The Real Science Gap: An Overview

[twofish-quant]

http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/

Nothing Earth shattering to people in this group, but a nice summary of the problem.

 

[raam86]

Well. Duh. I do think the lack of specific ob prospects acts as a sort of sieve. You will see people starting Med' degree (or even M.Ds) that don't really LIKE patients, treating whatever, but were drown for the "fame and fortune". Since science is not sexy in any way only people who REALLY want it do it.

 

[phyzguy]

Nice article. I do think, however, that the conclusions apply more to pure science than to engineering. i think there are still a good number of good engineering jobs available in industry. Anyone care to comment on this?

 

[kanato]

I certainly see a lot of positions available for engineering. But I think there are also a lot more engineering graduates than science graduates so I'm not sure how that ends up stacking up.

 

[Locrian]

Great article. I really want to highlight one of the links in it: http://www.urban.org/publications/411562.html It's been discussed in this forum before, and is an excellent source of information on the topic. The Miller-McCune article does a good job of summarizing it but the original is worth the read as well.

 

[AlephZero]

A recent statistic from the UK Financial Times newspaper: 50% of the world's GDP is now produced by "emerging" economies.

Another statstic from the FT, today: "China announces plans to build 45 new airports in the next 5 years". And how many does the US plan? I don't know, but I guess the answer is somewhere between 0 and 5.

The same comparison applies to green energy. And high speed rail networks. (GE is hoping to get access to Chinese high speed rail technology, to use in the USA.)

Sure, all of the above are more about engineering than pure science, but there must be some correlation between the two, in real-world economics.

If you are stuck with the mindset of "threats to US dominance" (quote from the OP's link), you have already lost the game IMO.

 

[twofish-quant]

Sure, all of the above are more about engineering than pure science, but there must be some correlation between the two, in real-world economics.

What seriously worries me is the number of Ph.D.'s that are finding the grass greener on the other side of the Pacific. There's something of a slient brain drain going on as people with Ph.D.'s are leaving for jobs in China. One problem is that big-ticket science is something that is inherently associated with a large state, which is why the Soviet Union was good at it. The idea that "government is inherently evil and if you are unemployed it's your own damned fault so don't complain" is something that is deeply in the US psyche, and for that most part, people in China don't believe that.

If you are stuck with the mindset of "threats to US dominance" (quote from the OP's link), you have already lost the game IMO.

Except that science is heavily funded in the US in order to maintain US dominance. If the US were willing to be Canada or Denmark (i.e. a nice country, but one with no pretensions to global power), then science wouldn't be funded nearly as much as it is. Big science is a product of the Cold War, and something that we have to think about is the role of since in the post-post-post Cold War.

One thing that is interesting is to talk to someone that isn't an American. If you are American it's considered rude to question the "US #1" dogma, but you are under no restrictions if you are Canadian, French, or British. One curious thing is talking to French and British, because France and Britain were world empires at one point, and they just got tired of running the world, and I'm getting that sense of "tiredness" out of the United States.

 

[odinsthunder]

The EU is the world's dominate power, it's just not offical yet. It has a single economy, it has a president, all EU citizens can live and work in other member states on a permanent basis(freedom of movement). EU law overules the laws of its member states. It has a treaty which is the constitutional basis of the EU, and is slowly coalescing its military. If you didn't know, the British and French armed forces are now under joint command, it doesn't take a genius to extrapolate where this is heading.

 

[twofish-quant]

The EU is the world's dominate power, it's just not offical yet.

I don't think that the world has a dominant power right now. The US is more powerful than any other single nation, but it's not like 1990.

 

[FroChro]

The EU is the world's dominate power

Well, it maybe could be world's dominate power, but surely is not yet. It is not politically unified enough,in fact it can pretty much fall apart any time soon (maybe I'm little exaggerating here).
There is still not consensus between members whether they want EU to be just some kind of trading coalition or USA-like-federation or something between and there hardly will be any (agreement) in near future.

 

[mal4mac]

... science is heavily funded in the US in order to maintain US dominance. If the US were willing to be Canada or Denmark (i.e. a nice country, but one with no pretensions to global power), then science wouldn't be funded nearly as much as it is. Big science is a product of the Cold War, and something that we have to think about is the role of science in the post-post-post Cold War.

Is science really so heavily funded in the US? In both the US and the UK the "low tax" mantra is used all the time so you might expect the Scandinavian countries (and China!) to have more tax money to spend on fundamental research. A quick Google search reveals:

Total research funding in most developed countries is between 1.5% and 3% of GDP; Sweden is the only country to exceed 4% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_science.

 

[D H]

http://www.miller-mccune.com/science/the-real-science-gap-16191/

Nothing Earth shattering to people in this group, but a nice summary of the problem.

Summary: Yet another stupid article about how the US produces more PhDs than academia can bear.

