Why Do We Encourage Careers In Science?

[Erasmus00]

I'm not sure what thread exactly to put this in, so since my experiences are in physics, its here.

 

So, some background- I finished a phd in theoretical physics a few years back. After finishing, I applied to industry jobs, liberal arts college positions, etc. I couldn't land any sort of "real" job, so I took a postdoc at a prestigious university. After finishing the postdoc, I applied for jobs again. No bites on the academic front. My previous experience had taught me a bitter truth- no engineering company (at least in the US) will hire a theoretical physicist when there are plenty of engineers to fill positions. Why take the time training a physicist when you can hire an engineer ready to go day one? Still, I tried again and again. Highschool's won't touch me because they don't want to pay more for a phd who has no highschool teaching experience. For historical reasons, my research coding was mostly fortran 77, so my programming portfolio lacks object oriented code, so even trying to get a standard programming job has been difficult. After several months of unemployment, I recently landed an actuarial type job at an investment bank.

 

My career in physics lasted nearly 10 years, the last few as a postdoc. I never got a chance to direct my own research, I always worked for someone else. I'm 30 and I have never made more than the manager of a McDonald's despite holding a phd. In the job I just started, I will make roughly the average salary of a recent college graduate, and I use nothing of what I spent the last decade learning. Economically, I threw the last ten years down a hole. I drive a twenty year old car, I have no savings, I have only recently begun to pay down my undergraduate debt.

 

AND, THIS IS THE NORMAL OUTCOME FOR A PHYSICS PHD. My classmates who have graduated have nearly all left science. They are working for banks or insurance companies because technical companies won't hire them. I'd estimate that 1/10 got the coveted tenure track position, and another 1/10 got an industry job where they could do some science. The other 4/5 of us are working jobs we could have had after undergrad, at the same pay we could have had after undergrad.

 

And yet, I hear everyday that we have some scientist or engineering shortage in the US. If that were true, someone with my broad technical background should be able to step into one of any number of positions that companies are having trouble filling. This is not the reality. There is no scientist shortage, all the reports that say scientists will soon be retiring, etc are wrong- the retirement peak happened years ago. We train substantially more phds than jobs, and we have been since the 70s.

 

So why does this myth of a shortage get perpetuated? What does encouraging people to throw away what could be an otherwise productive decade of their lives accomplish?

 

Paradoxically, we not only train too many scientists, but also have a largely scientifically illiterate populace. Should we stop encouraging people to go into science? If we allow an actual shortage of scientists to develop, the rising salaries and more stable career path for scientists might raise not only their job prospects but also their social status. In a world where people are competing for the good science jobs (instead of the good business jobs), more people would have legitimate incentives to study science, and perhaps we'd have a more scientifically literate populace.

 

By encouraging students by misleading them about the career opportunities are we (counterproductively) creating a less scientifically-literate populace?

[CraigD]

Your tale, not the first such I’ve heard from PhD in many fields, still rather knocks the wind out of my sails, as I’m approaching retirement age, and the practical end of my window to a PhD of my own. Most PhDs to whom I express this long standing aspiration reply with words to the effect of “don’t bother.”

 

In operation here isn’t, I think, a myth of a shortage, but rather a related one of guaranteed success. I can explain what I mean best with a bit on anecdotal personal history:

My education is a paltry BS in Math from a small college best known for its music and fine arts programs (I went there for the fine arts, but discovered after a year that, while a competent sculptor and metalsmith, no amount of training could make me a tolerable painter, or better than a mediocre pencil and ink drawer), but the experience taught me a lesson in the difference between expectation and reality. In retrospect, I soon realized that I expected education in a field to make me a creative genius in it. Studying math, I expected, would set me on an inexorable career path of a Gauss, Galois, or Ramanujan, minus, I hoped, the tragic premature deaths of the latter two.

