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oqx5qp
|
askacademia_train
| 0.98 |
Is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? People will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. Has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? I'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially STEM. Do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? Do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? Is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? It reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. Is that what it's like now? Are you competing with people like that?
|
h6gku74
|
h6epdqj
| 1,627,207,798 | 1,627,162,614 | 6 | 5 |
Not really. As other commenters are saying, what matters most is work ethics and knowing how to play the game (publishing, getting grants, networking,...). Of course being "genius smart" helps, but I have seen many of these failing because they refuse to play the game. Sometimes they get a job out of their "genius" reputation, but then they get quite behind in terms of funding and visibility because they start to work on some niche field or lose interest and dedicate themselves to other things (being pro chess player or being fluent in Chinese or whatever).
|
yes IMO
| 1 | 45,184 | 1.2 | ||
oqx5qp
|
askacademia_train
| 0.98 |
Is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? People will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. Has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? I'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially STEM. Do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? Do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? Is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? It reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. Is that what it's like now? Are you competing with people like that?
|
h6gedao
|
h6epdqj
| 1,627,201,640 | 1,627,162,614 | 6 | 5 |
I'll say this much. I have regular 4.5 evals from students, 7 years of experience teaching, including being tenure track at one time (got hit with across-the-board lay offs), and have developed novel pedagogical methodologies that increased retention among students on academic probation. I made $5k last year. I can't find anything but adjunct shit. I didn't even get an interview to a single place I applied this year, including teaching VAP and full time lecturer positions. So...
|
yes IMO
| 1 | 39,026 | 1.2 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
eta8ece
|
eta7l2p
| 1,562,614,526 | 1,562,613,999 | 114 | 78 |
Perhaps you would be better served to dissuade students and your university from counting on an academic job.
|
My department will admit them whether or not I train them - the program is seen as a marker of prestige. The best I can do once they show up is try to give them the most employable skills that I can.
| 1 | 527 | 1.461538 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etabkpf
|
eta7l2p
| 1,562,616,565 | 1,562,613,999 | 79 | 78 |
I think this is also a very field dependent question to ask. Some fields are well off for PhD grads, some moderately well off, and some exceptionally poor. To me, the biggest thing we can do as faculty is help our students be aware of the situation such that they are making informed choices. A lot of that, in STEM, is helping them make connections in non-academic markets to know what those fields look for, and what those jobs involve- this makes it possible for students to pivot to gainful employment more easily. I also think you're slightly over-interpreting the early PhD career academic interest (80%)- most students don't enter a PhD really having any idea of what a scientist outside of academia does, and there's a significant decline in interest during the PhD due to this.
|
My department will admit them whether or not I train them - the program is seen as a marker of prestige. The best I can do once they show up is try to give them the most employable skills that I can.
| 1 | 2,566 | 1.012821 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etabkpf
|
etabbso
| 1,562,616,565 | 1,562,616,408 | 79 | 27 |
I think this is also a very field dependent question to ask. Some fields are well off for PhD grads, some moderately well off, and some exceptionally poor. To me, the biggest thing we can do as faculty is help our students be aware of the situation such that they are making informed choices. A lot of that, in STEM, is helping them make connections in non-academic markets to know what those fields look for, and what those jobs involve- this makes it possible for students to pivot to gainful employment more easily. I also think you're slightly over-interpreting the early PhD career academic interest (80%)- most students don't enter a PhD really having any idea of what a scientist outside of academia does, and there's a significant decline in interest during the PhD due to this.
|
>So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? Most of the time, I tell them not to bother, no matter how good they are as undergrads. Some professors in my program refused to take graduate students, because of the nature of the job market for historians.
| 1 | 157 | 2.925926 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etabpjz
|
etabbso
| 1,562,616,650 | 1,562,616,408 | 65 | 27 |
This is a very serious question and I don't think it has an easy answer. I think that in the short term, mentors can aim to provide PhD students better salaries and stability during their time so at least when viewed as a 4-to-6-year job, it isn't a completely unreasonable one. Practically this might mean not taking students unless you can guarantee good, ample, stable funding, health insurance, vacation time, etc for them. I think that some European institutions have done good work in this direction. In the long term, I don't know what kind of reforms are needed.
|
>So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? Most of the time, I tell them not to bother, no matter how good they are as undergrads. Some professors in my program refused to take graduate students, because of the nature of the job market for historians.
| 1 | 242 | 2.407407 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etaef87
|
etahteh
| 1,562,618,365 | 1,562,620,563 | 32 | 38 |
If you consider only monetary benefits it is hard to justify grad school. But there are other: 1. PhD gives you access to all kinds of research jobs, and if you are into research it might be worth it, because otherwise you won't be considered for those positions. 2. TT has way more freedom than any other high paid job, might be worth the gamble, especially for people who have already thought about point #1. 3. Even if you drop out it does not mean you are not good enough, there is a lot of factors affecting it. Knowing this can make it easier to go through the struggles. I am currently a grad student and I perceive it this way: "I know it's a gamble, but considering the freedom of choosing a problem to work on and the fact that if I don't like it I can become a data scientist any minute I'm okay with spending at least some time on that and see how it goes."
|
My experience is, of course, just anecdotal. But as someone who grew up well below the poverty line, academia was a career I could get into that didn't require expensive professional school (the massive costs of writing standardized tests and interviews for medical school kept me from even bothering). Getting paid to do a graduate degree was mind blowing for me relative to that. It also was the first time I travelled internationally. I really don't think that I would have done better in the private sector being someone who was bright, but didn't really know how professional fields work at all. Then again, I went to a public school in a country with reasonably-priced higher education that didn't require the GRE/SAT/etc. I also had a great mentor. All those things would help anybody in academia I think.
| 0 | 2,198 | 1.1875 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etabbso
|
etahteh
| 1,562,616,408 | 1,562,620,563 | 27 | 38 |
>So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? Most of the time, I tell them not to bother, no matter how good they are as undergrads. Some professors in my program refused to take graduate students, because of the nature of the job market for historians.
|
My experience is, of course, just anecdotal. But as someone who grew up well below the poverty line, academia was a career I could get into that didn't require expensive professional school (the massive costs of writing standardized tests and interviews for medical school kept me from even bothering). Getting paid to do a graduate degree was mind blowing for me relative to that. It also was the first time I travelled internationally. I really don't think that I would have done better in the private sector being someone who was bright, but didn't really know how professional fields work at all. Then again, I went to a public school in a country with reasonably-priced higher education that didn't require the GRE/SAT/etc. I also had a great mentor. All those things would help anybody in academia I think.
