Not a top 10 phd = never a top 10 faculty ?

[Stan Marsh]

If you check the information of the physics faculty of top 10 college in the US, you will find that most of them are top 10 phds, with only few exceptions. Universities with lower ranking 11-30 are also filled up with top 10 phds.
This phenomenon is quite alerting: if you are not a graduate from a top notch college, the career path may be very difficult for you. Possibly you will end up in some 50+ college, with enough luck and hard work.
Is this true? If this is the general fact, entering a lower rank school may be quite frustrating. (though not a total disaster, if you work hard)

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think you need to look more carefully. Places like Chicago have people who have graduated from places like South Carolina. I think you also have to pay more attention to recent hires: if the college made a hire 40 years ago, what does that really tell you about their hiring practices today?

Is there some effect? Probably. Top-ranked schools tend to be large schools, and they have a lot of graduates. Also, smart people get into top-ranked schools more easily.

 

[fss]

It also depends on the area of expertise. Smaller institutions often specialize in some area of physics and produce high-quality graduates in that area. These graduates can go on and get faculty positions elsewhere.

 

[twofish-quant]

If you check the information of the physics faculty of top 10 college in the US, you will find that most of them are top 10 phds, with only few exceptions. Universities with lower ranking 11-30 are also filled up with top 10 phds.

Some observations:

1) the higher ranked universities also happen have the larger programs.

2) there's also the timing element. For example, there is an entire generation of mid-western astrophysics departments that were started by Harvard grads in the 1970's, which means that if you look at those schools, they are staffed by Harvard people

3) there is something of an "hiring network." We once had the President of our university give a talk in which he talked about how his Harvard connections helped his career, and the point of the talk was to get us to set up a network from our school so that we could help each other with our careers. Hiring at post-doc and faculty levels tends to be highly personal.

This phenomenon is quite alerting: if you are not a graduate from a top notch college, the career path may be very difficult for you. Possibly you will end up in some 50+ college, with enough luck and hard work.

Actually the odds are that you won't. Even with the Ph.D.'s from big name school, the odds are that you will not be a professor at any school. The other thing is that if you do end up as faculty in a no-name school, it's not that hard to make that school a big name in some small part of physics. All you need to put together a top-notch department in money and a small number of people.

One piece of advice that I give people that are considering doing a Ph.D. is that you *should* *NEVER* think of physics as a career. It will only end up in disaster if you do.

If this is the general fact, entering a lower rank school may be quite frustrating. (though not a total disaster, if you work hard)

If any of this matters you really shouldn't be getting a Ph.D. at all. You should go into a Ph.D. program with the assumption that you aren't going to be able to make a career out of it, and if that turns out off, you really should be doing something else. Don't assume that hard work is going to save you. Everyone works hard.

I first got interested in astrophysics when I was eight years old, and one thing that keeps me going is that there is still that eight year old inside of me that is fascinated about how the universe works. That eight year old isn't particularly interested in glory or career, and he is still giddy about learning something new about the universe. What I've found is that I seem to be rather unique. Yes, I'm a little cynical, a little bitter, and a little angry, but in the end it really doesn't matter.

At some point, I just had to accept the fact that I'm not going to be able to make a career out of astrophysics, and I'm just not going to get any glory out of it, and that's a realization that most people that go into physics have to make. For a lot of people, once they make that realization then there is nothing left, but for me you still have that little boy that is curious about how things work, and that's enough.

 

[MathematicalPhysicist]

In a paraphrase of Einstein:" science is good for a hobby not for making a living".

 

[Stan Marsh]

Some observations:

1) the higher ranked universities also happen have the larger programs.

2) there's also the timing element. For example, there is an entire generation of mid-western astrophysics departments that were started by Harvard grads in the 1970's, which means that if you look at those schools, they are staffed by Harvard people

3) there is something of an "hiring network." We once had the President of our university give a talk in which he talked about how his Harvard connections helped his career, and the point of the talk was to get us to set up a network from our school so that we could help each other with our careers. Hiring at post-doc and faculty levels tends to be highly personal.



Actually the odds are that you won't. Even with the Ph.D.'s from big name school, the odds are that you will not be a professor at any school. The other thing is that if you do end up as faculty in a no-name school, it's not that hard to make that school a big name in some small part of physics. All you need to put together a top-notch department in money and a small number of people.

One piece of advice that I give people that are considering doing a Ph.D. is that you *should* *NEVER* think of physics as a career. It will only end up in disaster if you do.



If any of this matters you really shouldn't be getting a Ph.D. at all. You should go into a Ph.D. program with the assumption that you aren't going to be able to make a career out of it, and if that turns out off, you really should be doing something else. Don't assume that hard work is going to save you. Everyone works hard.

I first got interested in astrophysics when I was eight years old, and one thing that keeps me going is that there is still that eight year old inside of me that is fascinated about how the universe works. That eight year old isn't particularly interested in glory or career, and he is still giddy about learning something new about the universe. What I've found is that I seem to be rather unique. Yes, I'm a little cynical, a little bitter, and a little angry, but in the end it really doesn't matter.

At some point, I just had to accept the fact that I'm not going to be able to make a career out of astrophysics, and I'm just not going to get any glory out of it, and that's a realization that most people that go into physics have to make. For a lot of people, once they make that realization then there is nothing left, but for me you still have that little boy that is curious about how things work, and that's enough.

