Length of postdoc before getting faculty position?

[atyy]

2) It would also be nice if people whose first job is in industry could switch back and forth between academia. If you presume that people that end up industry are not "worse" than people that don't, then there really isn't any reason why that shouldn't be the case.

Yes, this is a problem, at least in the basic sciences. The new president of Rockefeller is from industry (he was in academia before industry). Would you count that as academia?

 

[twofish-quant]

I couldn't agree more with that! I have the sense that there is a natural selection in academia against people interested in too many things, since what is rewarded is to have many publications in a particular narrow field where you will be making your career. However, many advancements in science have come from people who were working in a somewhat related field.

And one reason I think I'm a lot happier doing what I'm doing than I would be if I went the post-doc route is that I'm actively encouraged to be interested in many things. The way that the research university works, physicists just aren't supposed to be interested in economics and economists just aren't supposed to be interested in physics.

The problem is that in order to make myself more useful in the world outside of academia, I had to do things that were "non-standard" for a Ph.D. I consider the system fundamentally broken *NOT* because there are too faculty positions, but because the Ph.D. is specifically designed to train people to get faculty positions that don't exist.

One other problem is that it took me a few years to convince myself that I wasn't a "reject." The problem is that now that I've convinced myself that I'm not a reject, I'm now asking why my ideas on how Ph.d. programs ought to be structured are less good than someone who is a tenured full professor. I'm looking at the "academic establishment" and asking, "so why are you guys making the decisions?" And I'm really not the only one that is asking this question.

One irony is that because I went outside of the research university, I think I'm in a better position to understand how to change the system. The basic problem is money, and the current system encourages physics Ph.D.'s to say "well it's a money problem so we can't fix it." But since I'm curious, if the problem is money, then my attitude is "well then I'll learn about how money works." If the issue is to get politicians to vote in a certain way, well then, I've seen how lobbying works. The issue here is that if I was inside the system, then I'd use my skills and knowledge to perpetuate the system. But I'm not.

 

[twofish-quant]

There was never a time where a PhD guaranteed you a permanent faculty or equivalent position.

There actually was. There was a pretty brief period after WWII, when most Ph.D.'s went directly into faculty. During the 1960's, most Ph.D.'s went into defense related industries, and the issues with oversupply started happening in the early 1970's.

There are a few differences. First, people have finally faced reality. When I graduated in the early-1990's, people were still talking about a shortage of scientists. Denying reality means that you don't have to do anything about it, and it was only around 2000 or so that people starting saying that "yes there is oversupply."

The other big difference is the internet. Until about 1995, the only real information that you could get about physics job market was from people that were talking about a scientist shortage. You could do this in 1975 or even 1995, because people didn't have alternative sources of information. We couldn't have this conversation in 1975.

Social networking also changes things because a Ph.D. that got another job in 1990 "went quietly into the night". This isn't true for someone that got a Ph.D. in 2000.

Good people end up doing something else

What about average or bad people? When people say "good people get jobs", that doesn't help me because I'm lousy. What should I do? Shoot myself?

Again the internet changes things. In the old days, once someone left the university they were no longer the university's problem since they disappeared. One good/bad thing about the internet is that people just don't disappear.

Something about academia is that it's something like a video game in which the top X% get to the next level, but that means that you'll eventually end up in the bottom 90% rather than the top 10%.

One problem with this obsession with being "good" is that it can be self-defeating. For example, I'm a lousy salesman. I've seen great salesman, and I'm not one of them. If I was obsessed with being the top salesman, I wouldn't have done sales. However, because I like to do new things that I'm bad at, I picked up enough sales skills so that I could do useful things when I needed to.

The fact that I'm "bad" I think makes me a much better teacher. There are a lot of professors that are lousy teachers *because* they are brilliant and cannot have empathy with someone that just can't figure out algebra. I can do algebra I, but when I have a student that has a lot of difficulty with it, I know what it *feels* like, because I've been in similar situations.

And it turns out that this is a good thing. A physics degree is something that industries (even banking!) find useful.

So why don't we change the degree to make it easier for people to move out. In my case, things ended up fine, but I had to go through a few years of wrenching changes.

Also one reason the transition was easier for me was that I did some things different. My publication record stinks because I was working on my C++, and I didn't get into the graduate schools of my choice because I was spending more time reading Marxist literature and writing poetry than turning my B to an A.

The one good thing was that I had enough teachers that encouraged me *NOT* to focus exclusively on physics, that I didn't. (Thank you Dean Macvicar).

 

[ParticleGrl]

There are a few differences. First, people have finally faced reality. When I graduated in the early-1990's, people were still talking about a shortage of scientists. Denying reality means that you don't have to do anything about it, and it was only around 2000 or so that people starting saying that "yes there is oversupply."

Even still, there is a lot of bad information. Where I did undergraduate, the three professors I went to for advice on graduate school and jobs told me that the US was facing a dramatic shortage of talent and there would never be a better time to go into physics. Meanwhile, one of the postdocs told me his supervisor told him not to talk to students about his career trajectory, because it might scare them off.

That isn't to say I went in with my eyes completely shut, but watching people's careers begin as they finished phds during my first few years of graduate school was a pretty brutal awakening.

