Why are young scientists struggling to launch independent research careers?

[story645]

One dirty secret in academia is why universities have undergraduate courses in the first place, which is that they are massive cash cows.

I go to a big old public university, so it's a bit different. Instate undergrads cost either about the same or more then their tuition, which is one of the reasons weeding courses are so popular and grade inflation isn't so bad, and out of state students are the big supplements. I had a friend who had trouble getting advice for his masters program 'cause he realized he was just about the only US citizen in it, his question was related to his status, and none of the advisers had ever really dealt with it before.

you hire tutors that fix the problems before they get sent into the meat grinder.

Working as a tutor and going to a school with a really strong support system for students, I can tell you that often the kids going to the tutors aren't the ones who most need them or go far too late to get any real help. Even the ones mandated by teachers seem to go out of their way to make the sessions as unhelpful to themselves as humanely possible.

the more i read this forum, the less i want to pursue scientific career.

It's not quite as bad as it all sounds, 'cause most of the time the politics is just an undercurrent. Plus, all jobs come with politics, academia is just a bit harder 'cause its all the same circles.

 

[twofish-quant]

I go to a big old public university, so it's a bit different. Instate undergrads cost either about the same or more then their tuition, which is one of the reasons weeding courses are so popular and grade inflation isn't so bad, and out of state students are the big supplements.

One thing that you aren't counting here is that in-state undergrads get a subsidy from the state legislature, which generally makes in-state undergraduates a cash-cow also. If universities weren't making massive amounts of money from undergraduate courses, there wouldn't be weed out courses.

Here is how one state does it...

http://pie.tamucc.edu/special_reports/Formula_Funding_101.pdf

It's more than a little depressing to realize that you are a number and not a name.

 

[twofish-quant]

A professorship seemed perfect for that, as I would be on a college campus. Now though, it seems so bleak and unhappy... :( can anyone recommend an alternative profession? I intend to obtain at least a Masters in Engineering or Math.

There is a pretty large demand for teachers and researchers in both community college, undergraduate levels, and no shortage of jobs for researchers either in national labs or in industry. One thing reason for being realistic about research professorships is that once you realize that there *are* alternatives, the world ends up being a much nicer place.

 

[story645]

One thing that you aren't counting here is that in-state undergrads get a subsidy from the state legislature, which generally makes in-state undergraduates a cash-cow also.

I kind of know about those 'cause every time there's a budget cut, our tuition gets hiked. In-state tuition is about $5,000 a year, so judging by the numbers I'm finding for subsidies they're still not a cash cow. The engineers are constantly burned 'cause they're aren't enough for seats for all the students who need to take a course to graduate. It seems like for us, grad students are far more of a cash cow, but yeah the Texas link was incredibly depressing and page 31 sounds exactly like my school. (In some majors, it's the last time students have tenured faculty.)

If universities weren't making massive amounts of money from undergraduate courses, there wouldn't be weed out courses.

I thought it was the other way around: inflation and less weeding 'cause they want to keep you around to keep paying tuition, no inflation/more weeding 'cause they don't care if you drop out.

It's more than a little depressing to realize that you are a number and not a name.

But it's so much easier to get through all the maddening bureaucracy once you accept that nobody gives a damn about you and you've just got to memorize the bulletin/handbook and have page #'s to point to when fighting with the administration. Some of the best advice I got about a random bureaucratic problem was to throw a ton of paperwork at the problem and get everything in writing.

 

[twofish-quant]

I'm not really sure how to respond. On one hand, I would say 'grow up already, the world does not owe you a living'.

On the other hand if I get up in front of a bunch of eight year olds and tell them how wonderful science and technology is, or if I get up in front of a Congressional committee and talk about how essential it is to produce more Ph.D.'s, then I really don't think that I can ethically walk away and say "not my problem." If the NSF talks about a shortage of physicists so that they get more funding, yes they do owe me a living.

The basic problem is that without the basic labor that graduate students and undergraduates provide, there would simply not be the money to pay for tenured faculty. This isn't a new problem. The notion that a life of the mind is a noble endeavor that should be available to everyone conflicts with the economic fact that someone has to work the fields and take out the trash.

Also the "grow up, the world does not owe you a living" is a *VERY* dangerous thing for a tenured professor to say to taxpayers that are paying their salary. Anything you say can and will be used against you.

I'm not sure I fully agree with Twofish-quant's attitude that 'the system' is set up to take advantage of students/postdocs/etc.

If you look at the cold hard numbers, I think it's pretty difficult to avoid that conclusion. One thought experiment you can do is to think of some "what if." What if the number of Ph.D.'s that were produced were drastically reduced? What if we drastically reduced the number of lower division classes? Then work through the numbers and they don't work out.

The basic problem is N professors produce N Ph.D.'s that produce N professors.

But in the main, my colleagues have a genuine interest in helping set their students up for gainful employment- industry or not, physics or not, science or not.

The trouble is that there are limits to what good intentions can do. One thing that I found is that professors in academia are often seriously misinformed about what jobs are like outside of academia, and that's not surprising. One problem is that if we were to reorient Ph.D. programs to be less research focused, then the tenured faculty in physics departments would lose control of the curriculum, and that's something I can't see happening.

There's a labor surplus, there has been for decades and there will continue to be for decades since industry got out of the R&D game. If you choose to give up, that's your choice.

You just illustrated one thing that simply has just got to change. If someone decides that they are just not going to academia and wants to do something different, this is not "giving up." When someone says "it's your choice" what's really unstated is "and you are a lousy human being for making that choice." If someone gets a physics Ph.D. and then decides to start a pizza chain, I think people should jump for joy and break out the champagne, because that's one less person that is competing for faculty positions, and I'm sure that somehow having a physics Ph.D. making pizzas will do something that will improve the social good. But if doing anything non-researchy is "giving up" then it's not a surprise when you have these Malthusian crises.

