Scientist Career Path: Is It Pessimistic or Real?

[scout6686]

http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

A friend of mine who is an engineer sent me this via email. I don't know how he came about it but I read it and part of it seems valid. Is this pessimistic or is this the reality of the career path called scientist?

 

[twofish-quant]

http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

A friend of mine who is an engineer sent me this via email. I don't know how he came about it but I read it and part of it seems valid. Is this pessimistic or is this the reality of the career path called scientist?

It's the reality of being a professor at a research university. The good news is that most physics Ph.D.'s *don't* end up as professors in research universities, and so the job prospects outside of academia are a lot, lot better than that for professors. Your typical Wall Street investment bank hires several hundred physics Ph.D.'s, and there are a lot of industries that are Ph.D. heavy.

This is why I scream up and down left and right that people should not go into graduate school thinking that they will be a professor at a research university. You'll be a lot happier if you don't have that albatross around your neck.

One cool thing about a Ph.D. is that it teaches you to do research and think creatively, and you need to do research and think creatively about what you are going to do with your Ph.D.

 

[scout6686]

It's the reality of being a professor at a research university. The good news is that most physics Ph.D.'s *don't* end up as professors in research universities, and so the job prospects outside of academia are a lot, lot better than that for professors. Your typical Wall Street investment bank hires several hundred physics Ph.D.'s, and there are a lot of industries that are Ph.D. heavy.

This is why I scream up and down left and right that people should not go into graduate school thinking that they will be a professor at a research university. You'll be a lot happier if you don't have that albatross around your neck.

One cool thing about a Ph.D. is that it teaches you to do research and think creatively, and you need to do research and think creatively about what you are going to do with your Ph.D.

YAY! Thanks (smile on my face). Yeah he is persuading me to go engineering I just talked to him; go figure.

 

[twofish-quant]

If you don't like physics, then you shouldn't go after the Ph.D. However if you *do* like physics don't avoid the field out of a totally wrong idea that there aren't any interesting jobs for physicists out there, or that you will be forced to live a life of poverty, or that a physics degree isn't useful.

One problem with physics professors is that they give dreadful career advice because they've never been on the outside. The advice can be dreadfully optimistic, but it can also be dreadfully pessimistic. Your typical investment bank hires *hundreds* of physics Ph.D.'s to do numerical modeling.

Also dealing with the supposed "glut" of scientists by limiting Ph.D.'s is not going to work, because graduate students bring in money that ultimately pays for tenured faculty, and if you get rid of graduate students, then you won't have the cash to pay for tenured faculty.

 

[Choppy]

This is nothing more than a cynical rant that for some reason seems to keep showing its face.

American universities train roughly twice as many Ph.D.s as there are jobs for them.

I'd love to see some data on this. Is he talking specifically about academic jobs? What about jobs in government labs? Industrial research? Military or medical research? Entreprenurial opportunities? It might also be worth pointing out that there are some jobs out there that REQUIRE a PhD, but it's silly to assume that those are the only jobs you can get once you have a PhD, or that your academic training has gone to waste if you wind up with a job where one is not required.

When something, or someone, is a glut on the market, the price drops. In the case of Ph.D. scientists, the reduction in price takes the form of many years spent in ``holding pattern'' postdoctoral jobs. Permanent jobs don't pay much less than they used to, but instead of obtaining a real job two years after the Ph.D. (as was typical 25 years ago) most young scientists spend five, ten, or more years as postdocs. They have no prospect of permanent employment and often must obtain a new postdoctoral position and move every two years.

It might be worth pointing out a couple of things here. Post-docs are presented in this rant as being one step above homeless bums. As a post doc, you have a job and you're doing that which this author claims you won't be able to do (spending your time working on scientific problems). I worked for two years doing post doctoral research and while there was some pressure to produce results, I got to spend my time doing the research that I really enjoyed. Second, spending more than ten years as a postdoc is not typical. I don't have solid data off the top of my head to back it up, but I would suspect that after ~ 4 years (say a median of 2 post-doc positions) most people either enter a tenure track postion or find permanent employment in another sector.

In contrast, a doctor typically enters private practice at 29, a lawyer at 25 and makes partner at 31, and a computer scientist with a Ph.D. has a very good job at 27 (computer science and engineering are the few fields in which industrial demand makes it sensible to get a Ph.D.). Anyone with the intelligence, ambition and willingness to work hard to succeed in science can also succeed in any of these other professions.

These (medicine, law, engineering) are professions. The sciences are academic subjects. I believe these examples are what debaters call 'staw men.'

Typical postdoctoral salaries begin at $27,000 annually in the biological sciences and about $35,000 in the physical sciences (graduate student stipends are less than half these figures). Can you support a family on that income?

These numbers are at the very least outdated. More realistically today in the US one is looking at $40-45,000 starting as a post doc in physics. I won't argue it's great money. But then again, if you chose to pursue physics for the money, you're in the same boat as the guys who did it to get all the hot chicks. And there are lots of people who support a famlies on post doc salaries just fine.

I know of one physicist whose wife left him because she was tired of repeatedly moving with little prospect of settling down. When you are in your thirties you will need more: a house in a good school district and all the other necessities of ordinary middle class life. Science is a profession, not a religious vocation, and does not justify an oath of poverty or celibacy.

Where is this coming from? Is this meant to imply that if you pursue graduate school, your partner will leave you? That you will never find someone who will love you? Money doesn't define success for everyone.

The longer you spend in science the harder you will find it to leave, and the less attractive you will be to prospective employers in other fields.

Why? There's this idea out there that time spent doing research either as a graduate student or as a pos doc doesn't count as work experience. I would argue you're developing a valuable skill set that's worth far more than time-in at a "dead-end" job.

Suppose you do eventually obtain a permanent job, perhaps a tenured professorship. The struggle for a job is now replaced by a struggle for grant support, and again there is a glut of scientists. Now you spend your time writing proposals rather than doing research...

