<p>Exactly I acknowledge there is a chance if you get a science degree you may get a fulfilling and well paying job (probably less than a 20% chance).</p>
<p>There is also a chance if you go around the crossing gates that you will beat the train. I on the other hand, recommend waiting for the train to pass especially considering the risk/rewards equation.</p>
<p>There is a chance that if you are bitten by a King Cobra you won’t die. I recommend however that you don’t go near one.</p>
<p>Would getting a masters in say bioinformatics or biostatistics result in poor job prospects? Are these fields lumped with the broad “science” category that we are talking about in this topic (biology and chemistry)?</p>
<p>Nobody has any problem with discussing the harsh realities of the job market in chemistry these days. I’ve done it and so have many others. But if all you’ve got is one drum and all you do is pound that same drum over and over all day long for month after month, it gets pretty tiresome, and that’s what has been happening in this forum. One guy who hates science hangs out here venting constant negativity, convinced that he’s the lone voice in the world saving these naive, hopeful souls from a lifetime of misery. I tend to give CC posters a little more credit than to assume they’re blindly pursuing their passions without doing any research. Today’s high school seniors don’t remember an economy that was thriving. They know what the job market is like in science and anywhere else. If we’re going to discourage people from pursuing a particular major based on its employment outlook, then let’s be honest and steer everyone away from college altogether and into trade schools.</p>
<p>There are people getting jobs in science every day, and statistics don’t apply to individuals. Those two realities should not be ignored either.</p>
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<p>The statistics reveal the probable outcome of getting a degree in science and they most certainly do apply to individuals. People win the lottery every day too, is it wise to stake your future on being able to win? No. Is it wise to stake your future well being by getting a degree in a subject where you have less than a 20% chance of getting a decent job. No. </p>
<p>I can’t tell anyone for sure what getting a chemistry degree will do for them anymore than I can tell you the precise position of an electron in an atom. Just like in quantum I can discuss probabilities and tell someone that they have a < 20% chance at not having your life ruined. That is information that I believe any prospective science major should have when deciding whether or not it is wise for someone with that level of intelligence to pursue something that is so poorly valued in our society.</p>
<p>I firmly believe that if HS grads are given the truth about the state of affairs in science that they would by in large steer clear of it.</p>
<p>sschoe, did you read the initial linked article? Some really great advice in there. Here you go: </p>
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<p>Getting a classic science academic research position is a mix of hard work, talent, and luck. Anyone who wants that kind of job needs to get a PhD, but they also need to find out about what they’ll do if they don’t get the tenure track job. Same advice that’s given to undergrads majoring in dance or theater, or to students who want to go get an English or Classics PhD. </p>
<p>Departments generally list where they’ve placed their grads, be it in academic or nonacademic jobs. That’s so prospective grad students can get a sense of how likely or not it is that the program might land them an academic job, and also so students can network with people outside of academia.</p>
<p>Sounds like your grad program was a horrorshow. If you really want to do some good, why not steer people away from that program, rather than tarring every program with the same brush?</p>
<p>I have posted reviews of the program and especially the PI. One of my former colleagues who also left with the MS had a string of failed interviews and decided to hire a service to investigate her references. It turns out the J-off PI was secretly giving out very bad references despite her leaving on good terms with him. She contemplated suing the University but settled on leaving a publicly visible scathing review on the PI on the net in response.</p>
<p>Academia is full of psycho/sociopaths with tenure. One has to be very careful to steer clear of them.</p>
<p>Also departments and PI’s often list their successful placements but they do not publish their attrition rates. I remember mine published happy faced marketing saying that occasionally students leave without the PhD due to personal reasons. They sure as heck don’t advertise the fact that 2/3+ of the students leave in disgust (1/2 is considered average among programs).</p>
<p>In an effort to be more positive … some cool things in science: </p>
<p>being the intersect between business and science