So why don't we change the degree to make it easier for people to move out. In my case, things ended up fine, but I had to go through a few years of wrenching changes.

Also one reason the transition was easier for me was that I did some things different.

And I personally spent years laser focused on my research, building up publications, etc. Discovering that geographic stability is more important to me than a career in physics, I now find myself in the middle of an extremely difficult transition. I'm self-teaching myself the skills I need for any industry job (things like c++), because my phd program did not give them to me, and bartending to keep from starving. Not exactly where I imagined myself at nearly 30.

 

[atyy]

(Thank you Dean Macvicar).

Margaret?

It's a name I know only by reputation. Interesting to meet someone who interacted with her.

 

[Locrian]

Even still, there is a lot of bad information. Where I did undergraduate, the three professors I went to for advice on graduate school and jobs told me that the US was facing a dramatic shortage of talent and there would never be a better time to go into physics. Meanwhile, one of the postdocs told me his supervisor told him not to talk to students about his career trajectory, because it might scare them off.

My experience was strikingly similar. The same grad student who convinced me to change majors to physics as an undergrad serenaded me two years later with a crazy rant about how awful the degree was. Around 2000 all you heard was how the profession was graying and there was going to be massive demand for physicists in a few years. No one mentioned that people had been saying that for a decade. They’re probably still saying it.

Of course it worked out alright for me. I think physics can be a great education, but you have to choose your studies carefully. As others have mentioned, the thing that is most worrisome is the horrible misinformation that students get. There's a real conflict of interests involved in the entire grad student/post doc process that should be addressed.

If university hallways in the physics department had signs that said “Physics is an awesome degree so long as you don’t want to work in physics!” then I’d have no complaints. Maybe I still don’t, but lots of others do.

 

[twofish-quant]

Around 2000 all you heard was how the profession was graying and there was going to be massive demand for physicists in a few years. No one mentioned that people had been saying that for a decade. They’re probably still saying it.

At least we have forums like these.

I was lucky because my cynicism kept me from believing the non-sense about a scientist shortage, but what really surprised me was finding out that the issue of too many Ph.D.'s and too few jobs started in the late-1960's! During the 1950's and 1960's, there was a massive effort to increase the production of physics Ph.D.'s due to the Cold War, and this created a glut starting in the early-1970's!

Of course it worked out alright for me. I think physics can be a great education, but you have to choose your studies carefully. As others have mentioned, the thing that is most worrisome is the horrible misinformation that students get.

Same here. My issue was that I went through more personal agony that was necessary. It turns out that most of the decisions that I made were pretty good ones, but it didn't feel that way at the time.

There are some easy things that can be done to the physics Ph.D. programs to make them less dysfunctional. For example, if it's obvious that most physics Ph.D.'s aren't going to be faculty, then if you have a physics Ph.D. that wants to get an associate degree in plumbing or carpentry while they are taking the Ph.D. they should be *encouraged* to do that.

There's a real conflict of interests involved in the entire grad student/post doc process that should be addressed.

Curiously a lot of them involve conflicts of interest that are similar to the one's that you find in finance. The basic one is that people often to into Ph.D.'s willing to forego short term income for long term profit, so the graduate student is taking out a loan with their labor. The problem is that the bank/university benefits from the loan, but there is no strong incentive for the bank/university to be worried about the long term payback.

If university hallways in the physics department had signs that said “Physics is an awesome degree so long as you don’t want to work in physics!” then I’d have no complaints. Maybe I still don’t, but lots of others do.

"work in physics" != "have a job in academia"

As far as I'm concerned, I'm doing physics. The physics of money, but it's still physics.

 

[Locrian]

"work in physics" != "have a job in academia"

As far as I'm concerned, I'm doing physics. The physics of money, but it's still physics.

I didn't say it did.

I'll bet breakfast I would strongly disagree with you about the work you do being physics, if I knew the specifics of what you did. I'd also bet lunch most in the physics community would agree with me, though I wouldn't spend much time arguing that was a good measure.

 

[twofish-quant]

I'll bet breakfast I would strongly disagree with you about the work you do being physics, if I knew the specifics of what you did. I'd also bet lunch most in the physics community would agree with me, though I wouldn't spend much time arguing that was a good measure.

I bet you are right.

However, what really matters here is what I believe, and how I define "physics" and "academia." Since I was little, I wanted to do "physics" and work in "academia." It took me a while to figure out that my definitions of "physics" and "academia" are quite different from those of other people.

 

[atyy]

It's physics as long as it's verifable by experiments or observation.

 

[twofish-quant]

It's physics as long as it's verifable by experiments or observation.

The weird thing about that definition is that means that what I'm doing is more "physics" than what most theoretical string theorists are doing.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

The weird thing about that definition is that means that what I'm doing is more "physics" than what most theoretical string theorists are doing.

You shouldn't have typed "theoretical", as in I don't think there's any expreimental string theorist. :-D

 

[atyy]

You shouldn't have typed "theoretical", as in I don't think there's any expreimental string theorist. :-D

Oh, what makes you so sure they are not finding extra dimensions at the LHC at this very moment ;)