| 0 | 4,155 | 1.407407 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etac2do
|
etahteh
| 1,562,616,879 | 1,562,620,563 | 14 | 38 |
You can only tell them as you see it and then allow them to make their own decisions. If they are dissuaded by your argument, then they likely would have become disillusioned sooner or later and you are probably helping to spare them some inevitable tribulations. If they remain determined, then you have done nothing but to test their commitment and give them a heads up for what to watch out for.
|
My experience is, of course, just anecdotal. But as someone who grew up well below the poverty line, academia was a career I could get into that didn't require expensive professional school (the massive costs of writing standardized tests and interviews for medical school kept me from even bothering). Getting paid to do a graduate degree was mind blowing for me relative to that. It also was the first time I travelled internationally. I really don't think that I would have done better in the private sector being someone who was bright, but didn't really know how professional fields work at all. Then again, I went to a public school in a country with reasonably-priced higher education that didn't require the GRE/SAT/etc. I also had a great mentor. All those things would help anybody in academia I think.
| 0 | 3,684 | 2.714286 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etahteh
|
etaddxn
| 1,562,620,563 | 1,562,617,721 | 38 | 10 |
My experience is, of course, just anecdotal. But as someone who grew up well below the poverty line, academia was a career I could get into that didn't require expensive professional school (the massive costs of writing standardized tests and interviews for medical school kept me from even bothering). Getting paid to do a graduate degree was mind blowing for me relative to that. It also was the first time I travelled internationally. I really don't think that I would have done better in the private sector being someone who was bright, but didn't really know how professional fields work at all. Then again, I went to a public school in a country with reasonably-priced higher education that didn't require the GRE/SAT/etc. I also had a great mentor. All those things would help anybody in academia I think.
|
As it had already been said, not all fields are the same, and neither are all motives for doing a PhD. I feel fine about how things are in the business school.
| 1 | 2,842 | 3.8 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etabbso
|
etaef87
| 1,562,616,408 | 1,562,618,365 | 27 | 32 |
>So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? Most of the time, I tell them not to bother, no matter how good they are as undergrads. Some professors in my program refused to take graduate students, because of the nature of the job market for historians.
|
If you consider only monetary benefits it is hard to justify grad school. But there are other: 1. PhD gives you access to all kinds of research jobs, and if you are into research it might be worth it, because otherwise you won't be considered for those positions. 2. TT has way more freedom than any other high paid job, might be worth the gamble, especially for people who have already thought about point #1. 3. Even if you drop out it does not mean you are not good enough, there is a lot of factors affecting it. Knowing this can make it easier to go through the struggles. I am currently a grad student and I perceive it this way: "I know it's a gamble, but considering the freedom of choosing a problem to work on and the fact that if I don't like it I can become a data scientist any minute I'm okay with spending at least some time on that and see how it goes."
| 0 | 1,957 | 1.185185 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etaef87
|
etac2do
| 1,562,618,365 | 1,562,616,879 | 32 | 14 |
If you consider only monetary benefits it is hard to justify grad school. But there are other: 1. PhD gives you access to all kinds of research jobs, and if you are into research it might be worth it, because otherwise you won't be considered for those positions. 2. TT has way more freedom than any other high paid job, might be worth the gamble, especially for people who have already thought about point #1. 3. Even if you drop out it does not mean you are not good enough, there is a lot of factors affecting it. Knowing this can make it easier to go through the struggles. I am currently a grad student and I perceive it this way: "I know it's a gamble, but considering the freedom of choosing a problem to work on and the fact that if I don't like it I can become a data scientist any minute I'm okay with spending at least some time on that and see how it goes."
|
You can only tell them as you see it and then allow them to make their own decisions. If they are dissuaded by your argument, then they likely would have become disillusioned sooner or later and you are probably helping to spare them some inevitable tribulations. If they remain determined, then you have done nothing but to test their commitment and give them a heads up for what to watch out for.
| 1 | 1,486 | 2.285714 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etaddxn
|
etaef87
| 1,562,617,721 | 1,562,618,365 | 10 | 32 |
As it had already been said, not all fields are the same, and neither are all motives for doing a PhD. I feel fine about how things are in the business school.
|
If you consider only monetary benefits it is hard to justify grad school. But there are other: 1. PhD gives you access to all kinds of research jobs, and if you are into research it might be worth it, because otherwise you won't be considered for those positions. 2. TT has way more freedom than any other high paid job, might be worth the gamble, especially for people who have already thought about point #1. 3. Even if you drop out it does not mean you are not good enough, there is a lot of factors affecting it. Knowing this can make it easier to go through the struggles. I am currently a grad student and I perceive it this way: "I know it's a gamble, but considering the freedom of choosing a problem to work on and the fact that if I don't like it I can become a data scientist any minute I'm okay with spending at least some time on that and see how it goes."
| 0 | 644 | 3.2 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etam6u8
|
etaqz41
| 1,562,623,499 | 1,562,626,898 | 24 | 27 |
I think that academic science is a bit of a passion job. In many senses, it's not all that different from dreaming of being a pro-athlete, working in the arts, or working as a chef. Long hours, low pay, a few people make it big, even more people live modestly but comfortably doing something they love, a lot of hustle, a long period of time where you are sacrificing earning potential to pursue this dream. Only a small number of people "make it" and most people end up moving on and doing something else with their lives. On the upside the unemployment rate for PhDs is something like 1%, so even though you might end up underemployed or not using your degree with a lot of sunk costs, it definitely doesn't mean you will be on the street. You might have all kinds of unusual options open to you. If it were presented as akin to signing a D1 scholarship with the dream of becoming professional athlete or hauling long hours with low pay with the dream of becoming the head chef at a restaurant rather than a route that makes financial sense, perhaps people's view of "failing" to become a professor or seeing a PhD as a totally economically secure route (compared to the loss of earning potential) would be clearer.
|
The data OP cites is certainly a compelling argument for *avoiding graduate school in the first place*. And this information is out there and available to folks as they make the decision to apply and to enroll. But to hit them with all this after the fact, as they're newly arrived and enthusiastic first-year students, actually seems rather cruel to me. "Hey bozo, look what an idiot thing you just did!" No, no bueno, you just do you best to train and support them and you don't shove all this negativity at them.
