Science Careers

[frankchn]

<p>Pretty depressing article about science careers in general (despite the title) from a current MIT lecturer - [Women</a> in Science](<a href=“http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science]Women”>Women in Science)</p>

<p>

The average trajectory for a successful scientist is the following:</p>

<li>age 18-22: paying high tuition fees at an undergraduate college</li>
<li>age 22-30: graduate school, possibly with a bit of work, living on a stipend of $1800 per month</li>
<li>age 30-35: working as a post-doc for $30,000 to $35,000 per year</li>
<li>age 36-43: professor at a good, but not great, university for $65,000 per year</li>
<li>age 44: with (if lucky) young children at home, fired by the university (“denied tenure” is the more polite term for the folks that universities discard), begins searching for a job in a market where employers primarily wish to hire folks in their early 30s </li>
</ol>

<p>This is how things are likely to go for the smartest kid you sat next to in college. He got into Stanford for graduate school. He got a postdoc at MIT. His experiment worked out and he was therefore fortunate to land a job at University of California, Irvine. But at the end of the day, his research wasn’t quite interesting or topical enough that the university wanted to commit to paying him a salary for the rest of his life. He is now 44 years old, with a family to feed, and looking for job with a “second rate has-been” label on his forehead.

</p>

<p>Any comments?</p>

[intelligentimp]

<p>interesting article coming from an MIT professor. wonder if this applies to engineers? what about engineer cross with business?</p>

[faraday]

<p>Uh… quite disquietening actually. Here goes my physics/math major :(</p>

[pebbles]

<p>

Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation for men going into science is the following:</p>

<ol>
<li>young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group</li>
<li>men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask the question “is this peer group worth impressing?”

</li>
</ol>

<p>hilarious… and so true</p>

[molliebatmit]

<p>Academia is a career path one should choose out of pure passion, not out of a desire to make money or impress people. It’s a tough row to hoe.</p>

<p>Of course, just because you start down that path doesn’t mean you have to stay on it forever – you can be a grad student in science and go on to a position in consulting, or in industry.</p>

<p>Also, as far as salary goes, YMMV by field. I know I’m making about 33% more than the grad student stipend quoted, which is a completely livable salary even in Boston.</p>

[pebbles]

<p>My other grad student friend has been telling me that pure passion isn’t enough for this field, either. You have to <em>really</em> enjoy the nitty gritty of it, solving each problem that comes to you no matter how trivial or mechanical. There’s so much of that that there’s really no way to survive w/o it.</p>

[faraday]

<p>It’s easy to say, “sure, yeah, you can switch out whenever you can”, but is it truly a viable option? Getting employment with a PhD from a top school in consulting can be tougher than just getting a consulting/iBanking job from HYPSM… with a bachelor. Then, all you are doing by pursuing higher education is shooting yourself in the foot, and not get the career you want.</p>

[pebbles]

<p>I think worse than that you get trapped in the mentality of “how much time have I invested in this already?”, the farther along you go the harder it is to turn back. Sure the practical solution is to cut your losses and drop whatever it is that isn’t working, but it’s easier said than done.</p>

[PiperXP]

<p>

My other grad student friend has been telling me that pure passion isn’t enough for this field, either. You have to <em>really</em> enjoy the nitty gritty of it, solving each problem that comes to you no matter how trivial or mechanical.

</p>

<p>I would define that as being passionate about a field. How are you interpreting passion?</p>

[molliebatmit]

<p>Well, I don’t know much about consulting. But in my field, industry positions (biotech/pharma) are definitely available.</p>

<p>If you get a PhD in a technical field from a top program, you will have a job. It may not be a professorship at an R01, but getting a PhD in a technical field puts you in a very different situation from getting a PhD in a humanities field.</p>

[Aceflyer]

<p>While the linked-to article raises some very pertinent points about a career in academia, I think it does have some overgeneralizations and omissions/inaccuracies. The bitter tone maintained throughout does not help the author’s case either IMHO.</p>

<p>

1. age 18-22: paying high tuition fees at an undergraduate college

</p>

<p>The author fails to mention financial aid for poorer students. Even neglecting this, attending a pricey undergraduate college is not a requirement for success in academia.</p>

<p>

2. age 22-30: graduate school, possibly with a bit of work, living on a stipend of $1800 per month

</p>

<p>If someone enters a PhD program directly from undergrad then it will generally not take them that long to complete the program. Many fields also pay a higher stipend than the quoted figure.</p>

<p>

3. age 30-35: working as a post-doc for $30,000 to $35,000 per year

</p>

<p>Many post-docs don’t take 5 years to complete.</p>

<p>

Consider someone taking the kind of high IQ and drive that would be required to obtain a tenure-track position at U.C. Berkeley and going into medicine. This person would very likely be a top specialist of some sort, earning at least $300,000 per year.

