What is so bad about the post-doc lifestyle anyway?

[jesse73]

You could become an adjunct but those will likely get more competitive because the trend is toward a smaller amount of tenure track positions therefore these people will end up as adjuncts.

 

[-Dragoon-]

You could become an adjunct but those will likely get more competitive because the trend is toward a smaller amount of tenure track positions therefore these people will end up as adjuncts.

That's a secondary thought. You've still not answered the main pressing question: what happens to the vast majority of PhD's who were simply not offered a position after doing a few post-docs? As it has been established, no one can continue doing post-docs. So, what is the end result?

 

[DrewD]

But, my main question now is: what happens to the vast majority of PhDs, then?

Industry or finance. Even with just a BS in math/physics I saw tons of posts for jobs looking for specific skill OR a math/physic degree and they would teach the business skills.

On the surface, the obvious implication is that most are forced out of academia and that there isn't even any interest in paying them minimum wage to work 60 hours a week to produce good research.

If they do good research they become professors. New young researchers bring fresh ideas. Maybe in experimental research age isn't as big of an issue because there are hard skills to be learned about specific machines. I don't know much about that.

Hence, are most of them just forced to give up and completely retrain in another career? In that case, wouldn't it be more valid to compare academic physics to the entertainment industry (where even those that are comfortably above average languish) rather than other STEM careers where the average graduate is rewarded with a full-time position?

Most other STEM careers are also not in academia. Also, making $150,000 at a bank without needing any more schooling* is a lot different than being an unemployed actor/musician. Otherwise, sure.

Also, where do adjuncts fit in this picture? My school has a few adjuncts, and I've seen them publishing a few recent papers with the tenured faculty.

Adjunct is probably closer to the idea you have of permanent post-doc. But that is more competitive.

*one of my professors did this for a while when he thought he had no chance of becoming a professor. He was hired with no need for more training to work on wallstreet. He was a decent programmer and understands stochastic processes well. He still gets a check from his investments every quarter. Not the life I would choose, but this would be considered successful by most accounts.

 

[Physics_UG]

That's a secondary thought. You've still not answered the main pressing question: what happens to the vast majority of PhD's who were simply not offered a position after doing a few post-docs? As it has been established, no one can continue doing post-docs. So, what is the end result?

if you can't get a tenure track gig you see about getting promoted to a non-tenure track research position that is above a postdoc and below a tenure track PI. Or you can develop some skills that are useful to industry and go work there.

 

[Physics_UG]

They are as competitive. I am sure there are people who left after postdocs who would of had no qualms taking any research position if they could even if it just makes postdoc money but is permanent.

Junior faculty gets paid around as much as postdoc so it cost the university approximately the same to have someone who will teach students as someone who will not. Which do you think the university prefers to have and therefore create more of that position for?

Pay structure varies wildly depending on university and even depending on department within the university.

Also, the primary PI on a project is usually a tenure track or tenured prof. And I wouldn't call a research prof position permanent in the same sense as a tenured prof.

 

[ModusPwnd]

what happens to the vast majority of PhDs, then?

I think this has been addressed multiple times in this thread. They get a job somewhere else. In industry, in finance, in education, govt. labs, they do engineering or programming/modeling or they start a business. Sometimes they have to retrain a lot, sometimes they can utilize their preexisting skill set in non-science ways.

This may be an interesting read for you (Im surprised if you have not read it already);
http://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/employment/phdinitemp-p-10.pdf

 

[-Dragoon-]

Industry or finance. Even with just a BS in math/physics I saw tons of posts for jobs looking for specific skill OR a math/physic degree and they would teach the business skills.

This contradicts a lot of the information I've read on here and other places. From what I have gathered, industry is only interested in those who specialized in condensed matter experiment. They have no interest in people who specialize theory or numerical/computational regardless of the discipline, and those in high energy and astrophysics experiment seem to do pretty bad as far industry job is concerned. As for finance, I'm pretty sure they only want the people who graduated from top schools and would have been given a tenure-track position anyway seeing as that is an industry that is obsessed with academic pedigree. I have a hard time believing that the rejects of academia who graduated from a mid-tier research institution would have as many job prospects in finance as some people seem to be suggesting on here.