What? There are unpleasant aspects to a job? One might equally point out that medical doctors don't spend every hour in the ER performing life-saving surgeries, but have to spend hours dictating charts, or that lawyers are required to look over real-estate purchase contracts rather than defend an innocent man wrongly accused of murder.

What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyone who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue another career.

I would argue we need more advocates for science in the world. This requires more people with advanced education, not less.

I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs.

A little overly dramatic? I've seen people with lives ruined by drugs. These are people who drink paint thinner for a cheap buzz.

I might conclude by saying that I'm not all that against the general gist of this article. If you chose to pursue academia, you're in for a tough go of it. But this author paints a very bleak picture that focuses only on negative, and in my opinion highly exaggerated aspects of this path.

 

[twofish-quant]

This is nothing more than a cynical rant that for some reason seems to keep showing its face.

It's also pretty accurate if you confine yourself to academic positions. One other thing is that it makes more sense if you look at it as a historical document dated 2000. Also the end of the Cold War was really tough for physicists.

I'd love to see some data on this. Is he talking specifically about academic jobs?

Yes he is. There is a problem in that people see academic positions as "standard" and if you confine yourself to research positions at universities, there is a massive overproduction of Ph.D.'s, but that means that in figuring out what to do that you shouldn't confine yourself to that role.

These numbers are at the very least outdated. More realistically today in the US one is looking at $40-45,000 starting as a post doc in physics.

If you inflation adjust it then you get rough numbers. Also starting salary for a Wall Street quant is roughly $120K. Starting salary for a computer programmer is around $70-80K. Also if you want to stay at the $45K level, then you can teach community college or high school.

The other thing is that is quite possible to keep research networks and contacts going for a lot of scientific work. The one big mistake that I made was that I was mad at the system enough so that I didn't keep a lot of my research contacts going after I went into industry. I would have been in better shape had someone told me that I was "normal" for doing what I was trying to do.

There are unpleasant aspects to a job? One might equally point out that medical doctors don't spend every hour in the ER performing life-saving surgeries, but have to spend hours dictating charts, or that lawyers are required to look over real-estate purchase contracts rather than defend an innocent man wrongly accused of murder.

The important thing here is to compare apples to apples. The problem is that people in academia think of corporate positions as soulless and deadly, and so they idealize how much real control they have over their fates in academia. In reality, I think that people in corporate environments have more freedom over their work in a number of ways.

I would argue we need more advocates for science in the world. This requires more people with advanced education, not less.

The problem is that the academic system as it exists isn't set up to create more scientists. It's designed to produce university professors and *that's* the problem. Something that would help a lot is if physics departments *encouraged* people to do a dual degree so while you got your physics Ph.D. you got some MBA-like degree. Also we need more mechanisms to allow people to do science research outside of the university. Someone with a Ph.D. and a job at a community college or investment bank is quite capable of doing research, and we just need the social systems in place to allow people to do that.

Curiously for me, the problem isn't money, it's time. I make enough money so that I could spend three months out of the year working at a national lab on global warming models or electric cars or teaching physics. The problem isn't money. The problem is having a job waiting for me when I'm done, and all we'd need for that is for Obama to make a speech.

The other big problem is that people like me "physics Ph.D.'s in industry" have no real voice in the system, and policy/funding decisions at DOE, NSF, NASA, and the professional societies are made by and large with people with only academic experience. This is a huge problem because academics only make up a small fraction of scientific professionals. There's also a lot of expertise that gets missing. One thing that I'm probably more skilled at than your typicial physics professor is "thinking about money."

One reason that education is a good investment is that educated people eventually figure out what to do with their education. I started graduate school in 1991, and no one could have predicted in detail what I ended up doing with my Ph.D. Remember that the world wide web was invented in 1990. Conversely, I'm pretty sure that the hot job in 2030 is probably something that hasn't been invented yet.

I might conclude by saying that I'm not all that against the general gist of this article. If you chose to pursue academia, you're in for a tough go of it. But this author paints a very bleak picture that focuses only on negative, and in my opinion highly exaggerated aspects of this path.

Actually, I think that the author is pretty accurate about the aspects of going into academia (although he needs to inflation adjust his figures). Also there is a balance situation, in that if you move people out of academia into industry, then the working conditions in academia improve. One thing about his rant is that it's a bit dated, because since 2001, you've had a reduction in the number of Ph.D.'s, and you've also had massive numbers of physics Ph.D.s move into industry as a result of the dot-com and financial waves. Yes things got crazy, but in the end dot-coms generated lots of employment and so has finance. Also, just like the collapse of the dot-com bubble didn't mean the end of the internet, the collapse of the finance bubble isn't going to be the end of finance jobs for Ph.D.'s.

Once you move some physics Ph.D.'s into industry, it gets less bad for anyone that wants to stay in academia. Also one thing to point out is that we aren't talking about huge numbers here. The US produces about 1500 physics and astronomy Ph.D.'s each year. Creating a thousand decent jobs ain't that hard. Wall Street probably has been hiring about 200-300 physics Ph.D.'s per year, which makes a huge, huge difference in the balance.

 

[Andy Resnick]

http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

A friend of mine who is an engineer sent me this via email. I don't know how he came about it but I read it and part of it seems valid. Is this pessimistic or is this the reality of the career path called scientist?

While pessimistic, I think it's also a useful tonic. My career path was not as limited as was laid out; even so, I just got a tenure-track position at 40. While I have no illusions about 'solving the mysteries of the universe', I do recognize that my job is a lot of fun (I get to play with toys all day) and I'm lucky to have a job where thinking is valued. and creativity encouraged.

 

[DarrenM]

While pessimistic, I think it's also a useful tonic. My career path was not as limited as was laid out; even so, I just got a tenure-track position at 40. While I have no illusions about 'solving the mysteries of the universe', I do recognize that my job is a lot of fun (I get to play with toys all day) and I'm lucky to have a job where thinking is valued. and creativity encouraged.

