Ph.D. in technical fields. The problem is those jobs require you to relocate (like most jobs anyway), move to another field (most likely), and perhaps even do some extra traveling...

[Pyrrhus]

I also remembered that I have some friends and a cousin that got PhD in Engineering (my cousin PhD in Physics), and all the ones that have jobs relocated, and changed fields. The ones that do not have jobs were not willing to relocate or change field. My cousin is in finance.

[aquitaine]

Is academia a scam? Not in the sense of what the OP that was describing. However, it does have a side to it which is the biggest scam that has ever been played in the entire history of the world. That scam would be enticing people who wouldn't otherwise go to university into taking worthless degree programs with the promise of getting that safe, secure high paying job. You know what I'm talking about, the myriad of worthless liberal arts majors.

Of course there are some fields that really do require the kind of specialized training that universities and (where applicable) graduate schools provide, like science, engineering, medicine, law and probably one or two others. But the rest? The rest are nothing more than temping little children into the gingerbread house to be eaten alive by the wicked witch of 50%+ dropout rates, crippling debts and no job prospects.

Universities are not the only guilty parties, our higher educational system used to have a better balance between university (for those with the capability) and vocational training. Employers are also to blame for the "have a 4 year degree in anything we dont care what it is but we probably wont hire you anyway" approach, leading to rampant degree inflation and the idea that you have to bury yourself in student loans to get anything. The high school system is also to blame for mindlessly encouraging people who cant handle those "good fields" I mentioned to go into universities anyway.

Perhaps the finest example of the insanity of our system is how few startups are started by business majors. You'd think it would be more, but I haven't met a single business major who is seriously considering starting his/her own business. I'm sure some of them are out there, although they are after management jobs. But when those bureaucratic type jobs aren't available, like now, they either get a menial low wage service job (like restaurants) or go back to school to bury themselves in more debt. In both scenarios they are just crossing their fingers and hoping things turn around so they can get that job.

[ParticleGrl]

I also remembered that I have some friends and a cousin that got PhD in Engineering (my cousin PhD in Physics), and all the ones that have jobs relocated, and changed fields.

Emphasis mine. I think the point of this thread is that a physics phd isn't sold as "get this phd, then change fields to something other than physics/engineering, then get a job." Its sold as "get this phd so you can work as a physicist." Thats the "scam" as it were.

[JakeBrodskyPE]

I'm going to cite a bit of reality from where I sit: We need physicists to do the research. But we don't need very many. We need legions of engineers to translate that research in to a usable reality. And we need even more writers to document this stuff, business majors to manage the creations and sales people to sell it.

Our schools have sold a lot of people on the idea of being at the very edge of the wedge to use physics to benefit society. They have ignored the transfer of that technology to a useful application.

For example, many of the discoveries with Graphene are truly astounding. But the research is only the very first step in to making something useful happen. There is no shame for the Ph.D. types to point the Engineers in the right direction to show them how to scale these discoveries to something useful. But even here, as much as we need innovation, what we really need is marketing so that the innovative products can become a part of society. The Ph.D. doesn't convey the practicalities of application. It goes the other direction: It shows you how to conduct research, not apply what has been discovered.

Engineers have to take the practical world, the standards, the limits, and set conservative performance goals so as to build something reliable that people will use and want more of. It is a completely different way of thinking about problems.

Schools have failed us because we aren't educating our population on the things it will take to improve society. We have an excess of scientists, Engineers are few in number and generally treated with polite contempt ("If you want to get the product out the door, you must first shoot the engineer."). Marketing is filled with people who are interested in psychology, but are shockingly ignorant of the foundations that built our society such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, or even Classic Literature.

Our schools are failing us because from our first days in Pre-School we fill our children with this self-actualizing nonsense that is guaranteed to cause pain and hurt the first time they ever try a real challenge. We tell our kids they can be anything they want to be. And while that's true, they not only have to want it, they have to have some sort of talent for whatever it is they seek.

So we have legions of Physics students drawn like moths to a flame. And who can resist? It's a great study with the possibility of having your name known for centuries. It can have long-lasting fame. Yeah, it attracts smart people the same way that Hollywood attracts pretty actresses. The vast majority of them will be lucky to eke out a living. Meanwhile, there are other activities all around that people are ignoring because of the siren song...

Remember that the people who made the real fortunes from the 1849 gold rush to California were not the miners themselves, but the shrewd businessmen who figured out what these people needed and how to get it to them at a price they were able to pay.

[atyy]

Emphasis mine. I think the point of this thread is that a physics phd isn't sold as "get this phd, then change fields to something other than physics/engineering, then get a job." Its sold as "get this phd so you can work as a physicist." Thats the "scam" as it were.

Maybe you were just ill-informed. There are dishonest things in academia, but I can't imagine that this was one of them (especially for HEP theory).

[twofish-quant]

Well it's not quite *only*. But 96% of stockbrokers from public schools is pretty blatant. So why haven't Brits developed a counter-elite?

Because the elite is flexible enough to absorb anyone that may oppose them. In the 18th century being elite in British society meant having a noble title and having a country manor. If the people in charge of Britain had stuck to that definition of elite, then they would have lost their power.

So the people in power, changed the definitions of elite to mean a degree from Oxbridge and a job in the city. They then made sure that their kids got the degrees and the jobs, but they left just enough room for new people so that anyone that has the ability to overthrow the system, "sells out" and gets a nice job doing something that won't challenge the power of the people running things.

A hundred years ago, the British Labour Party was waving red flags and sing the Internationale, and you end up with New Labour and Tony Blair.

If you want an example of where an elite failed to absorb new people and lost power to a counter-elite, look at the Ascendancy in Ireland.

Please don't say not enough time! The British money & power elite has been going since 1066...

And if they play their cards right, they'll be in charge for the next thousand years.

It's mostly a matter of convincing anyone that might overthrow the system to join the system. Something similar happened in the US. In 1900, the major northeastern universities were finishing schools for the WASP Boston Brahmin establishment. The schools that came up with ways of letting people into the club, where able to survive and increase their power.

The only way of getting rid of an elite that isn't totally incompetent is to have a massive and usually bloody revolution, in which the people in charge get shot, and usually that ends up being a lot worse than what you started off with, because you end up with people in charge that not only are greedy and power-hungry, but homicidal, ruthless and crazy. Been there, done that.

[twofish-quant]

I think my belief stems from the fact that there are definitely a few absurdly strong leaders in any field, whose tenure I simply couldn't question, simply because I could never claim to want to work alongside them at that level.

I've noticed that in mathematics, there *are* prodigies, but this usually isn't true in other fields. It's not true in computational astrophysics because you need lots of people to debug code, and it doesn't matter how smart you are. If you have someone that is totally brilliant, then without people doing "grunt work" they are nothing.

The reason I don't like the current system is that I find even at the graduate level, whoever made the cut went through a really strict screening process, and I'm sure the same holds for the next stage. I found there is a high level of randomness in this process except for a few truly stars who became virtually unquestioned authorities in their areas.

I don't see how you can avoid a high degree of randomness. You just got too many smart people, and when you have that situation and you care about fairness, then what you end up with is basically random selection. If you have three places and fifty qualified people that would all be good at the job, then randomly selecting people is going to really be the only fair process.

Also relying on "stars" really isn't fair. I've noticed that things are different in pure mathematics where there are prodigies that seem to have some innate math ability, but in astronomy, the ability to do research means being able to beg, borrow, or steal computer and telescope time. If you "reward" people with good research with even more scarce resources, you pretty quickly end up with a situation in which people with resource access get even more access.

The other thing is that randomness isn't bad. If the people in power think that they really deserve what they got, they can get really nasty. If it's commonly realized that social status is a matter of luck, then people tend to be nicer to people that are unlucky because it was only fate that kept them from going down that route. Most people don't know that the term "meritocracy" came from a 1958 satire in which Michael Young argued that a "meritocracy" was a recipe for social revolution.

[chill_factor]

I'm going to cite a bit of reality from where I sit: We need physicists to do the research. But we don't need very many. We need legions of engineers to translate that research in to a usable reality. And we need even more writers to document this stuff, business majors to manage the creations and sales people to sell it.

Our schools have sold a lot of people on the idea of being at the very edge of the wedge to use physics to benefit society. They have ignored the transfer of that technology to a useful application.

For example, many of the discoveries with Graphene are truly astounding. But the research is only the very first step in to making something useful happen. There is no shame for the Ph.D. types to point the Engineers in the right direction to show them how to scale these discoveries to something useful. But even here, as much as we need innovation, what we really need is marketing so that the innovative products can become a part of society. The Ph.D. doesn't convey the practicalities of application. It goes the other direction: It shows you how to conduct research, not apply what has been discovered.

Engineers have to take the practical world, the standards, the limits, and set conservative performance goals so as to build something reliable that people will use and want more of. It is a completely different way of thinking about problems.

Schools have failed us because we aren't educating our population on the things it will take to improve society. We have an excess of scientists, Engineers are few in number and generally treated with polite contempt ("If you want to get the product out the door, you must first shoot the engineer."). Marketing is filled with people who are interested in psychology, but are shockingly ignorant of the foundations that built our society such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, or even Classic Literature.

Our schools are failing us because from our first days in Pre-School we fill our children with this self-actualizing nonsense that is guaranteed to cause pain and hurt the first time they ever try a real challenge. We tell our kids they can be anything they want to be. And while that's true, they not only have to want it, they have to have some sort of talent for whatever it is they seek.

So we have legions of Physics students drawn like moths to a flame. And who can resist? It's a great study with the possibility of having your name known for centuries. It can have long-lasting fame. Yeah, it attracts smart people the same way that Hollywood attracts pretty actresses. The vast majority of them will be lucky to eke out a living. Meanwhile, there are other activities all around that people are ignoring because of the siren song...

Remember that the people who made the real fortunes from the 1849 gold rush to California were not the miners themselves, but the shrewd businessmen who figured out what these people needed and how to get it to them at a price they were able to pay.

one small comment:

there are far fewer physics majors than EE majors at the undergrad level but at the grad level there's more because more proportion of physics majors go to grad school than EE majors.

it is also because it is objectively easier to get money for projects in physics, rather than projects in EE.

[twofish-quant]

Our schools have sold a lot of people on the idea of being at the very edge of the wedge to use physics to benefit society.

Something to point out here is that there aren't very many physics majors. There is a selection effect because of the name of this group, but relatively few people go into physics.

Schools have failed us because we aren't educating our population on the things it will take to improve society.

The more I get into conversations like these, the more I realize that I ended up with an excellent education. One problem is that I have been taught to be extremely negative and critical, but sometimes it's possible to be to negative and critical. For example, if you argue that US universities are *totally* incompetent, that tends to push you to completely gutting the system, which may be worse than the problem you are trying to fix.

Also, most of the more important things I didn't learn in school.

We have an excess of scientists

I don't think we do. It *may* be that we have a social structure that doesn't make effective use of scientists, but perhaps even *that* isn't true. Also, if the US really does have an excess of scientists, then have them move to China or India, and lets see what happens in 20 years.

Our schools are failing us because from our first days in Pre-School we fill our children with this self-actualizing nonsense that is guaranteed to cause pain and hurt the first time they ever try a real challenge. We tell our kids they can be anything they want to be. And while that's true, they not only have to want it, they have to have some sort of talent for whatever it is they seek.

I don't think that you can blame schools for this. This sort of stuff you learn from parents, and even from the level of parents, it's a hard issue. For example, I'm a lot "softer" than my parents, and my kids are likely going to be even "softer" than me. The trouble is that my parents ended up being "hard" and "tough" because they grew up in an environment that looks pretty close to what Afghanistan looks like now.

So it does concern me that my kids will be "soft" but what do you want me to do? Send them to military school or have them go through a major war? Put them in a jail for political crimes? I can teach them history, but listening about something is different from living it, and even at the level of teaching history, there are decisions to be made. There's stuff that people just don't want to talk about. I have no idea what my father saw in the army, but whatever it was, it changed him.

The vast majority of them will be lucky to eke out a living. Meanwhile, there are other activities all around that people are ignoring because of the siren song...

Things change. Maybe this "science stinks" has gone too far.

As far as I can tell, physics majors aren't having it much worse than any other majors. It's a terrible economy, but I really don't see physics taking people away from things that are "more productive." Physics is *really* useful as a technical liberal art.