 

Of course, it didn’t. It made me into essentially who I’ve been since childhood – mostly a detail oriented lover of imaginative tales – with a working knowledge of math, general science, and technology. With a bit of luck, social and family connections, and enthusiasm, this was about right to herd me through a few years of teaching and technical consulting into a quarter century career in “information technology”, with the attendant pretty comfortable and happy life, with the occasional prideworthy accomplishment, and less flattery and praise than I want, but more than I deserve. The whole time, I’ve not really through or behaved much differently than I did organizing FRPGers and programming computers in the 1970s and early 80s. Rather, the Moore’s law-driven increase in available compute cycles and storage have tended to tempt me to greater laziness and cybernetic and mathematically stupidity.

It’s wrong, I think, to correlate my life and skills to strongly with yours, Eramus. I’m a well-read, minimally educated, middle-aged career code monkey. You’re a Doctor of Physics, with knowledge and skills I envy, and which, barring a miracle of science fiction-esque technology, I’ll likely never have.

 

Reflecting on your post as a whole, my advice, unqualified as it may be, is that you look again at a teaching career, even a poor-paying one for which you’re over-educated. Though my experience is limited to the schools where I’ve lived, I’ve known many people with recent BAs and MAs and formal Education class credits who went directly into teaching high school or small colleges (I’ve known a few who worked at private vo-tech schools and community colleges, all of whom quit soon and badly, so don’t recommend that). Not all, but some of them are happy and fulfilled in these careers, with a sense of, very infrequently, having a profound influence on a like-minded student. One such intersection is the subject of another personal anecdote:

My epiphany, the moment I feel I first “got” math, came when, at the age of 13, I tried to figure out how printed trig tables were calculated, and upon asking a teacher, got a short, simple, but completely appropriate explanation of infinite series and their use in calculating the basic trig functions. Though I can’t be certain, of course, I think this explanation changed my fundamental worldview and the direction of my life.

 

This teacher was a mere BA of Education, though better at math than 95% of the Education majors I’ve met (and, having spent 4 years tutoring and teaching math and physical science to a procession of education majors, though my impression’s anecdotal, my sample size is large). A PhD of Physics could, over a decade of teaching grade 7+ or undergraduate college, fill a room with smart young people with a passion for math and science.

These I believe, from long thought and deep intuitive musing: In endeavors physical and intellectual, quantity is important. An army of math/science hopefuls will be mostly a crop of mediocrities, but, inevitably as the laws statistics, contain a few brilliant exceptions – the majority of them non-geniuses with as few brilliant ideas. This scales. A larger army produces proportionately more brilliant ideas, and a greater probability of one or more geniuses. The reason science and technology has advanced so greatly in the past century is because greater numbers of people were educated sufficiently to make profound contributions. A byproduct of this amplification are increased numbers of disappointed mediocrities, and to appropriate the words and feeling of an old folksong, I know, I’m one.

 

A person could do worse for science and humanity in general than to steer students into the ranks of math/science hopefuls. Such a sensei is setting the majority of these hopefuls up for disappointment, but he’s also indirectly but certainly, amplifying science.

[Erasmus00]

as I’m approaching retirement age, and the practical end of my window to a PhD of my own. Most PhDs to whom I express this long standing aspiration reply with words to the effect of “don’t bother.”

 

Honestly, I'd say that retirement is a great time to get a phd. You've used your productive years to make some money, and have some retirement saving. A phd program would give you a chance to both teach and learn a subject you enjoy. A phd is a GREAT program IF you realize that its essentially a very low paid job in a subject you enjoy. If you don't need a job afterwords, and don't need money now, a phd is probably quite fun. It might be more work because of age/not fresh from undergrad, but who cares if it takes a decade instead of five years? Its just a way to spend some time in retirement. If all you need or want is knowledge a phd is great.

 

The problem is, most people who get a phd are young, and want to be able to support a family/have kids. A phd is NOT a good way to do that.

 

In operation here isn’t, I think, a myth of a shortage, but rather a related one of guaranteed success.

 

I disagree. I never expected guaranteed success, I expected a reasonable chance at a job if I performed well. I'm reasonably well published, I have attracted grants and a prestigious fellowship in my field. My undergrad and postdoc institutions are top 5 programs. My collaborators are well known in the field. By all indications, I'm a very good physics researcher. Unfortunately, there are probably a hundred very good physics researchers for every job in physics. There are so many very qualified people for every job that everyone sort of realizes that getting a full time science job is basically a lottery. A decade of hard work buys you a ticket, but you've still only got a 1/5 shot at landing anything.