I don't mean to pry, but may I ask how old you were when you obtained your PhD? I don't have the book on hand but when I read Stephen Krantz's "Mathematician's Survival Guide: Graduate School and Early Career Development" (It was actually a really good book.) I think I recall him saying something about how there is kind of a time limit between the obtaining of your PhD and acquiring a tenure-track position; i.e., after seven years (I think that was the time frame he mentioned), the implication was that tenure-track was a fading possibility.

I don't believe he was speaking specifically of Mathematics, but it was a while ago that I read the book so take this with a grain of salt.

 

[twofish-quant]

I think I recall him saying something about how there is kind of a time limit between the obtaining of your PhD and acquiring a tenure-track position; i.e., after seven years (I think that was the time frame he mentioned), the implication was that tenure-track was a fading possibility.

One should point out that things are very, very different between fields. If you get a Ph.D. in finance from a decent school, you are pretty much guaranteed a tenure track position immediately after you get your Ph.D. The trouble is that it's *really* difficult to get in.

In the case of physics, people typically do post-docs of three years each. The thing about post-docs is that they are temporary employment so after the second, you may get a third, but after you get that then you won't get any more post-docs and you have to look for something permanent. Also permanent employment does not mean professor. There are a lot of non-tenured physicists that work in national labs or universities. There are some bizarre and weird restrictions on what people can and can't do in order to keep the system going.

Also just because you get tenure-track doesn't mean that you will get tenure.

Personally, I think that tenure is an awful thing and should be abolished. This has something to do with the fact that I don't have tenure, and I'm not going to get it, but what happens is that to allow for semi-permanent employment for relatively few people, it ends up making life hell for everyone else.

What's really going to make things nasty at the elite universities is that now the endowments are running dry there are going to be cuts, and if non-tenured staff get hit hard to save the tenured staff, there are going to be some interesting fireworks.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I don't mean to pry, but may I ask how old you were when you obtained your PhD? I don't have the book on hand but when I read Stephen Krantz's "Mathematician's Survival Guide: Graduate School and Early Career Development" (It was actually a really good book.) I think I recall him saying something about how there is kind of a time limit between the obtaining of your PhD and acquiring a tenure-track position; i.e., after seven years (I think that was the time frame he mentioned), the implication was that tenure-track was a fading possibility.

I don't believe he was speaking specifically of Mathematics, but it was a while ago that I read the book so take this with a grain of salt.

I was 29 when I got my PhD. I don't think there are any hard rules about timelines or postdocs or any 'requirements' to get a tenure track position. The issue is, what are you doing with your time? Spinning your wheels, or making forward progress?

 

[dmatador]

I do not know much of anything about the topic at hand, but I'd like to note that the same man who wrote "Don't Become a Scientist" also has such gems as "In defense of homophobia" and "Diversity is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel" available on his website. The guy is clearly a jerk and not very intelligent in matters other than physics, so take whatever he says with a large grain of salt.

 

[hamster143]

I do not know much of anything about the topic at hand, but I'd like to note that the same man who wrote "Don't Become a Scientist" also has such gems as "In defense of homophobia" and "Diversity is the Last Refuge of a Scoundrel" available on his website. The guy is clearly a jerk and not very intelligent in matters other than physics, so take whatever he says with a large grain of salt.

He may be a jerk, but his articles are logically consistent. It is unfortunate that people automatically write off anyone who disagrees with mainstream groupthink as "not very intelligent".

 

[Monocles]

Yes - while I very much disagree with what he has to say about homosexuality and such, you have to judge an article on its own merit. Just because someone is bigoted doesn't make everything they say wrong.

 

[dmatador]

Regardless of what is mainstream or not, his papers are written with the nearsighted logic that anyone who is actually examining an issue fully would avoid. I'm not questioning his beliefs either, but he seems a bit of a blowhard, and although he does make some points, i still wouldn't trust anything he writes. Just a thought.

 

[-DB]

The first two thirds of the essay just sounded like a bunch of cynical BS, but in the last third I think I picked up something else. He basically points out near the end that the problem is that grad schools are training more phDs than there are jobs for it. I get the feeling that the author believes that grad schools are handing out phDs to just about anyone who wants one and that it's only increasing the competition to get a job as an actual "scientist." I get the impression that the hope of the article was to discourage people who are unsure or not quite as competent as they should be to pursue such a career, in hopes of freeing up the market for the more qualified scientists.

That's just my interpretation at least. Any thoughts?

 

[Bill_B]

The problem is that people in academia think of corporate positions as soulless and deadly, and so they idealize how much real control they have over their fates in academia. In reality, I think that people in corporate environments have more freedom over their work in a number of ways.

I'm in a soulless, deadly position in industry, and am seriously contemplating trying to jump the fence to academia. Would you mind elaborating on this?

 

[Bill_B]

He may be a jerk, but his articles are logically consistent. It is unfortunate that people automatically write off anyone who disagrees with mainstream groupthink as "not very intelligent".

They may be logically consistent, but in my opinion, a number of his premises are flawed. A logically sound argument from a false premise is still a bad argument.

 

[comp_math]

It is mostly true. You have to be highly motivated and have perpetual love in your research, and are willing to make many sacrifices a long the way. He is just giving people a dose of reality. Also, just to be fair, yes, you can go into the industry but you have to remember that there are many brilliant people in the industry too and there is plenty of competition. So the moral of the story is - there's no easy way out in life; you just have to work hard in everything you do.

http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

A friend of mine who is an engineer sent me this via email. I don't know how he came about it but I read it and part of it seems valid. Is this pessimistic or is this the reality of the career path called scientist?

 

[Vanadium 50]

He basically points out near the end that the problem is that grad schools are training more phDs than there are jobs for it.

This is only true if you believe that the only jobs that "count" are academic jobs - indeed, academic jobs at research universities.

