Is it worth being a scientist these days

[N5soulkishin]

Thank you everyone for their input, I've now reconsidered my career goals since my dreams have hit by reality. I'm now considering engineering :(

 

[StatGuy2000]

@StatGuy, how's the non-academic job market for statistics? After all, in a sense statistics is all of science - making model classes, collecting data and fitting them:)

I believe even "renormalization" in quantum field theory turned out to be something like a "fixed point" distribution, so that there is a renormalization proof of a weak form of the central limit theorem.

Hi there. The non-academic job market for statistics from what I can see is pretty good in Canada and the US (I'm based in Canada), especially in areas such as market research, finance, business consulting, health care, and (at least in the US) the pharmaceutical/biotechnology sectors.

That being said, I would like to disclose the fact that I am actively seeking work as of this moment, preferably in the Toronto area (a number of projects at my current place have dried up in the past couple of months, so I'm feeling a little less secure than before). If there is anyone on Physics Forums that can think of anything out there in statistics or analytics in Toronto, please feel free to PM me!

 

[ModusPwnd]

no because everyone here wants to do theoretical physics.

Maybe here in this forum... But my experience in school has been the opposite. Sure, freshman year plenty of people want to do particle and astro. But by the end of undergrad most of us were doing experimental or non-particle/astro theory research. In grad school most of my peers specifically avoided the HEP theory and the like because of the lack of marketability. Many, myself included, did research in more practical and what we hoped was more marketable areas. My lab was actually half chemists and half physicists so most of us were marketable to industry. Not to do science really though, to do engineering and be technicians.

 

[chill_factor]

Maybe here in this forum... But my experience in school has been the opposite. Sure, freshman year plenty of people want to do particle and astro. But by the end of undergrad most of us were doing experimental or non-particle/astro theory research. In grad school most of my peers specifically avoided the HEP theory and the like because of the lack of marketability. Many, myself included, did research in more practical and what we hoped was more marketable areas. My lab was actually half chemists and half physicists so most of us were marketable to industry. Not to do science really though, to do engineering and be technicians.

yep in grad school what I find is a lot of people who thought they really wanted to do theoretical astro/HEP, but then experience it and find out their interests actually lie in condensed matter or optics.

 

[N5soulkishin]

HEy umm Chill_Factor, are you physicist?

 

[chill_factor]

HEy umm Chill_Factor, are you physicist?

I am a graduate student in physics. why do you ask?

 

[Rika]

Many, myself included, did research in more practical and what we hoped was more marketable areas. My lab was actually half chemists and half physicists so most of us were marketable to industry. Not to do science really though, to do engineering and be technicians.

That's the reality through. Doesn't matter if it's academia or industry, HEP or solid state. You do a lot of grunt work.

If you want to have creative job in which you can show your individual skills - avoid science at any cost. It's not that in science there is no creativity at all. But it's a small margin comparing to the grunt work that you need to do.

In that regard being scientist is more like being an accountant rather than being an artist.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

As Einstein is quoted:
"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."

http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html

 

[N5soulkishin]

Thank you everyone for your input. in retrospect, the truth hurts, especialy for my misguided view of being a scientist. again, thanks a lot

 

[atyy]

Thank you everyone for your input. in retrospect, the truth hurts, especialy for my misguided view of being a scientist. again, thanks a lot

Lots of other jobs involve science. Also, science itself involves a lot of politics and management. The Higgs boson could have been found 20 years ago, but it needed the political will to fund the experiements. Also, the experiments need the cooperation of many scientists, so good management was needed. You can find all these elements in jobs outside of "science" too. Video games, for example, really helped science - they caused GPUs to be invented:)