<p>I'm going to apply for PhD programs this upcoming Fall. However something has been bothering me for a while now. There seem to be a heck lot of people getting a PhD nowadays. Some of the postdocs I've met are 30, 40y old. Are there too many PhDs now? Is the market oversaturated? Or is it only for academia (and not so much industry)?</p>
<p>I don't plan on getting an academic position. I've seen what professors do and it's way too much work for me. I rather work at an industrial/national lab. But I am an international student, will that affect my job prospects (in nanotech)?</p>
<p>I'm just trying to get a feel for what I'm up against. I'm planning on focusing on nanoscience/nanotech in EE.</p>
<p>It varies depending on your specific interests - some areas are saturated, some are desperately in need. I have no idea on nanotech, unfortunately, but I would think a decent non-academic job should not be too hard.</p>
<p>To add to my original post, are there any non-research jobs available for PhDs? I’ve vaguely heard of PhDs in engineering teaching high school physics or working as an analyst on Wall Street. Can anyone provide more insight?</p>
<p>My boss did his PhD in computational electromagnetics (FDTD), and the majority of his fellow PhD graduates in that specialty went on to do financial engineering, working for big investment houses and the like. He, and several other PhD’s I know, work on industrial research and engineering - most engineering jobs consist of applying engineering principles with known solutions, industrial engineering research is trying to do something entirely new but at a later stage than professors generally see. Some are doing more general engineering, and are often in desire to work proposals - when you are trying to convince someone to buy your product, it helps to have a few PhD’s listed on the engineering staff.</p>
<p>PhD’s can and do teach high school (my physics teacher had a physics PhD) but I would not generally count that as a real desirable path - if you want to teach high school, you don’t need the stress of a PhD program to get there. Works as a fall-back plan, though.</p>
<p>There is always consulting, although even with a PhD they prefer to see some significant experience first. Still, if your thesis touches on lucrative areas you may be able to make quite a nice living this way.</p>
<p>One area of interest is “vetting” work. Many corporations and governments employ PhD’s to evaluate other peoples’ proposals and place them on a scale from “They can do this” to “giggle”. That is basically what DARPA does fro a living.</p>
<p>Slorg, I completely agree. I think my dream job would be to do research in a national/industrial lab. However I was just curious to see what other job opportunities there are in case I can’t get a research position.</p>
<p>Jobs for PhDs in engineering were good five years ago, but there are few jobs now that are silver bullets today because of the economy. At least 97% ish of grad students going for a PhD are funded, so at least it’s a low paying job.</p>
<p>Engineers with PhDs can work in project management and consultancy. And if you are theoretically minded, finance. The defense industry also likes to hire PhDs.</p>