There is a good reason why academia produces more PhDs in technical fields than are needed by academia itself: People with PhDs are highly valued in government agencies and by industry. The problem is not that academia is producing too many PhDs. The problem is that students go into a PhD program with the assumption that this will guarantee them a spot in academia.

 

[Andy Resnick]

The problem is not that academia is producing too many PhDs. The problem is that students go into a PhD program with the assumption that this will guarantee them a spot in academia.

Well put.

 

[Diracula]

Summary: Yet another stupid article about how the US produces more PhDs than academia can bear.

There is a good reason why academia produces more PhDs in technical fields than are needed by academia itself: People with PhDs are highly valued in government agencies and by industry. The problem is not that academia is producing too many PhDs. The problem is that students go into a PhD program with the assumption that this will guarantee them a spot in academia.

Is this true for PhDs specializing in particle theory as well?

 

[ParticleGrl]

People with PhDs are highly valued in government agencies and by industry. The problem is not that academia is producing too many PhDs. The problem is that students go into a PhD program with the assumption that this will guarantee them a spot in academia.

I think people get a PhD with the assumption that they can work in the field (not the subfield) in which they get their PhD. i.e. I assumed that with a phd in theoretical physics I could find technical work (maybe computer simulations, modeling,etc) related to physics somewhere. Increasingly, this isn't true- more and more people are being forced into less traditional work (finance, insurance,etc).

Yes, science phds are smart people, and smart people will find reasonable work. I don't think anyone would claim that physicists are starving on the streets. The issue is that getting a phd isn't actually doing anything for a lot of people's careers.

 

[D H]

Increasingly, this isn't true- more and more people are being forced into less traditional work (finance, insurance,etc).

Quants aren't forced into that line of work. They enter it quite willingly. As a postdoc they face years of relatively low wages before even having a chance to become an untenured professor. A much nicer wage is available if they broaden their scope, looking to work more or less in their field but in a non-academic setting (e.g., industry, government). They would however be hard pressed to get a six figure income straight out of college. It takes a long time for someone working in a technical field to break the six figure barrier, even if that person has a PhD on their resume.

Quants get six figure incomes, easily, oftentimes well into six figures, and it doesn't take years to reach those extremely high salaries. Physicists working as physicists won't see that kind of money, ever. (Another option is to get into upper management or own ones own company, but the technical people who do that are no longer doing technical work, either.)

 

[ParticleGrl]

Quants aren't forced into that line of work.

I've talked to roughly a dozen phd physicists working in insurance and finance, and they all say that if a stable research job magically fell into their lap they would take it, even with the massive paycut. I admit its anecdotal (and a massive sample bias, as its all students of collaborators), but I think a lot of theory phds in particular find out there is really no industry demand, and the national labs are just as competitive as the universities.

 

[Astronuc]

Quants get six figure incomes, easily, oftentimes well into six figures, and it doesn't take years to reach those extremely high salaries. Physicists working as physicists won't see that kind of money, ever. (Another option is to get into upper management or own ones own company, but the technical people who do that are no longer doing technical work, either.)

I work in a company started by a PhD. He does technical work, while another PhD does much of the admin work. Most of us manage projects, as well as performing the technical work. We expect entry level engineers (or it could apply to physicists) to develop expertise in their work such that they will replace us some day - in addition to contributing growing the company.

Quants make 6 figure incomes because the finance industry has the money. Several large science and technology companies downsized their R&D groups because they cost money, and basically cut into the bonuses management pay themselves.

US industry now goes to the government for R&D support.

The Chinese and Korean governments support their industries. It makes sense, since those industries export to the world, including the US. Sadly, we now see US technology used in commercial products sold in the US, but supporting millions of jobs outside the US. That would be fine if those jobs resulted in the purchase of US products, but they don't - at least not at the level to offset the ~$500 billion annual trade deficit.

While it might make business sense for GE to import Chinese high speed rail technology, it doesn't help the US economy because such technology is sponsored by state and federal government, whose financing comes from taxpayers. Taxpayers need jobs to earn a living and pay taxes - and we currently have a severe deficit of taxes and jobs.

 

[D H]

Emphasis mine:

I've talked to roughly a dozen phd physicists working in insurance and finance, and they all say that if a stable research job magically fell into their lap they would take it, even with the massive paycut. I admit its anecdotal (and a massive sample bias, as its all students of collaborators), but I think a lot of theory phds in particular find out there is really no industry demand, and the national labs are just as competitive as the universities.

Sample bias, false expectations, and, I suspect, more than a bit of hubris. Those stable research jobs are small in number. What's wrong with looking a bit further afield, such as a stable non-research but physics-oriented job, and what's wrong with looking a bit harder than having the job magically fall into their laps?