 

[twofish-quant]

Also, just to be fair, yes, you can go into the industry but you have to remember that there are many brilliant people in the industry too and there is plenty of competition.

But industry has a lot more "warm body problems" where brilliance doesn't matter much. If you have 10 million lines of code, then it's something that one person just cannot handle, no matter how brilliant they are. You need lots of reasonably intelligent, but not necessarily totally brilliant people to just "shovel code."

Also, suppose you have a piece of code which can cost *billions* of dollars in losses if it malfunctions. You are going to hire a ton of people to go over that code with fine tooth combs. Also, if you have a critical position in which someone has the keys to the bank vault. You are going to have two or three people watching everything they do, and then another two or three people watching everything that those two or three people do.

So all this means, lots and lots of jobs.

The other things is that the numbers are very different. There are about 800,000 jobs in the securities industry. Your typical mega bank hires about 170,000 people and the investment bank division hires about 20,000 or so people. The total number of physics/astronomy Ph.D.'s that get award each year is 1500.

So the moral of the story is - there's no easy way out in life; you just have to work hard in everything you do.

The problem with academia is that you aren't going to get anywhere *even if* you work hard. If you have 1000 applicants and 100 jobs, then you might get somewhere if you work harder than the next guy. The trouble is that the next guy is thinking the same thing. So it turns out that everyone works hard, go crazy, and in the end you still have the same pool of jobs.

Also, hard work can lead to serious, serious exploitation. If are in a good position if you have 1000 applicants, 100 jobs, you get everyone to work insane amounts of effort, and then you skim off the work of those 1000 applicants. This happens in both industry and academia, but academia is quite a bit worse about it.

If you want to get anywhere you have to *THINK*. If you just work hard and don't think about what's going on then someone else is going to end up with most of the rewards of your work.

 

[Ben Espen]

I'm in a soulless, deadly position in industry, and am seriously contemplating trying to jump the fence to academia. Would you mind elaborating on this?

I have the opportunity to keep in touch with my physics professors, so I can give you some examples from the world of a state university of the very real differences in freedom between academia and industry. The physics professors with tenure often lead a pretty good life. Understand this is a broad generalization from my specific experience. The hours are good, often 9-3 or so, with lots of flexibility if you need to pick up your kids or whatnot. The professors get to work on their own research, with quite a bit of latitude in what and how and when.

This is really not that bad of a job, if you can get it. However, there are some things that are not so easy for them. There is always a great deal of uncertainty in state universities around budgeting. Of course, many tenured professors use grant money to pay for their research, but at least in a run of the mill state university, it is unusual for everything to be paid for this way. The building, the utilities, the level of staff support, and various and sundry other things are paid for from the departmental or college budget, and when tax revenues are down, universities can suffer budget cuts that affect their ability to perform routine tasks.

One of the most telling examples actually comes from the lab where my wife studied for her microbiology degree. There was not enough money in the departmental budget to pay for even the most routine lab supplies, so boxes of gloves and pipette tips were always being paid for out of grants that ostensibly were intended for other things. There is nothing unusual about this, you have to buy these things somehow, but my point is if you work in industry, and you need lab supplies or equipment that is manifestly necessary to do your job, you just buy it.

Other problems I noted included equipment that was often the cheapest model or brand available, and consequently was more liable to break down or malfunction, and buildings and facilities that were poorly maintained. State universities have a tendency to cut the maintenance budget first in a crunch, [less bad press from firing plumbers] and this adds up over time. I noticed a very short term perspective when it comes to equipment. The total cost of maintenance and replacement was not often considered, or even just ease of use or range of function.

This is not always the case. Many universities have very nice facilities and ample funding, but moving into industry from academia the contrast struck me strongly. My lab, and my office, and my computer are just nicer, and it is easier to get the things I need, whether that be consumables or equipment. Much of the difference is that I generate revenue rather than consume it, so the payoff is easier to see than when your product is grad students and journal articles.

Another thing that I noticed in academia is strong territoriality. It was always a big deal if you needed to borrow some supplies or use the equipment in another lab. There is a lot of variation in this, but in my experience, professors only wanted their grant money used for their students and their research. My R&D lab is open to engineering associates all over the cluster, and we just plain share better. I think a big difference is money. I work in a profitable enterprise, so there is just more to go around. If I worked in a dying industry, I think it would be a lot less pleasant.

 

[twofish-quant]

I have the opportunity to keep in touch with my physics professors, so I can give you some examples from the world of a state university of the very real differences in freedom between academia and industry.

Yes. For most people industry is far far better.

The physics professors with tenure often lead a pretty good life. Understand this is a broad generalization from my specific experience. The hours are good, often 9-3 or so, with lots of flexibility if you need to pick up your kids or whatnot. The professors get to work on their own research, with quite a bit of latitude in what and how and when.

True, but you aren't making an apples to apples comparison. Being a tenured professor is a very good life, but so is being a managing director in a investment bank or the CEO of a successful startup. Assuming that you get your Ph.D. your odds of being a tenured professor is about one in twenty. The big problem that you run into is that if you try to become a tenured professor and you don't make it, which you probably won't, then the jobs aren't that great, whereas if you try to become a managing director, and you don't make it, then you end up with a decent life.

It's good to have goals, and if you have a goal of becoming tenured faculty, that's great. The problem that you absolutely have to be aware of is that it's a goal, and not something that is likely to happen.

The building, the utilities, the level of staff support, and various and sundry other things are paid for from the departmental or college budget, and when tax revenues are down, universities can suffer budget cuts that affect their ability to perform routine tasks.

And the problem is that without a supply of cheap labor (i.e. graduate students) they whole thing falls apart. One problem is that you have to keep the labor temporary. Grad students are willing to put up with low wages because it is generally believed that in a few years, they'll be making more money. The trouble is that if you have people in *permanent* positions doing that sort of work, they'll demand more money.