One cool thing about Ph.D.'s, is that I really don't think that there is a labor surplus of physics Ph.D.'s. There is a huge surplus in academia, but if you think about it, the numbers are really tiny. We are talking about 1000 or so new people each year, and that is a minuscule insignificant fraction of the work force.

 

[twofish-quant]

I kind of know about those 'cause every time there's a budget cut, our tuition gets hiked. In-state tuition is about $5,000 a year, so judging by the numbers I'm finding for subsidies they're still not a cash cow.

Calculate the amount of money that the department has to spend to put on the course. How much does it cost them to hire the professors and the TA's?

I think you'll find that they really are a cash cow.

University of Phoenix has taken this to it's logical conclusion, and they are making revenues that are totally frightening.

I thought it was the other way around: inflation and less weeding 'cause they want to keep you around to keep paying tuition, no inflation/more weeding 'cause they don't care if you drop out.

The problem is that upper division courses are more labor intensive than lower division ones so the optimal strategy is to fill up lower division courses with people, and then get rid of them before they get to the upper division ones which are less profitable. Upper division courses are a lot smaller, which means that the return on student is less.

Private universities have a different set of incentives. Private universities don't want people to drop out because the big, big money is in alumni donations. Undergraduate becomes big-shot CEO, big-shot CEO donates several million into the endowment. So what private universities look for are for undergraduates that are likely to make it into the power elite and send back massive amounts of money later.

 

[story645]

How much does it cost them to hire the professors and the TA's?

About 20-30 students if the students are each taking 4/5 courses, but there's still all sorts of other overhead, like staff (janitors and the like), supplies, maintenance, equipment, etc. I get that they're making a profit and all, and hell I'm a vastly underpaid tutor (going rate outside academia is up to 5 times what I make), but I'm not quite ready to write it all off as a scam.

The problem is that upper division courses are more labor intensive than lower division ones so the optimal strategy is to fill up lower division courses with people.

You're kind of ignoring that most colleges have 18 year old kids who don't have the slightest clue about what they want to do for the next four years, so lots of lower division courses also let them flit around a bit until they settle on what they mostly like. Lower division courses (especially in math and sciences, but also sometimes in the liberal arts) are also far more likely to be core requirements and therefore taken by students from lots of different majors. By the time people hit upper division, they usually stop switching their major (regardless of if they like it or not) and courses don't carry over to different majors.

Upper division courses are a lot smaller, which means that the return on student is less.

Not in engineering. My school has made it an art form to not offer most electives and offer only about two sections of any given engineering courses, forcing upper level engineering courses to be maxed out and over tallied 'cause nobody wants to stay a semester for one more course.

 

[twofish-quant]

Teach at a community college or undergraduate only institution. Judging from lots of comments on this forum, the politics aren't quite as hideous at primarily teaching institutions as they are at research ones.

Politics can be pretty nasty anywhere in academia, and I've seen some nasty politics in community colleges. One reason politics tends to be nasty in academia is that it's really hard to quit. One thing that's paradoxically good about industry is that you know you are going to get laid off every few years or so, so if things get too nasty, you just leave. If you get fired from software company A, there are about 200 other software companies in the local area that may be nicer to work with. If you get fired from university A, it's not as if you can go across the university next door and get a job.

One other thing is that there is often no reason to cooperate. I've been in industry situations, where it is "I hate you, I know you hate me, but we have to get this product out the door or else we are both sunk." This doesn't happen very much in academia.

The problem with community colleges is that the jobs are there, but the teaching loads are heavy and the pay can be bad. Teaching colleges can be nice jobs, but you have to "re-brainwash" yourself. After spending a decade around research professors, it's hard not to feel a slight sting when you realize that you aren't going to be them.

 

[twofish-quant]

I'm not quite ready to write it all off as a scam.

It's not as if there is some evil genius cackling over the amount of money that they make. But institutions do respond to economic factors. Often the genius of a bureaucracy is to split up the roles so that no one has to take moral responsibility for what happens, but everyone somehow manages to get their paychecks in the end.

Also things like the heating and the janitors usually don't come from the department budget.

You're kind of ignoring that most colleges have 18 year old kids who don't have the slightest clue about what they want to do for the next four years, so lots of lower division courses also let them flit around a bit until they settle on what they mostly like.

This seems to be an awfully, awfully inefficient way of doing that. What I think would work better is if the university offered short "sampler courses". Take one month to find out what life would be like as an engineer. If you don't like it, after a week, just quit the course and no one will know, and you can try something else. The problem with that is that the funding system just blows apart.

Also where did we get this silly idea that the best place for an 18 year old kid that has no idea what to do is college? (That's somewhat of a rhetoric question. Since in 1965, the alternative to college was Vietnam.)

Lower division courses (especially in math and sciences, but also sometimes in the liberal arts) are also far more likely to be core requirements and therefore taken by students from lots of different majors.

You are assuming that the core requirements are something that are fixed from the skies, when in fact core requirements are not the only way of setting up an academic program. Personally, I think that it would be better to get rid of core requirements completely, replace them with a test to see that you've mastered a certain skill, and if you have then no one cares where you have gotten that skill. Educationally it makes sense, but the problem is that it wreaks havoc with funding systems.

By the time people hit upper division, they usually stop switching their major (regardless of if they like it or not) and courses don't carry over to different majors.

Again, you have to ask yourself why people make those rules. One thing that you'll find is the the curriculum requirements are basically a treaty to split up funding and political power between the departments.

Not in engineering. My school has made it an art form to not offer most electives and offer only about two sections of any given engineering courses, forcing upper level engineering courses to be maxed out and over tallied 'cause nobody wants to stay a semester for one more course.

That's a sign that the department is losing money from the courses so they are looking for any excuse they can not to offer them.

 

[story645]

Also things like the heating and the janitors usually don't come from the department budget.

On the flip side, most of the tuition doesn't end up in the department budget.

What I think would work better is if the university offered short "sampler courses". Take one month to find out what life would be like as an engineer.

