Are jobs in academia really as rare as two-fish says?

[Oriako]

I really appreciate everyone commenting with a massive amount of advice. It's been somewhat on an eye-opener to me about how a lot of people who have actually been through academia don't play it out to be as amazing as I (and many others) "think it is".

In developing somewhat of a plan, in case academia does not work out, (I'm going to say I wouldn't WANT to do that), are there any courses in my undergraduate or overarching skills that you would recommend me learning? I'm leaning more to the Math side of things than Physics, so I likely will not have a ton of lab skills, or computer programming. Will I be pretty much screwed for finding a job in a technical field like this in industry if I'm not a programming expert?

 

[bigfooted]

In developing somewhat of a plan, in case academia does not work out, (I'm going to say I wouldn't WANT to do that), are there any courses in my undergraduate or overarching skills that you would recommend me learning?

EVERYBODY you compete with, in academia as well as in industry, will be smart and knowledgeable. My advice is: do something that REALLY sets you apart from the rest. Work on something real. Don't focus on courses alone. We had student groups that were building their own airplane, we had people building soccer-playing robots, we had people building solar cars... People will definitely be interested in 'this guy that built/designed/worked on the xxx that was covered on the news'.

 

[Oriako]

I'm not in engineering, I'm doing Pure Math and the theoretical side of Physics. How would I not focus on courses alone? For me, that extra time that sets me apart would be working on coming up with my own ideas about math and getting some preliminary research interests. I have about 3 or 4 papers that I've started working on with a bunch of ideas laid out that I want to investigate that I just don't have the tools yet (understanding of manifolds) to actually complete.

 

[Mute]

This is going to be sound a bit harsh, but it needs to be said, and it's not really directed at you.

People have just got to stop thinking about non-academic positions as Plan B. A non-academic position is not Plan B, it should be Plan A. Getting an academic position should be a "this is what I will do if I win the lottery" plan.

The reason is that as long as people keep thinking of non-academia positions as "Plan B" it's going to be thought of as secondary when in fact the reality that most Ph.d.'s are *NOT* going into academia needs to be put at the core of the Ph.D. curriculum. Also saying that non-academia is "Plan B" makes those jobs seem "worse" which is a bad thing to do if you want to offer Ph.D.'s with diverse choices.

Hm. Although actually landing an academic job may come down to a lottery, the amount of work required to get into that lottery doesn't seem to be adequately reflected by that comparison. I agree that people should not be taught to believe that non-academic positions are "secondary" to academic positions, but the fact of the matter is that the amount of work and focus required to get an academic job is greater than what is required to get a non-academic position, and that itself pretty much forces "get an academic job" to become "Plan A". One can drop out of the academic career path to get a non-academic job at nearly any point, but getting back on the academic track once off is much harder, hence non-academic jobs become "Plan B". If getting back on the academic track after not strictly following it were easier - i.e., if the amount of work to get either kind of job were essentially the same except that the getting an academic job also required a lot of luck - then I think your argument would be more apt.

This is not to say that I don't think it is a problem that everyone regards getting an academic job as Plan A, just that the system seems set up in such a way that we are forced to regard them as Plan A if we want to stand any reasonable chance of getting one.

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

I don't understand why people would want to get into academia, industry pays much more.

 

[Oriako]

I don't understand why people would want to get into academia, industry pays much more.

This might be naive, but I have no interest in having a high paying job. I'm if I'm able to get a PhD, whatever job I end up with give me sufficient money to pay for living expenses and money to help get my kids through school (if I have any). I don't understand why people want to be rich? Wouldn't you just want to spend your life doing what you want to do no matter what it pays?

 

[Lavabug]

Some professors/university staff I have met make me question the whole idea that hard work = good chance of getting a permanent job in academia, bear that in mind. I also know a less fortunate phd graduate that is far more competent (and productive) than many of them, but will probably not get a permanent job in academia as he got his phd at the age of 40 and has little contact with influential professors outside of his awarding institution (distance university), yet he has about a dozen publications in his field (quantum information), more than everything some of my university professors have ever done in their alma matter.