[twofish-quant]

If society lets you 'play' until you are 21, then you lose a lot of motivation for attacking the establishment.

And if you have to "work" after you are 21, then you end up being too busy to attack to establishment. If you don't have a job, then you are considered a "loser" and your opinions don't count.

So the physicist moves meekly into a low level bank job, the stockbroker stays rich as Croesus, and everybody is happy, especially the stockbroker...

It doesn't work that way. The jobs that physics Ph.D.'s end up getting on Wall Street or in Canary Wharf aren't "low level." I'm not on the "committee that runs the world" (and yes there is a committee look up Basel III) but I know people with physics Ph.D.'s who are.

As far as money. I have more money than I know what to do with. One good thing is that I don't have expensive tastes, so I've long past the point that at which I can buy anything that I want to buy.

One thing about finance is that it's much more likely that a physics Ph.D. will report to an MBA than the reverse but this has something to do with the fact that there are 100x more MBA's than physics Ph.D.'s.

[twofish-quant]

That scam would be enticing people who wouldn't otherwise go to university into taking worthless degree programs with the promise of getting that safe, secure high paying job. You know what I'm talking about, the myriad of worthless liberal arts majors.

I don't think those are worthless. One thing that you can be reasonably sure if you have a college graduate is that they can write an essay and follow a deadline.

There's also the matter of "young adult day care." College provides an environment in which people can do truly stupid things, and without getting into huge amounts of trouble.

Universities are not the only guilty parties, our higher educational system used to have a better balance between university (for those with the capability) and vocational training.

One thing that makes me suspicious is when people talk about the "good old days." The other thing that also makes me suspicious is when people talk about vocational training. One curious thing is that the people that talk loudly about the wonders of vocational training, don't seem to have got it themselves, and don't seem to seem to want it for their kids.

Employers are also to blame for the "have a 4 year degree in anything we dont care what it is but we probably wont hire you anyway" approach, leading to rampant degree inflation and the idea that you have to bury yourself in student loans to get anything.

There is a reason why employers like degrees. If you have a bachelors degree, then you have a demonstrated that you can survive an office environment and work with authority. If I hire someone with a college degree, I can be reasonably sure that if I give them an assignment they don't like, that they'll moan and complain to their friends, but they aren't going to punch me in the face.

The high school system is also to blame for mindlessly encouraging people who cant handle those "good fields" I mentioned to go into universities anyway.

Well where else are they going to go? Before the 1960's, you'd end up in the army, but Vietnam put an end to that. One of the social functions of college is "young adult day care" and if you don't want universities to do that, then you have to come up with some other institution that does that.

Perhaps the finest example of the insanity of our system is how few startups are started by business majors. You'd think it would be more, but I haven't met a single business major who is seriously considering starting his/her own business.

Because the business major isn't intended for starting up companies. Most business professors that I know are very straight and upfront that if you want to start your own business, you should not get a business degree since a business degree will teach you the wrong habits and wrong way of thinking.

The purpose of the business major is to train corporate bureaucrats. Anything that's larger than a small start up is going to need corporate bureaucrats.

But when those bureaucratic type jobs aren't available, like now, they either get a menial low wage service job (like restaurants) or go back to school to bury themselves in more debt. In both scenarios they are just crossing their fingers and hoping things turn around so they can get that job.

Sure, but what else are you going to do? In order to start your own business, you are going to need capital, and in an economic downturn, no one is going to give or lend you money to start your own business that like most small businesses is likely to fail. There's a chicken and egg problem, if you could start a business, then you wouldn't have to.

One you realized that you are doomed, then going to an art museum or reading poetry will at least make you feel less bad, so all of those art and literature courses aren't a total waste. During the really dark days of 2008, I was thinking a lot about what I'd do if it turned out that it *was* great depression II. I had this image of myself in the cold, selling apples while reading a book on neutrino diffusion. For that matter, one reason that people in my family have a strong appreciation of art and culture is that it gives you something to think about even if all hell is breaking loose around you.

[twofish-quant]

Emphasis mine. I think the point of this thread is that a physics phd isn't sold as "get this phd, then change fields to something other than physics/engineering, then get a job." Its sold as "get this phd so you can work as a physicist." Thats the "scam" as it were.

No one ever sold me a physics Ph.D. that way. It was always made clear to me that there were very few research professorships available, and once it was clear to me that I wasn't "special" then the logical conclusion was that I wasn't going to get one.

Also, how much of this is "scam" and how much is "past performance is no guarantee of future results" is not clear to me. One thing that sort of surprised me was that among people graduating my department in the late-1980's, one third to one half ended up with permanent academic positions. There was a burst of Cold War research spending, that ended when the Soviet Union fell. So the messages that I was given in hindsight were pretty reasonable given what people were seeing at the time. People were hoping that things would be permanent, while at the same time, people remembered the 1970's crash.

(The other thing is that I need to be very careful about what messages I give. If you are graduating in the next year or so, I can give you a pretty decent picture of what the demand for physicists on Wall Street is, but I can't tell you anything about what things will look like in five years because I don't know.)

[deRham]

I don't see how you can avoid a high degree of randomness. You just got too many smart people, and when you have that situation and you care about fairness, then what you end up with is basically random selection.

Exactly, which is why the whole crux of what I believe could help is to level the playing field for the smart people to a high degree, and make the elite truly elite.

The other thing is that randomness isn't bad. If the people in power think that they really deserve what they got, they can get really nasty. If it's commonly realized that social status is a matter of luck, then people tend to be nicer to people that are unlucky because it was only fate that kept them from going down that route.

It can go both ways though, right? The true prodigies don't really need someone telling them they're prodigies, because they're absurdly rare (beyond achievements like winning a gold medal at the IMO). The people who ascend to power because they were lucky can take their insecurities out on those who are less lucky.

There will always be some randomness; even in a system with mostly long-term researchers, there will be lots of randomness as to who gets to go where. That's true in undergraduate and graduate admissions too (sure, everyone who is talented generally gets into a good school, but which good school can vary a lot). But it will at least serve to maximize the number of people who actually continue doing the research they narrowly trained themselves to be specifically qualified to do.

[deRham]

I've noticed that things are different in pure mathematics where there are prodigies that seem to have some innate math ability

I think so too, and that's probably implicit in my outlook. It's true that perhaps my suggestions are less applicable to other fields.

I think in pure mathematics, the structure I outlined is roughly true: there are a few prodigies who invariably end up advancing the field, some other stars who make other extremely important contributions, and a fair bunch of other people who have good ideas and are capable enough of understanding and building on what the prodigies have started/revolutionized.

[twofish-quant]

Exactly, which is why the whole crux of what I believe could help is to level the playing field for the smart people to a high degree, and make the elite truly elite.

But why should your social position be based on how smart you are? Why *shouldn't* it be based on how well you can sell stuff, how kind you are, or who your parents are? One thing that I like about the world of business is that "raw intelligence" doesn't count for much.

Whether or not you can make someone feel good when you shake their hand, counts for 100x as much as what your IQ is and how well you can solve math problems.

The other thing is that things that appear to "level the playing field" in fact do the opposite. If you are rich and have lots of power, you can navigate college admissions a lot better than someone that has no power. If you have money, you can hire the best teachers and best consultants for your kids, whereas if you are poor, you can't.

If you talk to a group of physicists, it's easy to convince them that physicists should rule the world. If you aren't talking to physicists, it's harder.

The true prodigies don't really need someone telling them they're prodigies, because they're absurdly rare (beyond achievements like winning a gold medal at the IMO).

But if you have a prodigy that grows up as a farmer in Uganda, no one is going to care. If you don't have the resources to teach even basic math, then the fact that someone is hyper-good at math is rather pointless. If you grow up in West Texas, any sort of innate ability to do math, is going to be pointless. Now if you can play football......

The other thing is that if you start having good math systems, then the amount of people that reach a given level of accomplishment increases a lot.

But it will at least serve to maximize the number of people who actually continue doing the research they narrowly trained themselves to be specifically qualified to do.

But why is that a good thing? The fact that you have lots of physicists that get pushed out of the field and forced to do things that they *weren't* specifically trained for, seems like a good thing to me.

For example, there are a lot of physicists and mathematicians right now who are trying to work out how you calculate the value of collateral for the purpose of bank reserve requirements. No one thought that this would be in important problem in 1995. No one thought that this would be an important problem in early 2007. However, it's one of those things that the future of the world depends on. If you just limit yourself to problems that you are trained to do, then we are doomed, because no one was trained for this.

But I'm biased. I tend to lose in a system in which people are narrowly traded, because I'm too curious and I get easily distracted. Now if you have a situation in which adaptability and breath of knowledge are important, then I do much better.

[chill_factor]

But why should your social position be based on how smart you are? Why *shouldn't* it be based on how well you can sell stuff, how kind you are, or who your parents are? One thing that I like about the world of business is that "raw intelligence" doesn't count for much.

Whether or not you can make someone feel good when you shake their hand, counts for 100x as much as what your IQ is and how well you can solve math problems.

The other thing is that things that appear to "level the playing field" in fact do the opposite. If you are rich and have lots of power, you can navigate college admissions a lot better than someone that has no power. If you have money, you can hire the best teachers and best consultants for your kids, whereas if you are poor, you can't.

If you talk to a group of physicists, it's easy to convince them that physicists should rule the world. If you aren't talking to physicists, it's harder.



But if you have a prodigy that grows up as a farmer in Uganda, no one is going to care. If you don't have the resources to teach even basic math, then the fact that someone is hyper-good at math is rather pointless. If you grow up in West Texas, any sort of innate ability to do math, is going to be pointless. Now if you can play football......

The other thing is that if you start having good math systems, then the amount of people that reach a given level of accomplishment increases a lot.



But why is that a good thing? The fact that you have lots of physicists that get pushed out of the field and forced to do things that they *weren't* specifically trained for, seems like a good thing to me.

For example, there are a lot of physicists and mathematicians right now who are trying to work out how you calculate the value of collateral for the purpose of bank reserve requirements. No one thought that this would be in important problem in 1995. No one thought that this would be an important problem in early 2007. However, it's one of those things that the future of the world depends on. If you just limit yourself to problems that you are trained to do, then we are doomed, because no one was trained for this.

But I'm biased. I tend to lose in a system in which people are narrowly traded, because I'm too curious and I get easily distracted. Now if you have a situation in which adaptability and breath of knowledge are important, then I do much better.

A system where people are narrowly trained and narrowly hired just described much of industrial manufacturing though. Is that why you switched to finance?

[logarithmic]

I have a lot of thoughts on this issue, which I might add in later. But for now, I'll say that part of the problem with academia is that demand for a position is far greater than supply, because having being exposed to it at university gives people a romanticized view of it.

I can definitely say that's how I felt. My view on of academia in high school was essentially "those who can't do, teach" and then when I started university I had a Damascene moment and my view is now that there's no intellectual pursuit that is as pure or noble as being an academic.'

It seems that everyone who starts a PhD wants to be an academic. Clearly this is not possible nor sustainable.

[Skrambles]

If you grow up in West Texas, any sort of innate ability to do math, is going to be pointless. Now if you can play football......

You probably shouldn't watch so much Friday Night Lights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Tech_University#Colleges_and_schools

[deRham]

But why should your social position be based on how smart you are?

Not necessarily social position, so much as just restricted to this situation (tenure means they're confident you'll make a valuable addition to the research community and lead it). I don't think it should exclude factors other than your raw ability to produce good work - also how much you'll benefit the community (what kind of funding you'll draw, what kind of training you might give, how valuable you will be to your colleagues). So in fact, being a prodigy in your field might be called the first step.

The reason this is hardly outrageous to me is that it's already the case at some places. You simply don't become a Princeton professor of pure mathematics without being both prodigious at leading your field and being a valuable addition to the research community otherwise. Great. That's way, way above the reach of most people I know (which is fine).

For the rest of everyone, the problem is that getting a job as a researcher is still exceptionally hard, but at some point, not for really a great reason so much as the system is exclusive for being exclusive, which might be changed (I don't doubt this is tough) with some restructuring.


The fact that you have lots of physicists that get pushed out of the field and forced to do things that they *weren't* specifically trained for, seems like a good thing to me.

I tend to lose in a system in which people are narrowly traded, because I'm too curious and I get easily distracted. Now if you have a situation in which adaptability and breath of knowledge are important, then I do much better.