Well, in theory that's the point of intro courses. When I talk to freshies in computer engineering, I always tell 'em that if they can't hack CS102 or circuits, they'll hate the major. Most of 'em think it'll get better, and it does for some of them. Basically, I'm not sure most students can make a decision in a month, or want to.

Educationally it makes sense, but the problem is that it wreaks havoc with funding systems.

Well, the AP system sort of does this in some ways, as does the testing out system many schools have in place, but it can be rather wonky. I'm currently relearning the exact same material I learned in more depth in high school 'cause my school can't figure out how to evaluate the AP world history exam, and I got burned on calculus 'cause honors decided all incoming freshmen should be in the same section of Cal 2, whether we placed out or not. (But at least honors paid the tuition, and extra, for 4 years, so I can't complain too much.)

One thing that you'll find is the the curriculum requirements are basically a treaty to split up funding and political power between the departments.

I think writing and basic math are core competencies. I can half agree with you on the rest, but I think academic pride comes in a bit, the idea that all students need to know at least a bit of the humanities and sciences before they go down their own paths.

That's a sign that the department is losing money from the courses so they are looking for any excuse they can not to offer them.

I can buy that. Engineering has the most students, high drop rates but lots of upperclassmen for a number of reasons (lots of 2nd degree students and foreign students), and nobody wants to teach the courses.

 

[Andy Resnick]

<snip>

I'm not really sure what your point is. Clearly, you are/were not interested in pursuing a career in academia. My comments were directed at two people who both said "gee, the employment picture is a lot bleaker than I thought", not at you.

I am very consistent in telling people a career in academia is but one choice among many. And it is a choice- I chose to return to an academic setting from an industrial setting. I don't appreciate getting lumped in with east-coast establishment wankers.

I don't have to apologize for other people's bad behavior any more than you do- and you work for Wall Street, no?

 

[twofish-quant]

I'm not really sure what your point is.

I think my point is that something in academia is pretty seriously broken.

Clearly, you are/were not interested in pursuing a career in academia.

I've always been interested in being an academic. It's just at some point along the line, I figured out that academia may not have been the best place to be an academic. Personally, my interest is to get as many people involved into science and technology in ways that don't make me feel guilty in the long run. I think that there are too few scientists in the United States, and the question that I'm interested in is how you create an infrastructure that allows for scientific innovation.

Part of the reason that I got into investment banking was that after the root problem of everything seemed to be about money, I figured that it would be useful to study this money thing. Working on Wall Street is as much a part of my education as graduate school.

I don't have to apologize for other people's bad behavior any more than you do- and you work for Wall Street, no?

It's not a matter of apologizing, but rather an issue of fixing the problem. One thing that I have learned on Wall Street is that bad behavior by someone else can quickly create a situation that you have responsibility to fix or prevent. If it helps fix the problem, I'll apologize for anything and everything.

 

[elivil]

One cool thing about Ph.D.'s, is that I really don't think that there is a labor surplus of physics Ph.D.'s. There is a huge surplus in academia, but if you think about it, the numbers are really tiny. We are talking about 1000 or so new people each year, and that is a minuscule insignificant fraction of the work force.

twofish-quant, I've been reading your posts for some time, and you seem to genuinely believe that people with PhDs can find jobs outside academia and you want more people to do their PhDs. Have you ever encountered the problem of overqualification? Some employers simply will not hire PhDs as they are overqualified and excessively specialized. Do you think that's a problem?

(And I know that many Wall Street banks hire physics PhDs for quant positions but if one does not want to work in a bank?)

 

[twofish-quant]

Have you ever encountered the problem of overqualification? Some employers simply will not hire PhDs as they are overqualified and excessively specialized. Do you think that's a problem?

Absolutely. To some extent you can fix the problem with marketing. One thing that newbie job seekers have to realize is that your resume is not your autobiography, but rather a short commercial jingle or movie trailer. My Ph.D. is one of the more important things in my identity, but it may not be the most important criteria that the employer is looking for, in which case it goes into the section next to "hobbies."

Also sometimes, you will find an employer that just has preconceived notions and will not hire you. If they won't hire you, then move on to the next person. One thing about industry is that a lot of habits in academia are counterproductive. In academia, jobs are so rare, that a NO is a big deal. In industry, there are enough fish in the ocean, so if you get a NO, then you just throw the hook back into the ocean.

(And I know that many Wall Street banks hire physics PhDs for quant positions but if one does not want to work in a bank?)

Banking is the third industry that I've worked in, and I'm pretty sure that in about ten years, I'll be working in some other industry. One skill that I've been able to use is that I have programming skills, which are generally useful across a number of industries.

One thing that oddly helped me get a job in finance is that I really don't care that much about finance. I was interested in a well-paying job in which I get to learn new stuff, and which I get to do geekish things without being forced to always be a geek. One thing that hurts people that go into finance is that they often focus on the glamour jobs, when most of the work involves things that aren't that glamourous. There is the financial equivalent of a tenured faculty string theorist position at Harvard, and there is also the financial equivalent of teaching basic algebra at a community college. What I'm doing is closer to the latter than the former.

Banking came along as the thing that was most interesting, but in my last job search, I came pretty close to working for airline logistics.

The one important thing is that the Ph.D. was useful, but I would have been dead in the water if I didn't have marketable programming skills. This is one reason I think it's important to think about both the Ph.D. curriculum and the messages faculty send. Once you get your Ph.D., it's difficult to get the "extra skill" that you need in the job market, but while you are getting the Ph.D. there is plenty of time to get a teaching certificate, take some journalism courses, learn how to run a website, read up on property management, or learn plumbing and basic electric wiring.