I have interviewed several PhDs who seek work with my employer. Mostly they're aerospace engineers; only one or two physics PhDs, but similar issues arises with aerospace PhDs. One of the things I look for when interviewing freshly-minted PhDs is an attitude against working in industry. Are they going to jump ship as soon as one of those rare jobs in academia shows up because academia is where they really want to be? Do they secretly look down on those who work in industry? Even when they lie ("I'm just not interested in a career in academia") it is still fairly easy to ferret out such individuals.

I suspect these employment issues are limited to the most theoretical of theoretical physicists. This complaint comes up regularly at PhysicsForums, but very rarely from experimentalists or solid state physicists. Part of the problem here is that what is important to academia and to freshly-minted PhDs with an academic mindset isn't quite so important elsewhere. Physics departments need to pay a bit more attention to the reason they are getting a lot more endowments and grants than are archaeology departments. Hint: It's not because industry wants more cosmologists. High-tech industry wants cosmologists about as much as they want cosmeticians.

Fortunately, for now, finance and insurance have come to the rescue with over-the-top salaries magically plopped into the laps of those misguided students. Don't look for this trend to continue. Business schools are now starting to teach the kinds of mathematics that is needed in order to be a quant. This will eventually dry up the demand for physicists and astronomers to serve as quants.

 

[DrummingAtom]

These articles only focus on academia, why? As soon as industry was brought up it immediately goes right back to academia. It's telling the same story over and over..

Why is industry always looked down upon for R&D from the academics? Is industry R&D research lame in comparison to academia research? Is it better because academics can choose their research more freely?

I just get a bad feeling in my stomach about these type of articles because I know there's all these bright eyed PhD's thinking that they will get a research position in academia and do their "own" research. I have several friends that are in PhD programs thinking this exact same thing and when I ask them about industry research they shake their head in disgust.

I, personally, thought this way too until I found out that I'm the type of person that given any problem will still enjoy to "research" it myself. It doesn't matter how mundane the problem either, if I don't know the answer myself then I want to think of way to get it. To me, this is real research. I know, I know true "research" doesn't have any type of answer in existence yet.

I'll give the Leibniz and Newton story because it describes how I feel about this more. Even though both of these men discovered calculus at the same time, they probably didn't do it at the exact same time. Meaning that there was an answer somewhere in the world relative to one of them but still pushed through and discovered it on their own. Wouldn't this be described as real research? Or did only one of them actually do research and the other worked on a mundane problem that was already discovered?

The type of people that go into research for fame and prestige make me sick. They just sound like a bunch of kids that if they don't get their way (type of research) then they'll whine. I hear it all the time on this forum, "I want to do string theory and solve what Einstein was working on!" Any problem is interesting in it's own way, it doesn't have to be string theory.

Can someone explain to me why so many PhD's want to go into academia when it's industry that has the money for R&D?

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0801.pdf

 

[ParticleGrl]

Sample bias, false expectations, and, I suspect, more than a bit of hubris. Those stable research jobs are small in number. What's wrong with looking a bit further afield, such as a stable non-research but physics-oriented job, and what's wrong with looking a bit harder than having the job magically fall into their laps?

What is a non-research/development but physics oriented job?

Also, the reason the job would have to magically fall into their laps is that the people I talked to gave up on research work when they moved into finance. My point was that (anecdotally) lots of people in finance would prefer to be working doing physics. When they failed to find jobs in physics, they moved into finance. The higher salary wasn't a drawing point, it was a consolation prize.

High-tech industry wants cosmologists about as much as they want cosmeticians.

And that's generally my point- fairly large fields of theoretical physics have no industry demand. Cosmology, particle theory, string theory, quantum foundations, the pen-and-paper condensed matter theorists, etc. I'd be willing to bet similar problems plague high-energy experimentalists, and that's a huge group.

I also find it fascinating that finance and insurance are willing to give these people time to learn the ropes, while traditional technical employers are not.

 

[gbeagle]

I suspect these employment issues are limited to the most theoretical of theoretical physicists. This complaint comes up regularly at PhysicsForums, but very rarely from experimentalists or solid state physicists. Part of the problem here is that what is important to academia and to freshly-minted PhDs with an academic mindset isn't quite so important elsewhere. Physics departments need to pay a bit more attention to the reason they are getting a lot more endowments and grants than are archaeology departments. Hint: It's not because industry wants more cosmologists. High-tech industry wants cosmologists about as much as they want cosmeticians.

High energy experiment can also be somewhat of a mixed bag depending on what other skills you pick up along the way. It's not like the high-tech industry cares how much of the parameter space of the MSSM has been ruled out. At least that is what I've seen from other hep grad students at my school that have graduated ahead of me (that didn't go the post-doc route). From what I've experienced as part of the big particle physics collaborations, you can be unlucky in the experience you get. If you're not smart about it and only have a laser focus on your physics analysis and don't do much detector hardware development work (say you do your authorship qualification work on the software side of things), then all you come out with in terms of directly marketable skills are programming and statistics. Not sure why a software developer would hire a PhD to write code that some B.S. could write for cheaper (and probably do a better job too!).