 

The frustrating thing for me is that there are industry jobs I could do quite well. I could do thermodynamic calculations or finite-element analysis for engineering companies, but because there is no shortage of engineers, I don't even get interviews for these jobs. They'll go with the trained engineer over the theoretical physicist every day. I know as much about how the universe works as anyone who ever lived. All I want is a stable job that pays 40k a year where I can use some of that knowledge to do something practical, and I've discovered that job doesn't exist. If I had majored in engineering, I'd have been doing a job I enjoyed for the last decade, it would have paid WAY better, AND I'd get to keep doing it.

 

These I believe, from long thought and deep intuitive musing: In endeavors physical and intellectual, quantity is important. An army of math/science hopefuls will be mostly a crop of mediocrities, but, inevitably as the laws statistics, contain a few brilliant exceptions – the majority of them non-geniuses with as few brilliant ideas. This scales. A larger army produces proportionately more brilliant ideas, and a greater probability of one or more geniuses. The reason science and technology has advanced so greatly in the past century is because greater numbers of people were educated sufficiently to make profound contributions. A byproduct of this amplification are increased numbers of disappointed mediocrities, and to appropriate the words and feeling of an old folksong, I know, I’m one.

 

I think you overestimate how much of science is idea-production, and how much is just grunt work. 99.9% of a graduate student's work is either monkeying in the lab or coding, or routine calculation to try and verify an advisor's idea. Even the majority of postdoc work is the same. As Edison told us, its mostly perspiration. Thats actually the problem- science as a field doesn't need many idea-producers, but it needs to get a lot of grunt work done. So every idea producer takes a dozen grad students as cheap labor by promising them that one day they get to implement their ideas- but the students get older and poorer and then they realize that the legendary "time to implement my own ideas" never comes, and they leave science.

 

Also, is it fair to encourage people to go into science knowing full well that most of them who get phds will end up incredibly broke in their 30s and trying to reinvent themselves so they can get some lucrative work? IF we have to burn up the human capital of all these people who don't make it, shouldn't they at least make more money than fast food workers?

 

If we want students to really be interested in science, shouldn't we be working to increase the prestige and salary of the careers, instead of convincing students to "take one for the team"? Does a highschool teacher with a phd REALLY encourage kids to go into science, or does it say 'if you study science for a decade, the only thing you can do with it is teach other people?'

[Qfwfq]

No doubt there are disprortions in the world of academic research. I would be against numerical limitations of accessibility of degree courses though, I think students should simply be informed in a fair manner about what a graduates prospects are. But of course things are managed more according to interests than fairness.

 

Quite a while before I had got done with my graduation, I had already decided I wouldn't go for Ph. D. and soon after graduating I brushed up my software baggage. My CV was seldom at the top of the list they chose from but I was able to start putting savings away and in some cases my services were appreciated and even praised (for instance, a numerical calculation task for electric power management purposes).

 

For historical reasons, my research coding was mostly fortran 77, so my programming portfolio lacks object oriented code, so even trying to get a standard programming job has been difficult.

At you age and with your mathematical background, you shouldn't find difficulty learning Java and perhaps even C++ if you like it. I tend to advise starting (at least briefly) with C then C++ and learn Java from there.

[kipa]

I'm not sure what thread exactly to put this in, so since my experiences are in physics, its here.

 

So, some background- I finished a phd in theoretical physics a few years back. After finishing, I applied to industry jobs, liberal arts college positions, etc. I couldn't land any sort of "real" job, so I took a postdoc at a prestigious university. After finishing the postdoc, I applied for jobs again. No bites on the academic front. My previous experience had taught me a bitter truth- no engineering company (at least in the US) will hire a theoretical physicist when there are plenty of engineers to fill positions. Why take the time training a physicist when you can hire an engineer ready to go day one? Still, I tried again and again. Highschool's won't touch me because they don't want to pay more for a phd who has no highschool teaching experience. For historical reasons, my research coding was mostly fortran 77, so my programming portfolio lacks object oriented code, so even trying to get a standard programming job has been difficult. After several months of unemployment, I recently landed an actuarial type job at an investment bank.

