Scientist Career Path: Is It Pessimistic or Real?

[Astronuc]

I've been reading this thread, and it appears to have devolved into an either-or type choice. I've worked "both sides", and from my experience, the only limiting factor in someone's career is their own lack of vision.

I concur. I think Katz reflects the experience of someone who, as far as I can tell, went through grad school, got a PhD and stayed in academia.

Many academics I know have mentioned the pressure to do research and more importantly, obtain funding from sources outside the univeristy, e.g. NSF, DOE, NASA, industry, etc. I also hear about the politics within universities and departments. (that also happens in companies from small to large)

I also know a number of PhDs in industry who are also adjunct professors at local universities and community colleges.

And there are those PhDs who went off and started their own companies, like the one in which I work.

Here's just one example of what folks can do with degrees in physics or math. They don't necessarily have PhDs, but they could easily have.
http://www.peonycapital.com/en/Senior-Management.htm

One career/success is much about taking the initiative and looking for opportunities, and not waiting for someone else to point out one's path or opportunity.


I also wanted to point out a classic case of poor management in a large technology company. It was painful to watch the demise of such a great company.
Who killed Westinghouse?
http://www.post-gazette.com/westinghouse/default.asp

 

[Andy Resnick]

<snip>

One career/success is much about taking the initiative and looking for opportunities, and not waiting for someone else to point out one's path or opportunity.

<snip>

very well put!

 

[twofish-quant]

I've been reading this thread, and it appears to have devolved into an either-or type choice. I've worked "both sides", and from my experience, the only limiting factor in someone's career is their own lack of vision.

Personally, I think this is a failing of science educational system. If the system were working, then it would expand people's visions rather than restrict them. One thing that I find frustrating is how seemingly intelligent people can purport to ask deep questions about the big bang, but at the same time not ask equally deep questions about the institutions around them. One question that I had to ask myself is "what is a professor?" and "what is a scientist?" "What is academia?" "What is success?"

Also, one other thing is that people have restrictions that come from things other than ones lack of vision. If you try to look for a job right now, you've just gotten handed some bad cards, and are just unlucky. Part of the reason I got interested in finance, was that it turned out that when I asked "why?" the answer always ended up having something to do with money.

One thing that helped a lot was to look in the mirror and think to myself "it's not fair and it's not my damn fault that things are as bad as they are." The reason this helped is that I found that if I felt guilty, I ended up getting nothing useful done, but if I felt angry, that at least got me out of bed and on the phone to people.

 

[twofish-quant]

One career/success is much about taking the initiative and looking for opportunities, and not waiting for someone else to point out one's path or opportunity.

The problem is that the entire academic Ph.D. system is set up to point to the path of being a tenure-track research professor. As long as people are fixated and obsessed with that path, people are just not going to look for other opportunities and take the initiative to look elsewhere. What's happening is that the system as it now exists is actively pointing people in the wrong direction and that has just got to stop.

That's why it is really, really, really important for people to point out that the path to tenure-track is going to work for at most 1 in 20 Ph.D.'s, and that 95% of people are going to have to figure out something else to do. Once you realize that this path doesn't exist, and that you are on your own, most people end up coming up with something.

Also the idea that people would be better off not getting the Ph.D. doesn't work. If you get an MBA, an MD, or just about anything else, you'll still have to deal with these sorts of issues.

 

[Choppy]

The problem is that the entire academic Ph.D. system is set up to point to the path of being a tenure-track research professor.

I see changes to this happening though.

Where I did my PhD, the school set up programs to assist graduate students with commercial development, patenting, liaisons with the business community etc. all for dealing with ideas that directly resulted from their research.

On top of that career and placement services offered mentoring programs, job fairs and even brought in recruiters from different organizations to give presentations specifically targeted towards graduate students. They even had seminars for graduate students interested in getting out of academia, where they brought in speakers who had jumped out into industry.

There are major obstacles to a shift or diversification in focus away from 'academia only'. These include (in no particular order):

(a) An untrue notion that in abandoning the academic path you have somehow 'failed out' or you are somehow abandoning a dream that has driven you to work so hard through so many years of school.

(b) A lack of mentors, or at least a lack of access to mentors who have pursued alternative career routes. Most supervisors are, after all, academic professors. Most talks you go to as a graduate student are given by people in academia. Most conferences are academically oriented.