I certainly don't believe the only system in the world in which someone with an advanced physics/mathematics credential is academia. I think being adaptable and using one's breadth of knowledge to solve difficult mathematical problems is definitely just as hard as being a successful researcher in, say, pure mathematics.

What I hope for is that people end up where they should. I agree that those individuals who are kidding themselves about being suited for a relatively narrow research career (i.e. they just won't have the energy/interest to push themselves to publish lots of technical stuff in the narrow area) should be sent elsewhere. Hopefully, a majority of those who really enjoy and excel at the kind of work academia demands are not pushed out simply because the system doesn't allow for much of a middle ground.

[Pyrrhus]

I think, given the choice of starving or a job in Business, Economics, Finance.. Most will just change fields. Do you really want to be unemployed just because You only do a specific little known field of physics?

[HowardVAgnew]

I find it a scam from the getgo, but the scam comes not necessarily from the professors (I had an economics professor who said, outright, post-secondary education is getting a lower and lower return on investment as the cost of education is rising, year after year, much faster than the resulting average increase in income for a college graduate over a non-college graduate), but the same primary source of scamming in any business: the marketers writing the advertising.

Every advertisement for every school put before my eyes gives the same schpiel: Your life will be better pursuing a degree.

I pursued a degree, and that pursuit has cost me a great deal. Due to snafus in my student loan paperwork, which the university supposedly handled on its own, I lost eligibility for my student loan in my 3rd year with the University of Phoenix. My financial advisers with Phoenix insisted that my student loan was good to be renewed for my fourth and final year when, it was later revealed, he already knew it was not because the university had failed to properly fill out an application on my behalf as they were supposed to with the student loan provider. As a result, I agreed to enroll in a class I would not have had I known it would not be covered by the student loan, as there was no way I could afford tuition on my own not covered by the loan.

This triggered a series of events leading to the university locking my academic record so that I cannot transfer the credits I earned academically, have a student loan debt they profited from and the extra money I paid out of pocket for the 'books' (non-permanent digital documents that were only a tiny fraction of the actual textbooks that I had no access to when they locked my account, yet I was still charged hundreds of dollars apiece for much as I remember it costing for books when I attended a brick-and-mortar community college).

I now have debt I cannot repay, no credits I can transfer to another institution to try to continue pursuing a degree and no degree to improve my employability. The resulting clash between my limited employability, which in turns limits my income, against an enormous debt has, of course, been quite harmful to my credit score. Even the most medial jobs I have applied for run "background checks" that all involve credit checks, and this means that not only do I have a huge debt I've incurred while getting nothing meaningful to return (no degree), but my employability is actually reduced by the attempt than it would have been if I had never attempted to pursue a degree.

Academic institutions are privileged corporations. They are largely exempted from repaying customers when their actions or inactions result in their failure to provide what they promise in their advertising. The only two things I can think of that are on par with the massive financial cost of a degree are purchasing a car or purchasing a house, and its been my observation (though, granted, being in my situation, it seems improbable I will ever be in a position to buy a house or a brand new car and, thus, this condemns my premise to pure personal conjecture) the producers of homes and cars are far more accountable in terms of being answerable if they fail to provide what their advertisemens promise than universities.

A lot of people pursue degrees from a lot of universities, including Phoenix, with no problem, so I think the problem of what happens to those like me who fall through the cracks and incur problems like mine are lost to the crowd of those who managed to avoid hitting such mines. I feel quite strongly, though, the system is broken, and even for those who don't hit such a devastating landmine chasing after a degree, it is increasingly becoming a bad tradeoff; tuition frequently jumps by double-digit percentage points from one year to the next, but I am not aware of any time in recent history when average income among college graduates increases by the same amount.

Einstein himself, studying time and relativity, remarked that no force in the universe is as powerful as compound interest, and I think that justifies ringing the alarm when the cost of tuition increases more quickly than the extra income provided by a degree. If nothing is done, it seems to me that the result is harmful to society; the portion of the public with no postsecondary education will increase, and the burden of personal financial debt even to those who successfully acquire a degree will be more and more difficult for more and more graduates. I can only see a tiny minority of people -- corporate executives administering universities and already wealthy investors reciving dividends -- benefit from this cancer.

[alan2]

At the risk of starting something else entirely, it's no surprise that you feel scammed Howard. U of Phoenix is a scam. They are in the business of making money by getting you to apply for loans so that you can give them the money. The degree is worthless. Don't worry about not being able to transfer the credits because I am unaware of any reputable institution of higher learning that will accept your classes for transfer credit anyway. If your advisers (who work on commission) told you otherwise then you were lied to.

That said, I agree that there are a lot of people in 4 year degree programs that don't belong there. That's not necessarily because of the schools. Every kid is bombarded from birth with the story that they have to go to college. College enrollment in the US has increased by 50% in just a couple of decades (the primary reason for increased cost) while manufacturing, as a percentage of GDP has fallen from over 40% to only 10% since 1960. Not good. I recall an older student who was taking calc 2 for the 3rd or 4th time and failing again. I got chatting with him and it turned out that he was a BMW mechanic making well into 6 figures and thinking that somehow something would be better if he was an engineer. But he loved his job and he was good at it. I suggested he just be the best BMW mechanic he could be and I think that's what he's probably still doing. Policy pushes people to unrealistic educational goals, not schools.

[HowardVAgnew]

I agree, the general gist perpetuated that getting a degree can only make you better and never harm you is part of the problem, too. I am also reminded of a university in New Orleans getting away with charging students tuition for classes they could not possibly provide due to the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, so I know it isn't just the University of Phoenix. I have no reason to not believe all institutes of higher learning scam their students, public or private ... I think a majority of present and former students in schools of higher learning have a common suspicion the outrageous amounts charged for books is a scam between schools and publishers, and required 'current edition' mandates are primarily to bilk students in preventing secondhand sales.

[Pyrrhus]

For graduate students in STEM, the "scam" is they are hire to do all these beautiful research they love, and then they graduate and can't find jobs doing what they love. They graduate without any debt as they are usually funded by the PhD Advisor research funds and/or teaching funds from the University. Also, if they are really good, fellowship money from private organizations, public organizations or the university itself. Thus, the scam is not that they have debts they cannot repay. The scam is they can't find jobs doing what they want to do.However, they can find jobs doing something else.

[deRham]

For graduate students in STEM, the "scam" is they are hire to do all these beautiful research they love, and then they graduate and can't find jobs doing what they love. They graduate without any debt as they are usually funded by the PhD Advisor research funds and/or teaching funds from the University. Also, if they are really good, fellowship money from private organizations, public organizations or the university itself. Thus, the scam is not that they have debts they cannot repay. The scam is they can't find jobs doing what they want to do.However, they can find jobs doing something else.


Exactly this!!! And I'll add, even if they're great at what they do.

To be fair though, nobody seems to say it's a guarantee that you'll get to do what you want, but the lack of word otherwise tends to give the wrong impression.

[HowardVAgnew]

Exactly this!!! And I'll add, even if they're great at what they do.

To be fair though, nobody seems to say it's a guarantee that you'll get to do what you want, but the lack of word otherwise tends to give the wrong impression.

In terms of actual meaning, I don't put too much value in possessing or lacking a Ph.D. Yes, I likely have a bias since I lack one, but I feel, in all fairness, someone who possesses one would also be biased. I don't pretend to have the expertise in any scientific field that those of you who do have one possess, but I also think of all the Ph.D.-wielding Creationists when I ask whether I should even bother arguing with someone who does possess a Ph.D.

[ParticleGrl]

They graduate without any debt as they are usually funded by the PhD Advisor research funds and/or teaching funds from the University.

Of course, while they didn't have any debt, they have given up a few hundred thousand in forgone wages. And if they have debt from undergrad, it probably hasn't been paid down.

Lets say we got rid of "phd" as a degree, and a graduate student was simply a low paid (relative to other bachelors degree holders) scientific researcher- would people still do it? Does the distinction of "phd" have any value for researchers outside their field?

[deRham]

In terms of actual meaning, I don't put too much value in possessing or lacking a Ph.D. Yes, I likely have a bias since I lack one, but I feel, in all fairness, someone who possesses one would also be biased. I don't pretend to have the expertise in any scientific field that those of you who do have one possess, but I also think of all the Ph.D.-wielding Creationists when I ask whether I should even bother arguing with someone who does possess a Ph.D.

Well, like you said yourself - you shouldn't assign too much meaning to whether the person has a PhD or not. I think open-mindedness on this and other topics is a trait quite independent of possessing a PhD or not.

The value of possessing a PhD is something I'd decide on an individual basis.

[mal4mac]

In the UK, at least, you can get reasonably well paid "research assistant" jobs with a BSc, and usually do a PhD while doing the job. I just checked on jobs.ac.uk and there are 315 such posts! Why not get a PhD while actually earning a reasonable wage?

[Choppy]

In the UK, at least, you can get reasonably well paid "research assistant" jobs with a BSc, and usually do a PhD while doing the job. I just checked on jobs.ac.uk and there are 315 such posts! Why not get a PhD while actually earning a reasonable wage?

Of course this is possible, but if you're working a full-time job during your PhD, it's difficult to make progress on it at the same rate as a full-time student, so as a student you have to find the right balance of progress and pay.

That being said, I think the point of this thread has more to do with what happens to graduates after the PhD is awarded.

[Choppy]

Lets say we got rid of "phd" as a degree, and a graduate student was simply a low paid (relative to other bachelors degree holders) scientific researcher- would people still do it? Does the distinction of "phd" have any value for researchers outside their field?

This is an interesting idea. To be honest I think a lot of people are interested in it for the percieved prestige (I mean, just look at all the posts on these forums that had to do with admissions at a "top N" school.) But the perceived prestige alone isn't enough to really sustain one through graduate school in my opinion and the people who just want to have impressive conversations at cocktail parties tend not to make it. I think the majority of people who would otherwise have completed a PhD would still go for it, even without the title. I would have, because that was the means of getting to where I wanted to be.

[Pyrrhus]

This is an interesting idea. To be honest I think a lot of people are interested in it for the percieved prestige (I mean, just look at all the posts on these forums that had to do with admissions at a "top N" school.) But the perceived prestige alone isn't enough to really sustain one through graduate school in my opinion and the people who just want to have impressive conversations at cocktail parties tend not to make it. I think the majority of people who would otherwise have completed a PhD would still go for it, even without the title. I would have, because that was the means of getting to where I wanted to be.

Definitely!, I would have left a LONG TIME ago if I didn't love the math, and the challenges of my research.

[atyy]

This is an interesting idea. To be honest I think a lot of people are interested in it for the percieved prestige (I mean, just look at all the posts on these forums that had to do with admissions at a "top N" school.) But the perceived prestige alone isn't enough to really sustain one through graduate school in my opinion and the people who just want to have impressive conversations at cocktail parties tend not to make it. I think the majority of people who would otherwise have completed a PhD would still go for it, even without the title. I would have, because that was the means of getting to where I wanted to be.

Definitely!, I would have left a LONG TIME ago if I didn't love the math, and the challenges of my research.

Really? You were so confident of staying in academia that you don't need a PhD?

A PhD is really only for those who leave academia - otherwise, how are they going to find jobs after being low paid workers for 5 years?

[deRham]

Why not? My impression is a fair number of PhDs might end up taking up jobs that don't in the slightest require the degree or even encourage it. The reason people aren't just low paid researchers is at least partially that there is supposed to be a significant transition period during the PhD phase.

After all, again as I keep saying, some areas of theoretical physics as well as theoretical mathematics certainly don't have a position for "graduate student cheap labor" outside, perhaps, of teaching. It is certainly possible that some researchers at Harvard math grad school are truly doing work that is already of higher quality than what most postdocs do, but I don't think that's the norm! Most of the time, a PhD student in aforementioned fields is a lot more clueless before 5 years than after, and truly is in a different phase from low paid research.

[bcrowell]

If professor x graduates 5 students and those 5 students graduate 5 more, and so on and so forth won't we reach a point where there will be complete oversaturation? Professors don't retire fast enough to compete with exponential growth.

