<p>Interesting article from the Commentary section of The Chronicles of Higher Education (March 25, 2012).</p>
<p>For Science Ph.D's, There is No One True Path by Jon Bardin</p>
<p>For</a> Science Ph.D.'s, There Is No One True Path - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education</p>
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<p>As a statistician, I can’t help but gloat a little remind everyone in science to pay attention in their statistics courses and take as many as possible.:D</p>
<p>So PhDs are basically worthless? It’s better to get a masters degree or go into health care? Or just stop at the bachelors degree and get a job right out of college to start paying off debts?</p>
<p>PhDs, like any other level of education, are worth what you make of them. If you only see it as a mean to get a particular job or salary, then yes, it will be worthless if you don’t get that job or make that salary after, and you shouldn’t go into debt for that.</p>
<p>Yep I was strongly encouraged to get my PhD and initially when I started grad school I intended to. I made that decision on the basis of 2 main points.
<p>Once it became clear that both were lies I opted for the MS.</p>
<p>The average for completing a PhD is now 7 years and everyone from my lab who did are stuck in post-docs 5 years later with no prospects of ever having a real job. They will end up doing a career change around age 40 having to deal with the PhD = overqualified for everything stigma attached to them for the rest of their life. </p>
<p>Science in this country has degenerated into a sick joke and a trap that exploits and abuses the brightest but naive. The grad student program has indeed become a pyramid scheme and as a source for cheap scientific labor for Universities to do research and teach undergrad science. Many PI’s don’t even give any sort of mentorship and completion rates can be as low as 1/3 though 1/2 is average. The PI at the lab where I worked not only did not mentor anyone he kept his most productive students from graduating. One of my colleagues has to get the provost involved. There is no accountability in PhD programs for providing a quality educational experience rather than simple exploitation. It is nothing more than a serfdom.</p>
<p>Any student that manages to get through the above gauntlet has little to look forward to by endless crappy post-docs and falling further behind in life.</p>
<p>Things are not much better on the industry side of things as the huge excess of scientific talent, the h1b program, and outsourcing allow companies to abuse their science staff like no other group of workers. Most positions pay at least 30 to 50 percent what they should, are extremely unstable, many are permatemp and have no benefits.</p>
<p>In short, pursuing a career in science is an act of madness. Our society does not value science at all anymore.</p>
<p>^
How exactly can the graduate program be considered “cheap labour”? I’ve often seen this thrown around and while I did think it initially made sense, I think it’s more of a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” kinda deal. Granted, grad students in science are slaved as TAs and/or RAs - except fellowship holders who have some more free time - but their tuition is paid for and they are awarded a stipend. Instead of paying them the stipend + waiving the tuition, another “research or grading grunt” (don’t mean for this to sound derogatory but apparently grad students really have a hard time…and those so-called “grunts” could probably do the same RA or TA duties with an MS degree as background) could be hired with that money. Instead, what happens is the department takes in a grad student who gets their PhD in exchange for the work they do at the university, without necessarily going into debt. One should also consider that the doctoral advisor also invests their time in the student, not just their grant money!</p>
<p>A PhD is a serious undertaking. One should make an effort to find out what kind of lives grad students live and choose whether they’d like to go through that themselves. There are people who genuinely like science and have a great time being scientists for the duration of their PhD. </p>
<p>Further, people holding doctorate in quantitative subjects can find employment in finance, oil and gas, defense and coding jobs. As mentioned above, PhD takes a lot of time and one cannot expect to have a job handed to them simply because they did one. As such, one should look into what kind of essential skills they would need in their “toolbox” to be able to find employment once they graduate. In fact, every college and grad student should. I found a CV of a mathematics PhD grad under the “people” or “grad students” section of a uni’s website - was a from top school; MIT, I think - and that person actually applied and did an internship in finance over the summer before finishing his PhD.</p>
<p>[PhDs.org:</a> Jobs for PhDs, graduate school rankings, and career resources for scientists and engineers](<a href=“http://www.phds.org%5DPhDs.org:”>http://www.phds.org) is, apparently, a good place to look for jobs.</p>
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<a href=“http://www.chemistry-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/a40kI.png[/img]”>http://www.chemistry-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/a40kI.png
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My PI sent an identical letter to my entire group though he was less subtle. Either show up Saturday or have a resignation on Monday.</p>
<p>Work 60+ hours a week for as little as $15000.</p>
<p>Sombre for the most part PhD’s are not only unable to get hired in other fields, or even in scientific fields not exactly related to their research, they have great difficulty getting hired in fields related to their research. Thinking the PhD gives me highly marketable soft-skills is nothing but optimistic thinking with very little relation to reality.</p>