being the intersect between technology and science ***</p>
<p>This is the first forum I’ve come across that actually have people supporting the notion that there are plenty of jobs for Ph. D scientists. Google any page with recent info on grad school/post-docs/academic route (e.g., any forum, blog) and everyone warns you the horror of going the academia pathway in this current state. Even 5-10 years ago, things were a different story, just as you CCers would so be familiar with, admissions rates were so much higher for top schools. </p>
<p>Sure, a fraction of people who go into grad school for science have so much passion for it that nothing would deter them and they do grad school just because they love it. </p>
<p>But other people who go into grad school for other reasons need to be warned the truth. Like people whose parents pressure them into Sciences just because the money is there, or people who uses grad school as a backup plan for med school, or people who think the prestige is worth the toil (because they didn’t know how horrible the conditions actually are). They should know what’s behind those biased, artificial college brochures and stats claiming that grad school wouldn’t be so bad, and they’ll have jobs waiting for them when they graduate. </p>
<p>Yeah, there are opportunities that exist that some of you guys mention, but they’re not for everyone and the numbers don’t add up. Seriously, would you agree to just take up any job that lists your degree as a qualification and that pays well just because they’re hiring? Maybe you’ve heard some bad things about working for that company, or maybe you don’t like job description. </p>
<p>Hats off to sschoe2 (and others on the same side) for holding his ground for 5 pages.</p>
<p>Even though I agree with sschoe2 that the dismal outlook needs to be publicized about the future of PhD’s etc I do not agree that we should be discouraging people from going into science. There are still many science related avenues and ultimately the decision should be made by the students themselves. Present all (good and bad info) and let them decide.</p>
<p>I am hoping the funding sources and anyone who can influence these bodies modify the system to improve the fate of PhD’s.</p>
<p>Aren’t pharmacy students soon facing the same outlook due to the larger # of schools available without the comparable increase in pharmacies?</p>
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<p>Yes. A couple of factors are contributing to this
(1) As you mentioned, increase in supply (more schools opening up)
(2) Decreased opening in # of stores due to economy
(3) Consolidation of retail chains (how long will rite aid stay around?)
(4) Reimbursement pressure from pbm’s (consolidation of medco + express scripts won’t help)
(5) Continuing decline of the independent local pharmacy </p>
<p>… just to name a few.</p>
<p>I think there is still a need for pharmacists it is just that many of the most desirable areas are getting saturated. You may need to consider taking a job out in the shticks or more rural areas rather than in the major metropolitan areas.</p>
<p>Yea talking about poor career prospects in science just seems to be extremely politically incorrect. It is almost to the point of making a racially charged comment.</p>
<p>We are supposed to say yea our nation desperately needs more scientists to lead us into the 21st century or that a chemistry degree can lead you to many different career paths (Walmart, Starbucks, McDonalds, Kmart, selling real estate and insurance, prostitution, cooking meth…) Or we are supposed to repeat that trite piece of wisdom follow your passion and the money will follow. I guess all the sociology and criminal justice majors serving coffee at Starbuck’s just lack passion.</p>
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<p>You’re correct, of course. The metro areas are extremely saturated. However, time will tell regarding the long-term outlook for pharmacist employment. A lot of it (predictably) has to do with the economy and healthcare reform.</p>
<p>Yeah the cost of healthcare and medication is out of control in this country. And counterfeit medication is a racket in the billions. More and more online pharmacies are showing up, and more people are crossing borders into Canada and Mexico to get medication at a fraction of the cost. If only regulations in this country weren’t so cost prohibitive, strangling, and time consuming, it’d probably be a lot cheaper. We have so many laws that cut into the private sectors bottom line, and even revenue. If we want to turn anything around, especially the economy, government waste needs to be cut. That includes, DHS(Homeland Security), FDA, USDA, DOJ, DOEd., DOComm, DOE(Energy),etc.</p>
<p>Unfortunately businesses have proved again and again that their only moral compass is 1. money and 2. the law. This recession especially has exposed how morally bankrupt companies are. If we didn’t have regulations we’d have food companies poisoning people, drug companies selling quackery, wall street and the banks cheating people (I mean even more than they do now).</p>