Thanks for this really long reply!

Of course I totally understand that the chance of getting a faculty position is quite small, and I am ready to transfer to other areas if I find that I can't make myself a professor. I don't take a professional researcher career as the only choice. However, it is still my first choice, no matter how small the odds are. A reason for me to struggle to get in a top college is that it will make my chance larger (though it is still a small chance).

However, possibly I maybe still too optimistic about the faculty career, and your reply once again alert me of the risk. I'll keep that in mind.

 

[nbo10]

In grad school we had a joke that all of us would end up working at a fast food joint because all the physics department faculty came from a top 5 school and we didn't go to a top 5 school.

But in the end most of us found good postdoc positions. A few even have decent faculty positions now.

 

[Gokul43201]

One piece of advice that I give people that are considering doing a Ph.D. is that you *should* *NEVER* think of physics as a career. It will only end up in disaster if you do.

You're sure it will "only end up in disaster"? I've got a handful of counter-examples. Maybe you want to clarify? I'm not quite sure why you suggest people not think of Physics as a career (also if you have a similar opinion of any other field; and if not, what makes physics special)?

 

[Vanadium 50]

One piece of advice that I give people that are considering doing a Ph.D. is that you *should* *NEVER* think of physics as a career. It will only end up in disaster if you do.

That's way too strong. Yes, you should have a "Plan B", but that does not and should not mean you can't have a Plan A.

 

[Choppy]

I agree with Twofish-quant in that rather than aiming to get into a "top" university, you should aim to make your work of such high calibre that where you are becomes one of the top names in your area.

 

[twofish-quant]

You're sure it will "only end up in disaster"? I've got a handful of counter-examples.

It's like joining the marines. Yes, a lot of people end up with nice careers in the military, but if your main goal in enlisting is to be a general it's not going to end well.

Maybe you want to clarify? I'm not quite sure why you suggest people not think of Physics as a career (also if you have a similar opinion of any other field; and if not, what makes physics special)?

The military and the priesthood are two examples where I think that thinking it mainly in terms of career is a bad idea. Also acting and professional sports have the same sort of career dynamics as physics. Some of the reason that physics has this sort of dynamic is that there are very few academic jobs in comparison to applicants, and that all of the applicants are at least decent. The other thing that makes physics different (and a lot like professional sports, police, firefighting the military) is that it's a "totalizing" career. If you work as a sales clerk or a janitor or even a lawyer, you stop once you leave the office.

 

[twofish-quant]

A reason for me to struggle to get in a top college is that it will make my chance larger (though it is still a small chance).

You increase your chances by doing good work, and for graduate school, your work as a graduate student influences the departments reputation more than the department's reputation influences yours. It's very different from applying to undergraduate. When you apply to an undergraduate school, no one knows who you are, and there is very little that one undergraduate can do to sink a schools reputation. It's very different at the post-doc and faculty levels. When you send in an application for post-doc or faculty, then you are in a lot of trouble if the search committee has never heard of you.

For any given post-doc or faculty, there are probably only 50 or so people in the world with the qualifications for the position, and the search committee already should know all of them. Also a single undergraduate will not destroy a school, but one junior faculty can radically change the reputation of the department.

 

[twofish-quant]

That's way too strong. Yes, you should have a "Plan B", but that does not and should not mean you can't have a Plan A.

But I think that we'd all be better off of people thinking about going into Ph.D.'s be strongly encouraged not to think of academia as "Plan A."

Here is a question... Suppose someone gives you the choice of a red pill or a blue pill. If you take the red pill, then you learn something about the universe, but no else in the world will know or care that you know, and you'll end up in some random job having touched the face of God but unable to tell anyone. If you take the blue pill, you'll get fame, respect, and money, but you will not know anything about the universe.

That's actually pretty close to the decision that you are making when you decide to go into grad school.

Also here is another test. Suppose you are a senior scientist. You are offered two choices. Take the red pill, and you will wake up as a janitor but having remembered everything that you learned about how the universe works. Take the blue pill, and you will wake up being well-respected and famous, but you lose the memory of how the universe works. Now which one do you think that Richard Feymann would have taken.

One thing that you have to realize is that there is no pot of gold at the end of the path. One mistake that I made, and I see a lot of people getting into physics make, is that there is this idea that once you reach a certain level, then it's "happily ever after" when it's not. One of the things that I had the benefit of was that early on in my life, I got to see some very senior scientists in action, and there are people that I want to be, and people that I don't want to be, and life for Nobel Prize winners can be as hard as for undergraduates. I know of one very senior scientist (let's call him Professor J), that is one of the most hyper-competitive career-focused people that you can ever meet, but I decided quite early on that he was an example of someone that I didn't want to be.

And then after you've spent your life struggling, you die...

 

[clope023]

But in the end most of us found good postdoc positions. A few even have decent faculty positions now.

At the risk of acting like a troll

http://static.funnyjunk.com/pictures/1268277196298.jpg

 

[nbo10]

At the risk of acting like a troll

http://static.funnyjunk.com/pictures/1268277196298.jpg

Call it trolling if you want. But I gave personal experience while attending a non-top 10 school.

 

[clope023]

Call it trolling if you want. But I gave personal experience while attending a non-top 10 school.

It wasn't directed at you actually.