| 0 | 3,399 | 1.125 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etac2do
|
etaqz41
| 1,562,616,879 | 1,562,626,898 | 14 | 27 |
You can only tell them as you see it and then allow them to make their own decisions. If they are dissuaded by your argument, then they likely would have become disillusioned sooner or later and you are probably helping to spare them some inevitable tribulations. If they remain determined, then you have done nothing but to test their commitment and give them a heads up for what to watch out for.
|
The data OP cites is certainly a compelling argument for *avoiding graduate school in the first place*. And this information is out there and available to folks as they make the decision to apply and to enroll. But to hit them with all this after the fact, as they're newly arrived and enthusiastic first-year students, actually seems rather cruel to me. "Hey bozo, look what an idiot thing you just did!" No, no bueno, you just do you best to train and support them and you don't shove all this negativity at them.
| 0 | 10,019 | 1.928571 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etaqz41
|
etaddxn
| 1,562,626,898 | 1,562,617,721 | 27 | 10 |
The data OP cites is certainly a compelling argument for *avoiding graduate school in the first place*. And this information is out there and available to folks as they make the decision to apply and to enroll. But to hit them with all this after the fact, as they're newly arrived and enthusiastic first-year students, actually seems rather cruel to me. "Hey bozo, look what an idiot thing you just did!" No, no bueno, you just do you best to train and support them and you don't shove all this negativity at them.
|
As it had already been said, not all fields are the same, and neither are all motives for doing a PhD. I feel fine about how things are in the business school.
| 1 | 9,177 | 2.7 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etam6u8
|
etac2do
| 1,562,623,499 | 1,562,616,879 | 24 | 14 |
I think that academic science is a bit of a passion job. In many senses, it's not all that different from dreaming of being a pro-athlete, working in the arts, or working as a chef. Long hours, low pay, a few people make it big, even more people live modestly but comfortably doing something they love, a lot of hustle, a long period of time where you are sacrificing earning potential to pursue this dream. Only a small number of people "make it" and most people end up moving on and doing something else with their lives. On the upside the unemployment rate for PhDs is something like 1%, so even though you might end up underemployed or not using your degree with a lot of sunk costs, it definitely doesn't mean you will be on the street. You might have all kinds of unusual options open to you. If it were presented as akin to signing a D1 scholarship with the dream of becoming professional athlete or hauling long hours with low pay with the dream of becoming the head chef at a restaurant rather than a route that makes financial sense, perhaps people's view of "failing" to become a professor or seeing a PhD as a totally economically secure route (compared to the loss of earning potential) would be clearer.
|
You can only tell them as you see it and then allow them to make their own decisions. If they are dissuaded by your argument, then they likely would have become disillusioned sooner or later and you are probably helping to spare them some inevitable tribulations. If they remain determined, then you have done nothing but to test their commitment and give them a heads up for what to watch out for.
| 1 | 6,620 | 1.714286 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etam6u8
|
etaddxn
| 1,562,623,499 | 1,562,617,721 | 24 | 10 |
I think that academic science is a bit of a passion job. In many senses, it's not all that different from dreaming of being a pro-athlete, working in the arts, or working as a chef. Long hours, low pay, a few people make it big, even more people live modestly but comfortably doing something they love, a lot of hustle, a long period of time where you are sacrificing earning potential to pursue this dream. Only a small number of people "make it" and most people end up moving on and doing something else with their lives. On the upside the unemployment rate for PhDs is something like 1%, so even though you might end up underemployed or not using your degree with a lot of sunk costs, it definitely doesn't mean you will be on the street. You might have all kinds of unusual options open to you. If it were presented as akin to signing a D1 scholarship with the dream of becoming professional athlete or hauling long hours with low pay with the dream of becoming the head chef at a restaurant rather than a route that makes financial sense, perhaps people's view of "failing" to become a professor or seeing a PhD as a totally economically secure route (compared to the loss of earning potential) would be clearer.
|
As it had already been said, not all fields are the same, and neither are all motives for doing a PhD. I feel fine about how things are in the business school.
| 1 | 5,778 | 2.4 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etac2do
|
etb4i94
| 1,562,616,879 | 1,562,636,824 | 14 | 16 |
You can only tell them as you see it and then allow them to make their own decisions. If they are dissuaded by your argument, then they likely would have become disillusioned sooner or later and you are probably helping to spare them some inevitable tribulations. If they remain determined, then you have done nothing but to test their commitment and give them a heads up for what to watch out for.
|
That was an excellently written post. Let us pause, for but a moment, to consider the 70% who are effectively exiled from a career they are trained, and qualified, for. People who have made the sacrifices postgrad work demands, who have met the challenge, and who are cast out because of fashion and fortune. Let us be honest with ourselves; how many of us hold a post simply because we knew the right person at the right time, in the right place? The question of ethics lies not in the teaching of graduates, but in maintaining the current path academia is taking. If we continue to throw away the wonders we create, we will lament the mono-culture our scholarship will become.
| 0 | 19,945 | 1.142857 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etb4i94
|
etaddxn
| 1,562,636,824 | 1,562,617,721 | 16 | 10 |
That was an excellently written post. Let us pause, for but a moment, to consider the 70% who are effectively exiled from a career they are trained, and qualified, for. People who have made the sacrifices postgrad work demands, who have met the challenge, and who are cast out because of fashion and fortune. Let us be honest with ourselves; how many of us hold a post simply because we knew the right person at the right time, in the right place? The question of ethics lies not in the teaching of graduates, but in maintaining the current path academia is taking. If we continue to throw away the wonders we create, we will lament the mono-culture our scholarship will become.
|
As it had already been said, not all fields are the same, and neither are all motives for doing a PhD. I feel fine about how things are in the business school.
| 1 | 19,103 | 1.6 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etb4i94
|
etasahm
| 1,562,636,824 | 1,562,627,875 | 16 | 9 |
That was an excellently written post. Let us pause, for but a moment, to consider the 70% who are effectively exiled from a career they are trained, and qualified, for. People who have made the sacrifices postgrad work demands, who have met the challenge, and who are cast out because of fashion and fortune. Let us be honest with ourselves; how many of us hold a post simply because we knew the right person at the right time, in the right place? The question of ethics lies not in the teaching of graduates, but in maintaining the current path academia is taking. If we continue to throw away the wonders we create, we will lament the mono-culture our scholarship will become.