</p>

<p>But I thought we were talking about someone who was able to obtain a tenure-track position at a “good, but not great, university” such as “University of California, Irvine.” </p>

<p>It is also harder to become a “top specialist of some sort” than one might think. How many top specialists are there in the country? How many doctors are there in the country?</p>

<p>Furthermore, salary also depends on the specific field. There are many fields where “at least $300,000 per year” is uncommon at best.</p>

<p>Finally, the author neglects to mention the tremendous debt incurred during medical school and the low salary paid to residents.</p>

<p>

Consider taking the same high IQ and work ethic, going into business, and being put on the fast track at a company such as General Electric.

</p>

<p>This seems to be an overly idealistic view of success in the business world.</p>

<p>

A top lawyer at age 44 is probably a $500,000 per year partner in a big firm, a judge, or a professor at a law school supplementing her $200,000 per year salary with some private work.

</p>

<p>Not necessarily, depending on the field and the type of work required by the specific position. It is also not as easy as the author makes it sound to obtain a professorship at a law school or make partner in a big firm.</p>

<p>The author also fails to mention the debt incurred during law school.</p>

<p>

It is the guys with the poorest social skills who are least likely to talk to adults and find out what the salary and working conditions are like in different occupations. It is mostly guys with rather poor social skills whom one meets in the university science halls.

</p>

<p>With no offense intended, this is a cheap perpetuation of a common stereotype.</p>

<p>

A lot of men are irrational, romantic, stubborn, and unwilling to admit that they’ve made a big mistake. With Occam’s Razor, we should not need to bring in the FBI to solve the mystery of why there are more men than women who have chosen to stick with the choice that they made at age 18 to become a professor of science or mathematics.

</p>

<p>The above seems to be an extremely sexist and ignorant statement to me.</p>

<p>

female assistant professors in science and math earn a starting salary of $300,000 per year, up there with the average medical specialist

</p>

<p>A starting salary of $300,000 per year is definitely not typical for an average medical specialist.</p>

<p>

female tenured professors in science and math get paid $500,000 per year, comparable to what a high-talent professional might earn in mid-career

</p>

<p>The $500,000 figure seems grossly exaggerated.</p>

<p>Further, the entire Appendix C argument is less than convincing. It seems the author is arguing that if scientific academia were to pay as well as the legal or medical professions, more women would pursue careers in scientific academia. How does this support the author’s conclusion that female scientists should be paid significantly more than their otherwise equally qualified male counterparts?</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

It’s easy to say, “sure, yeah, you can switch out whenever you can”, but is it truly a viable option? Getting employment with a PhD from a top school in consulting can be tougher than just getting a consulting/iBanking job from HYPSM… with a bachelor.

</p>

<p>This is not true at all. You will be just as attractive for these consulting/iBanking jobs coming out of a PhD program as if you had applied with a bachelor’s degree. Most of the people I knew from MIT who got a PhD ended up doing one of these consulting jobs. Going to a top grad school (top 5) will help. So if a top 20 school offers you $35,000 a year to be a grad student, it’s probably a better move financially to take the top 5 place that is only offering you $25,000. I would have to investigate this further, but it also might be better to take the place which has most prestige in general if you are deciding between top 5 places. For example, if you are choosing between U. of Minnesota and MIT for chemical engineering, it will be easier to get a consulting or financial job with a PhD from MIT (even though U. of Minnesota is a top 5 school in Chem E.) </p>

<p>But these are things which probably should not determine your decision. If you feel it is a better environment at a school that is slightly less prestigious, it might be worth going there. Think of it this way. If your going to be consulting in a technical profession, you will be better off with knowing more and being slightly disadvantaged from your resume’. The training is paramount. One of the most successful consultants I know (and perhaps one of the most successful in the U.S.) had degrees from state schools.</p>

<p>There are many consulting positions, but you should know that McKinsey only takes people from certain PhD programs. (I don’t know exactly what they are.) So if you want to go to McKinsey after a PhD, you should probably be going to HYPMSC. </p>

<p>Don’t think about all this now. You should not be discouraged about pursuing a career in science because you feel that it will be hard to do something later. And from going to MIT, it seems like most everyone’s parents did not understand how the world worked in terms of technical professions. They thought if you were not an engineer or a doctor, you had to be like the top person in the world to find a job. Do what you enjoy doing and opportunities will open up to you that you may be interested in. If you pick a “safer” job, you may not like it and you may not want to pursue other jobs related to it because you never liked it in the first place. For example, if you pick comp sci but don’t want to debug as your main job, you could be a technical writer specializing in computers. But if you chose course 6 only because being a programmer was a safe profession and you aren’t really that interested in computers, you won’t be able to be a technical writer. You would have been better off majoring in what you liked, so you would be interested enough in it to do a job related to it.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