(c) I'm not sure about this one, but from personal observation I would estimate that graduate students are more reclusive than the average bear. Many are 'happy' to be locked in a closet of an office working out equations for peanuts and aren't interested in more money.

(d) Research projects tend to be academic-oriented , as opposed to research that has a direct, commercial application. So you've derived an modification to an interaction cross section under very unique conditions. Now what?

(e) We cling to and even promote romanticized ideas about tenured professor positions as these dream jobs where you're free to pursue whatever research ideas tickle your fancy without any teaching or committee committments, funding applications, etc.

(f) A lack of professional organization in academic areas. Physics, for example, is an academic subect, not a profession. Hence there is little promotion in the world for professional physicists, no professional standards, or even definitions for what it means to be a professional physicist. (NOTE: CAP does have a P.Phys. designation.)

 

[Rika]

I'm not familiar with US system so could you explain it to me: do you need to be a tenure-track professor to work in academia? You can't teach, conduct research or even be the head of research group while not being at tenure-track path?

 

[Ben Espen]

The answer is no in most cases, non-tenure track faculty do the same basic tasks as tenure-track faculty. Non-tenure track faculty teach and conduct research, it is probably less likely for a non-tenure track academic to head up a research group, but I don't know that it is impossible.

It is really just that adjunct faculty work more and are paid less. In my opinion, the positions are seen as less prestigious as well.

 

[Astronuc]

The problem is that the entire academic Ph.D. system is set up to point to the path of being a tenure-track research professor. As long as people are fixated and obsessed with that path, people are just not going to look for other opportunities and take the initiative to look elsewhere. What's happening is that the system as it now exists is actively pointing people in the wrong direction and that has just got to stop.

That's why it is really, really, really important for people to point out that the path to tenure-track is going to work for at most 1 in 20 Ph.D.'s, and that 95% of people are going to have to figure out something else to do. Once you realize that this path doesn't exist, and that you are on your own, most people end up coming up with something.

Also the idea that people would be better off not getting the Ph.D. doesn't work. If you get an MBA, an MD, or just about anything else, you'll still have to deal with these sorts of issues.

I don't agree. In my department (Nuc Eng), many PhDs went out to industry or national labs. I was in grad school 22+ years ago.

Perhaps in particular university programs, PhDs are pointed toward academia. Some of our faculty more or less discouraged students from staying in academia. Then part of that could be the idea that if a professor sends PhD students to industry and national labs, there is better chance for outside funding for research down the road.

The other thought is that one gets a PhD, goes out to industry for 10-20 years to get practical experience, and then goes back to teaching.

An number of graduates from the program I attended went on to become senior level managers in large corporations, or they started their own companies. I think this is the approach at many schools like MIT and Stanford.

 

[kote]

I don't agree. In my department (Nuc Eng), many PhDs went out to industry or national labs. I was in grad school 22+ years ago.

Perhaps in particular university programs, PhDs are pointed toward academia. Some of our faculty more or less discouraged students from staying in academia. Then part of that could be the idea that if a professor sends PhD students to industry and national labs, there is better chance for outside funding for research down the road.

The other thought is that one gets a PhD, goes out to industry for 10-20 years to get practical experience, and then goes back to teaching.

An number of graduates from the program I attended went on to become senior level managers in large corporations, or they started their own companies. I think this is the approach at many schools like MIT and Stanford.

I suspect that it does largely depend on the field and the particular school. Obviously in business school, for example, almost everyone is expected to leave academia and recruiting is set up to support this. My friend is in a top applied math PhD program now and had meetings with recruiters from Wall Street her first year, in addition to getting a weekly email digest of a variety of recruiting and networking activities in engineering and applied sciences. A majority of her classmates have chosen to focus their research on industrial applications, particularly in finance, and almost no one is working on more general methods. I asked her about this issue and she hasn't felt any pressure at all toward academia from the school, her classmates, or her professors.

I'm not sure if this is particular to her school, which also happens to have a well respected business school, or if it's a more general trend. I also suspect being "applied" math has a lot to do with it.

Another of my friends is doing an engineering master's at an Ivy with a top business school and is excluded from their recruiting. They do not have equivalent recruiting to the above mentioned school with formal structures like weekly emails etc. Even though this is a terminal engineering degree, he is still mostly on his own when it comes to finding a job. Your mileage may vary .