|
I'm a PhD student that had just gone through the career crises you're describing, and I was seriously deliberating ending my PhD because of it. I would say that in your mentor role, you should emphasize these points to prospective undergrads, but from that point on, it's not your choice to make on whether or not they should go into grad school.
| 1 | 8,949 | 1.777778 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etawx3l
|
etb4i94
| 1,562,631,299 | 1,562,636,824 | 8 | 16 |
You're definitely not the only person to think this way > Monica Harris, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, is a rare exception. She believes that too many PhDs are being produced, and has stopped admitting them. But such unilateral academic birth control is rare. from <https://medium.economist.com/why-doing-a-phd-is-often-a-waste-of-time-349206f9addb> I'm a grad student who is just beginning to realize that my research is completely useless for anything other than a postdoc. What's even the point of my research? To print more papers with my advisor's name so that he can win larger grants and write even more papers? Yes that's about it.
|
That was an excellently written post. Let us pause, for but a moment, to consider the 70% who are effectively exiled from a career they are trained, and qualified, for. People who have made the sacrifices postgrad work demands, who have met the challenge, and who are cast out because of fashion and fortune. Let us be honest with ourselves; how many of us hold a post simply because we knew the right person at the right time, in the right place? The question of ethics lies not in the teaching of graduates, but in maintaining the current path academia is taking. If we continue to throw away the wonders we create, we will lament the mono-culture our scholarship will become.
| 0 | 5,525 | 2 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etawlj9
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etb4i94
| 1,562,631,067 | 1,562,636,824 | 6 | 16 |
I think a lot of these points are valid. I think though the straightforward question to ask that isn't really answered in your examples is: how many recent graduates regret doing a PhD? How many people wish that they had taken a different path? While I suspect that measuring regret (without comparing across groups or something) isn't a great raw indicator, I'm also not sure all of these measurements are measuring life satisfaction that well either. I'm convinced that 1) PhD students aren't happy/don't have great finances (and neither are postdocs -- though depending on the definition of existential crisis 20% doesn't sound that bad tbh); 2) many phd's want academic jobs but we don't get them; 3) doing a postdoc then going into industry isn't really better than straight to industry (in terms of the industry job you get); 4) industry jobs don't let you do the "research whatever you want (kinda)" that academia does But I guess you haven't convinced me that industry as a fall back plan is all that grim. like ya your students going into industry won't make bank necessarily but maybe they are fine with that? you compare phd postdoc versus phd, and phd postdoc versus college grad generally, but if someone was going to go into the biomedical industry, how does having a phd (vs no phd; some kind of ba/ma) change things. in fairness, its clear you're in this position of applying to TT jobs, and probably checking out industry alternatives, and all the options other than TT look pretty grim to you -- thats personal experience that I don't have. I guess the question is -- if you don't get your TT job, will you regret doing a phd? (it might be hard to know the answer for sure) And honestly, I totally feel this way all the time. to answer your question about training and encouraging/discouraging students -- coming into a phd program personally I wasn't naive about job opportunities (nor I think are most of my cohort) and that I probably won't be a professor. but I thought the chance to do a phd for "free" was worth it -- an 'opportunity of a lifetime!' -- and I could leave whenever I decided on something better to do (before or after I finish). though I still sometimes feel even if I walked away tomorrow it was still worth it, what I think I was actually naive about was how painful/hard it can feel to leave (or to stay) years later, after it feels like I've given my phd my everything. I'm not sure how I could've explained that to my younger self. but then again, maybe if I actually do leave ill see that the "well let's just try it out" approach had been right all along: I'll be both happy I did it and happy I left. who knows
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That was an excellently written post. Let us pause, for but a moment, to consider the 70% who are effectively exiled from a career they are trained, and qualified, for. People who have made the sacrifices postgrad work demands, who have met the challenge, and who are cast out because of fashion and fortune. Let us be honest with ourselves; how many of us hold a post simply because we knew the right person at the right time, in the right place? The question of ethics lies not in the teaching of graduates, but in maintaining the current path academia is taking. If we continue to throw away the wonders we create, we will lament the mono-culture our scholarship will become.
| 0 | 5,757 | 2.666667 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etb3jn3
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etb4i94
| 1,562,636,114 | 1,562,636,824 | 6 | 16 |
Thank you for this. I’m a biomedical graduate student and I’ve been in basically an existential crisis about whether to continue trying to do the academia thing for the last year, and I’ve never felt so stuck in my entire life. Thank you for laying out the numbers for the biomedical field. I knew it probably wasn’t in the cards for me but seeing the numbers (and the stats about lower pay, even years out of a postdoc if you pursue that route) has really made it sink in for me that it’s not worth it. Thank you, seriously. Now I can let go of this and move on. Best of luck to you as you continue on with your journey.
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That was an excellently written post. Let us pause, for but a moment, to consider the 70% who are effectively exiled from a career they are trained, and qualified, for. People who have made the sacrifices postgrad work demands, who have met the challenge, and who are cast out because of fashion and fortune. Let us be honest with ourselves; how many of us hold a post simply because we knew the right person at the right time, in the right place? The question of ethics lies not in the teaching of graduates, but in maintaining the current path academia is taking. If we continue to throw away the wonders we create, we will lament the mono-culture our scholarship will become.
| 0 | 710 | 2.666667 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etaw7nn
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etb4i94
| 1,562,630,782 | 1,562,636,824 | 5 | 16 |
>If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (\~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (\~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research \4-5\]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. I don't know anyone making this little across multiple cohorts from my doctoral program after graduating. Not a small program either. Are these salaries adjusted for anything. Maybe I'm just in shock because this is so far out of the norm for my area (which is one of the big 3/4 hubs). I also work in the biomedical field so I'm speaking more directly to you and your field than other STEM areas.