Suppose we label schools by integers n, with n=1 being a community college, n=2 a decent state school, n=3 a good state school or private university with research, and n=4 a top-flight research university such as Berkeley or Harvard. The argument that exponential growth proves academia is a scam is only valid if professor x's 5 students all expect to have jobs at the same n as professor x. There are a lot more n=1's than n=2's, a lot more 2's than 3's, and a lot more 3's than 4's. I got my PhD at an n=4 and am very much enjoying my life teaching at a 1.

It would be unhealthy if professor x only produced 1 student. Many people get PhD's and don't want to be academics. Many people get PhD's but aren't really such super-talented scientific researchers that society ought to pay them with tax money to do scientific research. (I include myself in this category.) Most scientific research is not very good and not very important. It's good to wash out some percentage of wannabe scientists, so we don't waste massive amounts of money paying them to do second-rate research.

[atyy]

Suppose we label schools by integers n, with n=1 being a community college, n=2 a decent state school, n=3 a good state school or private university with research, and n=4 a top-flight research university such as Berkeley or Harvard. The argument that exponential growth proves academia is a scam is only valid if professor x's 5 students all expect to have jobs at the same n as professor x. There are a lot more n=1's than n=2's, a lot more 2's than 3's, and a lot more 3's than 4's. I got my PhD at an n=4 and am very much enjoying my life teaching at a 1.

It would be unhealthy if professor x only produced 1 student. Many people get PhD's and don't want to be academics. Many people get PhD's but aren't really such super-talented scientific researchers that society ought to pay them with tax money to do scientific research. (I include myself in this category.) Most scientific research is not very good and not very important. It's good to wash out some percentage of wannabe scientists, so we don't waste massive amounts of money paying them to do second-rate research.

But does it take talent to do first rate research in most fields?

Regardless, I do think it's good that most PhDs don't remain in academic research, because if they do, then the cutting edge doesn't get diffused into society, and PhDs become "elite".

[ParticleGrl]

Regardless, I do think it's good that most PhDs don't remain in academic research, because if they do, then the cutting edge doesn't get diffused into society

What does it mean for "the cutting edge" to get diffused? i.e. I used to do work in quantum field theory, now I work for an insurance company. I don't really use anything I learned in graduate school (my work now appears to be 90% sql/c#, 10% undergrad statistics). Similarly, a friend of mine did a phd in math (algebraic geometry) and he is now (after a two year associates) a nurse, etc.

If someone who does a phd in cutting edge semi-conductors and then gets hired by Intel to bring the academic research into industry, thats great. For most physicists, though, not getting an academic job means leaving the field entirely- how does this diffuse anything?

[ParticleGrl]

Suppose we label schools by integers n, with n=1 being a community college, n=2 a decent state school, n=3 a good state school or private university with research, and n=4 a top-flight research university such as Berkeley or Harvard. The argument that exponential growth proves academia is a scam is only valid if professor x's 5 students all expect to have jobs at the same n as professor x. There are a lot more n=1's than n=2's, a lot more 2's than 3's, and a lot more 3's than 4's. I got my PhD at an n=4 and am very much enjoying my life teaching at a 1.

I think this model doesn't work so well. There aren't many more physicists working in the n=1 and 2 than there are in the n=3,4. Yea, there are lots of liberal arts colleges, but most have only one or two physics profs (some will have none). A large research university can have 20+ physicists.

Also, n=1s are hiring less permanent staff and employing more adjuncts. Three small community colleges and two architecture schools in my area get the bulk of their physics courses taught by two shared adjuncts (who probably make 20k or less, no benefits when you add it all up). Basically, you can't count on a job at an n=1 or 2. Its still a fairly bad labor market.

[atyy]

What does it mean for "the cutting edge" to get diffused? i.e. I used to do work in quantum field theory, now I work for an insurance company. I don't really use anything I learned in graduate school (my work now appears to be 90% sql/c#, 10% undergrad statistics). Similarly, a friend of mine did a phd in math (algebraic geometry) and he is now (after a two year associates) a nurse, etc.

If someone who does a phd in cutting edge semi-conductors and then gets hired by Intel to bring the academic research into industry, thats great. For most physicists, though, not getting an academic job means leaving the field entirely- how does this diffuse anything?

Well, now insurance agents know QFT. That's surely diffusion of knowledge. BTW, I'm sure you've heard the story from me before, but Karhunen (Karhunen-Loeve theorem!) used to work in insurance. Maybe you'll consider that staying in the same field in his case, but I don't think he did (IIRC, a friend asked how he could stand it, and he replied that he still solved problems, just different ones). Also, QFT has benefitted a lot from probability, since the Euclidean path integrals in in constructive field theory all depend on stochastic processes theory. I guess my belief is that one shouldn't define "field" too narrowly. But perhaps my point of view is more that of an experimentalist, where success really depends on getting money for equipment (and luck!) and not on being talented. Since getting money is probably just as unsciency as working in insurance, I think most experimentalists don't do science by that measure.

[pi-r8]

What does it mean for "the cutting edge" to get diffused? i.e. I used to do work in quantum field theory, now I work for an insurance company. I don't really use anything I learned in graduate school (my work now appears to be 90% sql/c#, 10% undergrad statistics). Similarly, a friend of mine did a phd in math (algebraic geometry) and he is now (after a two year associates) a nurse, etc.

If someone who does a phd in cutting edge semi-conductors and then gets hired by Intel to bring the academic research into industry, thats great. For most physicists, though, not getting an academic job means leaving the field entirely- how does this diffuse anything?

I always figured that the diffusion was mostly along the lines of random conversation. Someone will read some random article about physics research, and they can ask you about it as "the physics person" and then that hopefully increases their interest in science and helps persuade more people to vote for increased scientific research funding.

[atyy]

I always figured that the diffusion was mostly along the lines of random conversation. Someone will read some random article about physics research, and they can ask you about it as "the physics person" and then that hopefully increases their interest in science and helps persuade more people to vote for increased scientific research funding.

Yes, except a bit less cynically.

Basically, if ParticleGrl becomes president, that will be a worthy diffusion. (Except that going by her current mood, she'll probably stop all physics funding;)

[ParticleGrl]

I always figured that the diffusion was mostly along the lines of random conversation. Someone will read some random article about physics research

In many years of bartending (first in a college town as a phd student, then in a tourist resort as a phd), exactly 0 coworkers asked me anything about physics (although they did take it upon themselves for some friendly pranks, like etching ",phd" into my nametags).

I don't think very many people read random articles about physics research. If we want to increase scientific knowledge, sticking random phds into people's everyday life in the hopes they ask them some questions is terribly inefficient. Your better bet is probably an incentive/training program to get phds teaching in middle and highschools. If the interest isn't instilled in them young, its probably too late by the time they are adults.

Except that going by her current mood, she'll probably stop all physics funding

If I could social engineer on that sort of level, I'd more likely push for a strong industrial policy/mercantilism. Give manufacturing a shot in the arm, and physicists will be in higher demand. But until there is higher demand, I stand by the assertion that training lots of scientists in the hopes that some go in to politics is silly. A better question is how can we get science into curriculums at law schools? If you want your president to know physics, teach the people likely to go into politics some physics.

[atyy]

If I could social engineer on that sort of level, I'd more likely push for a strong industrial policy/mercantilism. Give manufacturing a shot in the arm, and physicists will be in higher demand. But until there is higher demand, I stand by the assertion that training lots of scientists in the hopes that some go in to politics is silly. A better question is how can we get science into curriculums at law schools? If you want your president to know physics, teach the people likely to go into politics some physics.

OK, I'm voting you for president (too bad I'm not a citizen)!

[pi-r8]

In many years of bartending (first in a college town as a phd student, then in a tourist resort as a phd), exactly 0 coworkers asked me anything about physics (although they did take it upon themselves for some friendly pranks, like etching ",phd" into my nametags).

I don't think very many people read random articles about physics research. If we want to increase scientific knowledge, sticking random phds into people's everyday life in the hopes they ask them some questions is terribly inefficient. Your better bet is probably an incentive/training program to get phds teaching in middle and highschools. If the interest isn't instilled in them young, its probably too late by the time they are adults.


Hmm I've been asked a lot of questions by random friends and family members... not so much coworkers though. I don't have a PhD just a bachelor's degree. And, on the flip side, I also ask them questions about whatever subject their degree was in.

Admittedly most questions were of the "do you think the LHC will destroy the earth???" variety which is... kind of annoying... but I do my best.

[mal4mac]

Suppose we label schools by integers n, with n=1 being a community college...

Why not include n=0 - a school? Then there is actually a shortage of physics graduates! Isn't it just as good teaching in a school? Given the shortage of physics graduates, you should be able find jobs teaching classes with motivated pupils in good schools (if you don't fancy the challenge of 'difficult' pupils...)

[mayonaise]

If I could social engineer on that sort of level, I'd more likely push for a strong industrial policy/mercantilism. Give manufacturing a shot in the arm, and physicists will be in higher demand. But until there is higher demand, I stand by the assertion that training lots of scientists in the hopes that some go in to politics is silly. A better question is how can we get science into curriculums at law schools? If you want your president to know physics, teach the people likely to go into politics some physics.

Or teach physics people politics. I think it's quite arrogant to think "the other side", which is everyone except scientists, should come and understand how important science is. How much politics/economics/law do you think the average physics grad understands? And if they, we, didn't learn any of these in our youth, how well are we equipped for power struggle? These are exactly the social subjects! Any wonder that people in power don't know science? I don't even think it's moral to personally ask the president to understand physics, given how little I understand our law.

Also, once you learn politics/economics/law, you might find that science is not so important to so many people after all.

[ParticleGrl]

How much politics/economics/law do you think the average physics grad understands?

I'm willing to be most science majors took at least one or two econ classes in college. Probably more for physics and math majors (the two semester micro/macro course was considered an easy A for people who already knew calculus well). And I'm not talking about teaching senators string theory, I'm talking about trying to make sure they have a decent, basic understanding of the laws of thermodynamics.

I don't even think it's moral to personally ask the president to understand physics, given how little I understand our law.

Moral is a strange word here. Anyway, the reason why the analogy is bad is that law makers set the scientific and industrial policy for the nation. Politicians ARE involved in scientific policy, but scientists aren't usually particularly involved in making laws. I'd suggest that scientists who go into policy should certainly know something about politics- and I'm willing to bet they do.

Why not include n=0 - a school? Then there is actually a shortage of physics graduates!

I'm not sure this is true either. At least in the US, k-12 schools have been shedding people for years now. There are a fair number of highschool science/physics teachers looking for work.

[atyy]

Or teach physics people politics. I think it's quite arrogant to think "the other side", which is everyone except scientists, should come and understand how important science is. How much politics/economics/law do you think the average physics grad understands? And if they, we, didn't learn any of these in our youth, how well are we equipped for power struggle? These are exactly the social subjects! Any wonder that people in power don't know science? I don't even think it's moral to personally ask the president to understand physics, given how little I understand our law.

Also, once you learn politics/economics/law, you might find that science is not so important to so many people after all.

No, of course not - no one is saying that physicists don't have to understand politics. In fact, physics as an experimental science depends tremendously on politics. And yes, it is moral and necessary for the president to understand physics - energy and defence are major political issues that depend on physics. Now what is the reason for maintaining cutting edge "esoteric" research in particle physics when there are tons of important problems that can be solved by existing technology if social organization permits? The reason is that knowledge not maintained is knowledge lost. And yes, even biology (my field) benefits from the overarching framework of high energy physics. Of course, it doesn't have to be the bulk of physics research - and it isn't - but a critical number of workers has to be maintained.

"Politics (http://uspolitics.about.com/od/quotes/a/qt_politics.htm) is more difficult than physics." Albert Einstein
"If (http://qchu.wordpress.com/) people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is." John von Neumann

[Pyrrhus]

Really? You were so confident of staying in academia that you don't need a PhD?

A PhD is really only for those who leave academia - otherwise, how are they going to find jobs after being low paid workers for 5 years?

A PhD in Economics is highly in demand. I can type in any job search engine "PhD Economics", and there will be MANY MANY MANY job postings requiring one. Both Industry, and Academia. Thus, I am not worried. In fact, I have already applied to several jobs, and I am just waiting for job offers.

[twofish-quant]

It seems that everyone who starts a PhD wants to be an academic. Clearly this is not possible nor sustainable.

I think it is as long as you define "academic" in ways that doesn't include being a full time researcher exclusively paid for the job.