 

My career in physics lasted nearly 10 years, the last few as a postdoc. I never got a chance to direct my own research, I always worked for someone else. I'm 30 and I have never made more than the manager of a McDonald's despite holding a phd. In the job I just started, I will make roughly the average salary of a recent college graduate, and I use nothing of what I spent the last decade learning. Economically, I threw the last ten years down a hole. I drive a twenty year old car, I have no savings, I have only recently begun to pay down my undergraduate debt.

 

AND, THIS IS THE NORMAL OUTCOME FOR A PHYSICS PHD. My classmates who have graduated have nearly all left science. They are working for banks or insurance companies because technical companies won't hire them. I'd estimate that 1/10 got the coveted tenure track position, and another 1/10 got an industry job where they could do some science. The other 4/5 of us are working jobs we could have had after undergrad, at the same pay we could have had after undergrad.

 

And yet, I hear everyday that we have some scientist or engineering shortage in the US. If that were true, someone with my broad technical background should be able to step into one of any number of positions that companies are having trouble filling. This is not the reality. There is no scientist shortage, all the reports that say scientists will soon be retiring, etc are wrong- the retirement peak happened years ago. We train substantially more phds than jobs, and we have been since the 70s.

 

So why does this myth of a shortage get perpetuated? What does encouraging people to throw away what could be an otherwise productive decade of their lives accomplish?

 

Paradoxically, we not only train too many scientists, but also have a largely scientifically illiterate populace. Should we stop encouraging people to go into science? If we allow an actual shortage of scientists to develop, the rising salaries and more stable career path for scientists might raise not only their job prospects but also their social status. In a world where people are competing for the good science jobs (instead of the good business jobs), more people would have legitimate incentives to study science, and perhaps we'd have a more scientifically literate populace.

 

By encouraging students by misleading them about the career opportunities are we (counterproductively) creating a less scientifically-literate populace?

 

It was the same story in the mid 80's. My advisor talked a lot about how us new PhDs would be able to write our own tickets because all the scientists from the cold war and space program would be retiring in short order leaving a huge gap. Around then Tiannemen Square took place and HW granted asylum to approximately 5 billion Chinese science and engineering students. I'm not saying there is a conscious conspiracy, but government and industry have a common interest in keeping science and math cheap. That now extends to computer science. Rather than pay the market price which would encourage kids to go into these fields, we have an open door policy for immigrants with these skills. I eventually landed a temporary 1-year gig teaching intro physics at a small college and won the tenure track job, but it was the only place out of 100's that even allowed me to fly in at my own expense to interview. That was after their first few choices turned down their salary of the low $20k variety and they were desperate before the beginning of the school year. Even this place was messing around with professors needing green cards. In addition to being cheap, it allows the school to check off a diversity ticket.

 

At the time I participated in YSN, Young Scientists Network, a list-serve where we discussed these issues. Not sure they are still around, but they aren't young anymore.

 

The bottom line was that the engineer PhDs I hung with in grad school could go straight into academia tenure track jobs, but physics PhDs were expected to do 2-3 multiple year post docs (successfully with publications) before that door would open.

[maddog]

Erasmus,

 

My life story is somewhat different than both yours or CraigD's. My pivotal moment in life was when I learned of Black Holes

just after turning 16. This was when my grades went from c's to A's and I acquired a definite goal to study Astrophysics. With

the intent for a PhD. After nearly turning a 5-year program into almost 3 years, and burn-out happened that I rethought my

situation, slightly changed direction (realizing that I was more interested in the why than the how), to Physics (I eventually

got a BS in Physics at a heavy engineering college). Through both schools I had a minor in Computer Science cause I

seemed to be good at it.

 

Now where my career track deviates for yours is that as a young age and poor GRE Physics Subject score that I chose to look

for engineering positions while I was in my twenties. I landed at Atari designing games, then a stint at Northrop Aircraft

designing flight simulators. Over the years, I built up enough experience that even got a consulting position doing IV&V

for NASA on the Ares program. I eventually got an opportunity to go the management track while working on a USPS

govt contract. I currently work in the Nuclear industry documenting safety procedures.