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That was an excellently written post. Let us pause, for but a moment, to consider the 70% who are effectively exiled from a career they are trained, and qualified, for. People who have made the sacrifices postgrad work demands, who have met the challenge, and who are cast out because of fashion and fortune. Let us be honest with ourselves; how many of us hold a post simply because we knew the right person at the right time, in the right place? The question of ethics lies not in the teaching of graduates, but in maintaining the current path academia is taking. If we continue to throw away the wonders we create, we will lament the mono-culture our scholarship will become.
| 0 | 6,042 | 3.2 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etaddxn
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etb7wbn
| 1,562,617,721 | 1,562,639,295 | 10 | 11 |
As it had already been said, not all fields are the same, and neither are all motives for doing a PhD. I feel fine about how things are in the business school.
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One of the things I grew to really appreciate in grad school was that I was often asked what I want to do. If you start mentorship (or even interviews with potential candidates) by asking what the student wants, whether the student's goals align with your assumptions, you can help the student find what they want. If a student wants to make big bucks, you should tell them to go elsewhere. If a student wants to work and fight and struggle to figure out how things work, without being driven by a paycheck, invite them into your lab. That struggle can be its own reward, and those who enjoy it are probably those most likely to stick to it and end up with grants, faculty positions, etc.
| 0 | 21,574 | 1.1 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etasahm
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etb7wbn
| 1,562,627,875 | 1,562,639,295 | 9 | 11 |
I'm a PhD student that had just gone through the career crises you're describing, and I was seriously deliberating ending my PhD because of it. I would say that in your mentor role, you should emphasize these points to prospective undergrads, but from that point on, it's not your choice to make on whether or not they should go into grad school.
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One of the things I grew to really appreciate in grad school was that I was often asked what I want to do. If you start mentorship (or even interviews with potential candidates) by asking what the student wants, whether the student's goals align with your assumptions, you can help the student find what they want. If a student wants to make big bucks, you should tell them to go elsewhere. If a student wants to work and fight and struggle to figure out how things work, without being driven by a paycheck, invite them into your lab. That struggle can be its own reward, and those who enjoy it are probably those most likely to stick to it and end up with grants, faculty positions, etc.
| 0 | 11,420 | 1.222222 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etb7wbn
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etawx3l
| 1,562,639,295 | 1,562,631,299 | 11 | 8 |
One of the things I grew to really appreciate in grad school was that I was often asked what I want to do. If you start mentorship (or even interviews with potential candidates) by asking what the student wants, whether the student's goals align with your assumptions, you can help the student find what they want. If a student wants to make big bucks, you should tell them to go elsewhere. If a student wants to work and fight and struggle to figure out how things work, without being driven by a paycheck, invite them into your lab. That struggle can be its own reward, and those who enjoy it are probably those most likely to stick to it and end up with grants, faculty positions, etc.
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You're definitely not the only person to think this way > Monica Harris, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, is a rare exception. She believes that too many PhDs are being produced, and has stopped admitting them. But such unilateral academic birth control is rare. from <https://medium.economist.com/why-doing-a-phd-is-often-a-waste-of-time-349206f9addb> I'm a grad student who is just beginning to realize that my research is completely useless for anything other than a postdoc. What's even the point of my research? To print more papers with my advisor's name so that he can win larger grants and write even more papers? Yes that's about it.
| 1 | 7,996 | 1.375 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etawlj9
|
etb7wbn
| 1,562,631,067 | 1,562,639,295 | 6 | 11 |
I think a lot of these points are valid. I think though the straightforward question to ask that isn't really answered in your examples is: how many recent graduates regret doing a PhD? How many people wish that they had taken a different path? While I suspect that measuring regret (without comparing across groups or something) isn't a great raw indicator, I'm also not sure all of these measurements are measuring life satisfaction that well either. I'm convinced that 1) PhD students aren't happy/don't have great finances (and neither are postdocs -- though depending on the definition of existential crisis 20% doesn't sound that bad tbh); 2) many phd's want academic jobs but we don't get them; 3) doing a postdoc then going into industry isn't really better than straight to industry (in terms of the industry job you get); 4) industry jobs don't let you do the "research whatever you want (kinda)" that academia does But I guess you haven't convinced me that industry as a fall back plan is all that grim. like ya your students going into industry won't make bank necessarily but maybe they are fine with that? you compare phd postdoc versus phd, and phd postdoc versus college grad generally, but if someone was going to go into the biomedical industry, how does having a phd (vs no phd; some kind of ba/ma) change things. in fairness, its clear you're in this position of applying to TT jobs, and probably checking out industry alternatives, and all the options other than TT look pretty grim to you -- thats personal experience that I don't have. I guess the question is -- if you don't get your TT job, will you regret doing a phd? (it might be hard to know the answer for sure) And honestly, I totally feel this way all the time. to answer your question about training and encouraging/discouraging students -- coming into a phd program personally I wasn't naive about job opportunities (nor I think are most of my cohort) and that I probably won't be a professor. but I thought the chance to do a phd for "free" was worth it -- an 'opportunity of a lifetime!' -- and I could leave whenever I decided on something better to do (before or after I finish). though I still sometimes feel even if I walked away tomorrow it was still worth it, what I think I was actually naive about was how painful/hard it can feel to leave (or to stay) years later, after it feels like I've given my phd my everything. I'm not sure how I could've explained that to my younger self. but then again, maybe if I actually do leave ill see that the "well let's just try it out" approach had been right all along: I'll be both happy I did it and happy I left. who knows
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One of the things I grew to really appreciate in grad school was that I was often asked what I want to do. If you start mentorship (or even interviews with potential candidates) by asking what the student wants, whether the student's goals align with your assumptions, you can help the student find what they want. If a student wants to make big bucks, you should tell them to go elsewhere. If a student wants to work and fight and struggle to figure out how things work, without being driven by a paycheck, invite them into your lab. That struggle can be its own reward, and those who enjoy it are probably those most likely to stick to it and end up with grants, faculty positions, etc.
| 0 | 8,228 | 1.833333 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etb7wbn
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etb3jn3
| 1,562,639,295 | 1,562,636,114 | 11 | 6 |
One of the things I grew to really appreciate in grad school was that I was often asked what I want to do. If you start mentorship (or even interviews with potential candidates) by asking what the student wants, whether the student's goals align with your assumptions, you can help the student find what they want. If a student wants to make big bucks, you should tell them to go elsewhere. If a student wants to work and fight and struggle to figure out how things work, without being driven by a paycheck, invite them into your lab. That struggle can be its own reward, and those who enjoy it are probably those most likely to stick to it and end up with grants, faculty positions, etc.