The basic problem with the way that the Ph.D. is structured now is that students are given a list of alternative careers, but if those careers are seen as "second best" choices then what tends to happen is that students will focus on getting a research position and then when they find out that they are among the 4 of 5 that aren't going to get a research position, the adjustment is traumatic, because there is no fall back. I think it would be better if departments just accepted that most students aren't going to be professors, and are tolerant if a student on day one of the Ph.D. program is also learning introductory plumbing on the side. This even goes to before the student sets foot on campus. Right now, I don't think that a Ph.D. application in which an applicant said that they have no intention of doing a post-doc after they their Ph.D. but instead plans to be a plumber or a community college/high school teacher is going to get a good review.

One thing I think that we really seriously need to think is the idea of an "academic as a career" since it's neither financially sustainable nor is it good for physics. I think society would be a lot better if you had plumbers with physics Ph.D.'s, journalists with physics Ph.D.'s, high school teachers with physics Ph.D.'s, and politicians with physics Ph.D.'s.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Interesting thread.

How do you see people with PhD in Economics or PhD in an Engineering working as quant? are they as capable as someone with a PhD in Physics from your point of view??

I ask because you insist everyone should get a PhD in Physics

 

[Mathnomalous]

And what role does the cost of textbooks play in the Economics of Colleges?

 

[twofish-quant]

On the flip side, most of the tuition doesn't end up in the department budget.

It depends on the state, but in most universities faculty are associated with a department and so the department has to pay for salaries out of those funds. Things that are general expenses come out of a physical plant budget.

Well, in theory that's the point of intro courses. When I talk to freshies in computer engineering, I always tell 'em that if they can't hack CS102 or circuits, they'll hate the major. Most of 'em think it'll get better, and it does for some of them. Basically, I'm not sure most students can make a decision in a month, or want to.

But surely there is a better way of doing things than the current system. What I'd like to try is to have people that sign up for a course take a battery of tests whose scores are not recorded. The student can then find out what holes in their knowledge they have, and fill them before they walk into the meatgrinder.

Maybe that will work, maybe it won't. But my point is that anything that is very different from the way that things are currently run, is going to fall apart once you run straight into the way that universities are funded. It would be nice if you run a test, and figure out that the student has trouble with spatial visualization, so you let them do some exercises on spatial visualization. The trouble is that you run into the question "so whose budget does it come out of?"

The way that universities work basically involve 19th century factory processes that are way, way out of sync with 21st century demands. To use a relevant example, universities can teach civil engineering, but how can they teach "things that you can do with a civil engineering degree if you graduate in a bad economy?" or "how do keep your job as an EE when everything is being outsourced to India?" These types of skills just don't fit into the standard course curriculum.

I'm currently relearning the exact same material I learned in more depth in high school 'cause my school can't figure out how to evaluate the AP world history exam, and I got burned on calculus 'cause honors decided all incoming freshmen should be in the same section of Cal 2, whether we placed out or not.

And the reason for this is that the school doesn't have either the financial or political incentive to fix these problems. The financial incentives work in favor of the school *not* fixing these issues, since if they made it easy to transfer credit, people would shop for the lowest bidder and you could no longer use lower division classes to fund other things.

One thing that I do think is going to hit colleges like a tsunami are the for-profits like University of Phoenix and DeVry. There are things that a brick and mortar college can do that UoP can't, but there are going to be some huge and likely painful restructuring before that will happen.

I think writing and basic math are core competencies. I can half agree with you on the rest, but I think academic pride comes in a bit, the idea that all students need to know at least a bit of the humanities and sciences before they go down their own paths.

I do think that people are forced to go to college a lot earlier than they should. Personally, I think that someone that can't put together their own curriculum and make intelligent decisions on what to learn and what not to learn probably isn't ready for college.

I don't think the current system is sustainable, but it's not necessarily the case what what replaces it will be better, and a lot of my thinking has been on how do deal with the changes that are about to happen. To give an example of what worries me, University of Phoenix has basically done is to take industrial service processes and apply them to undergraduate degrees, UoP produces degrees in pretty much the same way that McDonald's produces hamburgers. In some ways this is a good thing, McDonald's produces fast, efficient, food, and its even healthy if you know what to eat and what not to eat. But at the same time, it reduces academics to burger flippers, which isn't quite my image of a university.

 

[story645]

What I'd like to try is to have people that sign up for a course take a battery of tests whose scores are not recorded. The student can then find out what holes in their knowledge they have, and fill them before they walk into the meatgrinder.

Several of my EE professors have done that to scare us into reviewing old coursework, but I've never seen it really pan out 'cause students are generally lazy and over-confidant (my self included here.)

It would be nice if you run a test, and figure out that the student has trouble with spatial visualization, so you let them do some exercises on spatial visualization. The trouble is that you run into the question "so whose budget does it come out of?

Like I said previously, even if you can overcome the budget issue (my school has dozens of tutoring and support programs), that doesn't mean a student will actually do the exercises. For every student I get who comes repeatedly well in advance of due dates and patiently listens to explanations and asks questions and tries to absorb things, I get 5 who were told by their professors that they had to work on their papers with a tutor and still come in 3 hours before a paper is due.

I know it's silly to say that the system should be changed 'cause kids are irresponsible and need to be hand-held through coursework, which is pretty much the point of high school, but I do think any proposed reform has to have a realistic view of student behavior. I don't actually think it's a major loss to lose students who can't shape up, as that's what the system is set up to do anyway, but then I'm not sure there's much reform. If you switch to shorter intro classes, the rates on each class will probably just go up.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I think my point is that something in academia is pretty seriously broken.

<snip>

Are you implying there was a time when it was not?

 

[twofish-quant]

Are you implying there was a time when it was not?

No. There is no such thing as heaven on earth, and the responsibility of each generation is to fix the problems that the last set of fixes caused.

One way I like to think about it is that for the last 200,000 years people have been struggling to deal with the problems of starvation. Now we have solved this problem in the industrialized world, and we have problems of *overabundance*. Diabetes, heart disease, obesity. In some ways its progress that the major health problem in the US is obesity rather than malnutrition, but it's still a problem.