Though to be honest I am not even sure if you are that much better off in hep if you've done a lot of detector work. Wouldn't one just be competing against EEs and solid-state physicists that can do the same things, but better? I guess I'll find out soon enough...

Now on the other hand the solid-state/condensed matter students I know seem to have much easier (though not necessarily easy) time finding jobs compared to the hep students, but maybe that is just an effect of going to a university in a county adjacent to Santa Clara county plus a not too large sample size.

 

[Diracula]

Is it a fair assessment that doing a PhD is absolutely terrible if your only goal is to work in academia (aside perhaps for some areas in business, maybe others; definitely not physics), but it's ok if you also would like to work in industry or government AS LONG AS you pick the right area of specialization? But there are some subjects and areas of specialization that you can do your PhD in that are completely useless for career prospects unless you happen to be in the top X% (where X is small) of candidates in both networking/connections and ability?

From all my readings on the career path for physics PhDs and thinking about it this is what I am taking away from these debates. Either be Ed Witten'esque or choose a specialty not (solely) on interest but on demand. Unless you are ok with spending 6 years getting paid garbage to get a degree (that granted, is in an area you really like), but at the end of it you will only be able to get the same job that you could get with your BS (roughly). And it may be even more difficult to get that same job because you're now viewed as an academic who is settling for an industry job rather than a fresh graduate eager to work in industry.

Fair summary?

 

[epenguin]

The EU is the world's dominate power, it's just not offical yet.

... is slowly coalescing its military. If you didn't know, the British and French armed forces are now under joint command, it doesn't take a genius to extrapolate where this is heading.

Don't believe it. Do you know the name of either the EU President or the equivalent of Foreign Minister? Thought not, but if you do you're doing better than most Europeans. Those who do know know that these personages are a joke.

Yet the EU does have a lot of power. But it is not, and is not going to be, power like the USA has. It is soft power. The main power it has towards its exterior is and has been for decades is due to the desire of its neighbours to be admitted into it. Thus it is short range, to the East and South.

Sure, China, India etc. etc. need to cultivate good relations with it but Europe needs that just as much. It is influential without being dominant in things like WTO. But no one is frightened of it. Look at its utter failure to achieve anything on the Iran nuclear issue. Nor will it budge China or even Israel on anything they care about and consider matters exclusively of their own.

Even if and where the EU were that much of a world power this is not and is not going to be military. The European populations have less than no desire or stomach for it. Half of the governments were against the Iraq war, and probably more than half the population of the only serious participant, Britain. Most of the countries have gone for very secondary roles in Afghanistan, if you listen to their politicians at home they are mostly anxious to reassure their publics that their troops are not there to fight and will not be there for long. In the half-exception, Britain, it is unpopular and not understood. The military prospects you allude to are also a joke, in fact now a farce. Britain has ordered an aircraft carrier which might be ready for I think it is 2025 or something like that, but there won't be any aircraft to put on it!

Its soft power is very positive - it democratised South Europe and then East Europe, though in the latter no doubt American hard power was also essential. If soft power is all you need we should be OK.

 

[caffenta]

Quants get six figure incomes, easily, oftentimes well into six figures, and it doesn't take years to reach those extremely high salaries. Physicists working as physicists won't see that kind of money, ever (Another option is to get into upper management or own ones own company, but the technical people who do that are no longer doing technical work, either.)

These wild generalizations are completely ridiculous. In another post, you make a statement that implies a contradiction:

I suspect these employment issues are limited to the most theoretical of theoretical physicists. This complaint comes up regularly at PhysicsForums, but very rarely from experimentalists or solid state physicists.

It's not unusual for experimental solid-state physicists to violate your first statement while doing technical work.

I also find it fascinating that finance and insurance are willing to give these people time to learn the ropes, while traditional technical employers are not.

It's not really that complicated: traditional technical employers have a huge pool of people with the exact skills they are looking for. So why should they waste their time with someone who does not? Hiring a freshly graduated PhD is expensive and therefore a risk. Hiring a freshly graduated PhD with no experimental skills is even riskier. PhDs with an experimental background have already acquired a lot of the skills they will need. Theorists have not, unless their research was in a very similar field. In that case, a theorist might find a job developing models for numerical simulations.

 

[D H]

These wild generalizations are completely ridiculous.

You're right. Even some post docs can make huge salaries. This site, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/news/casalary/uc?Submit=Page&agency=UC&otmax=&o=500&term=&sort=&ord= , reports that George H. Miller, a "Post-Doctoral Research Physicist" has a salary of $293,250 and total compensation of $296,520. So sometimes life as a post-doc can be pretty good.