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Thank you for this. I’m a biomedical graduate student and I’ve been in basically an existential crisis about whether to continue trying to do the academia thing for the last year, and I’ve never felt so stuck in my entire life. Thank you for laying out the numbers for the biomedical field. I knew it probably wasn’t in the cards for me but seeing the numbers (and the stats about lower pay, even years out of a postdoc if you pursue that route) has really made it sink in for me that it’s not worth it. Thank you, seriously. Now I can let go of this and move on. Best of luck to you as you continue on with your journey.
| 1 | 3,181 | 1.833333 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etaw7nn
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etb7wbn
| 1,562,630,782 | 1,562,639,295 | 5 | 11 |
>If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (\~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (\~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research \4-5\]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. I don't know anyone making this little across multiple cohorts from my doctoral program after graduating. Not a small program either. Are these salaries adjusted for anything. Maybe I'm just in shock because this is so far out of the norm for my area (which is one of the big 3/4 hubs). I also work in the biomedical field so I'm speaking more directly to you and your field than other STEM areas.
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One of the things I grew to really appreciate in grad school was that I was often asked what I want to do. If you start mentorship (or even interviews with potential candidates) by asking what the student wants, whether the student's goals align with your assumptions, you can help the student find what they want. If a student wants to make big bucks, you should tell them to go elsewhere. If a student wants to work and fight and struggle to figure out how things work, without being driven by a paycheck, invite them into your lab. That struggle can be its own reward, and those who enjoy it are probably those most likely to stick to it and end up with grants, faculty positions, etc.
| 0 | 8,513 | 2.2 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etawlj9
|
etawx3l
| 1,562,631,067 | 1,562,631,299 | 6 | 8 |
I think a lot of these points are valid. I think though the straightforward question to ask that isn't really answered in your examples is: how many recent graduates regret doing a PhD? How many people wish that they had taken a different path? While I suspect that measuring regret (without comparing across groups or something) isn't a great raw indicator, I'm also not sure all of these measurements are measuring life satisfaction that well either. I'm convinced that 1) PhD students aren't happy/don't have great finances (and neither are postdocs -- though depending on the definition of existential crisis 20% doesn't sound that bad tbh); 2) many phd's want academic jobs but we don't get them; 3) doing a postdoc then going into industry isn't really better than straight to industry (in terms of the industry job you get); 4) industry jobs don't let you do the "research whatever you want (kinda)" that academia does But I guess you haven't convinced me that industry as a fall back plan is all that grim. like ya your students going into industry won't make bank necessarily but maybe they are fine with that? you compare phd postdoc versus phd, and phd postdoc versus college grad generally, but if someone was going to go into the biomedical industry, how does having a phd (vs no phd; some kind of ba/ma) change things. in fairness, its clear you're in this position of applying to TT jobs, and probably checking out industry alternatives, and all the options other than TT look pretty grim to you -- thats personal experience that I don't have. I guess the question is -- if you don't get your TT job, will you regret doing a phd? (it might be hard to know the answer for sure) And honestly, I totally feel this way all the time. to answer your question about training and encouraging/discouraging students -- coming into a phd program personally I wasn't naive about job opportunities (nor I think are most of my cohort) and that I probably won't be a professor. but I thought the chance to do a phd for "free" was worth it -- an 'opportunity of a lifetime!' -- and I could leave whenever I decided on something better to do (before or after I finish). though I still sometimes feel even if I walked away tomorrow it was still worth it, what I think I was actually naive about was how painful/hard it can feel to leave (or to stay) years later, after it feels like I've given my phd my everything. I'm not sure how I could've explained that to my younger self. but then again, maybe if I actually do leave ill see that the "well let's just try it out" approach had been right all along: I'll be both happy I did it and happy I left. who knows
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You're definitely not the only person to think this way > Monica Harris, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, is a rare exception. She believes that too many PhDs are being produced, and has stopped admitting them. But such unilateral academic birth control is rare. from <https://medium.economist.com/why-doing-a-phd-is-often-a-waste-of-time-349206f9addb> I'm a grad student who is just beginning to realize that my research is completely useless for anything other than a postdoc. What's even the point of my research? To print more papers with my advisor's name so that he can win larger grants and write even more papers? Yes that's about it.
| 0 | 232 | 1.333333 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etaw7nn
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etawx3l
| 1,562,630,782 | 1,562,631,299 | 5 | 8 |
>If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (\~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (\~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research \4-5\]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. I don't know anyone making this little across multiple cohorts from my doctoral program after graduating. Not a small program either. Are these salaries adjusted for anything. Maybe I'm just in shock because this is so far out of the norm for my area (which is one of the big 3/4 hubs). I also work in the biomedical field so I'm speaking more directly to you and your field than other STEM areas.
|
You're definitely not the only person to think this way > Monica Harris, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, is a rare exception. She believes that too many PhDs are being produced, and has stopped admitting them. But such unilateral academic birth control is rare. from <https://medium.economist.com/why-doing-a-phd-is-often-a-waste-of-time-349206f9addb> I'm a grad student who is just beginning to realize that my research is completely useless for anything other than a postdoc. What's even the point of my research? To print more papers with my advisor's name so that he can win larger grants and write even more papers? Yes that's about it.