But even then, I have no interest in doing either and would rather work as a ditch-digger who knows a thing or two about advanced physics but would never need to use it. For some reason, that appeals to me. As long as I know the vast majority of PhDs are forced out of academia, it doesn't seem like as bad as a deal as I initially thought.

Adjunct is probably closer to the idea you have of permanent post-doc. But that is more competitive.

How much more competitive is it, though? Really, if they pay the same amount as a post-doc position and with so many PhD's scoffing at the idea of being a permanent post-doc even if they were given the opportunity, I can't imagine it is that much more competitive.

Still, I'm definitely not counting on it and if I ever get to the point where I find myself applying for post-docs, I'll like do a few just to pay off my student loans and only to eventually be squeezed out of academia and leave STEM entirely. Again, as long as this is the status quo for the majority, I have no problem with this.

 

[ParticleGrl]

Adjunct is probably closer to the idea you have of permanent post-doc. But that is more competitive.

This is not true. Adjunct positions are very easy to get, but they pay poorly and at many schools you have little-to-no interaction with the main department. You are a contract worker brought into teach one class at maybe $500 a credit hour. Its very hard to make a living wage as an adjunct.

You might be thinking of lecturer positions, but those are usually temporary as well (the local liberal arts college hired a lecturer for one year while their only full time professor was on sabbatical,etc).

From what I have gathered, industry is only interested in those who specialized in condensed matter experiment.

Industry is being used in the "anything not academia" sense. Most physics phds don't find work in (say) engineering fields.

From my phd cohort, I know two lawyers, an actuary, several software engineers,a youth minister a nurse, several people in finance, several people in insurance,an owner of a bar-and-grill near campus, and some big-data/stats people. I originally did data work for an insurance company, and now I work for a big-data consulting company. Most of those people agree that nearly nothing they learned while doing their phd has helped them, the exception being the finance people.

As for finance, I'm pretty sure they only want the people who graduated from top schools and would have been given a tenure-track position anyway seeing as that is an industry that is obsessed with academic pedigree.

Not at all true- finance wants numerical programmers and it will take them where they can get them. For sales type jobs, having impressive credentials might help, but you won't be looking for a sales job. That doesn't mean they'll hand you the job- you'll have to teach yourself enough finance to interview successfully.

There is currently a shortage of statisticians/machine learning people, so its an easy job to bounce into, if you are willing to train yourself a bit.

Again, as long as this is the status quo for the majority, I have no problem with this.

This is a strange mentality. "I don't really care what happens to me, as long as the same thing happens to everyone else?"

 

[Physics_UG]

Instead of adjunct I think DrewD means a university research scientist or research prof position. These are non-tenure track positions but can be long term.

 

[jesse73]

That's a secondary thought. You've still not answered the main pressing question: what happens to the vast majority of PhD's who were simply not offered a position after doing a few post-docs? As it has been established, no one can continue doing post-docs. So, what is the end result?

Do something else like others have mentioned. It is similar to how getting a phd in music doesn't guarantee you a job in the music industry.

 

[ParticleGrl]

Instead of adjunct I think DrewD means a university research scientist or research prof position. These are non-tenure track positions but can be long term.

As has been previously pointed out, those positions are fairly rare, and hard to come by. Most departments I am familiar with have more faculty than staff scientists.

 

[jesse73]

Pay structure varies wildly depending on university and even depending on department within the university.

Also, the primary PI on a project is usually a tenure track or tenured prof. And I wouldn't call a research prof position permanent in the same sense as a tenured prof.

Research staff positions is permanent because they are not for a predefined set of time this is what is meant as permanent in job listings. No jobs really means permanent in the very literal sense even tenured profs move around.

 

[Physics_UG]

Research staff positions is permanent because they are not for a predefined set of time this is what is meant as permanent in job listings. No jobs really means permanent in the very literal sense even tenured profs move around.

Yes, but tenured professors are more permanent than research faculty, for sure. Tenured profs are much harder to terminate than research faculty. Also, I believe many (if not all) research faculty members are funded by the PI's grant.