<p>The reality is that you should only pursue a PhD if you want to play “scientist” for a few years, and you’re fine with accepting a job that you could have obtained with a Masters degree after you’re done. Financially, you will never recoup the lost income from pursuing the PhD. Only the obsessed wind up in academia, but very few make it. </p>
<p>More importantly, you should decide whether or not the academic lifestyle is for you: do you want to work for 60 hours a week (an easy week), and be severely constrained to where you can work and live? Are you OK sacrificing your personal life and/or your time with your family? Are you OK being underpaid relative to your peers, and dealing with incessant political infighting within your department? If you answered yes to all of the above, then consider doing a PhD and staying in it to become an academic. Otherwise, do a masters degree and enter industry.</p>
<p>Overall, there are plenty of good paying jobs for scientists and engineers in most disciplines. Biology and chemistry are an abnormality: I would not recommend a career in straight biology or chemistry to anyone right now, but someone who has skills in computing may be OK in those fields.</p>
<p>While a lot of what psuedoghost said is true, a lot of it is also field dependent. I know in my field very few schools actually offer MS degrees, and generally if you have one it either means you did it as part of your BS, or you washed out of your PhD program. If you don’t have a PhD you’re likely to be stuck doing QC style jobs or performing basic experiments repeatedly, but with a PhD you get to direct research, develop new products, etc.</p>
<p>That said, the salary thing is probably pretty true on average. My girlfriend went straight into industry after graduating with her BS. She was able to get them to pay for night classes for her to get an MS in an engineering subfield, and was paid at her full engineer’s salary the whole time. She’s also racked up 5-6 more years in their pension system, so if she were to somehow stick with them for 25 years, she’d be able to retire considerably earlier. That said, I still have no regrets doing my PhD since it got me hired into a position I wouldn’t have been able to get without that degree.</p>
<p>I thought I’d chime in. I’m a recent undergrad transfer student in CA who had hopes and aspirations of one day entering the biotech industry with a PhD in genetics or similar such degree. I’d been told in my first few years about the many opportunities afforded to someone with a PhD as opposed to a BS or Masters, and I bought into it. But I also took up MANY research opportunities in my first 2 years, and got to talk to a lot of good professors in the bio field, and slowly developed a more realistic picture of what to expect. </p>
<p>Long story short, I did my research and changed my major upon transferring to a 4 year university based on my own research of current economic and industry trends. Basically, although I love biology, I determined that in the next decade when I figure the economy will be weak (or worse), biotech likely wont see very much growth from its current dismal state and job prospects. Not a lot of money flowing towards venture capital. However, I also love physics and am very good at it, and had taken quite a few physics and math courses in the years prior, almost enough for a mechanical engineering AS (my weakness in math scared me away from it). So, I decided to work for… maybe the strongest booming industry with high demand for bright young scientists and engineers, and a short supply of them. Big Oil.</p>
<p>You can work for the oil/gas/coal/mining etc. commodities based companies as a geologist, geophysicist, geoengineer, petrol engineer, etc. and have outstanding hiring prospects and outstanding salaries (particularly in oil). Oil companies are clamoring to hire new scientists because there aren’t enough of them in the earth sciences. If your skills are more along the engineering side, you get hired with a bachelors. Otherwise, you just need a masters. My major is geophysics, and I know that if I cant get hired with a BS, it’ll only take another year for me to complete a masters, and there’s the real possibility it could be paid for with an oil company. The starting salaries for geophysics are at average engineering levels, or higher. Heck, I’ve heard of students from my school being picked up by oil companies and given SIX FIGURE salaries right off the bat! The most attractive aspect of this is the fact that such jobs really will make use of your scientific skills, and reward you for it. Screw the academia rat race.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if my sense of ethics could tolerate working for Big Oil though, though I’d be willing to work for a petrochemical company with reasonably progressive philosophies.</p>