So one thing that happens is that to support tenured faculty, you have to make everyone else an adjunct. One big problem that academia has is that they can't lay off tenured faculty or force them to take salary cuts. This is great if you are tenured, but if you are not (and most people that work in academia aren't) then it's going to come out of your hide.

 

[comp_math]

If you want to be programming until you are 70, then ok. But if you want to climb the corporate ladder, there are other factors involved, not just the technical aspect. That's where the real competition comes in.

But industry has a lot more "warm body problems" where brilliance doesn't matter much. If you have 10 million lines of code, then it's something that one person just cannot handle, no matter how brilliant they are. You need lots of reasonably intelligent, but not necessarily totally brilliant people to just "shovel code."

Also, suppose you have a piece of code which can cost *billions* of dollars in losses if it malfunctions. You are going to hire a ton of people to go over that code with fine tooth combs. Also, if you have a critical position in which someone has the keys to the bank vault. You are going to have two or three people watching everything they do, and then another two or three people watching everything that those two or three people do.

So all this means, lots and lots of jobs.

The other things is that the numbers are very different. There are about 800,000 jobs in the securities industry. Your typical mega bank hires about 170,000 people and the investment bank division hires about 20,000 or so people. The total number of physics/astronomy Ph.D.'s that get award each year is 1500.



The problem with academia is that you aren't going to get anywhere *even if* you work hard. If you have 1000 applicants and 100 jobs, then you might get somewhere if you work harder than the next guy. The trouble is that the next guy is thinking the same thing. So it turns out that everyone works hard, go crazy, and in the end you still have the same pool of jobs.

Also, hard work can lead to serious, serious exploitation. If are in a good position if you have 1000 applicants, 100 jobs, you get everyone to work insane amounts of effort, and then you skim off the work of those 1000 applicants. This happens in both industry and academia, but academia is quite a bit worse about it.

If you want to get anywhere you have to *THINK*. If you just work hard and don't think about what's going on then someone else is going to end up with most of the rewards of your work.

 

[twofish-quant]

If you want to be programming until you are 70, then ok. But if you want to climb the corporate ladder, there are other factors involved, not just the technical aspect. That's where the real competition comes in.

True, but the nice thing about the corporate world is that you don't have to compete for the high level positions if you don't want to. I know a lot of people that at the bottom of the totem pole and are just fine with that.

The trouble with academia is that it's "up or out." I don't know of graduate student that's really said "I'm happy just were I am and I don't want any sort of promotion to being a post-doc." The problem is that even if you want to stay a graduate student forever, the system won't let you do that.

 

[comp_math]

I don't know about quantitative finance, but in the field I am working in (engineering), you are expected to grow into managers because in the end, you are supposed to bring in projects for them. Maybe in the world of quantitative finance, you are already bringing in money directly through your work.

True, but the nice thing about the corporate world is that you don't have to compete for the high level positions if you don't want to. I know a lot of people that at the bottom of the totem pole and are just fine with that.

The trouble with academia is that it's "up or out." I don't know of graduate student that's really said "I'm happy just were I am and I don't want any sort of promotion to being a post-doc." The problem is that even if you want to stay a graduate student forever, the system won't let you do that.

 

[Ben Espen]

I don't know about quantitative finance, but in the field I am working in (engineering), you are expected to grow into managers because in the end, you are supposed to bring in projects for them. Maybe in the world of quantitative finance, you are already bringing in money directly through your work.

This is a good example of an inherent difficulty of making generalizations with industry jobs: the wide variation. There are indeed a great many organizations that do expect engineers to grow into managers, and there are others, such as my current employer, that do not. I personally think the latter course is wiser, but then again I don't know exactly what conditions those organizations face, so I leave them to it.

It is possible to find organizations that are content to let engineers be engineers [or whatever technical specialization you may have], knowing that not all engineers make good managers. This is sometimes called the two-track program, with one track for those who will become mangers of other technical people, and another track for those who will become technical specialists. Many variants exist. If you want to burrow really deeply into a technical subject and not worry about telling other people what to do and being responsible for them, do your homework and find an employer that will encourage that.

 

[kote]

It is possible to find organizations that are content to let engineers be engineers [or whatever technical specialization you may have], knowing that not all engineers make good managers. This is sometimes called the two-track program, with one track for those who will become mangers of other technical people, and another track for those who will become technical specialists. Many variants exist. If you want to burrow really deeply into a technical subject and not worry about telling other people what to do and being responsible for them, do your homework and find an employer that will encourage that.

See http://www.rayjobs.com/campus/index.cfm?Tool=CareerLadder for an example of the two-track version.

 

[Ben Espen]

That is actually one of the companies I was thinking of, thanks for the link!

 

[Astronuc]

See http://www.rayjobs.com/campus/index.cfm?Tool=CareerLadder for an example of the two-track version.

The technical leg looks very familiar, although the large companies with which I have interfaced have preferred to reduce the levels to something like 5-6 on both technical and management side. I've also seen technical folks move over to management, but not the other way.

The best technology companies have promoted technical people into management positions, and minimized straight managers who have not technical background.

 

[kote]

The best technology companies have promoted technical people into management positions, and minimized straight managers who have not technical background.

Management within engineering and at the top level or general operations / supply chain management? We may be unique, but I haven't seen any engineering people move out of the engineering organization. How they manage within engineering... I have no idea, but it's all engineers . Nontechnical finance people sometimes move into upper management type positions but typically they stay in finance. Everyone else has an engineering degree but pretty much stays within their function after college.

 

[Astronuc]

Management within engineering and at the top level or general operations / supply chain management? We may be unique, but I haven't seen any engineering people move out of the engineering organization. How they manage within engineering... I have no idea, but it's all engineers . Nontechnical finance people sometimes move into upper management type positions but typically they stay in finance. Everyone else has an engineering degree but pretty much stays within their function after college.