I don't understand why people would want to get into academia, industry pays much more.

Everyone will tell you its not about money, but its about making enough to live decently while doing a job you find at least vaguely enjoyable. I've worked many jobs I absolutely hated. I wouldn't want to go back there again even if they paid more than an academic job (within some reasonable limits).

Still I agree with twofish, its probably safer to assume you won't be getting to be a research professor, for the same reason you shouldn't be too worried about dying in an airplane crash: statistics. However its still hard to tame one's desire to try hard to "do things right" and be a good little nerd so one can have some chance of getting in academia.

How does one do the right things to enable some chance of getting into academia while simultaneously make one highly desirable in industry? It seems to me like they aren't compatible. Apart from soft skills and spoken languages, is knowing how to program the only thing that will help a physicist? (assuming one doesn't have access to internships/labs during their undergrad degree, I have read ZapperZ's guide in detail).

 

[D H]

I don't understand why people would want to get into academia, industry pays much more.

Industry doesn't necessarily pay you to research the kinds of things you can research in academia. It depends very much on your field of study. Someone who has a PhD in solid state physics may well find that industry is exactly the right place to be. The same does not hold for someone with a PhD in astrophysics or cosmology. Industry does do research, but it is in areas that have some promise of a return on investment.

This might be naive, but I have no interest in having a high paying job. I'm if I'm able to get a PhD, whatever job I end up with give me sufficient money to pay for living expenses and money to help get my kids through school (if I have any). I don't understand why people want to be rich? Wouldn't you just want to spend your life doing what you want to do no matter what it pays?

That is naive. You may well find that no one will pay you to do want you want to do. Industry will not pay for your research interests if those endeavors have zero commercial applicability, and jobs in academia are rather spare and (at least initially) do not pay enough to get by.

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

This might be naive, but I have no interest in having a high paying job. I'm if I'm able to get a PhD, whatever job I end up with give me sufficient money to pay for living expenses and money to help get my kids through school (if I have any). I don't understand why people want to be rich? Wouldn't you just want to spend your life doing what you want to do no matter what it pays?

Not saying you are going to be rich in industry but I think like that:
If I love physics or any other branch of science my main goal is to improve it. And I believe that if I'm rich I can fund researchers and help science a lot more than if I spend the rest of my life working by myself.If I was a billionaire or a politician I think I could help science a lot more than if I was some poor phd trying to find a job in academia. And that's one of my goals, it's a far shot, but who knows what may happen...

Also, think if your parents were really wealthy, not billionaire, but rich. You wouldn't even care about joining academia, you could just be a grad student for the rest of your life since money wouldn't be a concern.

 

[diligence]

This is going to be sound a bit harsh, but it needs to be said, and it's not really directed at you.

People have just got to stop thinking about non-academic positions as Plan B. A non-academic position is not Plan B, it should be Plan A. Getting an academic position should be a "this is what I will do if I win the lottery" plan.

The reason is that as long as people keep thinking of non-academia positions as "Plan B" it's going to be thought of as secondary when in fact the reality that most Ph.d.'s are *NOT* going into academia needs to be put at the core of the Ph.D. curriculum. Also saying that non-academia is "Plan B" makes those jobs seem "worse" which is a bad thing to do if you want to offer Ph.D.'s with diverse choices.

Look, I completely understand your point. But I think you misunderstand people's motives towards academic careers. A pretty general trait of young ambitious students across the board (beyond the obsession with physics/math) is to reach for their dreams, whether it be medical school, law school, entrepreneurial pursuits, academia, navy seal...or just generally wanting to be a rock-star or freakin' President of the United States. In fact, I think it was you who once compared wanting to become a professor with wanting to be a rock-star, and yeah, you're probably right.