Similarly, people had to move heaven and Earth to create the system of research universities that we have in the United States today, and then we have this problem that it's massively successful at doing that, now what?

Also the problem that I think academia has today is basically the same problem that intellectuals have been struggling with for the last 2500 years. Basically, the problem is that it's all nice to talk art and philosophy, but in the end someone has to plow the fields, and grade freshman papers. The solution that Plato came up with is to have philosopher-kings run everything and lie to everyone else about why they are in charge. The trouble is that this run counter to democratic and egalitarian ideals, and you have the problem when people that have been trained to be a philosopher-king finds that there just aren't enough slots.

 

[vici10]

If the problem is of *overabundance* as two-fish quant says then it is not that difficult to fix.
Reduce amount of work to the necessary amount without much *overabundance* and share
that amount of work equally between everyone. In remaining free time do philosophy, theoretical physics etc. Unfortunately, present economic system will have to be changed
drastically. Many people in privileged positions and power will fight strongly against it.

 

[Andy Resnick]

No. There is no such thing as heaven on earth, and the responsibility of each generation is to fix the problems that the last set of fixes caused.

One way I like to think about it is that for the last 200,000 years people have been struggling to deal with the problems of starvation. Now we have solved this problem in the industrialized world, and we have problems of *overabundance*. Diabetes, heart disease, obesity. In some ways its progress that the major health problem in the US is obesity rather than malnutrition, but it's still a problem.

Similarly, people had to move heaven and Earth to create the system of research universities that we have in the United States today, and then we have this problem that it's massively successful at doing that, now what?

Also the problem that I think academia has today is basically the same problem that intellectuals have been struggling with for the last 2500 years. Basically, the problem is that it's all nice to talk art and philosophy, but in the end someone has to plow the fields, and grade freshman papers. The solution that Plato came up with is to have philosopher-kings run everything and lie to everyone else about why they are in charge. The trouble is that this run counter to democratic and egalitarian ideals, and you have the problem when people that have been trained to be a philosopher-king finds that there just aren't enough slots.

The modern research university is not an american creation- it is the most recent incarnation of the german universities, which has an origin of approximately 1650. This in direct contrast to the cambridge/oxford model, which can now be found in undergraduate institutions. But your point is well taken.

The "platonic problem" you mention above presents a false premise- that everyone has equal claim to any job. You are right- there are not enough positions for everyone who aspires to have a lab staffed with 20 workers, or even enough for everyone who likes to play on supercomputers. There's also not enough slots for everyone who aspires to play professional football- yet we do not insist that the system accommodate everyone who wants to play for the Cleveland Browns (go browns!).

One more thing- the training of a scientist is that of a guild system. I doubt anyone would complain about the plight of a poor overworked, underappreciated apprentice plumber. Similarly, apprentice physicians are incredibly overworked- much more so than graduate students, and despite real dangers, the training system has not seen fit to make any substantive changes. The 'problem' with academia is far broader than science.

 

[Sankaku]

...and you have the problem when people that have been trained to be a philosopher-king finds that there just aren't enough slots.

Man, this line just cracked me up!

I think the problem isn't that there are limited slots for any field (physics, football, etc.) but that the other options for people who have specialist training are so few. While I don't think that there is anything wrong with a PhD plumber, I think our society (and academic system) should figure out some better use for the excess brains it produces each year.

The view that any job outside of academia is a sign of failure is part of the problem, as twofish says. While there are unique problems in any field, MDs, engineers and MBAs don't have the stigma against moving out into the real word.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Man, this line just cracked me up!
<snip>

The view that any job outside of academia is a sign of failure is part of the problem, as twofish says. While there are unique problems in any field, MDs, engineers and MBAs don't have the stigma against moving out into the real word.

Excuse me, but can you provide a single posting from anyone, anywhere in PF, that claims a job outside of academia is a failure? You are using a straw man argument.

 

[twofish-quant]

Excuse me, but can you provide a single posting from anyone, anywhere in PF, that claims a job outside of academia is a failure? You are using a straw man argument.

I don't think it's a straw man at all. First of all people in physics forums come much, much different and more diverse set of backgrounds than people in Ph.D. departments.

No one explicitly says it, but I do get a sense that taking a position outside of academia is considered a failure. Let me give you an example. Suppose someone had a Harvard post-doc offer, but also an offer to teach high school, there is social pressure to take the Harvard post-doc. Also one that that I do notice is that in the departments that I've been familiar with, people that do certain things get more money, status, power than people that do other things. People that do big telescopes get nicer offices than people that do science education.

Now you can reject this sort of social pressure or implied messaging, but it's somewhat difficult to do, and I don't think that its accurate to deny that it exists. I'll believe that this social pressure doesn't exist, when people routinely reject tenure track faculty positions at major research universities to teach community college.

 

[twofish-quant]

How do you see people with PhD in Economics or PhD in an Engineering working as quant? are they as capable as someone with a PhD in Physics from your point of view??

There are people in highly numerical engineering fields that do quantitative finance work. People with Ph.D.'s in economics generally don't, because they don't have the necessary training and background to babysit big machines.

I ask because you insist everyone should get a PhD in Physics

I don't insist. If have an eight (or eighteen) year old ask me what to do, I will tell him how fun and rewarding getting a Ph.D. in physics is. It's a seriously bad thing if I'm the only person that the person talks to. He or she really ought to talk to an economist, lawyer, priest, police officer, civil engineer, and everyone else they can find to see what those people do .

 

[twofish-quant]

The modern research university is not an american creation- it is the most recent incarnation of the german universities, which has an origin of approximately 1650. This in direct contrast to the cambridge/oxford model, which can now be found in undergraduate institutions. But your point is well taken.

There are some aspects of the American research university that *are* very unique. Just to name a few you have very close relationships between business, military, and academics in the US that you didn't have in Germany, it's now pretty standard for people to expect to go to college and get a bachelors and that didn't happen until after World War II.