I particular mentioned the best technology firms. There are lots of technology firms that have fallen by the wayside, and some big ones got totally trashed by the 'business-oriented' management. I don't think too many, if any, engineers/scientists move into finance or accounting, although some might if they have and MBA with a background in finance/accounting.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't know about quantitative finance, but in the field I am working in (engineering), you are expected to grow into managers because in the end, you are supposed to bring in projects for them. Maybe in the world of quantitative finance, you are already bringing in money directly through your work.

Quantitative finance isn't the only industry that I've been in. One thing that is nice about a physics degree is that you can jump from industry to industry and go where the jobs are.

What I meant is that most people reach a point where they look in the mirror and say to themselves that they make enough money, and just want to do put their energy into something else. Most jobs in industry let you do that, and I've known people that end up doing more or less the same thing for a decade or two, because they see their job as just a way of making money. The problem is that it's impractical to do this in academia because the salaries are too low.

 

[twofish-quant]

That is actually one of the companies I was thinking of, thanks for the link!

But this sort of structure is pretty hard to work. I knew one company that tried doing something like this and it turned out to be a mess because after a while it became obvious that the people in the management track were the people with the real power, and it ended up being *worse* for the technical people, because by having a bifurcated structure it made it impossible to move over into management were the real power was.

 

[Ben Espen]

But this sort of structure is pretty hard to work. I knew one company that tried doing something like this and it turned out to be a mess because after a while it became obvious that the people in the management track were the people with the real power, and it ended up being *worse* for the technical people, because by having a bifurcated structure it made it impossible to move over into management were the real power was.

I can certainly see that happening, but your experience is clearly different that mine. Details matter when it comes to this kind of thing. It seems to work fine for Raytheon, and it works very well for my current employer. Here, it is called technical depth/breath rather than the two-track system, but the idea is to match skillsets to tasks. It helps that this is an engineering-oriented enterprise. It was founded by an engineer, a long time engineer is currently CEO, and many leaders within the organization are drawn from the technical associates.

Corporate culture matters a lot when it comes to this. Most companies would not be able to do it the way mine does it, but it seems that there are other ways to accomplish a similar thing.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I've been reading this thread, and it appears to have devolved into an either-or type choice. I've worked "both sides", and from my experience, the only limiting factor in someone's career is their own lack of vision.

for example, I am currently a tenure-track member of a Physics Department, but I also have adjunct appointments in other departments and institutions. Additionally, I have a small consulting business. When I was in industry, I had an adjunct appointment an academic institution. It's not either-or. A successful person can (IMO) work in a variety of environments.

The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that as an academic researcher, I have a lot in common with startup business owners- if I want a viable research program, I have to go out and get my own (grant) money. Working in industry, if I wanted a viable research program, I had to convince a manager to divert some money. There is a real difference- the grant money is mine to spend as I please, while the diverted money belongs to the company- I had to obtain approval for every purchase.

There is one other significant difference- as an academic, a major portion of my 'mission' is to educate: teaching (obviously), but also hosting undergrads in my lab, attending conferences, etc. etc. My 'mission' in industry was to help the company generate revenue (and make my boss look good).

As far as salaries go, the essential difference is that in industry, I did not have to worry about where my paycheck came from. In academia, that is not the case- and that includes tenured faculty; tenure is *NOT* a guaruntee of salary (or lab space, or support, or...)- it's institution-dependent.

 

[Astronuc]

I've been reading this thread, and it appears to have devolved into an either-or type choice. I've worked "both sides", and from my experience, the only limiting factor in someone's career is their own lack of vision.

I concur. I think Katz reflects the experience of someone who, as far as I can tell, went through grad school, got a PhD and stayed in academia.

Many academics I know have mentioned the pressure to do research and more importantly, obtain funding from sources outside the univeristy, e.g. NSF, DOE, NASA, industry, etc. I also hear about the politics within universities and departments. (that also happens in companies from small to large)

I also know a number of PhDs in industry who are also adjunct professors at local universities and community colleges.

And there are those PhDs who went off and started their own companies, like the one in which I work.

Here's just one example of what folks can do with degrees in physics or math. They don't necessarily have PhDs, but they could easily have.
http://www.peonycapital.com/en/Senior-Management.htm

One career/success is much about taking the initiative and looking for opportunities, and not waiting for someone else to point out one's path or opportunity.


I also wanted to point out a classic case of poor management in a large technology company. It was painful to watch the demise of such a great company.
Who killed Westinghouse?
http://www.post-gazette.com/westinghouse/default.asp

 

[Andy Resnick]

<snip>

One career/success is much about taking the initiative and looking for opportunities, and not waiting for someone else to point out one's path or opportunity.

<snip>

very well put!

 

[twofish-quant]

I've been reading this thread, and it appears to have devolved into an either-or type choice. I've worked "both sides", and from my experience, the only limiting factor in someone's career is their own lack of vision.

Personally, I think this is a failing of science educational system. If the system were working, then it would expand people's visions rather than restrict them. One thing that I find frustrating is how seemingly intelligent people can purport to ask deep questions about the big bang, but at the same time not ask equally deep questions about the institutions around them. One question that I had to ask myself is "what is a professor?" and "what is a scientist?" "What is academia?" "What is success?"

Also, one other thing is that people have restrictions that come from things other than ones lack of vision. If you try to look for a job right now, you've just gotten handed some bad cards, and are just unlucky. Part of the reason I got interested in finance, was that it turned out that when I asked "why?" the answer always ended up having something to do with money.

One thing that helped a lot was to look in the mirror and think to myself "it's not fair and it's not my damn fault that things are as bad as they are." The reason this helped is that I found that if I felt guilty, I ended up getting nothing useful done, but if I felt angry, that at least got me out of bed and on the phone to people.

 

[twofish-quant]

One career/success is much about taking the initiative and looking for opportunities, and not waiting for someone else to point out one's path or opportunity.