<p>My PhD experience circa 1980’s is diametrically oposite that of sschoe2. I never felt exploited and the faculty was more than honest about the probability of a “tenure-track” position waiting for me after graduation. Getting a PhD in the physical sciences in the US opens an incredible number of opportunities. In support of the statistics referenced in the OP article not one of my fellow graduates are in academia but we have all had very successful careers, intellectually and to our pleasant surprise financially as well.</p>
<p>Interesting. My SIL is a phD, doing a postdoc, next doing a Fulbright. Hope they don’t think he’s OVER qualified for whatever comes next! We’ll see what develops as he tries to go into academia…</p>
<p>He does have a long-range plan, and knows you have to publish publish publish as well as network and all that. But the best laid plans of mice and men etc… :D</p>
<p>Sschoe2,</p>
<p>That’s a letter which seems to be addressed to post-docs. It’s also more than ten years old and representative of one department in one institution.</p>
<p>So, PhDs are either stuck in the postdoc cycle for a few years and then unemployed or they’re unemployed from the start? I don’t understand how you could have thought doing a PhD was a good idea if you were after $$$. Not sure about the less quantitative scientific fields, like say biology (not biostats or comp. bio), and where they end up but PhDs do find work in the fields listed above. Doing a PhD in science to become a professor is a very bad idea because most science PhDs don’t become professors. Odds are against everyone. I know the AIP has data regarding this on their website but I can’t be bothered to dig that up.</p>
<p>Again, if you’re looking for a job, check out [PhDs.org:</a> Jobs for PhDs, graduate school rankings, and career resources for scientists and engineers](<a href=“http://www.phds.org%5DPhDs.org:”>http://www.phds.org), go to quantnet and wilmott! I don’t know much but I’ve talked to a large enough number of PhDs and the general idea is you do the PhD if you’d like to be a scientist for a couple of years and if you’re lucky, maybe do a post doc for a year or two and then it’s gonna be in your best interests if you go find employment elsewhere, in say, finance.</p>
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<p>obligatory post</p>
<p>Not much has changed in academia in 10 years. The letter that the PI sent to my group was circa 2006. </p>
<p>I was never after money. $50-70k with benefits would be fine for me if it meant having a interesting and rewarding career. Long periods of unemployment and $35-40k without benefits is not acceptable and should not be considered acceptable for anyone with a post-graduate level education. </p>
<p>The salary stats at the times indicated $60-80k was an easily obtainable goal after 5-10 years experience. However, that is incorrect. The majority of scientists now a days have nothing to look forward to except perhaps 10 years of mixed permatemp and unemployment before permanent unemployment.</p>
<p>I would have to agree with sschoe2. I went partially down that path when it wasn’t so bad - sorry I don’t have the stats handy but # of PhD’s has increased sig. over the years. </p>
<p>@kmrcollege back in the 80’s it wasn’t so bad - PhD’s still had a good future back then. I always ask professors I meet at different colleges and everyone of the ones I have asked so far say the same thing - that there are a 1,000 PhD’s for that one tenure track position now.</p>
<p>I did everything in my power to convince my D to veer away from that path - engineering or other professional paths have brighter futures. I don’t know much about the maths and humanities though.</p>
<p>It’s worth laying out the different types of PhDs so that this thread doesn’t get too muddled. </p>
<p>A PhD in computer science is quite valued in industry and there are a lot of positions that require it. I guess the trade off here is that the computer science BS is also so heavily in demand that a student entering a PhD program today would run the risk of the market souring before he/she graduates and years of lost income. </p>
<p>A quantitative PhD gives one the opportunity to work as a “quant” or “strat” in banking, but I’ve mostly heard bad things about this kind of work and in such a position one works below traders who generally are a few years out of BA/BS. A lot of people dislike that. Buy-side quant positions are much better but they also far more selective and likely to get rarer in the future. I would also expect the market for banking quants to shrink and salaries to go down. I think that if an undergraduate knew they wanted to work in trading after graduation, even as a strat or a quant, it would be better to get into a training program straight out of graduation for quants or to do a masters in financial mathematics. Getting a PhD in physics or math doesn’t seem like the optimal path to that career. </p>
<p>The salary for a PhD student seems pitifully low, but I don’t actually know if that’s entirely a bad thing. It reduces the number of people with the credential and it weeds out people who are seeking to immediately become wealthy.</p>
<p>I’ve talked to quants and their groups are separate. The guy I talked to has only people with PhDs in math, physics and CS working in his group. (some have an MS and lots of work experience) I asked him if he’s seen any Econ PhDs around and his response was that he had “heard of them and that they were wizards with R and that he might have caught a few glimpses of them”. </p>
<p>Sschoe2, you seem hell bent on believing that there are no exit routes. Why don’t you try getting into contact with a head hunter using that website I linked? I bet they’d know better about the job market outside of academia for science PhDs, than the profs know! Another thing I’ve learned from people who went down that path is that “academia worked for tenured professors and that’s what they know”. Following that, if you stick to solely the advice or guidance they offer to you, your view will be pigeon holed towards academia.</p>
