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

[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.