[twofish-quant]

Lets say we got rid of "phd" as a degree, and a graduate student was simply a low paid (relative to other bachelors degree holders) scientific researcher- would people still do it? Does the distinction of "phd" have any value for researchers outside their field?

It does for me. In my family, getting a doctorate degree is rite of passage akin to getting married or having kids. This started in the 18th century, where passing the Chinese Imperial Examinations meant that you were "upper class", and the social meaning of that got transferred to getting a Ph.D.

One thing that I noticed was that there were a lot of people descended from Eastern European Jews in the astronomy department, and I suspect that there is a similar cultural meaning.

[twofish-quant]

I'm willing to be most science majors took at least one or two econ classes in college.

One thing about classes is that they can be useless. One problem with economics classes is that they there is an effort to make economics work like physics, which is bad in a lot of ways. You can go through an intro physics class with the belief that what you are being taught isn't totally wrong, but there is no such guarantee with an economics class.

Anyway, the reason why the analogy is bad is that law makers set the scientific and industrial policy for the nation. Politicians ARE involved in scientific policy, but scientists aren't usually particularly involved in making laws. I'd suggest that scientists who go into policy should certainly know something about politics- and I'm willing to bet they do.

One of the reasons I think my Ph.D. education was excellent was that I got a lot of training in the politics of science. A lot of times, you found yourself in a lunch time discussion about the latest goings-on in Washington, and from time to time we'd have speakers from the NSF or NASA talk about things.

The scientists that I knew were *very* heavily involved in making laws and getting funding. One of the big issues that I remember was the effort to get NASA to send up another space shuttle mission to repair Hubble, and AAS was very heavily involved there.

The other thing is that I went to a big public university, and the interaction between the department, the university, and the state legislature was something that was just part of the background.

[twofish-quant]

A PhD in Economics is highly in demand. I can type in any job search engine "PhD Economics", and there will be MANY MANY MANY job postings requiring one. Both Industry, and Academia. Thus, I am not worried. In fact, I have already applied to several jobs, and I am just waiting for job offers.

But there is a catch. It's harder to get into a Ph.D. economics program than it is to get into a Ph.D. physics program, and much, much harder to get funding.

[twofish-quant]

What does it mean for "the cutting edge" to get diffused? i.e. I used to do work in quantum field theory, now I work for an insurance company. I don't really use anything I learned in graduate school (my work now appears to be 90% sql/c#, 10% undergrad statistics). Similarly, a friend of mine did a phd in math (algebraic geometry) and he is now (after a two year associates) a nurse, etc.

I had a job in which I wasn't using much of what I was doing in graduate school, but in the end I was going crazy so I quit and found another job. The one big catch was that I had to move to New York City.

What finally did it for me was that I found out that an "old college rival" of mine had just been named a dean of a major university, and at that point I knew that I'd either mentally explode in a bad way or mentally explode in a good way, and exploding in a good way meant going to NYC. NYC is one of the most insane places on the planet, and I had to go there to keep my sanity.

For most physicists, though, not getting an academic job means leaving the field entirely- how does this diffuse anything?

We are looking at different parts of the elephant, but physics is diffusing pretty heavily into high finance. Also one thing that is cool about NYC is that you end up with very different people colliding with each other, and that produces all sorts of crazy interactions.

The other thing is that I don't think I have really "left the field". I'm still on good terms with my adviser and his research network, and I'll find my way back.

[atyy]

The other thing is that I don't think I have really "left the field". I'm still on good terms with my adviser and his research network, and I'll find my way back.

That's great! I thought it a rule of thumb that students don't get along with their advisors (maybe reading too much PhD comics:)

[Pyrrhus]

But there is a catch. It's harder to get into a Ph.D. economics program than it is to get into a Ph.D. physics program, and much, much harder to get funding.

YES, and YES. I guess that's how they fixed the issue in economics... It's hard to get in, and even harder to get funding. Frankly, I think a BS in Math/Physics/Engineering should be able to get in Econ Grad school. However, I've seen Econ minors, and Double Math and Econ as graduate students. This may make it harder for future BS Math/Physics/Engineering to get into Econ Grad School. I guess times are changing as students are deciding to abandon dreams in PhD in Physics. I think in a way is sad as research in physics is the reason we have many of our current technological advances. Is USA going to stagnate?

[pi-r8]

YES, and YES. I guess that's how they fixed the issue in economics... It's hard to get in, and even harder to get funding. Frankly, I think a BS in Math/Physics/Engineering should be able to get in Econ Grad school. However, I've seen Econ minors, and Double Math and Econ as graduate students. This may make it harder for future BS Math/Physics/Engineering to get into Econ Grad School. I guess times are changing as students are deciding to abandon dreams in PhD in Physics. I think in a way is sad as research in physics is the reason we have many of our current technological advances. Is USA going to stagnate?

Is it not obvious that we've been stagnating for the last 12 years? Not that nothing has been accomplished but... the pace of accomplishments has definitely slowed down. That's why there's so much nostalgia for the fashion and pop culture of previous decades.

[twofish-quant]

YES, and YES. I guess that's how they fixed the issue in economics... It's hard to get in, and even harder to get funding.

And the problem is that it's so hard to get in that it kills research. If you want to make it in economics, the last thing that you want is to come up with a new or original idea or anything that's the slightest bit risky or controversial.

One problem that I have with economics academics is that I don't think that anyone outside of economics really reads any of the research gets published in the economics journals, outside of some of the more technical econometric stuff. Getting published in the right journals is critical for getting tenure track, but it's not useful for that much else.

Also the status hierarchy is different in economics and physics. In physics, if a tenured Harvard professor gives a talk, and some random person without a Ph.D., says "this is total non-sense" then that person is going to be seen as a crank. In economics, you could have a tenured professor from the London School of Economics or University of Chicago give a talk and if a trader or hedge fund manager or Fortune 500 CEO who dropped out of college says "this is total non-sense" then more likely then not it's going to be the professor that is seen as the crank.

The flip side of this is that because industry has higher status than academia, the universities have to put together extremely attractive packages to compensate.

I guess times are changing as students are deciding to abandon dreams in PhD in Physics. I think in a way is sad as research in physics is the reason we have many of our current technological advances. Is USA going to stagnate?

Hard to say. I've learned not to say "X is going to happen" but rather "Assuming that X is the case, then Y will happen, so I should do Z."

[twofish-quant]

Is it not obvious that we've been stagnating for the last 12 years? Not that nothing has been accomplished but... the pace of accomplishments has definitely slowed down. That's why there's so much nostalgia for the fashion and pop culture of previous decades.

On the other hand grew up in the 1970's when much the same sort of thing happened. This may be a long cycle. Or not. It's hard to tell.

The other question is whether this "stagnation" is just the inevitable consequence of history. The United States was the "only nation standing" in 1945 and 1991 and as time passes, US relative power is going to definitely decline.

The other thing is that the world looks really, really different if you look at it from somewhere else. If you talk to someone that is British, French, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, or Canadian, they are going to have a *vastly* different view on things than talking to an American.

[twofish-quant]

Now what is the reason for maintaining cutting edge "esoteric" research in particle physics when there are tons of important problems that can be solved by existing technology if social organization permits?

During the Cold War, the reason that lots of money went into basic physics research was "I don't know what we'll find, but we'll all be waving red flags and holding pictures of Lenin if the Russians find it first." We got the internet out of that. For that matter, the World Wide Web was invented in CERN.

What I'd like to see is "friendly competition" between national governments. Basically the Cold War II without the threat of nuclear annihilation and without anyone getting killed. So someone shows up in Washington asking for money to research electric cars, and if the answer is no, they look at the next flight to Beijing, Moscow, Dubai, Brussels, or New Delhi.

The reason is that knowledge not maintained is knowledge lost. And yes, even biology (my field) benefits from the overarching framework of high energy physics. Of course, it doesn't have to be the bulk of physics research - and it isn't - but a critical number of workers has to be maintained.

True but those workers don't have to be in the United States, and around 1990, the US Congress made the decision that as far as HEP goes, they wouldn't be when they zeroed out funding for the supercollider.

[twofish-quant]

The reason this is hardly outrageous to me is that it's already the case at some places.

On the other hand, is it a good thing? We are talking about changing the system, so the fact that the system is already a certain way doesn't mean that you should keep it that way.

What I hope for is that people end up where they should. I agree that those individuals who are kidding themselves about being suited for a relatively narrow research career (i.e. they just won't have the energy/interest to push themselves to publish lots of technical stuff in the narrow area) should be sent elsewhere.

But is that a good thing? One thing about physics is that the reason that physics gets the money is that the generals and CEO want better bombs and toasters. One of the *good* things about this is that in order to get what the generals and CEO's want, you *can't* be narrowly focused on a small technical research area. You *have* to think broadly about what you are doing and to function in an environment where you have to think politically and philosophically.

The problem with "sending people elsewhere" is that it totally guts the research effort and undermines the political point of the exercise. Also, "where is elsewhere?"

Hopefully, a majority of those who really enjoy and excel at the kind of work academia demands are not pushed out simply because the system doesn't allow for much of a middle ground.

But what if you are flexible? Tell me what I should enjoy.

[twofish-quant]

Academic institutions are privileged corporations. They are largely exempted from repaying customers when their actions or inactions result in their failure to provide what they promise in their advertising.

Have you talked to a lawyer? Lawyers are good at sending out "nasty-grams" that can handle these sorts of situations. One trick that large corporations do is that they make you think that you have a lot less power than you really do.

Also UoP is a cash cow because the can issue a piece of paper that (supposedly) gets you a job. When I taught there I got $1000/month. There were 15 students paying $1000/month. About 40% of the money went into advertising and 10% went to pay instructors. You can see this from their older annual reports (pre-2007), although the newer ones have changed the categories so that it's much less obvious that this is what is going on.

Now, in a pure market, you could pay me the $800/month, I could teach you exactly the same Algebra I course, and we'd both be better off, but the problem is that you don't get that piece of paper that entitles you to a loan or a job.

It gets worse. Knowledge is created by social networks, and UoP tries very hard to keep those networks from forming, because if the students and the teachers were to talk to each other rather than going through the administration, you could have some sort of revolt.

Also, the UoP business model is different from the Harvard/MIT business model. The Harvard/MIT business model is to take young people, brainwash them, then have them infiltrate the power elite so that they can direct money and power back at Harvard and MIT. This works pretty well for the "secret agent" since UoP doesn't care what happens once they get your check, whereas Harvard and MIT really care that if you become President of a major superpower or win the Nobel prize.

Einstein himself, studying time and relativity, remarked that no force in the universe is as powerful as compound interest, and I think that justifies ringing the alarm when the cost of tuition increases more quickly than the extra income provided by a degree.

Those aren't the relevant numbers. Education provides huge productivity benefits, so as long as the productivity increase is more than the cost, there is some wealth around that can be used. The question is how this wealth flows.

I can only see a tiny minority of people -- corporate executives administering universities and already wealthy investors reciving dividends -- benefit from this cancer.

Karl Marx figured this out about 130 years ago, but people figured out ways around this.

The thing about education is that it can be frightfully cheap. Here is a list of books to read. Read them. Education is so cheap that you have to go through a lot of effort to figure out how to charge for it.

[chiro]

What I'd like to see is "friendly competition" between national governments. Basically the Cold War II without the threat of nuclear annihilation and without anyone getting killed. So someone shows up in Washington asking for money to research electric cars, and if the answer is no, they look at the next flight to Beijing, Moscow, Dubai, Brussels, or New Delhi.


The sentiment and the idea is great, but personally I'd rather private institutions do this sort of thing, or rather a movement towards private institutions do the majority of this kind of thing.

We are seeing this kind of thing anyway but its usually more of an engineering aspect and not a 'discovery' scientific aspect in the way that the payoff is not at all guaranteed and the risk high.

But when I here of say a private company building a quantum computer and selling it to places like Lockheed Martin and a major university, I get the sense that this kind of thing will expand a great deal in the future and if we ever retain some kind of fair competitive capitalistic system, then this kind of thing will be 'the model' as opposed to just 'a model'.

Personally I see governments as a monopoly and monopolies have a bad track record in innovating and being forced to do the best job they can if they don't have to.

[ParticleGrl]

The sentiment and the idea is great, but personally I'd rather private institutions do this sort of thing, or rather a movement towards private institutions do the majority of this kind of thing.