Does Dr. Miller do any physics? I suspect not much. He is too busy riding herd over a 1.5 billion dollar budget and 7000 employees. Being the post-doc who happens to be the director of one of the top national labs helps boost the salary just a bit. Be the director of a smaller, less prestigious research organization and you'll still get a fairly nice salary. For example, the Director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity has a salary of $188,453 (http://www.texastribune.org/library...niversity-of-houston/allan-j-jacobson/682252/).

In a sense those salaries are low. $300K for directing a $1.5 billion / 7000 employee operation? Industry isn't quite that stark, put even there compensation for doing technical work is fairly flat. A typical salary range in industry for a freshout with an advanced degree in a technical field is $50,000 to $100,000, depending on the degree, field, and industry. Call it $75,000. Unless you move well into the ranks of upper management or break out on your own, that person's salary at retirement (adjusted for inflation) will be about double, maybe triple that starting salary. As an exemplar, salary.com reports $156,498 as the 90th percentile salary for "Physicist V" (their highest category for physicists).

Quants don't work in our egalitarian technical world. They work in the dog-eat-dog financial world. Back in the heady days before the collapse quants bragged about making a lot more than $300K.

In another post, you make a statement that implies a contradiction:

I suspect these employment issues are limited to the most theoretical of theoretical physicists. This complaint comes up regularly at PhysicsForums, but very rarely from experimentalists or solid state physicists.

It's not unusual for experimental solid-state physicists to violate your first statement while doing technical work.

What first statement, and what contradiction?

Are you saying that there are some experimental solid-state physicists who make more than $250K as a physicist (as opposed to being the director of some solid state physics organization)?

 

[caffenta]

As an exemplar, salary.com reports $156,498 as the 90th percentile salary for "Physicist V" (their highest category for physicists).

Last time I checked, $150K was a 6-figure income. Is it not? Or has the definition of 6 figures changed due to inflation?

I don't pay any attention to salary statistics. They are completely baseless for higher-level positions. Where do the numbers come from? I would never release my salary to any statistics collection agency, or anyone else for that matter (well, the IRS, but they don't have my job description). Neither would my employer; they would be shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to salary negotiations.

The point is that physicists can make 6 figures and still do physics if they are in the right field. You don't have to be a department director for that. That doesn't mean that all physicists will do so, by no means. People just need to realize what their field is worth and decide what's important to them. Not everybody wants to make $300K/year. I don't. My current salary range is fine for me. More money would only mean more responsibility. (I hope my boss is not reading this )

EDIT: by the way, many physicists take engineering positions but they still do applied physics, so that's another reason why salary statistics are completely baseless.

 

[D H]

Last time I checked, $150K was a 6-figure income. Is it not? Or has the definition of 6 figures changed due to inflation?

Oh, please. All that just because you misread something I posted?

I don't pay any attention to salary statistics. They are completely baseless for higher-level positions. Where do the numbers come from?

From your employer.

I would never release my salary to any statistics collection agency, or anyone else for that matter (well, the IRS, but they don't have my job description).

You don't have to do that. Your employer probably does it for you. Not your name tied to your salary, but your job classification tied to your salary. Giving out that information, along with money, is the subscription fee to a corporate salary survey service.

Here's one: http://www.erieri.com/
Note that their home page brags of data from "over 565,000 organizations".

Neither would my employer; they would be shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to salary negotiations.

They would be shooting themselves in the foot if they didn't do that. How else are they to know whether they are underpaying you (thereby risking you jump ship) or overpaying you (thereby wasting what could otherwise be profits)?

EDIT: by the way, many physicists take engineering positions but they still do applied physics, so that's another reason why salary statistics are completely baseless.

Salaries for similarly-degreed engineers and physicists are quite comparable, chemical engineers being a slight exception.

 

[Dale]

I can't speak to overall statistics, but my personal anectdotal experience is in line with what the article mentions. I did not even seriously consider an academic position because of the much larger entry-level salary offered by industry compared to an entry-level post-doc position.

I don't think that the limited number of academic positions is particularly a problem that needs to be fixed, just an expectation that needs to be managed.

 

[ParticleGrl]

I can't speak to overall statistics, but my personal anectdotal experience is in line with what the article mentions. I did not even seriously consider an academic position because of the much larger entry-level salary offered by industry compared to an entry-level post-doc position.

I don't think that the limited number of academic positions is particularly a problem that needs to be fixed, just an expectation that needs to be managed.

For the people whose field has no industrial demand, a lack of academic positions means a lack of in-the-field work.

 

[Dale]

For the people whose field has no industrial demand, a lack of academic positions means a lack of in-the-field work.

If a given field has no industrial demand then it seems unreasonable to expect good in-the-field work.