The big difference between the US and universities in other places, is that the US has this very, very strong tradition of anti-intellectualism, and part of the goal of the American university is to reduce class differences, whereas in most countries universities are intended quite explicitly to reinforce class differences. One way that US universities do this is that they are a mechanism by which immigrants can find a huge amount of social mobility.

The "platonic problem" you mention above presents a false premise- that everyone has equal claim to any job.

The problem is that the notion that everyone has a claim to any job (i.e. you can be whatever you want to be) is pretty engrained in the American view of looking at the world. If it was clear to people that their kids have absolutely zero chance of making it to the top of American society, then the way that the US organizes its society would have to be very, very different.

Now it could be that societies must consist of nobles and serfs, but it's something that deep down, I can't accept, and I don't think that most Americans would be willing to accept.

You are right- there are not enough positions for everyone who aspires to have a lab staffed with 20 workers, or even enough for everyone who likes to play on supercomputers.

Not true. You can play on a supercomputer if you are willing to spend $1000.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla_computing_solutions.html

There's also not enough slots for everyone who aspires to play professional football- yet we do not insist that the system accommodate everyone who wants to play for the Cleveland Browns (go browns!).

The trouble is that societies that consist of nobles and serfs tend to be extremely unstable, and even if you make them stable, they tend to be *REALLY* unpleasant to life on.

What you *can* have is a society in which there are a few people at the top, a few people at the bottom, and most people end up somewhere in the middle. This isn't the way that professional sports works, which means that I think it's a really bad idea if we use professional sports as a guide to organize American society or academia.

What really, really worries me is that the educational system is such a central part of American society that if you have a noble-serf relationship in academia, it will spill over into American society and that would be really bad for the United States. One thing that I really don't see in academia is something like a "middle class", and I'm very, very worried that the "middle class" is something that is disappearing in the United States, and I think that one big reason the "middle class" seems to be disappearing in the US, is that there is nothing that I can point to that corresponds to the "middle class" in academia. You either win or lose.

One thing that I'm trying to think about is how to go about creating an "academic middle class".

One more thing- the training of a scientist is that of a guild system. I doubt anyone would complain about the plight of a poor overworked, underappreciated apprentice plumber. Similarly, apprentice physicians are incredibly overworked- much more so than graduate students, and despite real dangers, the training system has not seen fit to make any substantive changes.

I've had the privileges of having some wonderful parents and teachers that have taught me some pretty dangerous and subversive things. Some of the things that I've been taught which are dangerous and subversive is that 1) just because everyone does it doesn't make it right 2) just because no one else complains about something doesn't mean that you shouldn't and 3) just because things have always been this way doesn't mean that they can't change or that they shouldn't change.

If you look at these ideas, and think about what they mean, they really are very, very dangerous and subversive ideas. You have a lot of places where people are taught from birth to *OBEY* and to not ask questions and try to change things because it's not their place to change things. In a lot of cases, someone gets fed up, does decide to change things, gets themselves in serious, serious trouble, and eventually ends up on a boat or plane headed for the United States, where they fill their kids and their students with crazy, dangerous, subversive ideas.

The 'problem' with academia is far broader than science.

Oh yes, and that's what scares the living daylights out of me. The United States is one giant human experiment and after two hundred and some odd years, it's still not clear whether the "American dream" is possible.

Academics are supposed to be the world's smartest people, and if academics can't structure a university so that it has a decent social and power structure, then what hope is there for society as a whole. Conversely, if people outside the university *can* come up with a better social and power structure than people within universities, then what is the point of the university.

 

[blackfedora]

Interesting thread, I came to college uninterested in math because I didn't think I was 1 of the .01% who could make it as a researcher. I still don't think I'm in the top .01% but I'd still like to pursue a math PhD. The only problem is that I don't know what to do with it other than becoming a professor. I care as much about teaching as I do research, but I know from watching my father that teaching high school or community college can really drain your soul.

I'm convinced society requires serfs and nobles, but I don't see any reason the serfs can't live a little better. Also, I don't think sending PhD's into other fields is the optimal solution. If this were some civilization god game where I could mess with the parameters, I'd set caps on how much any individual could possess, and then redistribute the excess in two ways:

1) raise the standard of living for serfs. There's nothing wrong with being a serf other than the social stigma and quality of life. I'm not sure if raising quality of life will really remove social stigma though.

2) invest extra capital into more national labs. Let the researchers research. research produces insights that increase overall productivity, which drives the amount of required labor lower, and allows you to further cut the amount of work serfs need to do to support the system.

I suppose I should add that serfs should be required to work if they can, just limit the amount of work into even shifts. People get pissed at welfare because they work 2 jobs and watch as their tax money goes to the unemployed. If we reorganized so companies didn't work people 8 hours a day without paying them enough to support a family on I don't think we'd have the job crisis that we do. As I think about it profit sharing a long with a cap on executive salaries might achieve this goal.

Note: the above is all me thinking about this as if I playing a video game. I know full well that nothing short of a complete reboot of human civilization would bring about these changes.

 

[Andy Resnick]

<snip>
No one explicitly says it, but I do get a sense that taking a position outside of academia is considered a failure.
<snip>

Also one that that I do notice is that in the departments that I've been familiar with, people that do certain things get more money, status, power than people that do other things.
<snip>

I'll believe that this social pressure doesn't exist, when people routinely reject tenure track faculty positions at major research universities to teach community college.

So to summarize, you can't identify a credible person who agrees with the statement " not getting an academic position means you are a failure", you notice that some people are more successful than others, and you think a faculty appointment at a community college is comparable with a faculty appointment at a major research university.

My response is that it's not 'society' that's out of whack, it's your worldview that needs an adjustment.

 

[Andy Resnick]

There are some aspects of the American research university that *are* very unique. Just to name a few you have very close relationships between business, military, and academics in the US that you didn't have in Germany, it's now pretty standard for people to expect to go to college and get a bachelors and that didn't happen until after World War II.