I'm not sure that works. Back when AT&T was a huge monopoly, they were engaged in exactly this, and everyone benefited (though they were paying higher telecom costs than they otherwise would have been). However, as the market grew more competitive, Bell Labs was spun off, and then shifted from fundamental to applied research. Its now a shadow of its former self. Other industrial labs have gone the same way. As companies become more competitive, fundamental R&D shrinks.

I think one take-away of the last thirty or forty years is that markets aren't great at valuing scientific research (consider the number of innovators who died penniless). It seems like you need a large institution that can spend a lot of money without worrying about being able to monetize it. One potential cause is that innovations have a tendency to spread to lots of companies in industry, so there is a free-rider problem. The creator of a technology might not make the money, an imitator might get rich instead.

[chiro]

I'm not sure that works. Back when AT&T was a huge monopoly, they were engaged in exactly this, and everyone benefited (though they were paying higher telecom costs than they otherwise would have been). However, as the market grew more competitive, Bell Labs was spun off, and then shifted from fundamental to applied research. Its now a shadow of its former self. Other industrial labs have gone the same way. As companies become more competitive, fundamental R&D shrinks.

I think one take-away of the last thirty or forty years is that markets aren't great at valuing scientific research (consider the number of innovators who died penniless). It seems like you need a large institution that can spend a lot of money without worrying about being able to monetize it. One potential cause is that innovations have a tendency to spread to lots of companies in industry, so there is a free-rider problem. The creator of a technology might not make the money, an imitator might get rich instead.

Firstly for the imitator getting rich, that's going to be likely to happen if the creator was not a businessperson. If the creator has a desire to be acknowledged for his creation in a financial manner, then they have to understand that this requires understanding money, how people interact, how deals get made and so on. Unfortunately this is how humans interact and the social component that is often lacking in many inventors and scientists with regard to creating deals, shaking hands, playing rounds on the golf course and so on is required if this is the ultimate goal.

In short many scientists and inventors are not salesman or businessman and don't understand the game that is being played. If they want to play fine, but its a different game with different rules.

In terms of markets evaluating good research, you really have to define good. I actually agree with your sentiment in the way that good to a company is going to be something that ultimately benefits 'their bottom line' and often this can end up being contradictory in terms of benefit to humans in the long run.

For example it doesn't make sense for a business to develop a product that doubles the lifetime of an existing product because that means that the business can sell one item that lasts for twice as long which means they just lot a lot of potential sales in a specific time-frame. Sure it might help the planet, but it affects so called 'growth': its really screwed up I know.

The other thing that I think supports your argument is that when you privatize something, things are kept secret or things like patents enter the picture which funnily end up destroying innovation due to the draconian barbaric policies enforced by patent lawyer conglomerates for the big multinationals.

Having said the above, the one thing that a real sound capitalistic system provides is good to honest fair competition and this does have a habit of giving consumers a choice and forcing business to do what they need to do to keep up with the Jones' business. In the end it forces businesses to give the consumer a good deal which means businesses that don't give consumers what they want die and the ones that do keep going.

Just so you know, I am aware that it's not this easy when you have the Walmarts coming in, undercutting prices and forcing the local guys out of business and that because of this kind of thing the playing ground is not 'fair' in different ways, but capitalism as a tool does tend to create a lot of innovation and benefits for consumers in industries that have a lot of competition.

If somehow there was a way to merge these qualities together!

I know what I've said in many respects is highly idealized in certain respects, but there are benefits for privatization. But academia too has its place and purpose and it won't be disappearing anytime soon anyway.

Also for the ones who are not scammers (and even some that are!) investors will pump money into inventors if they are confident that it is worth pursuing so the idea of privatization is not really so far fetched for science.

Also there are people that are offering prize money for competitions for building better robots, more effecient cars and so on but it is acknowledged that this is not a 'mainstream' thing.

[twofish-quant]

The sentiment and the idea is great, but personally I'd rather private institutions do this sort of thing, or rather a movement towards private institutions do the majority of this kind of thing.

I don't care how the sausage gets made.

Personally I see governments as a monopoly and monopolies have a bad track record in innovating and being forced to do the best job they can if they don't have to.

If you have competing national governments, then they aren't a monopoly anymore.

[chiro]

I don't care how the sausage gets made.

I do!

If you have competing national governments, then they aren't a monopoly anymore.

Can you honestly imagine the kind of situation you are describing? Governments actually inventing stuff and then actually 'sharing' that with other countries/governments?

Maybe you should ask governments to release all the stuff that is covered under 'national security' or similar for your government of choice just as a 'pilot project' to get this whole thing started.

I'd be very interested in seeing how far you get.

[chill_factor]

I do!



Can you honestly imagine the kind of situation you are describing? Governments actually inventing stuff and then actually 'sharing' that with other countries/governments?

Maybe you should ask governments to release all the stuff that is covered under 'national security' or similar for your government of choice just as a 'pilot project' to get this whole thing started.

I'd be very interested in seeing how far you get.

i'd like to stay out of politics but let me make an observation:

all private corporations are dictatorships to their employees and are run as command economies internally. yet they can compete with each other.

why not national governments?

[twofish-quant]

In short many scientists and inventors are not salesman or businessman and don't understand the game that is being played. If they want to play fine, but its a different game with different rules.

I think that's a somewhat inaccurate stereotype. Trying to raise $100 million to get a telescope built or $10 billion to get a particle collider built requires pretty sharp sales and business skills. The other thing is that playing the game means changing the rules to your favor.

If you look at the salaries of the professors of astronomy at UT Austin (and these are public records). Most make around $120K, but there is one that makes $500K, and he gets that money because in addition to being a first rate cosmologist, he is also a first rate salesman, and part of his job is to fly around and convince people to give people money to keep the other professors paid.

In terms of markets evaluating good research, you really have to define good.

The operative definition in the case of US science and technology has been to maximize American comprehensive national power. The reason that science and technology gets funded is so that United States stays a superpower. If the US doesn't care about the superpower thing, then some other country will.

Also the trick in sales and marketing is to get people to agree with your definition of good.
I think it's a good thing if we build lots of telescopes and create high paying jobs for
astrophysicists. The sales and politics comes in in trying to get people to agree with me,
and that involves appealing to some pretty basic human emotions.

Having said the above, the one thing that a real sound capitalistic system provides is good to honest fair competition and this does have a habit of giving consumers a choice and forcing business to do what they need to do to keep up with the Jones' business. In the end it forces businesses to give the consumer a good deal which means businesses that don't give consumers what they want die and the ones that do keep going.

Except that the easiest way of making a ton of money is to eliminate your competition and spending a ton of money on marketing. You don't keep up with the Jones's business, you figure out a way of driving them out of the market. This comes up with University of Phoenix. The rules are such that I can't put out a shingle and teach Algebra I. I have to go through them, and naturally, they'll charge through the nose for it.

Markets *can* be set up to benefit the consumer, but there is no particular reason why they have to be. You can end up with markets that screw the consumer in a big way.

Just so you know, I am aware that it's not this easy when you have the Walmarts coming in, undercutting prices and forcing the local guys out of business and that because of this kind of thing the playing ground is not 'fair' in different ways, but capitalism as a tool does tend to create a lot of innovation and benefits for consumers in industries that have a lot of competition.

But a lot of those industries also were critically dependent on government involvement. Look at Silicon Valley. There were a number of important factors including a very strong defense industry, a good education system, critical government research, and a set of contract laws that prohibited non-compete clauses.

I know what I've said in many respects is highly idealized in certain respects, but there are benefits for privatization. But academia too has its place and purpose and it won't be disappearing anytime soon anyway.

Academia as we know it is dead. Academia is dead because we have all of this new technology, and that technology has proven disruptive in every other industry. It's going to hit academia, and things will change. How they will change, I have no clue.

[twofish-quant]

Can you honestly imagine the kind of situation you are describing? Governments actually inventing stuff and then actually 'sharing' that with other countries/governments?

http://adswww.harvard.edu/ or the Los Alamos Preprints Archive. Or for that matter the WWW and the internet.

Stuff leaks out. The thing about national governments is that in order to do research, you need a degree of openness which means that most of what you know will eventually get known by all of the other major governments, but as long as it's another country in the "club" then it really doesn't matter that much.

As far as commercial stuff. All the big corporations and universities are multinationals anyway with interests that are independent of any government.

The other thing is that in order to maintain "soft power", a national government has to release the research. For example, the fact that the internet started in the US gives the US a big advantage in the "global power" game, but none of that would be usable if it just kept it a secret.

Maybe you should ask governments to release all the stuff that is covered under 'national security' or similar for your government of choice just as a 'pilot project' to get this whole thing started.

If you go to Los Alamos or Oak Ridge, you'll find a fairly large number of foreign nationals working on non-classified research. For that matter, just how many Chinese or Indian graduate students are enrolled in US universities working on projects under government grants.

The other thing is that getting a government to release information is 100x as easy as getting that information from a private corporation. Without too much trouble I can find the organization chart for the CIA. Now try that for your favorite Fortune 500 corporation.

[chiro]

Thankyou for the replies guys and girls. Very insightful! I'll check out those sites that you mentioned two-fish and yes what you said about open-ness makes sense in the grand scheme of things.

I think I learned a lot today :)

[chiro]

i'd like to stay out of politics but let me make an observation:

all private corporations are dictatorships to their employees and are run as command economies internally. yet they can compete with each other.

why not national governments?

I'm not saying its not possible, its just that the way things are now, I'm not optimistic.

I know you can play the diplomacy game and make it look all rosy but just look at the world: everyone is watching everyone else like hawks.

Again I point to things like national security in the US and the equivalent in other nations around the world. To me this says: "don't go there" in contrast to the "ties between nations have been forged".

Again I'm not saying it's not possible, just more or less that it doesn't, at this time seem to really be plausible as opposed to probable but if it happens on the kind of scale and scope that two-fish mentioned then that would be great: I'm just not holding my breath.

[twofish-quant]

I know you can play the diplomacy game and make it look all rosy but just look at the world: everyone is watching everyone else like hawks.

Sure, but at the end of the day, no one that matters wants the world to blow up. It's basically 19th century Europe all over again with the major powers trying to play diplomatic games to keep the peace.

Again I point to things like national security in the US and the equivalent in other nations around the world.

One of the things that I saw was after the Cold War, the US government worked very hard to make sure that nuclear scientists from the former Soviet Union got jobs in the US, because everyone thought that it would be better if they ended up in the US rather than in North Korea or Iran.

The United States buys its aircraft carriers with money that it borrows from China, and that tells you that there are limits to which the US and China are actually scared of each other.

Again I'm not saying it's not possible, just more or less that it doesn't, at this time seem to really be plausible as opposed to probable but if it happens on the kind of scale and scope that two-fish mentioned then that would be great: I'm just not holding my breath.

I'm telling you what I'm seeing *now*. What's happened is that the major issues are now all global, and they are beyond the reach of anyone national government, so you are ending up with cross-national cooperation in order to fix some of the major issues.

The other thing is that you have major non-state players in the form of multi-national corporations. One reason that national governments are cooperating is that without trans-national cooperation, they'll lose all of their power to the corporations.

For example, if Congress passes a law that changes the way that banks are regulated in the US, it's not going to do a darn thing since the corporations will just change their structure to move outside the scope of regulation. Now if you get the regulators from the major powers in the Basel Committee to agree on something, *then* it has teeth.

The United States is the most powerful country in the world. Perhaps the most powerful country in history, but that poses a problem for people that live in the United States. If you leave in the United States, you can pretty much pretend that the rest of the world does not exist. This isn't true anywhere else on the planet Earth, where you just *feel* the power of the United States even if you are not there. But that means that if you are outside of the United States, you see globalization hitting you left and right.

[Pyrrhus]

And the problem is that it's so hard to get in that it kills research. If you want to make it in economics, the last thing that you want is to come up with a new or original idea or anything that's the slightest bit risky or controversial.

One problem that I have with economics academics is that I don't think that anyone outside of economics really reads any of the research gets published in the economics journals, outside of some of the more technical econometric stuff. Getting published in the right journals is critical for getting tenure track, but it's not useful for that much else.

Also the status hierarchy is different in economics and physics. In physics, if a tenured Harvard professor gives a talk, and some random person without a Ph.D., says "this is total non-sense" then that person is going to be seen as a crank. In economics, you could have a tenured professor from the London School of Economics or University of Chicago give a talk and if a trader or hedge fund manager or Fortune 500 CEO who dropped out of college says "this is total non-sense" then more likely then not it's going to be the professor that is seen as the crank.