 

[twofish-quant]

(a) An untrue notion that in abandoning the academic path you have somehow 'failed out' or you are somehow abandoning a dream that has driven you to work so hard through so many years of school.

There's a weird inconsistency here, because on the one hand, people talk about commitment to the cause of science, but if you are so committed that you go into astronomy with the idea that you don't care if you get an academic job at the end, that's also supposed to be a bad thing.

One other thing is that most physics Ph.D.'s after a few years make enough money so that they could spend a few months each year doing unpaid research. The problem is not money, it's time. I have the money so that I can volunteer as a researcher three months out of the year, but the trouble is that I wouldn't have a job to go back to.

A lack of mentors, or at least a lack of access to mentors who have pursued alternative career routes. Most supervisors are, after all, academic professors. Most talks you go to as a graduate student are given by people in academia. Most conferences are academically oriented.

I think it's a deeper issue. Like any power structure, the structure of academia is self-perpetuating and so it immediate reacts against anything that threatens the power structure. It's interesting that "tenure" has become the sacred cow of academia, and I think part of it is there is a realization of how fragile tenure really is.

The University of Phoenix is interesting because it illustrates that you can run a teaching institution with mostly adjuncts, and I suspect that you can use the University of Phoenix model for research institutions also.

Many are 'happy' to be locked in a closet of an office working out equations for peanuts and aren't interested in more money.

Or are unwilling to admit to themselves how much they dislike the situation they are in.

We cling to and even promote romanticized ideas about tenured professor positions as these dream jobs where you're free to pursue whatever research ideas tickle your fancy without any teaching or committee committments, funding applications, etc.

And a very good question is "why?" My answer is that without the promise that someday you will get tenure, there would be no real reason for graduate students to go along with the program. Which I think points out the real problem with the system, which is that it's really impossible to maintain without someone telling some really massive lies. It also very deeply undermines the ideals that academia is supposed to be founded on. If we are in a situation in which we think it's better off for society to be stupid because we aren't clever enough to figure out what to do with too many smart people, then why not go all the way and just shut down all of the universities.

 

[twofish-quant]

It is really just that adjunct faculty work more and are paid less. In my opinion, the positions are seen as less prestigious as well.

Or more accurately, the positions are made to seem less prestigious. It's really strange that on the one hand you have this glorification of self-sacrifice, but on the other hand people that get paid less for more work somehow have less prestige. Heads I win. Tails you lose.

One big problem is that there is a limit to which you can improve the well being of adjunct faculty. If you give adjuncts too much power and the conditions are too good, then people will start to wonder why we have tenured faculty at all.

 

[wildman]

Einstein was working in the Patent Office when he had his golden year in 1905. I have friends who have published dozens of papers while working at our company. Many people have won Nobel Prizes working in a Government or Industry. Working in Industry can actually be a better path to interesting research than an academic path. And you don't have to teach!

 

[twofish-quant]

Einstein was working in the Patent Office when he had his golden year in 1905.

It is interesting to look at what Einstein did to find out *why* working in the patent office was so perfect for him. He had job security, a reasonable amount of prestige, and most importantly time to think. His job was an eight hour job, and once he got off work he was busy talking with his colleagues about physics.

Curiously once he got a position at the IAS, he was never able to do anything useful ever again.

I have friends who have published dozens of papers while working at our company.

Finance isn't ideal for this sort of thing because banks tend to be tight lipped to begin with, and there is a lot of time and stress. If you are working 12 hours/day instead of 8, and you are always worried about losing your job, this isn't the best environment for doing research outside your field of study. Also, there aren't that many ways for non-academic physicists to easily still have one leg in the research community.

One thing that is interesting is that people have enough money to do research. The problem is time.

Many people have won Nobel Prizes working in a Government or Industry.

National labs, yes. Industry isn't quite as useful for doing basic research as it once was. Companies are a bit more focused on the bottom line and things like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC are seen as a waste of money. Sad really.

One of my weird ideas is that if banks are going to be regulated utilities, then you might see the rebirth of something like Bell Labs. Also if the President were to give a speech in which he encouraged banks to give physics Ph.D.'s three month sabaticals so that they could work in national labs on problems of national interest, that would be useful. Finally, there are probably enough physicists that have made enough money on Wall Street that you could fund things like Mars probes.