<p>Personally, I like applied math a lot and while I haven’t pinned down a specific field of interest, there still is a possibility I go to graduate school. I probably won’t ever earn 500k USD per year but I’m sure I’d do more than just fine with anything between sixty and a hundred. Most people would. I’d be happy with that. That and the fact that I played Mr Scientist for a 5-6 years…not everyone gets paid to that.</p>
<p>The way I see it, maybe it’s a good thing that I (eventually…), or any other science PhD, will have to change fields. Who’s to say I wouldn’t get bored with academia and want out? It keeps things interesting. I like change.</p>
<p>There’s this guy who’s an assistant prof at the Courant Institute and he worked in the theory group of Microsoft before (not in the US/EU, elsewhere, can’t remember), so you can try look into that. Figure out where the people who graduated with PhDs from your department ended up at. I’m sure not everyone is teaching high school, flipping burgers or stuck in the post doc “hell”.</p>
<p>As I indicated earlier I do not have a PhD. I started one and once it became clear that I was expected to be a slave for 7 years for worse job prospects and then a post doc for many years after I decided on a terminal masters. I think the final straw was when my colleagues who were graduating with the PhD were discussing whether they could get away with hiding the PhD, leaving it off their resume and getting a job at the BS/MS level. </p>
<p>I have the Kennedy Guide to Executive recruiters and also contacts for many more through linked-in, careersinfood, other websites. I have spoken to quite a few. Most of the ones who are not familiar with the scientific field seem shocked at how low paid I am and promise to find me a job. I then never hear from them again.</p>
<p>In what field is your MS in? I only ask because I’m curious, not because I can be of any assistance. My knowledge does not extend beyond the experience of others. However, if it is in anything quantitative or computational or employing use of statistics, perhaps you may find some luck asking people in other forums about jobs that can potentially earn you more money. I don’t mean to be (any more) intrusive but in my opinion, if one earns enough to live and if they can find some kind of satisfaction <em>somewhere</em> in their everyday life, that’s a pretty darn good position to be in.</p>
<p>I studied protein-biochemistry. The lab where I did research studied lipid binding proteins and domains. I did a lot of PCR, mutagenesis, cloning, protein expression and purification, biological assays, liquid chromatography, electrophoresis, BIAcore and since I was in the department of chemistry I took courses in analytical, organic, physical and inorganic chemistry as well as taught undergrad chemistry.</p>
<p>I thought I’d be a shoe in for pharma with their increasing emphasis on protein therapeutics. However, they collapsed over the past 5 years and have pretty much given me the cold shoulder (we don’t want you unless you have FDA experience, GLP lab, GMP) and most of them are only offering permatemp jobs. I’m in Chicago and Abbott has been profuse with laying off employees and hiring contractors. </p>
<p>I ended up in the food industry instead also in a permatemp job. I do mostly analytical method development and flavors and natural products research. I’ve looked into jumping to pharma except they still give me the cold shoulder though indian recruiters are constantly hounding me about crappy permatemp jobs particularly at Abbott.</p>
<p>As for earning a living I am barely pulling $40k with absolutely no benefits no raises and no future. I haven’t even been able to take more than a day or 2 off in 3 years. I have long since fallen out of love with science and get little satisfaction from it anymore. I just do it for a paycheck and once I leave for the day I don’t want to hear about, read about, or talk about science at all other than to express my sincere regret ever studying it.</p>
<p>@sschoe2-</p>
<p>Have you thought about supplementing your science education/work background with part-time/evening computer classes? With classes in software engineering and statistics, you’d make a very good candidate for a computer related job at a biotech or big pharma company.</p>
<p>I’m saying it because I used to develop bioinformatics software in the 90’s with only a BS in molecular/cellular biology. At the time, my computer knowledge in networks, C, Java, etc was self-taught. But nowadays, computer technology has improved a lot, so formal training is better.</p>
<p>My 2 cents.</p>
<p>I understand your frustration. If not that though, what would you have done? Clearly, you did it and you did it well but I don’t see how majoring in say, Russian Literature, Sociology or Women’s Studies, would have set you up in a better situation.</p>
<p>Have you considered teaching high school? I was under the impression that they earn more than 40k. Sure, that won’t be a walk in the park with Kat Dennings wrapped around you (sounds sweet, yeah?) but you’ll get more money and it’s actually quite satisfying, if not a little frustrating. You’ll probably spend about half of your lesson getting people to settle down. It’s harder if you’re working in “less favoured” (read: poor - can’t be bothered to sound politically correct, the truth is what it is) areas but it really is rewarding. I love those kids.</p>
<p>What Nwcrazy said looks pretty cool too! </p>
<p>mergersandinquisitions.com has a guide somewhere on getting into finance/consultancy when you have work experience in a non-finance field. The guy actually talked about bio-related things and he said that usually an MBA from a target school is the way to go. Or networking like a mad man.</p>
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