The flip side of this is that because industry has higher status than academia, the universities have to put together extremely attractive packages to compensate.



Hard to say. I've learned not to say "X is going to happen" but rather "Assuming that X is the case, then Y will happen, so I should do Z."

I don't think this is really true. I have seen professors from other fields even Civil Engineering publishing in top Economics Journals. That's how I changed to Econ. My Master's advisor introduced me to economics. He has published in Econ Journals. That means others read those journals. The problem is physicists don't read any journals except their own journals. This is apparent to me all the time. My coworker, a fellow PhD Candidate, does a lot of network economics. Recently, he sent a paper to a physics journal (EPJ) as they publish research in networks. The reviewers comments seemed to know anything at all about the papers he cited from econ journals. He had to explain back and forth after 1-2 round of review those papers. Eventually, the paper was published in EPJ. However, it showed me how clueless physicists are about research outside their own journals.

[Fifty]

Obviously I'm under-informed about this subject (still in high school) but perhaps the seemingly useless topics you learn through education to get a seemingly unrelated position are just to limit the amount of people getting those positions. There can only be so many accountants.

Also, the population is increasing. More specifically, the percentage of the population trying for university degrees is increasing (at least over here it is, without a doubt)

[chill_factor]

I'm not saying its not possible, its just that the way things are now, I'm not optimistic.

I know you can play the diplomacy game and make it look all rosy but just look at the world: everyone is watching everyone else like hawks.

Again I point to things like national security in the US and the equivalent in other nations around the world. To me this says: "don't go there" in contrast to the "ties between nations have been forged".

Again I'm not saying it's not possible, just more or less that it doesn't, at this time seem to really be plausible as opposed to probable but if it happens on the kind of scale and scope that two-fish mentioned then that would be great: I'm just not holding my breath.

what im saying is that there's no reason why private corporations are any more trustable than governments. both are equally untrustable and in some countries they're one and the same; in that case, its a matter of which dominates which. in socialist countries, the government is the corporations, but in other countries, the corporations are the government. which is worse?

now many americans will say "its obvious that socialist countries are worse" but just keep in mind that in India, everything is so privatized water pipes to homes got shut down and instead the utilities sell water from water trucks (its what you think it is: a tanker truck filled with water that dispenses a tiny bit and they sell it).

academia, government and the corporations are one and the same, its just their job security that differs.

[twofish-quant]

I don't think this is really true. I have seen professors from other fields even Civil Engineering publishing in top Economics Journals.

I was thinking less in terms of other professors but rather how badly economics journals are seen by people that work in investment banks and other financial institutions. The problem is that if you pick up any economics journal, you'll find at least one article that appears totally clueless to someone that works in the industry (anything with the word "efficient" next to "market"). Yes, there are usually good articles along with the bad, but if you end up with stinkers then what's the point of peer review?

In that situation, it's just better to post everything to SSRN, Repec, or just put the article on your web site.

The other problem is that whenever someone with industry background publishes, it's usually a result that is moderately interesting, but not the crown jewels. That stuff you keep secret and make money out of. So even when you do see an article that isn't a stinker, it's often something that has been used for years in industry.

The problem is physicists don't read any journals except their own journals.

That's one problem, there are several others. Communication style is one of them. For example, if you disagree with something in a journal, you are expected to go to the library, and write a rebuttal with a thousand citations. The fact that you have to spend months in the library before anyone will even listen to you is a barrier to outsider input.

However, traders don't communicate in this way. If a trader thinks that what he read is nonsense, he'll let out a string of expletives, toss the journal in the trash, and that's the end of it. He has no reason to go to the library to prove his point.

There's also a lot more secrecy in economics. It's very common that I read an economics paper, and then think to myself, this is obvious non-sense. Unfortunately, if I publicly mention why I think it's non-sense, then I get fired and possibly investigated by the SEC. What this means is that a lot of real information in economics is "oral." I go to a conference, someone gives a presentation, and then afterwards, we talk over coffee. The fact that a lot of the information in economics is oral is why industries center in a few cities.

Recently, he sent a paper to a physics journal (EPJ) as they publish research in networks. The reviewers comments seemed to know anything at all about the papers he cited from econ journals. He had to explain back and forth after 1-2 round of review those papers. Eventually, the paper was published in EPJ. However, it showed me how clueless physicists are about research outside their own journals.

People have limited time, and so silos tend to form. But in the end it got published. Having clueless reviewers is a sometimes a good thing, since they will give you the benefit of the doubt and publish it. One problem with economics journals is that if the reviewers know the papers and don't like them, the papers will get binned.

[twofish-quant]

in that case, its a matter of which dominates which. in socialist countries, the government is the corporations, but in other countries, the corporations are the government. which is worse?

The good news is that you have a ton of interest groups. If both the corporations and the government agree, then give up. You can't win. What's more common is the situation were you have some corporations and some government agencies on one side and other corporations and other government agencies on the other, and in those situations, a small number of people can make a huge difference.

now many americans will say "its obvious that socialist countries are worse" but just keep in mind that in India, everything is so privatized water pipes to homes got shut down and instead the utilities sell water from water trucks (its what you think it is: a tanker truck filled with water that dispenses a tiny bit and they sell it).

One problem is "define socialist." Is France socialist? Is China socialist? One funny thing with China is that people have called it "half-capitalist", but if you *define* capitalist as "an economic system that works" that doesn't tell you much about what to do.

A lot of this came out of the Cold War, when the US=capitalist, and the Soviet Union=socialist. The trouble is that there aren't any Soviet-style economies any more, and while the US economy is functional, no one quite is sure what parts of this works.

Academia, government and the corporations are one and the same, its just their job security that differs.

It's not. There is a power elite, but there also conflicts within the power elite, so that means that if you aren't a member of the ruling classes, you can still have a lot of influence over what ends up happening.

There's also the "if you can't beat them, join them." The power elite is pretty good at making sure that anyone that could overthrow them gets "absorbed" into system.

One way of looking at MIT, is that ruling elite doesn't want smart people out in the streets doing mischief. So they convince parents that they should send their kids to elite schools where they get brainwashed into supporting the system. One good thing about going to MIT is that you get to see the power elite up close, and you figure out that they are just human beings, and you see the same sorts of cliques and conflicts that you have anytime you get a bunch of people together.

You might wonder what a Marxist is doing working on Wall Street. Well it's simple. I think that Karl Marx got most things right. The part that he got wrong was the idea that you could fix things with a revolution. If there is a ruling class, and if a revolution is undesirable, then the logical thing to do is to find a way of getting as close to the center of power as possible.

[Pyrrhus]

People have limited time, and so silos tend to form. But in the end it got published. Having clueless reviewers is a sometimes a good thing, since they will give you the benefit of the doubt and publish it. One problem with economics journals is that if the reviewers know the papers and don't like them, the papers will get binned.

I will give you that one, because it is more likely than not. Economists (at least academics) are notorious for loving their jargon and their ways. They don't usually allow outsiders to publish so easily. It takes time, but it can be done as I mentioned before. However, (I think) economists are more open to read outside economic journals in contrast to physicists. In my experience, physicists are more open to listen to uncommon (to them) views by outsiders.

[deRham]

But is that a good thing? One thing about physics is that the reason that physics gets the money is that the generals and CEO want better bombs and toasters. One of the *good* things about this is that in order to get what the generals and CEO's want, you *can't* be narrowly focused on a small technical research area. You *have* to think broadly about what you are doing and to function in an environment where you have to think politically and philosophically.

The problem with "sending people elsewhere" is that it totally guts the research effort and undermines the political point of the exercise. Also, "where is elsewhere?"



Does string theory get funding from people who want better bombers and toasters?

One issue is that not everyone getting a math or physics PhD seems necessarily to have what the generals and CEOs want as priority, and you can try forcing them to by shoving them into a market, but that works for a limited number of people. Whereas a lot of smart people who actually could complete a math PhD if they wanted don't really care enough to research differential geometry, even if they learned some in college, and some of them end up in careers where they DO accomplish some things which seem to be in demand. The people who just don't find what the generals and CEOs want in their great interest will just end up competing with people without PhDs for basic jobs to make ends meet and try to find satisfaction in life outside their careers. That's not terrible, but it certainly doesn't put their creative energies to use much. Perhaps you hit a sweet spot in between :)

Well, I don't really mean send people elsewhere - more like it will naturally happen if they don't want to do what the research careers demand. The best that can be done is to try to keep around most of the people who would probably be more productive as academic researchers than anything else. That certainly is NOT everyone who is going for a PhD (some are invariably there more for some sense of prestige or out of confusion as to what else to do).

But what if you are flexible? Tell me what I should enjoy.


If you are flexible, why can't you enjoy the many things your flexibility takes you towards? If we're talking career, I'd say do the thing you enjoy at which you're also the most productive, at first naive approximation.

[twofish-quant]

Does string theory get funding from people who want better bombers and toasters?

Absolutely.

http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5626

Here's one random grant

http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=1068558

There's a search engine on the site where you can see others.

Also a lot of funding goes through Federal student aid. Essentially money that goes to pay tuition ends up funding research through overhead. And then you also have indirect funding in that donations to universities are tax deductible and also not subject to estate taxes.

The other thing is that the number of Ph.D. in science and math is basically controlled by the amount of government funding that goes into the system.

One issue is that not everyone getting a math or physics PhD seems necessarily to have what the generals and CEOs want as priority

This is research. The generals and CEO's are willing to write blank checks because no one knows what is going to turn up. I mean, when I did my Ph.D. in radiation hydrodynamics, no one knew that the math would be useful for calculating bank liquidity ratios. If something was obviously of immediate benefit then you could fund it from private sources.

Part of the reason that physicists get paid is that the generals and CEO's don't know exactly what they want, and need advice as to what they situation is.

The people who just don't find what the generals and CEOs want in their great interest will just end up competing with people without PhDs for basic jobs to make ends meet and try to find satisfaction in life outside their careers.

We are talking about a few thousand people here. Also, part of the reason I think I got a good education is that the generals and CEO's have no idea what they want at a detail level. So you set up a political and economic system to figure it out.

Also, the generals and CEO's want a booming economy. Without a good economy, then you can't afford an aircraft carrier. The other thing is that we have a massively productive economy. If we are in a situation in which most people are just struggling to make ends meet then there is something seriously broken that needs to get fixed.

Since the time of the Romans, politicians have figured out that to keep a population docile, you need bread and circuses, and if people are struggling for bread then at some point people are going to wonder why they put up with the system, and the people with power will lose it. So it's essential for the ruling classes to provide enough toys and distractions to keep the masses passive and docile. Having a sound banking system is essential for this because as long as someone is figuring out what apps to install on their iPhone, they aren't going to be interested in overthrowing the government.

And keeping the banking system sound is where I come in. As long as people have jobs and mortgages, they are going to be chained to the system. Once jobs and mortgages disappear, then people really have nothing to lose but their chains, and then you have revolution.

The best that can be done is to try to keep around most of the people who would probably be more productive as academic researchers than anything else.

Define "productive". For the people that run the world, having someone in a bank trying to prevent world revolution is infinitely more productive than someone in a university that just puts out papers.

If you are flexible, why can't you enjoy the many things your flexibility takes you towards?

Because in the way that I look at the world, enjoyment means stagnation. I'm an intellectual masochist, and part of being a masochist is that it feels bad to feel good and it feels good to feel bad. Also because of my religious upbringing, I feel nervous and guilty about enjoying myself.

If we're talking career, I'd say do the thing you enjoy at which you're also the most productive, at first naive approximation.

Again, you have to define "productive." Personally, I've found that paradoxically being forced to do something that I hate makes me more creative in that I have to think of clever ways of getting out of the work.

It turns out that "saving the world" involves a lot of unglamorous crap work that no one wants to do, so since we are clever people, we are figuring out ways of making sure the work gets done without anyone having to work too hard to do it.

[deRham]

I mean, when I did my Ph.D. in radiation hydrodynamics, no one knew that the math would be useful for calculating bank liquidity ratios.

This refers to a fascinating topic, at least to me. I've always wondered what benefit funding the innovation of new math has to that CEO/general. I mean, is the math developed private and only at the disposal of that funding source? I'd imagine almost anyone could benefit.