Again, I think it is a question of expectation management. If people going into the field expect that they will not get good in-the-field work then fewer people will go into the field and those that do will be the ones who will be satisfied with the available jobs.

 

[Dr Transport]

I don't think that the limited number of academic positions is particularly a problem that needs to be fixed, just an expectation that needs to be managed.

Most, not all, but most professors have not set foot outside academia, they have no basis to help their students towards an industrial setting. They do what they know, that is push the academic mind set of if you work hard enough, you'll get a tenured position. I will say this much, my adviser was a research professor, no tenure and had ~20 years experience in industry, he told me early on that the chances of my getting a tenure track position was small at best, so work on getting some experience and getting an industry job. That is the mindset that needs to be pushed, just look at the ads in Physics Today over the past 4-5 years, there was a dramatic downturn in ads for academic positions when the financial crisis was hitting rock bottom. I would hazard a guess that the academic community didn't start telling their students who were finishing up to look at industry.

 

[G01]

Either be Ed Witten'esque or choose a specialty not (solely) on interest but on demand. ...Fair summary?

There are those of us, as unbelievable as it may seem, who find work in laser lab doing spectroscopy more fulfilling than high energy theory or mathematical physics.

Personally, I like QFT, and want to learn as much about it as I can, but I find the prospect of spending my life calculating symmetry factors for Feynman diagrams and collision cross sections incredibly dull. However, the challenge of getting a 20fs long pulse of light out of a laser... That is cool!

 

[ParticleGrl]

There are those of us, as unbelievable as it may seem, who find work in laser lab doing spectroscopy more fulfilling than high energy theory or mathematical physics.

I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. The poster was saying that HE (she?) finds theory more interesting. Unfortunately, theorist have a much harder time finding industry work. Hence, his(her?) comment- if you want to work in physics long term, you are much better off pursuing an experimental phd. Even better, get a masters in optics.

If your interest is experiment, great. If its in theory, don't pick your specialty solely on interest.

 

[Brandon_R]

"No one designed the present system. It just happened"

nothing could be more truer.

 

[D H]

I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. The poster was saying that HE (she?) finds theory more interesting.

Which poster, ParticleGrl? The original poster is twofish-quant, who (surprise!) is a quant, and one who has a PhD in physics. Per another post by twofish-quant, sky-high salaries in that world are the norm:

Ph.d. astrophysicists are very commonly employed by Wall Street. Starting salary for an associate is $100K + $50K bonus. Someone with 3-5 years of experience at VP level can make $200K-$300K. I personally know of people with physics Ph.D.'s that make close to $1M/year.

There is no way the technical world can compete with that on a salary basis.

 

[caffenta]

If your interest is experiment, great. If its in theory, don't pick your specialty solely on interest.

You can pick your specialty based on interest, but you have to be prepared for the consequences. So yes, it shouldn't be based solely on interest. But I don't think anyone was really saying that it should.

 

[twofish-quant]

Increasingly, this isn't true- more and more people are being forced into less traditional work (finance, insurance,etc).

Well...

The part that's annoying to me is that this isn't a new thing. Physics Ph.D.'s have been forced to look for non-academic jobs since the *early-1970's*. The current situation with physics Ph.D.'s is hardly a new thing.

The issue is that getting a phd isn't actually doing anything for a lot of people's careers.

In my case it is, because I absolutely could not do the work that I'm doing without having gotten a Ph.d.

 

[twofish-quant]

I assumed that with a phd in theoretical physics I could find technical work (maybe computer simulations, modeling,etc) related to physics somewhere. Increasingly, this isn't true- more and more people are being forced into less traditional work (finance, insurance,etc).

This isn't true. The number of Ph.D.'s that go into academia has been roughly constant since the early 1970's. The only time in which the "traditional job" really was "traditional" was a very brief time in the 1960's. It really surprised me when I found this out.

Investment banks hire physics Ph.D.'s to run computer simulations and modelling and to do technical work. I don't spend my days talking to clients or trading. I'm not good at it, and I don't particularly like that sort of work.

I spend most of my day writing C++ code modelling financial markets, which uses roughly the same equations and techniques (and in some situations exactly the same equations and techniques) that get used in radiation hydrodynamics.

 

[twofish-quant]

I've talked to roughly a dozen phd physicists working in insurance and finance, and they all say that if a stable research job magically fell into their lap they would take it, even with the massive paycut.

I'm one of them. If someone offered me a job as a tenured research professor, I'd take it. On the other hand, I should have enough money so that within the next few years, I'll be the functional equivalent of a tenured research professor. At some point, I'll have enough money to self-fund my research.

 

[D H]

The part that's annoying to me is that this isn't a new thing. Physics Ph.D.'s have been forced to look for non-academic jobs since the *early-1970's*. The current situation with physics Ph.D.'s is hardly a new thing.