| 0 | 517 | 1.6 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
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etawlj9
|
etaw7nn
| 1,562,631,067 | 1,562,630,782 | 6 | 5 |
I think a lot of these points are valid. I think though the straightforward question to ask that isn't really answered in your examples is: how many recent graduates regret doing a PhD? How many people wish that they had taken a different path? While I suspect that measuring regret (without comparing across groups or something) isn't a great raw indicator, I'm also not sure all of these measurements are measuring life satisfaction that well either. I'm convinced that 1) PhD students aren't happy/don't have great finances (and neither are postdocs -- though depending on the definition of existential crisis 20% doesn't sound that bad tbh); 2) many phd's want academic jobs but we don't get them; 3) doing a postdoc then going into industry isn't really better than straight to industry (in terms of the industry job you get); 4) industry jobs don't let you do the "research whatever you want (kinda)" that academia does But I guess you haven't convinced me that industry as a fall back plan is all that grim. like ya your students going into industry won't make bank necessarily but maybe they are fine with that? you compare phd postdoc versus phd, and phd postdoc versus college grad generally, but if someone was going to go into the biomedical industry, how does having a phd (vs no phd; some kind of ba/ma) change things. in fairness, its clear you're in this position of applying to TT jobs, and probably checking out industry alternatives, and all the options other than TT look pretty grim to you -- thats personal experience that I don't have. I guess the question is -- if you don't get your TT job, will you regret doing a phd? (it might be hard to know the answer for sure) And honestly, I totally feel this way all the time. to answer your question about training and encouraging/discouraging students -- coming into a phd program personally I wasn't naive about job opportunities (nor I think are most of my cohort) and that I probably won't be a professor. but I thought the chance to do a phd for "free" was worth it -- an 'opportunity of a lifetime!' -- and I could leave whenever I decided on something better to do (before or after I finish). though I still sometimes feel even if I walked away tomorrow it was still worth it, what I think I was actually naive about was how painful/hard it can feel to leave (or to stay) years later, after it feels like I've given my phd my everything. I'm not sure how I could've explained that to my younger self. but then again, maybe if I actually do leave ill see that the "well let's just try it out" approach had been right all along: I'll be both happy I did it and happy I left. who knows
|
>If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (\~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (\~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research \4-5\]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. I don't know anyone making this little across multiple cohorts from my doctoral program after graduating. Not a small program either. Are these salaries adjusted for anything. Maybe I'm just in shock because this is so far out of the norm for my area (which is one of the big 3/4 hubs). I also work in the biomedical field so I'm speaking more directly to you and your field than other STEM areas.
| 1 | 285 | 1.2 | ||
capi0c
|
askacademia_train
| 0.95 |
How can we ethically justify training graduate students? My background is in biomedical research, and I'm currently a research scientist, applying for TT positions. I've been struggling with the idea of training my own graduate students and for years now I've been reluctant to encourage undergraduates to continue on to grad school. Every time an undergraduate research assistant has expressed interest in pursuing a PhD, I've tried to explain to them the enormity of the deck stacked against them. To wit: * Compared to other highly educated people in the general population, PhD students are about 2.5 times more likely to be at risk for depression and other psychiatric disorders. About one in three end up with symptoms of a psychiatric disorder. * For 80% of grad students, an academic career is the goal, but just over 10% actually achieve a faculty position. And those 10% are not equally distributed across institutions, but disproportionately come from elite institutions 1-3], the kinds of which I will most likely not be teaching at. * [Most biomedical PhDs end up having to do a postdoc, but postdoc salaries are lower than that of a new college graduate even though the postdoc is working 50+ hours per week and is 9 years older than the new college grad. * 20% of postdocs report having existential crises related to their careers. * If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research 4-5]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. * Moreover, several studies agree that there isn’t any evidence a postdoc will actually benefit seekers of non-academic jobs 6-8]. When comparing private sector workers 10 years post-PhD, the salary of those who went the postdoc route are [$12,000 lower than those who skipped postdocs altogether. So if I encourage someone to go to grad school, I'm essentially putting them on a path toward some pretty dire consequences for their career, especially if they do a postdoc, which most will. If they're not getting paid well, they're not getting training that can help them thrive outside of academia, and they're miserable, how can I justify telling them to go this route? I think I'm a pretty good mentor. I think my research is important. But I'm realistic about the prospects of my trainees. They're not all going to end up in tenured faculty positions, and the numbers concerning the alternatives are all pretty grim. I can try my best to make sure my students aren't stressed out horribly, but I can't do anything to ensure they'll have meaningful, fulfilling jobs in science that actually pay enough to make grad school worthwhile. So how do you do it? How do we as mentors look our students in the eyes and tell them to ignore the statistics and persevere, hoping they'll be one of the few to buck the trends? References: [1] http://rescuingbiomedicalresearch.org/blog/bias-distribution-k99-awards-faculty-hires/ [2] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/622886v1.full [3] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005 [4] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6266/1367 [5] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [6] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6286/663 [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.3766 [8] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318302312#bib0465
|
etaw7nn
|
etb3jn3
| 1,562,630,782 | 1,562,636,114 | 5 | 6 |
>If the postdoc goes into industry, their salary (\~$48K/yr ) is still less than the median new college grad (\~50K/yr) AND it's unlikely the private sector biology PhD will be able to continue doing research \4-5\]. Indeed, if the postdoc sticks with research, they can expect to be paid [less. I don't know anyone making this little across multiple cohorts from my doctoral program after graduating. Not a small program either. Are these salaries adjusted for anything. Maybe I'm just in shock because this is so far out of the norm for my area (which is one of the big 3/4 hubs). I also work in the biomedical field so I'm speaking more directly to you and your field than other STEM areas.
|
Thank you for this. I’m a biomedical graduate student and I’ve been in basically an existential crisis about whether to continue trying to do the academia thing for the last year, and I’ve never felt so stuck in my entire life. Thank you for laying out the numbers for the biomedical field. I knew it probably wasn’t in the cards for me but seeing the numbers (and the stats about lower pay, even years out of a postdoc if you pursue that route) has really made it sink in for me that it’s not worth it. Thank you, seriously. Now I can let go of this and move on. Best of luck to you as you continue on with your journey.