 

Like CraigD though I also aspire to go back to school for an advanced degree (I yearn for completing my PhD in Physics).

I have also since learned I do have some learning disabilities that may have impacted my education all along. Like

CraigD I also picked up quickly what was wanted in industry and did my best to supply that to improve my chances at

employment. As I am currently networking my way into a local University Physics Department that has a Nano-Scale Physics

Laboratory, I do hope one day to achieve that dream though at the moment - too soon to tell.

 

My best wishes for you in your search. Networking by meeting as many people as you can does help. You never know

from where your next opportunity may come from. Another item is to "do what you love" - to do. :D

 

maddog

[Erasmus00]

Now where my career track deviates for yours is that... I chose to look

for engineering positions while I was in my twenties.

 

Which is the smarter play. Yes, I got my phd, but I sacrificed a decade+ of earning potential and no one in any industry cares even the slightest about the degree. If I had spent a decade after undergrad working at McDonalds I'd be in exactly the same position in terms of career, but I'd be financially much better off.

 

Attempting a career in science is largely a low paying dead end- you spend 6+ years after undergrad training for jobs that largely don't exist, and you develop few transferable skills. Its a staggering waste, and it exploits the people who get suckered in. I feel physically ill when I think about the students I taught as a grad student who were implicitly encouraged to pursue a career in science.

 

We should tell young kids that science is a fun hobby, but a truly terrible career.

[lawcat]

I do not understand why you can not land a professorship. PHD is an academic degree and that is where the jobs are for PHDs, in academia. dude, you just have to keep applying to teach at a university.

[Erasmus00]

I do not understand why you can not land a professorship. PHD is an academic degree and that is where the jobs are for PHDs, in academia. dude, you just have to keep applying to teach at a university.

 

I agree, academia is what I am trained for. However, there are literally hundreds of applicants for every tenure track professorship, and I can't keep waiting for my career to start.

 

To give you some idea of numbers, in the US in a given sub-field of physics there are between 10-20 professors hired in a given year. There are something like 150 phds granted in the same subfield. Most of those phds take temporary appointment waiting for a spot to open up, so in any given year are there are 3-6 years worth of phds competing for those 10-20 spots.

 

Of my grad school class, 4/5 have left science. Of the other postdocs I worked with, all have left science. There just aren't enough jobs- even if you get your phd at a top school and postdoc at a top school, odds are high you won't ever get a full time job doing science.

[lawcat]

You just have to keep applying, anywhere. Community colleges are a fair game.

[Erasmus00]

You just have to keep applying, anywhere. Community colleges are a fair game.

 

I have been, for several years. I've spent the last few years applying to every university with a position for which I'm vaguely qualified. When do you decide to see the writing on the wall? Every single person stuck in postdoc limbo thinks "I just need to keep applying" and suddenly they are 40 years old, they've never made more than 40k a year, they have no savings, and NOW they are trying to switch jobs.

 

I HAVE worked as an adjunct professor at a community college for the princely sum of 3k for a 4 credit course. If you manage to get a full teaching load, you can make maybe 20k a year, no benefits. The janitors make more than that. I certainly can't start a family on that little pay.

 

Basically, careers in science suck- the median scientist in this country makes less than someone with just a highschool degree. If you know a kid who wants to be a scientist, tell him its a fun hobby but he is better off managing a fast food restaurant. If you have any math or science talent, a degree in engineering or even actuarial science will make you lots more money with much less effort- and as a bonus you'll get to do the job you trained to do. There are lots of jobs a smart person can do that will actually earn a living- science is not one of them. Getting the phd just means you'll be competing for jobs with people a decade younger and trying to dodge the label of "overqualified."

 

If you are from India or China and a phd represents a chance to immigrate, more power to you. If you are from a first world nation, a phd is just a way to throw away the earning potential your undergrad degree represents.

