<p>I believe that the value of a science Ph.D. is to prepare a good mind capable of specialized rapidly without been specialized. There is always something to find out. So long as you are well prepared, lack of opportunity is not fatal, lack of imagination certainly is.</p>
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That's not true about bio and chem having plenty of opportunities....</p>
<p>Even though there are more bio professorships, there are many more kids going to grad school in bio/chem than in physics/math. It's just as bad (just read the forums on ScienceCareers).
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<p>No, I mean they have lots of job options in industry, not academia.</p>
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No, I mean they have lots of job options in industry, not academia.
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<p>that's not quite true as well. many bio/chem phd graduates find themselves stuck as postdocs for 3 to 5 years.</p>
<p>yes, it's possible to find a job, but that usually requires extensive networking and development of transferable skills. i know a recruiter who came to our campus mentioned that he was rejected for more than fifty times before he got his current position at a pharmaceutical company. this kind of situation is not atypical and is occurring to many ppl.</p>
<p>Matili53 (Post #109)</p>
<p>I am sorry to hear you have had such a terrible experience by having a life associated with science. However I find two pieces of your advice particularly disheartening. To instruct your daughters not to marry a <fill in="" the="" blank=""> is in my opinion a recipe for disaster. To wish that your husband did not follow his heart is also, in my opinion, bad advise. I am not particularly fond of Donald Trump but one thing I have heard him say multiple times, and that I agree with, is that in order to become rich you have to love what you do.</fill></p>
<p>I know I am being idealistic but this topic rings close to home. My son is waiting for admission decisions to PhD Programs in Chemistry. My daughter is in her first year of college planning to become a Special Education Teacher. The $ sign does not come to mind when I think of their futures but I truly feel joy and a tremendous amount of pride when I try to imagine what they can accomplish.</p>
<p>I believe there is a difference between a vocation and a profession. Teaching definitely falls in the first category. Become a scientist probably does too.</p>
<p>There will always be a balancing act between following your heart and taking care of your pocket. Very few people manage to live a comfortable life doing what they love. I happen to be one, but this is not because my wife and I planned to be that way. I just fell in love with computers in the late 70s and got a PhD in CS in the late 80s. Without a doubt I caught the right wave at the right time. Who is to tell than in 20 years a chemist or a special ed teacher will not be able to relate the same experience?</p>
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it's possible (for bio/chem phd graduates) to find a job, but that usually requires extensive networking and development of transferable skills.
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<p>I came across an accelerated MBA program in the Johnson School at Cornell that is designed for this purpose. <a href="http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/academic/accelerated/%5B/url%5D">http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/academic/accelerated/</a>. </p>
<p>Here is a personal account (somewhat lengthy) of a graduate of this program. <a href="http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/academic/accelerated/highlight/BioExecutive-Cornell-May2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/academic/accelerated/highlight/BioExecutive-Cornell-May2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>My brother who is currently on biomed PhD track is looking at this as Plan B if his academia plan doesn't pan out.</p>
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Everything Dr. Katz is writing about is reality! I couldn't believe it when I read it. I am a wife of a scientist with MD for 20 years. I can not list the hardship we went through during this 20 years.
My instructions are to my two D-s: they can not be scientists or they can not marry a scientist.
We could have a much easier life with stable financial existence if only my husband did not follow his heart and if he chose patients.
Many marriages end up in divorce because the wife or husband get tired, feel abandoned for the sake of science. Children grow up without their fathers and mothers, even if the parents do not divorce. Countless spouses give up their life dreams in order to keep the family intact and serve the mighty purpose of science. Working in science means you can not have a family-friendly lifestyle.
Grant opportunities are vicious, the peer evaluation became a lion's den, and there are more and more criminals who are in science and try to get away with fradulent data and procedures.
Young People, listen to those who are in science and saw the evolution of this field. Save yourself a huge headache in your later years!