Quote:
My other grad student friend has been telling me that pure passion isn’t enough for this field, either. You have to <em>really</em> enjoy the nitty gritty of it, solving each problem that comes to you no matter how trivial or mechanical. </p>

<p>"I would define that as being passionate about a field. How are you interpreting passion? "

</p>

<p>Well, you need to be passionate about the research part of it. You can be passionate about the subject matter and doing thought experiments (which you would know just by taking classes,) but you need to also enjoy the troubleshooting part of it. Unless you spend serious time at your UROP, you might not know this until you get to grad school.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>Ah, yes. This topic. </p>

<p>

@pebbles

I think worse than that you get trapped in the mentality of “how much time have I invested in this already?”, the farther along you go the harder it is to turn back. Sure the practical solution is to cut your losses and drop whatever it is that isn’t working, but it’s easier said than done.

</p>

<p>My paramount worry. The way I deal with this, though, is by asking myself: would I rather NOT go to graduate school if I won’t become a researcher some day? And my answer is a resounding NO. I don’t even have to think to answer, and have asked myself the question many times. </p>

<p>What I’ve learned from some of those farther along in the process than I on these MIT threads is to ask myself what I see myself doing in the near future, and attempt to enjoy that. Something maybe a lot of us have to work on. I know I have a tendency to feel “OK, gotta learn this, so I can do that, and do that so I can do something else…and it never ends…” – tough to enjoy the here and now.</p>

[SDTB]

<p>

@intelligentimp

interesting article coming from an MIT professor

The author is not a professor. He is a lecturer. Very different.

@faraday

Uh… quite disquietening actually. Here goes my physics/math major

Before you abandon your hopes and dreams, please question the author’s intentions. The author is not a professor. The author teaches many bright young kids who lack the perspective to realize that being an MIT undergraduate doesn’t equal success in academics. The author is probably trying to bring these types of kids back down to earth.</p>

<p>What can you do with a math/physics major? What can you do with a math/physics PhD? I would argue that you can do a lot. Quantitative analysts: [Quantitative</a> analyst - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_analyst]Quantitative”>Quantitative analysis (finance) - Wikipedia) make a tremendous amount of money for relatively less work. If academia doesn’t work out, you can jump ship to an occupation that makes you a lot of money. This is just one example.</p>

<p>The author claims that the stipend is $1800 a month, which isn’t true, but that’s a minor point. What a stipend also means is that your PhD education is free and that the stipend is more than livable. I remember molliebatmit and others claiming that she can budget herself well enough to pay off loans and semi-support her husband. Going through some cursory calculations, I have found that it is entirely possible (and easy in many cases) to have an extra ~$5-7k a year left over from your stipend to do whatever you want with. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s not like you will be living in absolute poverty.</p>

[SDTB]

<p>

@faraday

Getting employment with a PhD from a top school in consulting can be tougher than just getting a consulting/iBanking job from HYPSM… with a bachelor. Then, all you are doing by pursuing higher education is shooting yourself in the foot, and not get the career you want.

Do you have any evidence for this claim? As far as I can tell, consulting firms such as McKinsey tend to recruit MBAs/people with advanced degrees.

Today, the firm is among the top recruiters of graduates of the top ranked business programs in the US and overseas, in addition to hiring a significant number of people with other advanced degrees in science, medicine, engineering and law. The firm is notable for the number of Rhodes Scholars it is able to recruit.

• [McKinsey</a> & Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mckinsey]McKinsey”>McKinsey & Company - Wikipedia)
  Although wiki isn’t an end-all be-all source, I don’t see any mention of Bachelor’s Degree here.</p>

<p>

@collegealum314

There are many consulting positions, but you should know that McKinsey only takes people from certain PhD programs. (I don’t know exactly what they are.) So if you want to go to McKinsey after a PhD, you should probably be going to HYPMSC.

I highly disagree with this post. I don’t know where you get your information. </p>

<p>[Featured</a> Profiles:Stefan | McKinsey APD Recruiting](<a href=“http://www.apd.mckinsey.com/MEETUS/ConsultantProfiles/FeaturedProfiles/FeaturedProfilesStefan/tabid/2907/Default.aspx]Featured”>http://www.apd.mckinsey.com/MEETUS/ConsultantProfiles/FeaturedProfiles/FeaturedProfilesStefan/tabid/2907/Default.aspx)</p>