[lawcat]

I have 5 friends with PHDs. Of 5, only one works for a private firm but doing research, four are in academia. The majors are: Economics-forgot the dissertation topic, Computer science-Encryption, Electrical Engineering - Digital Communications (private reasearch digital video technology), Math - Algebraic patterns in small cell reproduction, Mechanical Engineering - Something with Heat Transfer.

[Erasmus00]

I have 5 friends with PHDs. Of 5, only one works for a private firm but doing research, four are in academia. The majors are: Economics-forgot the dissertation topic, Computer science-Encryption, Electrical Engineering - Digital Communications (private reasearch digital video technology), Math - Algebraic patterns in small cell reproduction, Mechanical Engineering - Something with Heat Transfer.

 

Not all STEM phds are created equal. Economics, computer science and engineering phds are very different fields than science/math- if you have industrial demand your career options are tremendously expanded. Its also why economics and CS phds make 50% more than physics phds do when they teach at liberal arts colleges. No one in engineering/economics/CS does a postdoc, scientists usually postdoc for 5+ years (many professional societies use postdocs as a measure of a weak labor force instead of unemployment). Its a totally different job market. The majority of economics, engineering and CS phds end up in their field, according to the NSF. The majority of science phds don't.

 

You should ask your math phd friend how many of his/her friends from grad school ended up with jobs in academia. The company I work with has four math phds (one from Harvard, one from Princeton, and two from California Berkeley. all of them did postdocs at MIT) that work as straight actuaries- i.e. they got their phd, couldn't find any research work and took the actuary tests.

 

I know 30+ physics phds, 5 are doing some sort of research (2 academic). The rest aren't.

 

I have no problem encouraging careers in engineering or economics (thats why I suggested careers in engineering are much better in my previous post). Its specifically science I am discussing. Science is a dead end, and encouraging a kid to pursue a career is asking them to throw a decade of their prime earning years away. To be clear, a large part of the problem with doing a phd in science is that you aren't pursuing a career in engineering- its a huge opportunity cost.

[lawcat]

My opinion is, you have to tough it out and keep applying. Academics are in an industry that is recession proof. There is always work and money. You just have to get in, and once you do you'll be set.

[Erasmus00]

My opinion is, you have to tough it out and keep applying. Academics are in an industry that is recession proof. There is always work and money. You just have to get in, and once you do you'll be set.

 

What are you talking about? Academics are NOT recession proof. Science funding was the first area of discretionary spending to get cut when the deficit exploded. When funding gets cut, jobs go away. Most academics scientists are contingent labor, which means they are the first to go when the soft money dries up. When the SSC was cut in the 90s, hundreds of particle physicists lost their jobs. Most never had another job in science. You seem to have a very idealized view of the academic labor market. Go to your local university and talk to the adjunct professors, the science postdocs and the soft money positions. Academia has a fairly large underclass, much of it in the sciences. Most of them will never get a full time academic position.

 

And what are you basing this advice on? How long should I tough it out? If I'm still not gainfully employed after another 3 years on the market do I keep going? Right now, I am loosely acquainted (through conferences,etc) with about 50 people in my same position. Would you suggest they "tough it out"? Maybe 1 in 10 physics phds will get to be academics. I've met several people in their early 40s who still only make 35k a year or so. They are still hoping for that tenure track position. Do you think the people who told them to keep 'toughing it out' were really helping them?

 

My pedigree is better than most, so lets say I have a 1/4 shot of a tenure track position. Would you, personally, spend the next few years working for 25k for a 1/4 shot at a tenure track position? I have a physics phd and several years experience- what sort of salary do you think I should be trying to command? I can keep 'toughing it out' for a 1/4 chance at a liberal arts position and 40k a year, or I can give up on science and take the actuarial job I could have had after undergrad and make nearly twice that.

[lawcat]

Sorry then. Do what you got to do.

[belovelife]

i'd suggest learning chinese and trying to go to china and get a physics degree there, then you diversify your cv,

 

besides that, you could learn c#

 

either that or start voulunterring at a community club to teach youths,

while i know money is an issue, if you love what you do, why stop on account of some job you have

 

talk about it at work, if they don't like it, who cares

 

i think it all depends on perspective

 

plus, there are many high schools with teachers that suck, you could replace them

 

:)