<p>Anybody intend to pursue a life science PhD and thought about the research job prospects? I have googled some of the stuffs regarding this and found out that postdocs in university are very poorly paired, in an online forum, one postdoc argued that a truck driver earns almost the same as him (in the US) and his salary was around $3000++.
I confirmed this with my colleague who said that his friend in harvard is also earning low wage of around $3000+. Do you tink its worth the 4yrs of PhD studies? Yes I know its also about the passion for science but one ought to be able to feed the family too.</p>
<p>Truck drivers are pretty well paid but you need a commercial driver’s license to get the position.</p>
<p>Postdocs are paid on the NIH scale [NOT-OD-09-075:</a> Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Stipend and Other Budgetary Levels Effective for Fiscal Year 2009](<a href=“http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-09-075.html]NOT-OD-09-075:”>NOT-OD-09-075: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Stipend and Other Budgetary Levels Effective for Fiscal Year 2009) so after a few years postdocs easily outstrip their truck driving counterparts.</p>
<p>More to the point though, postdoc is a phase of training not an end career. We are paid on par to residents or fellows (clinical medicine counterparts).</p>
<p>4 years of Phd? I think you mean 5-6 years. And you can’t really judge salary based on training time, there isn’t some sort of universal linear relationship.</p>
<p>yea…4yrs. 5-6yrs is more from US. Im referring to Singapore and UK PhD.</p>
<p>Postdoc is sorta like a temp contract and it sure doesnt feel good if one is having a family and unable to land a secure permanent job. Hmmm…</p>
<p>$3,000 a month? That sounds about right, actually - it may be a little more or less depending on the post-doc (the Robert Wood Johnson post-docs pay $90,000, and the Kellogg post-docs pay $60,000, but they are kind of an anomaly). I think life sciences post-docs actually pay a little bit more, but generally it will be around $40-50K.</p>
<p>However, that’s just a postdoc salary. Hopefully you’ll only work in a postdoc for 2-3 years after you finish your PhD, and then you’ll get a professor position if you want to be a professor. I live in the Northeast and professors here can start out anywhere between $60-80K; it’s a little less in other areas of the country but still more than post-doc pay. And if you go into industry, you can make more. Like someone else said, think about a post-doc like a medical residency/fellowship period. Residents are low-paid relative to physicians.</p>
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You certainly won’t get rich as a postdoc, but $40,000 per year is more than enough to live on.</p>
<p>I think if you’re really worried about money, a career in life sciences is probably not for you. With science, there is delayed payoff.</p>