There are a lot of possibilities.

Working in Industry can actually be a better path to interesting research than an academic path. And you don't have to teach!

Curious you do have to teach. I've found that the skills that I've gotten in trying to explain technical things to undergraduates come in useful when you try to explain to management why they should keep paying your salary.

 

[Rika]

And teaching isn't so bad. If you have passionate students they can help you in many ways. Still don't understand - ok tenure - track position gives you more money and is more "prestigious" (whatever that means) but it doesn't change the fact that being non-tenure-tracked allows you to publish papers with interesting results and do basically the same as tenure-tracked. So what's the problem? Why rarity of tenure-track positions should stop you from working in academia?

 

[Choppy]

Still don't understand - ok tenure - track position gives you more money and is more "prestigious" (whatever that means) but it doesn't change the fact that being non-tenure-tracked allows you to publish papers with interesting results and do basically the same as tenure-tracked. So what's the problem? Why rarity of tenure-track positions should stop you from working in academia?

Depending on the institution, with tenure comes a lot of perks. Historically, when professors were awarded tenure, it was essentially a university's endorsement that they would be supported in pursuit of whatever ideas they had - no matter how outlandish. In those times universities and society recognized the value in high risk, high payout pursuits. So it's not so much the "prestige" as it is the freedom and ability to pursue ideas without the pressure to publish.

There are also perks such as sabatical - time off (months, sometimes a full year) where the professors essentially focus on research, write, or explore, with minimal pressure to produce results.

Then there are the 'standard' perks of job security, health plan, pension, etc. that don't come with a post-doctoral contract work.

 

[twofish-quant]

Still don't understand - ok tenure - track position gives you more money and is more "prestigious" (whatever that means) but it doesn't change the fact that being non-tenure-tracked allows you to publish papers with interesting results and do basically the same as tenure-tracked. So what's the problem? Why rarity of tenure-track positions should stop you from working in academia?

The problem is that officially non-tenure track people are supposed to be "temporary" or "supplemental." Most universities have rules that require that non-tenure track people either forced to leave after a certain time, or limit the types of work that they can do. Most of these restrictions seem to be to be somewhat irrational and really have no purpose other than to preserve the tenure system.

So what basically happens is that if you do something non-tenure track, you are agreeing that for the rest of your existence you will be a second class citizen and will take orders and have your destiny decided by people with tenure. For people that have spent their entire lives being at the 95th percentile of everything they've done, not being at the top of the class is profoundly traumatic. Since age five, your entire life has been focused on getting good grades and getting the approval of your teachers and peers. To a 28 year old Ph.D. getting tenure-track is like getting a gold star from their first grade teacher, and people in the system have often never known any other life.

Having spent a lot of the time outside the system, and also have realized that I'm not going to win at it unless I change the rules... Yes... It does seem bizarre.

 

[twofish-quant]

So it's not so much the "prestige" as it is the freedom and ability to pursue ideas without the pressure to publish.

On the other hand since the pressure to publish comes from said universities, I'm not sure this rationale makes much sense. Part of what has happened is that in order to squeeze as much work as they can out of people without tenure, universities have to promise that the beatings will end someday.

 

[Rika]

The problem is that officially non-tenure track people are supposed to be "temporary" or "supplemental." Most universities have rules that require that non-tenure track people either forced to leave after a certain time, or limit the types of work that they can do. Most of these restrictions seem to be to be somewhat irrational and really have no purpose other than to preserve the tenure system.

So what basically happens is that if you do something non-tenure track, you are agreeing that for the rest of your existence you will be a second class citizen and will take orders and have your destiny decided by people with tenure. For people that have spent their entire lives being at the 95th percentile of everything they've done, not being at the top of the class is profoundly traumatic. Since age five, your entire life has been focused on getting good grades and getting the approval of your teachers and peers. To a 28 year old Ph.D. getting tenure-track is like getting a gold star from their first grade teacher, and people in the system have often never known any other life.

Having spent a lot of the time outside the system, and also have realized that I'm not going to win at it unless I change the rules... Yes... It does seem bizarre.

So in other words: no tenure no independent research and being lab monkey right?

 

[Choppy]

So in other words: no tenure no independent research and being lab monkey right?