Define "productive". For the people that run the world, having someone in a bank trying to prevent world revolution is infinitely more productive than someone in a university that just puts out papers.



Productive meaning they end up doing whatever is both useful for themselves and the rest of the people running the world.

Being forced out of academia does not imply the individual is going to end up doing a high stress job that prevents world revolution. That would perhaps be true of working in banks were a career that is "second choice to academia."

As has been said before, the same sort of funding going into math/physics doesn't necessarily make its way to all the humanities departments. A common second choice for a humanities person who did a graduate degree is going into a teaching career. Now, teaching is noble. Having great teachers is important. However, it doesn't seem to benefit generals and CEOs much directly. I wonder why they fund it then, because indeed, I don't doubt that a lot of, say, math PhDs end up doing some such teaching career at a non-research institution, or something totally different.

Basically: why fund someone to be trained in string theory when you want better toasters? Wouldn't it be better never to give them the chance to learn string theory (from the point of view of toasters and bombs)? I use string theory as an example because depending on what angle one takes, it can take place in either the math or physics department.

This leads back to the earlier question of whether some "profound new useful math" actually benefits the CEO's direct needs.

[deRham]

Because in the way that I look at the world, enjoyment means stagnation. I'm an intellectual masochist

Or one can just redefine enjoyment :)

[twofish-quant]

This refers to a fascinating topic, at least to me. I've always wondered what benefit funding the innovation of new math has to that CEO/general.

Ask the NSA. They probably know more about factoring large numbers than anyone else in the world. For that matter, I've seen some very interesting work in applied math in financial firms. If your algorithms are faster than the people across the street, then you can sell financial products that they can't.

I mean, is the math developed private and only at the disposal of that funding source?

It depends. In my situation, it's understood than any new mathematical technique is going to be known by everyone eventually (usually in a matter of months), however, the game is to be able to exploit the edge that you have. Also, you can't chain people to the office, so usually the firm across the street finds out about a new technique when they give the person that invents it enough money to switch firms.

For stuff that the NSA develops, you can't do that, and people that do that sort of work are under a lot of legal restrictions. For the stuff that the NSF produces then there aren't.

There are also odd situations in which someone wants everyone to know about something without anyone knowing who discovered it.

For example, some major banks have close relationships with academics so that the academic will with the bank's blessing publish mathematical work that was developed by the bank. There are some legal reasons for this. If a bank publishes a mathematical paper that is obviously likely to be used to price some financial product, then the regulators can get annoyed, whereas if the bank hands the research over the an academic, who builds on it and then publishes it without the banks name, this doesn't trip over securities regulations.

For that matter, there is a ton of development on open source software that is done anonymously by major financial firms.

Productive meaning they end up doing whatever is both useful for themselves and the rest of the people running the world.

Define "useful"

Being forced out of academia does not imply the individual is going to end up doing a high stress job that prevents world revolution. That would perhaps be true of working in banks were a career that is "second choice to academia."

Even low stress jobs prevent world revolution. All that matters is that you are in the office and not in the street. However, one curious thing is that most menial jobs are in fact quite high stress. Working as a waiter, a cashier, or a telemarketer is extremely high stress.

Now, teaching is noble. Having great teachers is important. However, it doesn't seem to benefit generals and CEOs much directly.

Yes it does. In order to keep yourself in power, you have to tell a story to explain to people why they must kill and die for something. When people are no longer willing to kill and die for a cause, then countries collapse. In the 1940's, people in Russia were willing to kill and to die for the hammer and sickle, but in the 1990's, people stopped and everything collapsed.

One of the major functions of schools is political indoctrination. In the US for example, one message that gets taught starting from elementary schools is that freedom and democracy are important. So you need lots of people that come up with these stories, and lots of people to teach these stories. One other thing is that starting from elementary school, you are to stand in line, raise your hand before being speaking, and turn in your assignments on time. It's all so that you end up as a cog in the machine.

Almost.... The tricky part is that you don't want people to be "complete robots" because if they are, then the system is going to fall apart. So what you want is for people to work against the system within the system.

Basically: why fund someone to be trained in string theory when you want better toasters?

Same reason it turned out to be a good idea to fund people to research heavy metal ores in the 1920's. You never know what is going to turn up, and if something does turn up, you want it first.

It turns out that string theory is useful in valuing mortgage backed securities.

Wouldn't it be better never to give them the chance to learn string theory (from the point of view of toasters and bombs)?

Most people in fact don't get the chance to learn string theory. The number of people that do is controlled by funding levels, and the political system adjusts those levels to get the number of people that they want. Which isn't high. Maybe a dozen a year.

This leads back to the earlier question of whether some "profound new useful math" actually benefits the CEO's direct needs.

If it didn't, they wouldn't be paying me as much as they do.

A lot of my thinking involves taking Marxist ideas and then figuring out how to make use of them. I'm very heavily influenced by Marx, Trotsky, and Chomsky, but the big difference is that since I grown up when the Soviet red dream was dying and the biggest political event in my life was when it finally died, I don't have very much support for using Marxist ideology to advance world revolution or overthrow the status quo.

So what I've done is to take Marxism and try to figure out to use it for my advantage. What does it take to get me money, and that involves understanding why people behave in the way that they do.

[chill_factor]

Interesting. So can you tell me why bio related fields are getting immense funding at the academic level, but in industry, even some PhDs in biology related fields are waiting tables and driving buses (like one almost-Nobel prize biochemist)?

Why is it that "biotechnology" was touted as the answer to all of humanity's health problems and chemical shortages, yet the delivery has been relatively disappointing?

If its supply and demand, is it that they want a large supply of highly educated lab serfs working for Big Health to keep them alive for a few years longer?

[twofish-quant]

Interesting. So can you tell me why bio related fields are getting immense funding at the academic level, but in industry, even some PhDs in biology related fields are waiting tables and driving buses (like one almost-Nobel prize biochemist)?

I can tell you want bio-related fields are getting a lot of finding because there is some rivalry between fields over tax dollars. The reason that bio-related fields are getting a ton of money is that people are scared of either they or their parents getting sick and dying.

Even the richest most powerful person in the world will get old and die, and that helps set funding priorities.

As far as what this means for biology Ph.D.'s you'll have to ask a biology Ph.D.

Why is it that "biotechnology" was touted as the answer to all of humanity's health problems and chemical shortages, yet the delivery has been relatively disappointing?

Because human beings seem to be genetically programmed to die at around 70 to 80, and in order to prolong life at that level, you need to spend increasingly large amounts of resources for increasingly fewer gains. In addition a lot of the major advances in wealth have tended to shorten lifespan. The increase in obseity have overwelmed technology advances in health care.

Also, people are willing to spend huge amounts for marginal gains. If you have someone that is dying of terminal cancer or how has Alzheimer's, then an extra six months of life or an extra three months of being able to recognize your kids is worth a huge amount of effort.

Finally, I suspect that there is *some* way of disabling the self-destruct mechanism in the human body, and then world totally changes if we can figure that out.

If its supply and demand, is it that they want a large supply of highly educated lab serfs working for Big Health to keep them alive for a few years longer?

Yes and so does everyone else in the world. One thing that you have to understand is that when I say that the world is run by a relatively small number of people, I don't necessarily think that it's a *bad* thing. People with power are human and they are afraid of death just like anyone else. Now if they spend bizillions of dollars so that they can live longer, and I end up benefiting, then I'm not going to complain.

[chill_factor]

I can tell you want bio-related fields are getting a lot of finding because there is some rivalry between fields over tax dollars. The reason that bio-related fields are getting a ton of money is that people are scared of either they or their parents getting sick and dying.

Even the richest most powerful person in the world will get old and die, and that helps set funding priorities.

As far as what this means for biology Ph.D.'s you'll have to ask a biology Ph.D.



Because human beings seem to be genetically programmed to die at around 70 to 80, and in order to prolong life at that level, you need to spend increasingly large amounts of resources for increasingly fewer gains. In addition a lot of the major advances in wealth have tended to shorten lifespan. The increase in obseity have overwelmed technology advances in health care.

Also, people are willing to spend huge amounts for marginal gains. If you have someone that is dying of terminal cancer or how has Alzheimer's, then an extra six months of life or an extra three months of being able to recognize your kids is worth a huge amount of effort.

Finally, I suspect that there is *some* way of disabling the self-destruct mechanism in the human body, and then world totally changes if we can figure that out.



Yes and so does everyone else in the world. One thing that you have to understand is that when I say that the world is run by a relatively small number of people, I don't necessarily think that it's a *bad* thing. People with power are human and they are afraid of death just like anyone else. Now if they spend bizillions of dollars so that they can live longer, and I end up benefiting, then I'm not going to complain.

so the moral of the story is:

rich people living longer while the poor work as serfs for them is a great system?

i still don't get why industry doesn't seem to want much to do with bio. I'm not talking about just biology itself, but all the physical chemistry, physics, engineering, etc. that goes along with biological and pharmaceutical applications.

[cdotter]

so the moral of the story is:

rich people living longer while the poor work as serfs for them is a great system?

i still don't get why industry doesn't seem to want much to do with bio. I'm not talking about just biology itself, but all the physical chemistry, physics, engineering, etc. that goes along with biological and pharmaceutical applications.

It's more profitable to produce infinitesimally better products than it is to produce revolutionary products because the research associated with the latter is going to significant increase the price. Look at how expensive cutting edge drugs and medical procedures have become. I realize that consumer-level prices are affected by more than simply R&D, but can we really afford to make them even more expensive?

[chill_factor]

It's more profitable to produce infinitesimally better products than it is to produce revolutionary products because the research associated with the latter is going to significant increase the price. Look at how expensive cutting edge drugs and medical procedures have become. I realize that consumer-level prices are affected by more than simply R&D, but can we really afford to make them even more expensive?

each tiny little 1 month lifespan advancing drug costs billions to make. you're right, it takes "revolutionary" price, for "incremental" improvements.

all the new cancer drugs, therapies, etc. give the patient maybe, 1-2 months extra or increase survival rate from 1% to 4% (they'll call it "quadrupling the survival rate" but that's a joke).

its funny how the biggest increase in lifespan was due to sanitation, then due to diet. medicine is surprisingly inefficient and brute force despite trillions being invested in it and millions of careers ruined because of the false hope of biotech.

[deRham]

Yes it does. In order to keep yourself in power, you have to tell a story to explain to people why they must kill and die for something. When people are no longer willing to kill and die for a cause, then countries collapse. In the 1940's, people in Russia were willing to kill and to die for the hammer and sickle, but in the 1990's, people stopped and everything collapsed.

One of the major functions of schools is political indoctrination.

Why do the people in power trust disgruntled math PhDs to do their indoctrination for them?



Define "useful"



For who, me? Because my comment was meant to acknowledge that "useful" doesn't have a universal meaning. At the end of the day, it means that I don't think I'm wasting my time, and the person funding me doesn't think I could be using my time better. That's the best possible outcome. The next best possible outcome "to the world" is that the person funding me is happy, and I'm not but I put up with it and the world goes on.

I'll refine my definition of "useful" as long as someone can help justify what I'm doing to me.

If I'm funded to research stuff involving path integrals (I'm using that example only because it's come up) and I use those kinds of ideas in my work that's considered more valuable than publishing papers, I can imagine that's a good argument. If I learned differential geometry and I do the same job as someone who would never want to learn it, then I wonder how one can justify the time I spent, aside from "personal enrichment," but I'm pretty sure it's NOT in someone's interests to fund my enrichment for the sake of it, which means working for a better system where I actually use (not necessarily directly) what I learned is not a bad thing.

Now one may argue that doing the same job as someone who doesn't want to learn that stuff is valuable because it's good for the PhD to try to convince people why they'd want to learn those things. But that presumes that there's reasonable opportunity to even do such convincing. If plenty of people with some cleverness are able to achieve such a thing, even if it's unobvious, then yes, there's a point to how things are working.

I always like to bring up the example of a non-PhD who learned differential geometry or some such "pure" topic that still could find itself making interesting contributions to the more applied world. We can't discount non-PhDs as potential valuable intellectuals.

It depends. In my situation, it's understood than any new mathematical technique is going to be known by everyone eventually (usually in a matter of months), however, the game is to be able to exploit the edge that you have.

OK, I think that makes sense, thanks for the example.