But the thing is, chasing dreams always involves overcoming slim statistics, and trying to tell people they need to rethink their dreams is pretty silly...especially in America. In my opinion, it's clearly more silly than the idea of remaining so steadfast in the vision to stay in academia. Telling people not to dream is 100% futile, while apparently we at least have ~1% chance at the academy. Now yes, you may say, "Well, what exactly is the dream here? Do you really dream of being a physicist/mathematician, or is it just the idea of being a professor that you love?" But from my perspective, that's too black and white. People don't just want to do what they love, they want to do it in their own way.

That aside, the main point I want to make is that quoting slim statistics and telling young people they need to rethink plan A/plan B is one of the biggest wastes of energy I can think of. You say, "oh I wish somebody would have told me this when I was young".. But seriously, young people can't be told a damn thing! Take a step back, out of the perspective of science and academia, and generalize your basic message. Now honestly ask yourself: when have young people EVER listened to a voice of "reason" in that way?

NEVER. They never do! Why? Because it taints their dreams and makes the chance of success even more slim. Success stories rarely involve the dreamer rethinking his or her irrational longshot, while stories without success seem to always lead to cautionary tales from the person who's "been there".

I don't mean that as an insult, rather I'm trying to convey that most ambitious people WANT and NEED to learn the hard way. They need to experience their own trials and tribulations of achieving (or failing) what few others could. I truly believe anyone you may happen to "convert" with your persuasions against the academy would never have the steadfastness and backbone to make it there in the first place, else they wouldn't be so easily talked down from it.

So, if that's true, then what's the REAL point of this futile debate?

 

[diligence]

That's obvious not true. If you can't get funding and professional relationships, you can't do science.

I'm only going to match your level of nit-picky-ness here: How can you assume to know that myself saying I believe something is "obviously not true"? I'm pretty sure it's obviously true that I believe it !

The point being that anyone can pick apart nearly any statement and make it appear false. You cite a situation in which the falsehood of my statement is vacuously true in order to disprove it, while I think the tendency to set that situation aside should be inherent to the context.

 

[Poopsilon]

So speaking to Vandium's figures about there being about 230 new jobs for 1500 new Phd's a year: does this 230 figure include all small liberal arts colleges who want their professors to focus most of their energy on being a really good teacher rather than a productive researcher? Is the job market also very competitive for these types of positions as well?

 

[jtbell]

Look at his statement:

There are about 7500 full-time faculty jobs total in the US, a little more than half of which are in PhD-granting institutes.

The rest, a little less than half, are in non-PhD-granting institutions: four-year liberal arts colleges, lower level state universities (e.g. U of South North Dakota at Hoople), two-year community colleges, etc. These institutions are mainly teaching-oriented. Most of the four-year colleges and universities do expect faculty to do some research, but the emphasis is usually on research that undergraduates can help with, as part of their educational experience.

Retirements are about 3% of this (turnover is higher, but shuffling faculty positions doesn't create any new jobs, so there are perhaps 230 new jobs a year. If one is considering only research universities, that's more like 130.

Here "research universities" are the "PhD-granting institutions" noted above. This leaves about 100 new jobs per year at the non PhD-granting institutions.

At the college where I teach, in a small rural Southern town, during my time here we've had 5-6 searches to fill a tenure-track physics position. Each time, we've had at least 100 applicants, and one time it was over 200. We surely see only a fairly small fraction of the total number of people looking for physics faculty jobs.

 

[bcrowell]

So speaking to Vandium's figures about there being about 230 new jobs for 1500 new Phd's a year: does this 230 figure include all small liberal arts colleges who want their professors to focus most of their energy on being a really good teacher rather than a productive researcher? Is the job market also very competitive for these types of positions as well?

Small liberal arts colleges are not a big percentage of the academic job market. A much bigger percentage consists of community colleges and large state universities.