The problem is that the entire academic Ph.D. system is set up to point to the path of being a tenure-track research professor. As long as people are fixated and obsessed with that path, people are just not going to look for other opportunities and take the initiative to look elsewhere. What's happening is that the system as it now exists is actively pointing people in the wrong direction and that has just got to stop.

That's why it is really, really, really important for people to point out that the path to tenure-track is going to work for at most 1 in 20 Ph.D.'s, and that 95% of people are going to have to figure out something else to do. Once you realize that this path doesn't exist, and that you are on your own, most people end up coming up with something.

Also the idea that people would be better off not getting the Ph.D. doesn't work. If you get an MBA, an MD, or just about anything else, you'll still have to deal with these sorts of issues.

 

[Choppy]

The problem is that the entire academic Ph.D. system is set up to point to the path of being a tenure-track research professor.

I see changes to this happening though.

Where I did my PhD, the school set up programs to assist graduate students with commercial development, patenting, liaisons with the business community etc. all for dealing with ideas that directly resulted from their research.

On top of that career and placement services offered mentoring programs, job fairs and even brought in recruiters from different organizations to give presentations specifically targeted towards graduate students. They even had seminars for graduate students interested in getting out of academia, where they brought in speakers who had jumped out into industry.

There are major obstacles to a shift or diversification in focus away from 'academia only'. These include (in no particular order):

(a) An untrue notion that in abandoning the academic path you have somehow 'failed out' or you are somehow abandoning a dream that has driven you to work so hard through so many years of school.

(b) A lack of mentors, or at least a lack of access to mentors who have pursued alternative career routes. Most supervisors are, after all, academic professors. Most talks you go to as a graduate student are given by people in academia. Most conferences are academically oriented.

(c) I'm not sure about this one, but from personal observation I would estimate that graduate students are more reclusive than the average bear. Many are 'happy' to be locked in a closet of an office working out equations for peanuts and aren't interested in more money.

(d) Research projects tend to be academic-oriented , as opposed to research that has a direct, commercial application. So you've derived an modification to an interaction cross section under very unique conditions. Now what?

(e) We cling to and even promote romanticized ideas about tenured professor positions as these dream jobs where you're free to pursue whatever research ideas tickle your fancy without any teaching or committee committments, funding applications, etc.

(f) A lack of professional organization in academic areas. Physics, for example, is an academic subect, not a profession. Hence there is little promotion in the world for professional physicists, no professional standards, or even definitions for what it means to be a professional physicist. (NOTE: CAP does have a P.Phys. designation.)

 

[Rika]

I'm not familiar with US system so could you explain it to me: do you need to be a tenure-track professor to work in academia? You can't teach, conduct research or even be the head of research group while not being at tenure-track path?

 

[Ben Espen]

The answer is no in most cases, non-tenure track faculty do the same basic tasks as tenure-track faculty. Non-tenure track faculty teach and conduct research, it is probably less likely for a non-tenure track academic to head up a research group, but I don't know that it is impossible.

It is really just that adjunct faculty work more and are paid less. In my opinion, the positions are seen as less prestigious as well.

 

[Astronuc]

The problem is that the entire academic Ph.D. system is set up to point to the path of being a tenure-track research professor. As long as people are fixated and obsessed with that path, people are just not going to look for other opportunities and take the initiative to look elsewhere. What's happening is that the system as it now exists is actively pointing people in the wrong direction and that has just got to stop.

That's why it is really, really, really important for people to point out that the path to tenure-track is going to work for at most 1 in 20 Ph.D.'s, and that 95% of people are going to have to figure out something else to do. Once you realize that this path doesn't exist, and that you are on your own, most people end up coming up with something.

Also the idea that people would be better off not getting the Ph.D. doesn't work. If you get an MBA, an MD, or just about anything else, you'll still have to deal with these sorts of issues.

I don't agree. In my department (Nuc Eng), many PhDs went out to industry or national labs. I was in grad school 22+ years ago.

Perhaps in particular university programs, PhDs are pointed toward academia. Some of our faculty more or less discouraged students from staying in academia. Then part of that could be the idea that if a professor sends PhD students to industry and national labs, there is better chance for outside funding for research down the road.

The other thought is that one gets a PhD, goes out to industry for 10-20 years to get practical experience, and then goes back to teaching.

An number of graduates from the program I attended went on to become senior level managers in large corporations, or they started their own companies. I think this is the approach at many schools like MIT and Stanford.

 

[kote]

I don't agree. In my department (Nuc Eng), many PhDs went out to industry or national labs. I was in grad school 22+ years ago.

Perhaps in particular university programs, PhDs are pointed toward academia. Some of our faculty more or less discouraged students from staying in academia. Then part of that could be the idea that if a professor sends PhD students to industry and national labs, there is better chance for outside funding for research down the road.

The other thought is that one gets a PhD, goes out to industry for 10-20 years to get practical experience, and then goes back to teaching.

An number of graduates from the program I attended went on to become senior level managers in large corporations, or they started their own companies. I think this is the approach at many schools like MIT and Stanford.

I suspect that it does largely depend on the field and the particular school. Obviously in business school, for example, almost everyone is expected to leave academia and recruiting is set up to support this. My friend is in a top applied math PhD program now and had meetings with recruiters from Wall Street her first year, in addition to getting a weekly email digest of a variety of recruiting and networking activities in engineering and applied sciences. A majority of her classmates have chosen to focus their research on industrial applications, particularly in finance, and almost no one is working on more general methods. I asked her about this issue and she hasn't felt any pressure at all toward academia from the school, her classmates, or her professors.

I'm not sure if this is particular to her school, which also happens to have a well respected business school, or if it's a more general trend. I also suspect being "applied" math has a lot to do with it.

Another of my friends is doing an engineering master's at an Ivy with a top business school and is excluded from their recruiting. They do not have equivalent recruiting to the above mentioned school with formal structures like weekly emails etc. Even though this is a terminal engineering degree, he is still mostly on his own when it comes to finding a job. Your mileage may vary .