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<p>Uh, I hate to have to be the person to have to point this out, but being a practicing MD (which, as you put it, involves seeing patients) is not exactly the most family-friendly lifestyle either. I know numerous divorced doctors. It's not altogether easy to maintain a family life when you're always on call, as plenty of doctors are. And then there is the issue of doctors basically exploiting their wives to get them through the lean years of med-school and internship/residency, only to dump them for trophy girlfriends when they start making real money. </p>
<p>Like I've said throughout this thread, at least your husband is making decent money. Not great money, but at least decent money. There are plenty of Americans who would love to make the kind of money your husband makes. </p>
<p>The truth of the matter is that all high-paying careers are not family friendly. Law firm work, investment banking, management consulting - all of these careers involve long and unpredictable hours that are hell on the family. What's so great about making 300k a year to start if you never get to see your spouse, as many investment bankers do?</p>
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that's not quite true as well. many bio/chem phd graduates find themselves stuck as postdocs for 3 to 5 years.</p>
<p>yes, it's possible to find a job, but that usually requires extensive networking and development of transferable skills. i know a recruiter who came to our campus mentioned that he was rejected for more than fifty times before he got his current position at a pharmaceutical company. this kind of situation is not atypical and is occurring to many ppl.
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<p>While it is true that many bio/chem grads end up in post-docs, I wouldn't characterize it as being 'stuck' there. They are doing it by choice. </p>
<p>Look, post-docs are really only appropriate for people who really want to become professors. If you can't get a job in industry as a scientist with a bio/chem Phd, then maybe you should seriously consider going into investment banking or consulting instead (especially the latter). Or, in the worst case scenario, you can just become a high school science teacher. What's wrong with that? Yeah, the pay isn't that high, but it's a highly stable job and you get the whole summer off.</p>
<p>The reality is the life science is that there are plenty of jobs in industry numberwise. The problem is that there are FAR too many Ph.D being produced in comparison to the number of jobs availible. </p>
<p>Another issue is the that the training and skill sets of many of these jobs are not all the same. Some Ph.D positions are in process development of large scale protein purification or ADME toxicology are vastly different. They do require a ph.d but one that has EXPERIENCE specifically in those skills. </p>
<p>The issue of those skills are that they are not typically ACADEMIC pursuits and therefore you won' find training at the graduate level for these skills. Also, most ph.d are doing work in cell/molecular bio where the skillset there is so generic that most firms only have one scientist need with those skills to direct the work where many BS level research associates carry out the bench work. Why pay a ph.d who will get bored of doing someone elses work and will require higher pay? Industry jobs for many PH.D is a tough transition not only because of corporate culture but they cannot pursue the interesting science topics like they did before. Most of the work is screening and trouble shooting experimental results. Companies in industry don't care about doing the research for the mechanism of HIV infection but free ride off the academic researcher who does and uses that information to design therapeutics to block the infection of HIV. </p>
<p>As for post docs, most work 60+ hours for 2-3 years at 35k. Tenure positions are even rarer and often assistant professorships do not marticulate into associate professorships. </p>
<p>As for jobs in consulting for ph.d, yes they are very possible but you need to go to a TOP science program. McKinsey will not sniff at you if you went to Michigan State for a Ph.D in chemistry.</p>
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As for jobs in consulting for ph.d, yes they are very possible but you need to go to a TOP science program. McKinsey will not sniff at you if you went to Michigan State for a Ph.D in chemistry.
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<p>Well that's a given though. You wouldn't stand much chance of becoming a professor after graduating from a lower ranked school anyway.</p>
<p>I got impatient and didn't read through the last half of this thread, so I might be echoing someone else's sentiment, but I think success comes down to how you can sell yourself.</p>
<p>if you take someone who can sell water to a well, it doesn't matter what their background is, where they are, where they went to school, what they learned, what grades they got, who they know, etc. etc. they are going to succeed.</p>
<p>Look at it this way, everything you have done up until now just defines the toolbox you get to use to sell yourself. EVERY situation will have its pitfalls and bonuses, it's up to YOU to figure out how to work these to your advantage. Go look at the people who are really successful, chances are they didn't go about it the straightforward path.</p>
<p>hey just a thought:
If we scare enough people away with this sort of stuff, maybe those of us who do go for a PhD would have an easier time afterwards :p</p>
<p>On a more serious note, I think it may be true that many students are underestimating the difficulty of making it in an academic career. After all, your sample consists primarily of the professors in your school who made it. In my undergraduate department I actually see many new assistant professors (tenure-track) under 30. Many of them didn't even do post-docs. But how do I find out how these people compare to the other PhD graduates? Or how do I evaluate the chances that I will come out like one of them? After all, I am not equipped to evaluate the caliber of their research by reading their publications. </p>
<p>It is truly quite difficult to get meaningful statistics on this issue.</p>
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As for jobs in consulting for ph.d, yes they are very possible but you need to go to a TOP science program. McKinsey will not sniff at you if you went to Michigan State for a Ph.D in chemistry.