At four-year schools that don't grant PhD's in a given field, the following is a very common pattern. When they hire a candidate, they want someone with a good research resume who can lay out a plausible research program that they say they would pursue if they were hired. They look for this because they want to emulate top-notch research schools for reasons of prestige, and also because it's a cut they can put on a pile of several hundred applicants in order to narrow down the pool of interview candidates. Once the person is hired, they are confronted with two realities: (a) they need to do at least some decent research in order to get tenure, but (b) their new work environment is one in which it is difficult to do research, and even more difficult to do top-notch research. There are no grad students or post-docs to help with the research, the teaching load is fairly heavy, and you're doing your own grading. What typically happens in this situation is that the person cranks out some number of publishable but utterly unimportant papers in order to get tenure, and then stops doing research.

So in a way, these institutions are the worst of both worlds. They are not the right place to be if you really want to do noteworthy research. They are also not the right place to be if you just want to teach.

 

[D H]

They are also not the right place to be if you just want to teach.

That seems wrong to me. I'm not a professor, but I can imagine that if I was, and if my goal was to teach (as opposed to do research), what better place could there be than a small liberal arts college? Except for those liberal arts college that are in the running for Party School of the Century, the quality of the students will be far better than those at a community college or even at a second tier state college. Those small liberal arts colleges measure their success in terms of how many former students go on to successful careers (and more importantly), how many of those former students give money back to the school. These schools typically do not have graduate programs, so the pressure to publish is vastly reduced. What's important to those schools is how well their instructors teach.

 

[Poopsilon]

Wow, that sucks. So what about Phd's who get hired just as lecturers, I'm assuming there is very little job security, but do they even do this at all anymore or has that basically gone the way of the dinosaur?

 

[Choppy]

Wow, that sucks. So what about Phd's who get hired just as lecturers, I'm assuming there is very little job security, but do they even do this at all anymore or has that basically gone the way of the dinosaur?

Actually I think that you're going to see more of this. Lecturers can be hired essentially as contractors at a rate of a few thousand dollars per course, with no future obligation on the university's part. The possible downside is that students might start complaining that they aren't being taught by tenured professors, but sometimes there's nothing to complain about. Sometimes the young guy who's excited about teaching a course for the first time does a better job than the proff who's more concerned about getting her next research grant.

 

[eumyang]

Off-topic:

The rest, a little less than half, are in non-PhD-granting institutions: four-year liberal arts colleges, lower level state universities (e.g. U of South North Dakota at Hoople), two-year community colleges, etc.

Ah yes, the Univ. of South North Dakota at Hoople, where the famous Prof. Peter Schickele teaches. I still hope that I get to see him in person one day.

 

[Poopsilon]

Im flabbergasted that a lecturer would be paid as little as 2000 dollars per course for their services; that's not far above minimum wage. I would think a Phd holder could make significantly more tutoring part time at say 30 dollars an hour.

 

[arpeggio]

Industry doesn't necessarily pay you to research the kinds of things you can research in academia. It depends very much on your field of study. Someone who has a PhD in solid state physics may well find that industry is exactly the right place to be. The same does not hold for someone with a PhD in astrophysics or cosmology. Industry does do research, but it is in areas that have some promise of a return on investment.

What if you study quantum physics/computers would you be suited for industry?

 

[D H]

Industry doesn't necessarily pay you to research the kinds of things you can research in academia. It depends very much on your field of study. Someone who has a PhD in solid state physics may well find that industry is exactly the right place to be. The same does not hold for someone with a PhD in astrophysics or cosmology. Industry does do research, but it is in areas that have some promise of a return on investment.

What if you study quantum physics/computers would you be suited for industry?

That is exactly why I mentioned solid state physics. Solid state physics has been, and as far as I know, remains the #1 specialty in physics because that is the specialty in greatest demand in industry.