 

[twofish-quant]

(a) An untrue notion that in abandoning the academic path you have somehow 'failed out' or you are somehow abandoning a dream that has driven you to work so hard through so many years of school.

There's a weird inconsistency here, because on the one hand, people talk about commitment to the cause of science, but if you are so committed that you go into astronomy with the idea that you don't care if you get an academic job at the end, that's also supposed to be a bad thing.

One other thing is that most physics Ph.D.'s after a few years make enough money so that they could spend a few months each year doing unpaid research. The problem is not money, it's time. I have the money so that I can volunteer as a researcher three months out of the year, but the trouble is that I wouldn't have a job to go back to.

A lack of mentors, or at least a lack of access to mentors who have pursued alternative career routes. Most supervisors are, after all, academic professors. Most talks you go to as a graduate student are given by people in academia. Most conferences are academically oriented.

I think it's a deeper issue. Like any power structure, the structure of academia is self-perpetuating and so it immediate reacts against anything that threatens the power structure. It's interesting that "tenure" has become the sacred cow of academia, and I think part of it is there is a realization of how fragile tenure really is.

The University of Phoenix is interesting because it illustrates that you can run a teaching institution with mostly adjuncts, and I suspect that you can use the University of Phoenix model for research institutions also.

Many are 'happy' to be locked in a closet of an office working out equations for peanuts and aren't interested in more money.

Or are unwilling to admit to themselves how much they dislike the situation they are in.

We cling to and even promote romanticized ideas about tenured professor positions as these dream jobs where you're free to pursue whatever research ideas tickle your fancy without any teaching or committee committments, funding applications, etc.

And a very good question is "why?" My answer is that without the promise that someday you will get tenure, there would be no real reason for graduate students to go along with the program. Which I think points out the real problem with the system, which is that it's really impossible to maintain without someone telling some really massive lies. It also very deeply undermines the ideals that academia is supposed to be founded on. If we are in a situation in which we think it's better off for society to be stupid because we aren't clever enough to figure out what to do with too many smart people, then why not go all the way and just shut down all of the universities.

 

[twofish-quant]

It is really just that adjunct faculty work more and are paid less. In my opinion, the positions are seen as less prestigious as well.

Or more accurately, the positions are made to seem less prestigious. It's really strange that on the one hand you have this glorification of self-sacrifice, but on the other hand people that get paid less for more work somehow have less prestige. Heads I win. Tails you lose.

One big problem is that there is a limit to which you can improve the well being of adjunct faculty. If you give adjuncts too much power and the conditions are too good, then people will start to wonder why we have tenured faculty at all.

 

[wildman]

Einstein was working in the Patent Office when he had his golden year in 1905. I have friends who have published dozens of papers while working at our company. Many people have won Nobel Prizes working in a Government or Industry. Working in Industry can actually be a better path to interesting research than an academic path. And you don't have to teach!

 

[twofish-quant]

Einstein was working in the Patent Office when he had his golden year in 1905.

It is interesting to look at what Einstein did to find out *why* working in the patent office was so perfect for him. He had job security, a reasonable amount of prestige, and most importantly time to think. His job was an eight hour job, and once he got off work he was busy talking with his colleagues about physics.

Curiously once he got a position at the IAS, he was never able to do anything useful ever again.

I have friends who have published dozens of papers while working at our company.

Finance isn't ideal for this sort of thing because banks tend to be tight lipped to begin with, and there is a lot of time and stress. If you are working 12 hours/day instead of 8, and you are always worried about losing your job, this isn't the best environment for doing research outside your field of study. Also, there aren't that many ways for non-academic physicists to easily still have one leg in the research community.

One thing that is interesting is that people have enough money to do research. The problem is time.

Many people have won Nobel Prizes working in a Government or Industry.

National labs, yes. Industry isn't quite as useful for doing basic research as it once was. Companies are a bit more focused on the bottom line and things like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC are seen as a waste of money. Sad really.

One of my weird ideas is that if banks are going to be regulated utilities, then you might see the rebirth of something like Bell Labs. Also if the President were to give a speech in which he encouraged banks to give physics Ph.D.'s three month sabaticals so that they could work in national labs on problems of national interest, that would be useful. Finally, there are probably enough physicists that have made enough money on Wall Street that you could fund things like Mars probes.

There are a lot of possibilities.

Working in Industry can actually be a better path to interesting research than an academic path. And you don't have to teach!

Curious you do have to teach. I've found that the skills that I've gotten in trying to explain technical things to undergraduates come in useful when you try to explain to management why they should keep paying your salary.

 

[Rika]

And teaching isn't so bad. If you have passionate students they can help you in many ways. Still don't understand - ok tenure - track position gives you more money and is more "prestigious" (whatever that means) but it doesn't change the fact that being non-tenure-tracked allows you to publish papers with interesting results and do basically the same as tenure-tracked. So what's the problem? Why rarity of tenure-track positions should stop you from working in academia?

 

[Choppy]

Still don't understand - ok tenure - track position gives you more money and is more "prestigious" (whatever that means) but it doesn't change the fact that being non-tenure-tracked allows you to publish papers with interesting results and do basically the same as tenure-tracked. So what's the problem? Why rarity of tenure-track positions should stop you from working in academia?

Depending on the institution, with tenure comes a lot of perks. Historically, when professors were awarded tenure, it was essentially a university's endorsement that they would be supported in pursuit of whatever ideas they had - no matter how outlandish. In those times universities and society recognized the value in high risk, high payout pursuits. So it's not so much the "prestige" as it is the freedom and ability to pursue ideas without the pressure to publish.

There are also perks such as sabatical - time off (months, sometimes a full year) where the professors essentially focus on research, write, or explore, with minimal pressure to produce results.

Then there are the 'standard' perks of job security, health plan, pension, etc. that don't come with a post-doctoral contract work.