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<p>I have 3 responses to this. But one has already been stated by merper68, as seen below.</p>
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Well that's a given though. You wouldn't stand much chance of becoming a professor after graduating from a lower ranked school anyway.
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<p>Exactly right. Furthermore, if getting a PhD in chemistry from Michigan State is the best you can do, then, honestly, you probably weren't going to get into a decent law school (although you might have gotten into a no-name law school), and you probably wouldn't have gotten into ANY medical school. In short, the truth is, if going to a low-ranked PhD program is the best you can do, then, not to be overly harsh, but your alternative career paths probably aren't that great, and so you're probably not exactly giving up a whole lot. </p>
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As for jobs in consulting for ph.d, yes they are very possible but you need to go to a TOP science program. McKinsey will not sniff at you if you went to Michigan State for a Ph.D in chemistry.
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<p>My second response is simple: who says that you need to work for McKinsey? There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of consulting firms out there. Obviously most of them are no-name consulting firms. I'm sure that even if you graduate with a PhD from Michigan State, you can find some no-name consulting firms to hire you. After all, even undergrads from low-ranked schools can sometimes get into consulting (usually at the no-name consulting firms). Yet you will actually have a PhD, so you can actually make a legitimate claim to being an expert at a particular topic - something that undergrads cannot say. </p>
<p>My third response is that it all depends on what you mean by a "top" science program. I think it's more accurate to say that what you really need is to to go a school with a strong general brand name and good recruiting, regardless of whether it is a 'top' science school. For example, I see that according to USNews Graduate rankings, Michigan State is the #42 ranked school for chemistry PhD programs. Brown and Dartmouth are ranked even lower, at #63 and #57 respectively. Yet I would say that you stand a quite good chance at getting into consulting if you get your chem PhD at Brown or Dartmouth, simply because the top consulting firms are all camped out with major recruiting presences at those 2 schools anyway. Granted, those recruiters are mostly there to recruit undergrads, but the fact that they are there means that you have the face-time you need to schmooze your way into getting a senior position. And even if you can't get in this way, you can still milk the Brown/Dartmouth general brand name to get into some firm. For example, Brown and Dartmouth have powerful alumni networks, so you can start calling/emailing around, and find a good job that way. A lot of MBA's find jobs through alumni networks. But there is nothing that says that you have to be an MBA to use an alumni network. A PhD student can and should use it too.</p>
<p>{Incidentally, this points to a possible career strategy. Let's face it, after you get past the first 20 or 30 programs in your field, it doesn't really matter where you get your PhD at. Frankly, there isn't that much difference between a program ranked #40 and one ranked #60. If you can't get into one of the top 20 or 30 programs in your field, then from a career safety standpoint, you might as well go to a school that has a strong general brand name and strong recruiting/networking like Brown or Dartmouth even if it is mediocre in your particular field.} </p>
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Look at it this way, everything you have done up until now just defines the toolbox you get to use to sell yourself. EVERY situation will have its pitfalls and bonuses, it's up to YOU to figure out how to work these to your advantage. Go look at the people who are really successful, chances are they didn't go about it the straightforward path.