 

[Physics_UG]

This wikipedia article shows the common ranking of academic staff in case you are not from the US. The "level of permanence " is similarly ranked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_ranks_(United_States)

 

[DrewD]

This is not true. Adjunct positions are very easy to get, but they pay poorly and at many schools you have little-to-no interaction with the main department. You are a contract worker brought into teach one class at maybe $500 a credit hour. Its very hard to make a living wage as an adjunct.

You might be thinking of lecturer positions, but those are usually temporary as well (the local liberal arts college hired a lecturer for one year while their only full time professor was on sabbatical,etc).

At my school a lot of the staff (more math than physics) was semi-permanent adjunct professors. I just assumed that was normal. They were paid 25k to 45k and had a yearly contract, but most stayed on and had other sources of income.

 

[Chronos]

Getting a secure job in science is like becoming a movie star. You need perseverance, luck and the right opportunity. Almost any Phd has the skill sets.

 

[StatGuy2000]

Industry is being used in the "anything not academia" sense. Most physics phds don't find work in (say) engineering fields.

From my phd cohort, I know two lawyers, an actuary, several software engineers,a youth minister a nurse, several people in finance, several people in insurance,an owner of a bar-and-grill near campus, and some big-data/stats people. I originally did data work for an insurance company, and now I work for a big-data consulting company. Most of those people agree that nearly nothing they learned while doing their phd has helped them, the exception being the finance people.



Not at all true- finance wants numerical programmers and it will take them where they can get them. For sales type jobs, having impressive credentials might help, but you won't be looking for a sales job. That doesn't mean they'll hand you the job- you'll have to teach yourself enough finance to interview successfully.

There is currently a shortage of statisticians/machine learning people, so its an easy job to bounce into, if you are willing to train yourself a bit.



This is a strange mentality. "I don't really care what happens to me, as long as the same thing happens to everyone else?"

ParticleGrl, just out of curiosity, do you know what area of law the two lawyers among your PhD cohort are involved with? I'm wondering if it may be in patent law or intellectual property law, since I've seen posts here on PF that those interested in those fields frequently have advanced science or engineering degrees.

 

[HepMan]

Except it isn't my anecdotal evidence against yours . It is more like my anecdotal evidence plus (official websites stating stanford and yales policies that show a limit on postdocs) against your anecdotal evidence. I would be interested in a site showing these postdocs (not research staff or research professors) which have 15 year CVs.

Depends on the country - Dragoon mentioned the UK and Canada. In the UK it is certainly becoming very common, especially in HEP, for "post-docs" to work in those jobs for 10,20 or even 30 years - partly because, in my opinion, if you become an academic the university is on the hook for your salary - as a postdoc they think they are not, and can just make you redundant if you don't bring in research money so its better for them money wise. Secondly many post-docs have very expert knowledge on some aspect of the experiment they work on and are in senior management positions within the experiment - so its not really in the interests of the collaboration to see them leave the field and they can also be used to supervise the phd students in the research group (often the academics don't have time, so this is really helpful). Its not really clear these types of jobs are the same as a traditional post-doc anymore, and perhaps they are a new career path that has emerged that is in-between post-doc and academic. However research fellowships mostly still have age limits, as in the US (except for those funding specifically particle physics which have removed the age limit). From what I know these types of long term postdocs don't really exist in any other research field in the UK, so it seems to be its related to the fact that e.g. the LHC experiments will run for another 20 years and expertise needs to be retained - and if academic jobs cannot be created, then some other job type needed to be.

In the US from what I know, this does not happen and the system is much more brutal for those who don't get a tenure-track job (although I know a few exceptions to this rule). One thing I noticed though is in a yearly cycle there are far more tenure-track jobs in the US than academic jobs in the UK. Perhaps this partly explains the difference?

 

[ParticleGrl]

One thing I noticed though is in a yearly cycle there are far more tenure-track jobs in the US than academic jobs in the UK. Perhaps this partly explains the difference?

If you scale it by the number of students graduated, the US and UK are pretty similar. All the hep experiment/theorists in my cohort have left physics for lack of a job. I get the anecdotal impression that the UK and Europe care a lot more about retaining the training investment, the US is happy to throw you out after your phd + a postdoc or two.