Why is that annoying? Classic language departments only crank out about as many PhDs as academia can bear because that is about the only place a person with a PhD in classic languages can find a job. Physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science, and math departments crank out a lot more PhDs than academia can bear because our modern technological society needs those PhDs out in industry.

 

[twofish-quant]

Sample bias, false expectations, and, I suspect, more than a bit of hubris.

It's mostly brainwashing. Since I've been brainwashed into thinking that the research professor is the top of human achievement, that still sticks, even after several years of un-brainwashing myself.

The other issue is that I'm not sure whether it's a good thing or not that you have so many physics Ph.D.'s working for investment banks. There is part of me that thinks that I'd be doing "greater good" if I was doing global climate simulations or designing electric cars. Then again maybe not.

What's wrong with looking a bit further afield, such as a stable non-research but physics-oriented job, and what's wrong with looking a bit harder than having the job magically fall into their laps?

Nothing really. The trouble is all that brainwashing that there is something wrong with that. Also a lot of brainwashing isn't explicit messages. You can *say* that there isn't anything wrong with not being an academic, but talk is cheap. What tends to happen is that people that are in positions of power in academia are academics, and until that changes, it will be sending out those messages.

One of the things I look for when interviewing freshly-minted PhDs is an attitude against working in industry. Are they going to jump ship as soon as one of those rare jobs in academia shows up because academia is where they really want to be? Do they secretly look down on those who work in industry?

In finance this isn't a problem because every physics or math Ph.D. that I know of would be willing to jump if there were something attractive. It's not necessarily a bad thing. If people wanted to be here out of love, there wouldn't be such high salaries.

As far a secretly looking down on people that work in industry. There is still this annoying voice that I've been able to manage, but I haven't been able to get rid of that says that I'm doing something wrong.

I suspect these employment issues are limited to the most theoretical of theoretical physicists.

I don't think so. Also I don't think that there really is an employment problem among theoretical physicists. It's more of a psychological problem. There's plenty of good stuff out there, but you have to get around some of the psychological barriers.

Hint: It's not because industry wants more cosmologists. High-tech industry wants cosmologists about as much as they want cosmeticians.

Depends on the industry. If you've done massive cluster N-body simulations of the early universe, then we need to talk. Finance wants astrophysicists. The reason you have so many theoretical physicists working on Wall Street is that it so happens that the skills that you need as a theoretician is *precisely* the skill that you need for one of the jobs in finance.

Fortunately, for now, finance and insurance have come to the rescue with over-the-top salaries magically plopped into the laps of those misguided students. Don't look for this trend to continue.

Not sure that I agree with this.

Business schools are now starting to teach the kinds of mathematics that is needed in order to be a quant.

Which is useful for a certain type of job, but not the type of job that they hire physics and math Ph.D.'s for.

I can open up a textbook in financial engineering and quantitative finance. About 80% of the equations any book that was written in 2005 are *WRONG*. If you read any intro financial textbook, you'll read about the Black-Scholes equation. What they won't mention is that equation is *WRONG* and has been wrong since 1987.

So where can you find a textbook that lists the correct equations? You can't. Even if one magically appeared today, it will be out of date in three to six months. And that's assuming that we understand the markets. There are some things that people don't quite completely understand about the markets. Also different markets can be very different. What equations that work for trading Chinese steel companies won't work for trading Mexican petrochemical companies (and there are people that know scary amounts of stuff about these details).

So who do you call, if you have billions of dollars at risk on some mathematical system that no one completely understands.

Hmmmmmm...

Sounds like a cool theoretical research job for someone that has experience in mathematical model of complex system. Wonder who would be good at that... Hmmmmm...

This will eventually dry up the demand for physicists and astronomers to serve as quants.

One other thing is that we are talking about tiny number of jobs, maybe a few hundred a year.

 

[twofish-quant]

AS LONG AS you pick the right area of specialization? But there are some subjects and areas of specialization that you can do your PhD in that are completely useless for career prospects unless you happen to be in the top X% (where X is small) of candidates in both networking/connections and ability?

Perhaps, but then you run into the problem with of bad information. People assume for example that computational cosmology is useless for getting a job in industry, when people with that sort of skill is something that investment banks are looking for.

 

[twofish-quant]

Not sure why a software developer would hire a PhD to write code that some B.S. could write for cheaper (and probably do a better job too!).

1) Because for some things they can't.

2) Because people in application development still make decent amounts of money. I know of Ph.D.'s that do work that *could* be done by someone with a bachelors, and they get paid about the same as a bachelors, but it's still decent money.

 

[twofish-quant]

Quants don't work in our egalitarian technical world. They work in the dog-eat-dog financial world. Back in the heady days before the collapse quants bragged about making a lot more than $300K.

And they still do. It's just that people are a lot quieter about making large sums of money so as not to attract lynch mobs.