Not necessarily. It's more like no tenure, no security. Being a post-doc doesn't mean that you're a slave who answers to the whims of the project leader - necessarily. I had a fair amount of freedom while I was working as a post-doc. The hardest part is that it's a contract position and so after 2 years, or however long you sign on for, there's no guarantee that you'll stay in the same place.

 

[twofish-quant]

So in other words: no tenure no independent research and being lab monkey right?

Not really. From a *research* standpoint post-doc's and research scientists are quite independent and can do anything that tenured faculty can. The lack of power that post-doc's have is primarily administrative (i.e. you are on a temporary contract so when people think about what the department is going to be like in ten years, no one really cares what you think and you probably won't get the nice office).

Research scientists are in a different situation. Research scientists can (and do) basically do everything tenured faculty do. It's just that you name will likely not be there when they decide who to name to be department head, and you aren't going to be in the key admissions and policy committees.

Curiously, I think the system stinks precisely *because* non-tenured people has as much competent and authority as the tenure-track people. If you look at things meritocratic standpoint, there really is no reason that post-doc ought to have less power or voice in departmental affairs than senior tenured faculty because in a lot of situations they are doing basically the same work.

 

[twofish-quant]

The hardest part is that it's a contract position and so after 2 years, or however long you sign on for, there's no guarantee that you'll stay in the same place.

And in fact there is a guarantee that you *won't* stay in the same place. There are limits both formal and informal, on how long a department will let you stay around as a post-doc. This can be quite annoying if you have a family.

One problem with academia is that there isn't a variety of employers in one place. If you lose your job at Big Computer Company A, there are usually other companies in that city that you can move to so you don't have to sell the house and move the kids. With universities if you leave Big State, then you have to migrate, and you have no choice as to where you can migrate to,

I think that one difficulty in getting the system to admit that most Ph.D. are not going to be tenure track is this involve admitting that tenure no longer really exists as a system.

There is one other really weird part of academic hiring is that when one spouse gets hired in a tenure-track position, it's customary for the university to provide a comparable position to their spouse, even if the spouse is an academic in a totally unrelated department. The thing about tenure positions is that it's usually feast or famine, and if you get an offer from one university, you'll likely get one from others, and then one that makes life easiest for your family is the one you are likely to take.

Also if one spouse has tenure, there usually quite a lot of pressure for the university to grant tenure to the other spouse, because there is a good chance that if the university person A has to move to find a job, person B will also move.

One weird part about this system is that one academic party game that people play is "who did the university really hire?" Sometimes it's quite hard to figure out. Sometime it's not...

One bizarre realization that I had was the only real chance that I ever had of getting a tenure track position was to have slept with the right people. Eeeewwwwww!

 

[Rika]

Not really. From a *research* standpoint post-doc's and research scientists are quite independent and can do anything that tenured faculty can. The lack of power that post-doc's have is primarily administrative (i.e. you are on a temporary contract so when people think about what the department is going to be like in ten years, no one really cares what you think and you probably won't get the nice office).

Research scientists are in a different situation. Research scientists can (and do) basically do everything tenured faculty do. It's just that you name will likely not be there when they decide who to name to be department head, and you aren't going to be in the key admissions and policy committees.

Curiously, I think the system stinks precisely *because* non-tenured people has as much competent and authority as the tenure-track people. If you look at things meritocratic standpoint, there really is no reason that post-doc ought to have less power or voice in departmental affairs than senior tenured faculty because in a lot of situations they are doing basically the same work.

So basically non tenured-track is better because you don't have to do paperwork and struggle for power, you just can focus on your research, right? And you still have enough money to live, right? So what's wrong with that? Even if you won't become a head of a dep. it's irrelevant because ppl do phd not because they want a power but because they want to do research. If a tenure-track position won't make you more idependant or won't give you a better position in research what's the point in fighting over it? I don't know if I understand correctly but only a post-doc is a temporary position. A research scientist position can be a permanent one, right?

 

[scout6686]

This forum rocks. Right now I'm getting paid for programming in C++and doing property management. I'm waiting a year before going to grad for 'Mathematical Computations' at UCLA. Saving some money.

Academia doesn't seem as fun in general; I want some variation in my experience.

It seems like a great path but doesn't seem to be as efficient for nice living unless you've already achieved something.