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<p>That's exactly right, and I think that is the real heart of the problem. It's not that new PhD's can't get jobs. I think is has more to do with a failure of imagination. Either that, or it's a matter of pride - you get your PhD and you decide that you will not settle for anything less than a research job. Like I said, any new PhD, no matter how low-ranked his program is, and no matter how mediocre his research is, can, in the absolute worst case scenario, just become a high school science teacher. But, as confirmed by many of the sentiments expressed here, a lot of people are just too prideful to do that.</p>
<p>What I will say is that I have seen people with just mediocre undergrad degrees nevertheless sell themselves into some quite decent jobs. Heck, I know there are some people with no college degrees at all who have nevertheless talked their way into positions at companies and then have done very well for themselves. If you have a Phd, you ought to be able to do the same. </p>
<p>What I do agree should happen is that schools ought to provide far more career counseling to new PhD's. They should teach them how to interview, how to network, how to speak in public, how to sell themselves, basically, all the things that they need to know to boost their career. They should have integrated recruiting events like the MIT 100k competition that puts together not just MIT Sloan MBA students, but also MIT PhD students to network with venture capitalists and with each other. That's the sort of thing you need, because most jobs are never publicly posted, but are obtainable only via networking. </p>
<p>Hence, I agree that many PhD programs simply don't prepare their students properly for career opportunities outside of academia. But on the other hand, a lot of the students simply aren't interested in getting prepared. So it's a 2-way problem.</p>
<p>Getting a PhD from Michigan State is worse for your career prospects than dropping out of high school! Nothing but a a PhD from the TOP Ivy league schools will land you a half-way decent job!</p>
<p>Signed,</p>
<p>Posters of College Confidential</p>
<p>Merper wrote:</p>
<p>"Well that's a given though. You wouldn't stand much chance of becoming a professor after graduating from a lower ranked school anyway."</p>
<p>This is patently false. Browse the faculties of most univerisites (besides the very best) and you will find academic backgrounds that are varied to say the least.</p>
<p>I think the over-prevalent stereotype is that graduate students who are working to obtain their doctorates in the sciences, but also in other fields, are doomed to working in a lab, sitting at a computer reading e-mails, and writing letters to petition for grant money. This is not always the case. A Ph.D is extremely helpful if you want to work with the government in environmental sciences, in the museum world, with zoological research, conservation biology, paleontology, and is probably a strict prerequisite to doing any significant work in archeology. These jobs are extremely rewarding, have tons of subsidized travel opportunities abroad, and most people do these jobs because they love to discover new things and be out in the world. I hope to become a conservation biologist in the future and work with the zoological community to protect endangered species (of which there are many), and for this I will most certainly pursue a Ph.D. in the animal sciences.</p>
<p>I didn't say you couldn't. I know there's ME professors who graduated from University of Kansas, but even in lower ranked schools, it really helps the odds. The top tier graduates - at least in engineering - tend to drop down the ranks one by one. Eg. Try out tenure at say GATech, fail to get it, then go down to a 20-40 ranked school, miss there then try one more time maybe. Maybe this isn't the case for other majors, so I should have specified.</p>
<p>Merper,</p>
<p>If you were referring specifically to ME, than you might ahve a point. In almost every other program, however, a PhD from a recognized school will do just fine. if you check out the faculties in Political Science of sociology at alot of universities around the country, you will have a batch of folks fro Harvard, Yale, Chicago, ect. but you will also get a bunch of folks from all over the place. Go check out the University of Toronto's Political Science faculty page sometimes. They have people in their with PhD's from east european schools, African schools, the whole nine yards. And Toronto isn't a third tier insititution either.</p>
<p>This thread is great... It's much better than reading about high school kids and their chances at a few select undergraduate colleges. I believe it's terrific that more long term concerns in majors/fields are being addressed and debated. This is the kind of thread that CC needs more of.</p>
<p>yea, i would occasionally read through the graduate section of the forum, and many of my questions regarding grad school were answered... this site has definitely been a help. then, soon as i heard back from a school, i surprisingly realized nobody had yet started an 'acceptances' thread. i was expecting it would be popular, but never in the world did i imagine it would grow THIS large AND so quickly!</p>
<p>also, i think what also makes reading about these posts on this thread so exciting is that our desires/goals seem more substantially based... (i mean, it's not like when we were in h.s. and had a decent idea (at best) of what we wanted to study... now we are pretty dedicated, focused, and our past years of work wasn't just the default that everyone does).</p>
<p>Here's a good find. This guy talks about how, econimically, getting a phD is not worth it:</p>
<p>I'm not biased, because I am planning on majoring in math/physics and may one day go for a phD. I'm just checking different sources to make sure I make an informed decision.</p>
<p>But one more general question. How does going to one of the top schools affect your postdoc opportunitties? I'm planning on going to MIT or Caltech (already accepted), but I also have a full ride to Nebraska open. Thanks</p>