A fresh out of school Ph.D. is likely to get a total comp of $150K/year. With three years of experience you get to VP level, and the comp there is about $250K/year. It tends to stabilize after that unless you get into management level, and the salaries there are scary.

The cool thing about finance is that people with physics Ph.D.'s are much more likely to get into some sort of middle management role than in other industries.

 

[twofish-quant]

There is no way the technical world can compete with that on a salary basis.

The really cool thing is that the people that I know that are making $1M are doing technical things. The thing about finance is that if you have a physics Ph.D., there are very strong odds that you aren't going to be a stock trader, but rather a glorified computer programmer.

Also there's no need to compete on the basis of salary. The people that I know that make $1M would have given that up if they could do something in academia.

 

[twofish-quant]

Why is that annoying? Classic language departments only crank out about as many PhDs as academia can bear because that is about the only place a person with a PhD in classic languages can find a job. Physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science, and math departments crank out a lot more PhDs than academia can bear because our modern technological society needs those PhDs out in industry.

It's annoying to be lied to by people that you trust. To quote Mike Nesmith...

"It's like finding your grandmother stealing your stereo. You're happy to get your stereo back, but it's sad to find out your grandmother is a thief."

 

[D H]

It's annoying to be lied to by people that you trust.

As you have noted, this situation has been well known for decades. So who is doing the lying here? It appears to me that part of the blame lies with the students themselves for choosing to go into what they perceive as a sexy field rather than looking toward the long-term. You want to have your cake and eat it too.

 

[twofish-quant]

As you have noted, this situation has been well known for decades.

It's been known to teachers. Less known to students, and I refer you to the constant stream of reports talking about a shortage of scientists in the 1990's.

Also it *wasn't* well known to me. I didn't quite realize that the fact that most physicists don't go into academia since the 1970's until a few years ago, when this book came out

http://web.mit.edu/dikaiser/www/CWB.html

In the 1990's, I *assumed* that the lack of jobs was a recent thing, and I was rather surprised that it wasn't. It's funny that among the pages of pages of NSF reports never mentioned any of this.

Also, I'm using the word *liar* deliberately. There are people that you can excuse on the basis of lack of knowledge, but if lack of knowledge becomes a defense, then this encourages people in power to be idiots.

So who is doing the lying here? It appears to me that part of the blame lies with the students themselves for choosing to go into what they perceive as a sexy field rather than looking toward the long-term.

I don't think it is unreasonable for students to rely on teachers for this sort of information, since students are students and teachers are ummmm... teachers. If someone gets ripped off by a con artist or used car salesman, then well maybe I should blame the buyer, but if tenured faculty expect more respect from me than I would give a used car salesman, then they have to accept some responsibility, and if they don't, they we really start having to ask questions about why they have their job security.

Also it's the job of a teacher to recognize the consequences of what they are teaching, and to realize that teachers teach more than facts, but also by example, they teach a way of looking at the world.

If I get in front of some eight year olds and I'm giddy about astrophysics and the universe, I have to realize that that has consequences, and if I light a fire in someone, they I'm responsible for some of the consequences of that.

You want to have your cake and eat it too.

I want teachers to accept some basic responsibility for what they teach. Also my cake is being eaten by someone else.

Also, part of how I got around the brainwashing is that I got rid of this "blame the victim" crap. The reason that people lie about this is that it gets cheap labor to keep the system working. If people didn't believe that they would be tenured faculty in the end, there would be more protest and it would be harder to keep the system running.

If I accept all of what I've been taught, then I would end up depressed and hating myself for being a failure. Since there is nothing wrong with me, all of that depression and hatred becomes anger and bitterness, and that's not a bad thing since anger at least gets you up in the morning.

Part of the reason, that I got into finance is that I figured out that a lot of the world revolves around money, and it won't be long before I have enough money to "do something interesting" to the system that I hate.

As far as Ph.D.'s go, there really isn't an employment problem. It's a psychology problem, and I dealt with the psychology issue by getting angry.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Twofish, again, I think you are letting your bitterness get away from you.

I got my PhD's in the 90's.

Nobody was telling me that academic jobs were "better" or even the norm. I also looked around to see where the graduates were going, and discovered that most were going into industry.

So who exactly is lying?

I would think that anyone smart enough to get a PhD could figure out that if each professor creates 10 new professors who create 10 new professors and so on and so on it won't be long before we are hip-deep in physics professors. So even if there is lying going on (and I have seen no evidence that there is) a PhD student should be immune to this kind of nonsense.

The fact of the matter is that the fraction of jobs where you get to decide what to work on as opposed to someone else getting to decide what you get to work on is small. People who get PhD's in physics are used to being the smartest person in the room, and conclude "the odds are low, but they don't apply to me - I will beat the odds".