I suggest you read the historical record more carefully. Physics/Engineering/Mathematics has been in bed with the military since forever- or is projectile motion only an academic concern? It's true that more people go to college now than ever before, but that's also true of reading.

The problem is that the notion that everyone has a claim to any job (i.e. you can be whatever you want to be) is pretty engrained in the American view of looking at the world. If it was clear to people that their kids have absolutely zero chance of making it to the top of American society, then the way that the US organizes its society would have to be very, very different.

I don't think that point of view is ingrained at all- I think most people want *opportunity*, and adults don't equate opportunity with success. Children do. Conversely, people do not have an 'absolutely zero' chance at achieving success- that's a trivially false statement. What the US has better than other countries is the lack of a ruling class that perpetuates itself- even though vestiges of privilege continue in, for example, 'legacy admission' to college.

Not true. You can play on a supercomputer if you are willing to spend $1000.

Ugh. That's not the point. The point is, who is going to pay *me* to play on a computer? Why would someone pay *me* to do anything? I cannot demand someone pay me a salary to do what *I* want- that's obvious.

One thing that I'm trying to think about is how to go about creating an "academic middle class".

This is interesting-please tell me more.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't think that point of view is ingrained at all- I think most people want *opportunity*, and adults don't equate opportunity with success.

At some point the bills come due, if you have lots of opportunity but very little success at the end, in the end the social system because very unstable.

What the US has better than other countries is the lack of a ruling class that perpetuates itself- even though vestiges of privilege continue in, for example, 'legacy admission' to college.

Not true. The US does have a self-perpetuating ruling class. I don't think it's possible to run a society without a ruling class.

It's not a class that is based on birth, but what happens is that people in the ruling class "adopt" people from outside the ruling class, and the fact that things aren't closed off increases social stability. The other thing is that the ruling class in the US to a very large extent interactions and takes direction from the middle class.

Ugh. That's not the point. The point is, who is going to pay *me* to play on a computer?

Well once you have $1000 supercomputers, then someone is going to figure out a way of taking $1000 supercomputers and generating new wealth. If that happens, there are a bunch of jobs available.

Why would someone pay *me* to do anything? I cannot demand someone pay me a salary to do what *I* want- that's obvious.

But if you understand how the game works, then you figure out ways of getting some money out of it. The key is to generate new wealth, and this is where technology and physics comes in, because physics and technology is able to generate new wealth.

There is the age old problem of figuring out who is going to work the fields so that people can talk art and philosophy, and the solution is to have machines work the fields. One you start *generating* wealth, then getting some small fraction of the new wealth generated isn't that much of a problem.

As far as creating an academic middle class. University of Phoenix has done something quite interesting is the way that they handle adjuncts. The thing here is to just tell people the odds are that you are not going to make any money in academia so don't try being an academic as a career. You make some extra money on the side, but your main job is keep the robots that work the fields working.

 

[twofish-quant]

So to summarize, you can't identify a credible person who agrees with the statement " not getting an academic position means you are a failure"

Oh. I have find lots of people that agrees with that statement. I can't find too many people that will say it explicitly, but it's one of those things in which actions speak louder than words.

As far as the names of people that really think that "not getting into academia is a failure." You can probably start with my father. He had to drop out of graduate school before getting a Ph.D. and ended up teaching community college. One thing that I didn't realize until years and years after he died and I found a bunch of old notebooks was how *brilliant* my father really was.

Then you can probably look at a lot of my teachers from elementary school to high school. There was also a dean at MIT that had a *lot* of influence, and that I can give you the names of my dissertation advisor and committee, and the faculty of the university that I did my undergraduate and graduate work.

And then you have to ask where did *they* get their ideas from, and this goes into 19th century Chinese history. One short story that is really, really relevant here is "Lu Xun's" "White Light". Another piece of work that is useful here is "A cultural history of civil examinations in late imperial China" by Benjamin Elman.

But it is interesting how the people involved here dealt with failure. I had the fortune of having a set of extraordinary teachers since elementary schools. It's only years after they taught me, and in some cases years after they died that I was able to figure out something interesting. My parents and most of my teachers were probably quite angry and bitter people, but they dealt with their anger and bitterness by being extraordinary teachers. Looking at their biographies and thinking about what they taught me, I figured out that one unspoken message was "look, we'd really rather be doing something other than teaching high school, but since we are stuck here, what we are going to do is to mold you to do things that we can't."

Also, one thing that bureaucracies are pretty good at is "getting things done" without anyone having to take personal responsibility for the dirty work. Every try to get a bank statement fixed? You'll note that you are up against a system in which you can't identity a person that is personally responsible for the problem.

You notice that some people are more successful than others, and you think a faculty appointment at a community college is comparable with a faculty appointment at a major research university.

I notice that people define success in certain ways, and I think about whether those definitions make sense or not. One thing that seems pretty obvious to me is that there is much, much more social demand for lower division community college teachers than tenured faculty at major research universities, so if the incentives are such that tenured faculty at research universities are more "successful" then we have a problem.

My response is that it's not 'society' that's out of whack, it's your worldview that needs an adjustment.

Well, the way that I look at the world comes from my parents and teachers who filled my head with a lot of dangerous ideas from the time I was five. I can change, but honestly, I don't see much reason why I *should* change the way that I look at the world. If you don't like the way that I see the world, then your big problem is to convince people not to agree with my world view.

One thing that made my parents and teachers particularly dangerous people, is that they not only gave me the motivation to change the world, but also the mental tools to do that. The most dangerous thing I think they taught me was that if you don't like the way things are done, then change them.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't think that point of view is ingrained at all- I think most people want *opportunity*, and adults don't equate opportunity with success.

I don't think this is true at all. What I've noticed is that people are horrible at calculating odds, so if you tell someone that they have a 1 in 5 chance of being successful, they assume that because they are smarter/luckier they will win that chance. If people were good at thinking about odds, Las Vegas wouldn't exist.