 

[euclideanspac]

This thread really opened my eyes. I still have one year in high school but my "plan A" would be to study math/theoretical physics and get a professorship, now I realize how awfully naive that was.
Now, from what I understood there are quite a few opportunities in industry for the Physics PhD. Now what about the Math PhD? I assume that there are jobs outside academia for an applied mathematician, but can someone with a PhD in [insert a very weird pure math field or even something in mathematical/theoretical physics] get a decent job outside academia?

 

[ander]

This thread really opened my eyes. I still have one year in high school but my "plan A" would be to study math/theoretical physics and get a professorship, now I realize how awfully naive that was.
Now, from what I understood there are quite a few opportunities in industry for the Physics PhD. Now what about the Math PhD? I assume that there are jobs outside academia for an applied mathematician, but can someone with a PhD in [insert a very weird pure math field or even something in mathematical/theoretical physics] get a decent job outside academia?

All the weird pure math PhDs I know work at Burger King.

 

[Poopsilon]

All the weird pure math PhDs I know work at Burger King.

Exactly how many Math PhDs do you know that work at Burger King?

 

[Shackleford]

All the weird pure math PhDs I know work at Burger King.

Do they always give it to you "your way"?

 

[Number Nine]

All the weird pure math PhDs I know work at Burger King.

<Insert terrible joke about onion rings here>

 

[Shackleford]

<Insert terrible joke about onion rings here>

I like onion rings.

 

[Dr Transport]

This is going to be sound a bit harsh, but it needs to be said, and it's not really directed at you.

People have just got to stop thinking about non-academic positions as Plan B. A non-academic position is not Plan B, it should be Plan A. Getting an academic position should be a "this is what I will do if I win the lottery" plan.

The reason is that as long as people keep thinking of non-academia positions as "Plan B" it's going to be thought of as secondary when in fact the reality that most Ph.d.'s are *NOT* going into academia needs to be put at the core of the Ph.D. curriculum. Also saying that non-academia is "Plan B" makes those jobs seem "worse" which is a bad thing to do if you want to offer Ph.D.'s with diverse choices.

A lot of what I say here is what I wish someone had told me when I was an undergraduate. Part of it is that there is this annoying voice in the back of my head that tells me that I'm "dirty" and "shameful" for not take the post-doc route, and a lot of my personal struggle has been a largely but not completely successful effort to tell that voice to *SHUT UP*. I think that we'd all be better off if Ph.D students never have that voice to begin with, and talking about non-academic careers as "Plan B" just reinforces some of the bad traits in physics training.

Here, here, encore, encore. We need more people to tell these students that there is a whole great, big world out there, of course, people who live in ivory towers have a skewed view of anything outside of their little world.

I don't understand why people would want to get into academia, industry pays much more.

True, if I went into academia, I'd take a 40-50% pay cut from my current industrial salary. For what, a little freedom, a lot of grading papers every week and a couple extra weeks off a year. I like teaching, but I'd rather have a couple of co-workers than have to deal with gobs and gobs of freshman taking intro physics.

So speaking to Vandium's figures about there being about 230 new jobs for 1500 new Phd's a year: does this 230 figure include all small liberal arts colleges who want their professors to focus most of their energy on being a really good teacher rather than a productive researcher? Is the job market also very competitive for these types of positions as well?

Look at the past years worth of ads in Physics Today. The vast majority of ads from 4-year schools & liberal arts schools ask for plans to have a "vigorous, externally well funded research program".

Im flabbergasted that a lecturer would be paid as little as 2000 dollars per course for their services; that's not far above minimum wage. I would think a Phd holder could make significantly more tutoring part time at say 30 dollars an hour.

That is the going rate for every school I have ever dealt with. About 20 years ago, I made ~$1500 to teach 2 lecture sections and 3 lab sections (12 hours per week) of an intro course at a community college. On top of that, I was required to hold 3-6 office hours per week unpaid and that didn't even compensate me for the time preparing and grading. So to equate the two, I made ~$375/course equivalent contact time, $2000 is halfway decent money.