<p>PhD: UC San Diego</p>

<p>[Featured</a> Profiles:Laura | McKinsey APD Recruiting](<a href=“http://www.apd.mckinsey.com/MEETUS/ConsultantProfiles/FeaturedProfiles/FeaturedProfilesLaura/tabid/2905/Default.aspx]Featured”>http://www.apd.mckinsey.com/MEETUS/ConsultantProfiles/FeaturedProfiles/FeaturedProfilesLaura/tabid/2905/Default.aspx)</p>

<p>PhD: UC San Diego</p>

<p>[Featured</a> Profiles:Bob | McKinsey APD Recruiting](<a href=“http://www.apd.mckinsey.com/MEETUS/ConsultantProfiles/FeaturedProfiles/FeaturedProfilesBob/tabid/2903/Default.aspx]Featured”>http://www.apd.mckinsey.com/MEETUS/ConsultantProfiles/FeaturedProfiles/FeaturedProfilesBob/tabid/2903/Default.aspx)</p>

<p>MD: George Washington University</p>

<p>I just found this information from doing a simple google search.</p>

<p>Personally speaking, I know people who have PhDs from none of the schools you state that used to work at McKinsey. </p>

<p>[List</a> of McKinsey & Company people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McKinsey_%26_Company_people]List”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McKinsey_%26_Company_people)</p>

<p>University of Melbourne, Columbia, London School of Economics, Oxford, Berkeley Haas, University of Chicago, INSEAD France, University of Michigan, Polytechnic University of Turin, UPenn – just to name a FEW; there are many more.</p>

<p>Now, these are primarily MBAs, but as the previous wiki quote implied: McKinsey has connections with all these schools.</p>

[SDTB]

<p>Onto the topic of tenured track at a prestigious institution – I’m going to use Chemistry statistics.</p>

<p>Keep in mind – as the author said, the physical sciences tend to be more competitive. However, chemistry isn’t as competitive as physics or math, but it isn’t a cakewalk either.</p>

<p>[C&EN:</a> EDUCATION - GRAD SCHOOL: DOES IT MATTER WHERE YOU GO?](<a href=“http://pubs.acs.org/cen/education/8139/8139education1.html]C&EN:”>http://pubs.acs.org/cen/education/8139/8139education1.html)</p>

<p>Graduate School Impact Factor: % of PhD graduates between 1979-2000 from an institution that currently holds professorships at a top 10 institution.</p>

<p>Ranking | Grad School |Women Imp Factr | Men Imp Factr
1 UC Berkeley 3.4 2.1<br>
2 Caltech 1.7 3.4
3 Harvard 1.3 4.1
3 Stanford 2.4 2.8
5 MIT 1.8 1.8
6 Cornell 1.5 1.1
7 Columbia 0.9 2.7
8 UIUC 0 0.3
9 Wisconsin 0 0.7
10 U- Chicago 1.1 1.1

According to Gottselig and Oeltjen’s analysis, only five schools–the University of California, Berkeley; California Institute of Technology; Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Stanford University–can count more than one in 50 of their Ph.D. graduates during these years that are on the faculties of the top 10 schools.

“We found that, at the top 10 ranked departments, for the group graduating after 1978, 91.7% of women and 71.8% of men faculty members had received their doctorates from top 10 universities,”

</p>

<p>To put this in perspective – you’re going to have to be the top ~2% in your PhD class to statistically have a chance at a top 10 school. Furthermore, the statistics to get into each PhD program is ~less than 10% (usually much lower). Also, PhD admissions are also a self-selecting process – usually, only the successful undergraduates apply for PhDs.</p>

<p>Statistically, prestigious professorships are not easy to get. Like the author said, the smartest kid in your class will probably not be able to get a professorship of that caliber.</p>

[molliebatmit]

<p>

The author claims that the stipend is $1800 a month, which isn’t true, but that’s a minor point. What a stipend also means is that your PhD education is free and that the stipend is more than livable. I remember molliebatmit and others claiming that she can budget herself well enough to pay off loans and semi-support her husband. Going through some cursory calculations, I have found that it is entirely possible (and easy in many cases) to have an extra ~$5-7k a year left over from your stipend to do whatever you want with. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s not like you will be living in absolute poverty.

I don’t mean to be tacky and talk about money all the time, but this is absolutely true.</p>

<p>The first year of my PhD program, my then-fiance was still an undergrad, so my stipend was all we were making. We supported ourselves (except that his parents paid his tuition), and managed to put several thousand dollars into savings. This definitely required living frugally, but we weren’t suffering.</p>

<p>It irks me when people complain about PhD stipends – I mean, think about the number of people in this country making minimum wage to support an entire family, and then tell me whether you think a single person can “survive” in Boston on $30k a year.</p>

[collegealum314]

<p>

I highly disagree with this post. I don’t know where you get your information.

</p>

<p>Well, I didn’t know it was limited to HYPMSC for sure. But I’ve heard they will only take people from certain high-rated schools.</p>