The word that comes up with I think about opportunity without success is "Ponzi scheme."

This matters because when people find that their lottery tickets don't pay out, then they get very, very upset, and that sort of explains the mood of the country right now, where everyone seems angry.

The difference between adults and children is that adults have larger degrees of emotional self-control, and can hide and displace their emotions in ways that children can't. Looking back at history, I'm pretty sure that my parents and most of my teachers were angry, bitter people that were upset at what happened to them. But you can deal with anger and bitterness positively or you can deal with it negatively.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I seem to have touched a nerve... I admit that was my intention.

I can't speak to people who have given you bad advice in the past- I asked for PF posts specifically, because that *is* something I can address. I'm sure you'll agree the attitude here is much more enlightened than what you were exposed to. Personally, I was never made to feel like a failure by not meeting someone else's expectations- like I have said, I have been fortunate to have had good mentoring.

I'm a bit disappointed by your idea about an academic 'middle class'. The University of Phoenix is only the most visible 'distance learning' institution, not the only one. I've taught a few distance learning classes and I agree, it's an intriguing concept. The military has been interested in that for decades as a way to provide continuing education to members of the Navy, who are often stationed at sea for long periods of time.

However, you seem to describe something geared towards the *supply* side- adjunct faculty- rather than the *demand* side- the client (I dislike using that term, but whatever). There is a large demand for access to high-quality education, a demand much too large to be satisfied by elite schools that can only admit a few hundred students per year. My experience with distance learning is that it is very suitable for some subjects, but not for others, so it's not really a viable solution either.

Here's where public universities can really make a difference. First, tuition is significantly lower. Second, I don't have to pay my own salary- this means I can spend more time on students and their educational experience, because I don't have to submit multiple grant applications a year. Also, I have less stress. A *lot* less stress. If a student approaches me to work in my lab, I don't care if I get publishable data- that's not my goal. My goal is to teach the student. I am able to focus on helping the student reach their own goal- become more employable, go to grad school, whatever- it makes no difference to me. And if no students come around, that's fine too- my research progress does not depend on having lackeys do the grunt work.

All in all, I want to commend you for advocating non-academic career options to other posters. And I also agree with you that more people with advanced technical degrees is a good thing for society. Have you given any seminars/colloquia at physics departments lately? I suspect the students would really love hearing from you- you are offering them another option.

 

[twofish-quant]

Personally, I was never made to feel like a failure by not meeting someone else's expectations- like I have said, I have been fortunate to have had good mentoring.

The philosophy of the people that have had the most impact in my life was that if you aren't failing you aren't trying hard enough. The other point is that the important thing is not other people's expectations but rather my own. Ultimately, I can reject the ideas that people taught me, but at least on this, I've chosen not to.

One thing that was good about my upbringing is that I didn't get trapped in the "cult of success." The problem with the "cult of success" is that eventually, you will fail. You will fail because you are unlucky, you did something stupid, or for a thousand other reasons. The important thing is at that point is how you deal with failure.

The University of Phoenix is only the most visible 'distance learning' institution, not the only one.

I bring up UoP because it's viable and because I've taught there and I've seen it from the inside. Over the last decade there have been a lot of initiative in distance education, and a lot of them have blown up in big ways. One persistent problem is that universities have often seen distance education as ways of saving money, which causes some big, big problems once one realizes what the capital costs are.

However, you seem to describe something geared towards the *supply* side- adjunct faculty- rather than the *demand* side- the client (I dislike using that term, but whatever). There is a large demand for access to high-quality education, a demand much too large to be satisfied by elite schools that can only admit a few hundred students per year. My experience with distance learning is that it is very suitable for some subjects, but not for others, so it's not really a viable solution either.

I don't think that there are any magic bullet solutions. But one thing about new technologies is that they impact that you have is very limited if you just try to fit the technology into an old social structure. It takes a lot of trial and error to come up with ways of really using the new technology.

Just to give an example. UoP has close to 500,000 students with over 200 learning centers. One thing that distance learning schools can do that brick and mortar universities can't do easily is to scale up and down. If UoP gets an extra 100,000 students next year, it can handle them, because the education process is an assembly line in which you can add or remove capacity quickly.

Another example, UoP has a different academic calendar. Instead of taking four courses for three months, you are full time learning one course each month. This is really useful because it means that you can drop in and out of the program depending on your schedule.

Now there are things that you can do with brick and mortar university that you can't online, but most universities aren't doing them. One interesting thing is that you end up with *more* human contact at UoP than you get at most traditional universities. The whole learning concept is based on interactive discussions, so you are always on your toes answering e-mail.

Something that at MIT and UoP the basic learning process is very similar. Ultimately, the students don't learn too many things from the teacher, the students learn things by discussing a topic with other students. UoP and MIT both create fairly strong communities among students. One thing that I do find interesting is that UoP doesn't form particularly strong communities among teachers.

First, tuition is significantly lower. Second, I don't have to pay my own salary- this means I can spend more time on students and their educational experience, because I don't have to submit multiple grant applications a year. Also, I have less stress. A *lot* less stress.

A lot depends on the particular state. Where you have situations in which you have an electorate and state legislature that cares enough to keep the public universities funded and where you have good administrators, things will work well. But that's not the case in all universities.

The other interesting thing about UoP is that none of the adjuncts there worries about salary. If you haven't been gainfully employed for two years, UoP will not hire you. This let's UoP hire adjuncts at less than subsistence wages. One thing that I find fascinating about UoP is that they only spend 10% of their revenue on instruction. About 30% of their revenue goes into marketing, and they have a net return of something like 40%.

And I also agree with you that more people with advanced technical degrees is a good thing for society. Have you given any seminars/colloquia at physics departments lately?

If I wanted to give a colloquium or seminar I'd do it on YouTube. One big issue is something that I call "identity management". Basically by posting text, I can separate my identity as a academic rabble rouser from my other identities. If I start give video colloquiums, it's a lot harder to do that.