| 0 | 5,332 | 1.2 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrjqga
|
hfr56x9
| 1,633,634,440 | 1,633,628,430 | 201 | 102 |
So a lot of the answers here are "competition" but the situations in which I have seen toxicity are generally not about people stabbing each other in the back or being resentful over the jobs or opportunities of others. The truly toxic people are usually those who don't have any direct competition, can get away with behavior that would get them in trouble in a different environment, and often have long-set grievances that may have nothing to do with the academic environment directly (e.g., their now-deceased parents didn't respect them enough) but somehow get expressed well in it. My own experience is that among professors there is a fair percentage of unchecked narcissists. I don't know if the absolute percentage of narcissists is higher than baseline (I could imagine why the academic selection system would favor narcissists, but this is just a pet theory), but I do think that they are more unchecked than you'd get at a lot of places. Even without tenure there is a high tolerance of awful behavior towards colleagues if your research is good, and certainly tenure can insulate people. I suspect you also get knock-off effects by what gets normalized at the "top" of fields and institutions; it is clear that some disciplines consider being nasty and aggressive to be a sign of "brilliance" and it is rewarded rather than shunned. I don't particularly think it is about there being too much competition or too little resources. My sense is that academia could be pretty toxic even before those kinds of conditions existed. The most toxic places I have seen have been those that are very close to the "top," where resources are relatively abundant and nobody is competing in a serious way anymore. To put it another way, in my experience, competition does lead to anxiety and that obviously can lead to some minor bad behavior and resentment. Certainly people who are actively on the job market and stressed about it can be ungenerous and difficult to be around, especially if they see their immediate peers doing well. I certainly was; I tried to just isolate myself from others when I felt particularly gloomy, because I had seen how some good colleagues who had a few months in which they temporarily unbearable when they were in that situation, but then they came out of it when they got a better sense of what their future might look like, even if it was just temporary (it's the uncertainty that is the anxiety-producer, that lack of control). But that kind of anxiety is not what I associate with "toxicity" — the toxic people are the people who have the solid jobs already, in my experience, but are bitter about the institution (for reasons justified or not), their colleagues (ditto), or their unattained goals (which may or may not be reasonable). More importantly, they are enabled to act on this bitterness, because their behavior is essentially unchecked. I would just note that this is one of those "be the change you want in the world" sorts of situations as well. I try to do a lot to be non-toxic, to be the very opposite of it. In some departments, the toxicity is just the defining aspect of it, and it self-perpetuates in terms of who they hire and how they act, but in some the toxicity can be isolated and minimized. Cultures can change, though. I have been sometimes impressed by the power of small attempts to improve things — even with regards to the toxic people themselves, who are used to their toxicity being reflected back at them in some way, and are sometimes quite disarmed by unexpected kindness as a result (your mileage may vary).
|
There's a whole article article on the the subject! But seriously, everyone thinks they'll make it big (read: become a TT professor) because of survivor bias - all you see for years is professors!
| 1 | 6,010 | 1.970588 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrjqga
|
hfr4h43
| 1,633,634,440 | 1,633,628,142 | 201 | 83 |
So a lot of the answers here are "competition" but the situations in which I have seen toxicity are generally not about people stabbing each other in the back or being resentful over the jobs or opportunities of others. The truly toxic people are usually those who don't have any direct competition, can get away with behavior that would get them in trouble in a different environment, and often have long-set grievances that may have nothing to do with the academic environment directly (e.g., their now-deceased parents didn't respect them enough) but somehow get expressed well in it. My own experience is that among professors there is a fair percentage of unchecked narcissists. I don't know if the absolute percentage of narcissists is higher than baseline (I could imagine why the academic selection system would favor narcissists, but this is just a pet theory), but I do think that they are more unchecked than you'd get at a lot of places. Even without tenure there is a high tolerance of awful behavior towards colleagues if your research is good, and certainly tenure can insulate people. I suspect you also get knock-off effects by what gets normalized at the "top" of fields and institutions; it is clear that some disciplines consider being nasty and aggressive to be a sign of "brilliance" and it is rewarded rather than shunned. I don't particularly think it is about there being too much competition or too little resources. My sense is that academia could be pretty toxic even before those kinds of conditions existed. The most toxic places I have seen have been those that are very close to the "top," where resources are relatively abundant and nobody is competing in a serious way anymore. To put it another way, in my experience, competition does lead to anxiety and that obviously can lead to some minor bad behavior and resentment. Certainly people who are actively on the job market and stressed about it can be ungenerous and difficult to be around, especially if they see their immediate peers doing well. I certainly was; I tried to just isolate myself from others when I felt particularly gloomy, because I had seen how some good colleagues who had a few months in which they temporarily unbearable when they were in that situation, but then they came out of it when they got a better sense of what their future might look like, even if it was just temporary (it's the uncertainty that is the anxiety-producer, that lack of control). But that kind of anxiety is not what I associate with "toxicity" — the toxic people are the people who have the solid jobs already, in my experience, but are bitter about the institution (for reasons justified or not), their colleagues (ditto), or their unattained goals (which may or may not be reasonable). More importantly, they are enabled to act on this bitterness, because their behavior is essentially unchecked. I would just note that this is one of those "be the change you want in the world" sorts of situations as well. I try to do a lot to be non-toxic, to be the very opposite of it. In some departments, the toxicity is just the defining aspect of it, and it self-perpetuates in terms of who they hire and how they act, but in some the toxicity can be isolated and minimized. Cultures can change, though. I have been sometimes impressed by the power of small attempts to improve things — even with regards to the toxic people themselves, who are used to their toxicity being reflected back at them in some way, and are sometimes quite disarmed by unexpected kindness as a result (your mileage may vary).
|
I think a big part of it is that most people with PhDs have spent their whole life being told how smart they are, and getting the highest academic degree feeds into that. On top of that, you're the one at the front of the classroom, imparting your knowledge to everyone else, and you're often one of the smartest people in the room, if not the smartest. But far too many people take their expertise in one tiny little area to mean that they're equally knowledgeable about everything, instead of instilling the humility it should.
| 1 | 6,298 | 2.421687 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrimg2
|
hfrjqga
| 1,633,633,973 | 1,633,634,440 | 69 | 201 |
Because it is disproportionately populated with extremely privileged people who have rarely had to interact with people in situations in which they werent in the advantageous position. Do y'all *reallllly* think academia is so much more taxing on your body, mind, and soul than, say, ohhhhhh working in a shitty blue collar job where your boss treats you like a stupid asshole and you have to put on a smile for fuckface customers all day? Do you really think academia is so much more taxing than working in fast food or a million other places? Haha, go work on a city work team and get back to me. It's just that people in academia, myself included, are not used to not being in control. Oh I'm so sorry. A stressful, underpaid work environment in which you are never quite sure what future opportunities will materialize? Yeah, welcome to the club.
|
So a lot of the answers here are "competition" but the situations in which I have seen toxicity are generally not about people stabbing each other in the back or being resentful over the jobs or opportunities of others. The truly toxic people are usually those who don't have any direct competition, can get away with behavior that would get them in trouble in a different environment, and often have long-set grievances that may have nothing to do with the academic environment directly (e.g., their now-deceased parents didn't respect them enough) but somehow get expressed well in it. My own experience is that among professors there is a fair percentage of unchecked narcissists. I don't know if the absolute percentage of narcissists is higher than baseline (I could imagine why the academic selection system would favor narcissists, but this is just a pet theory), but I do think that they are more unchecked than you'd get at a lot of places. Even without tenure there is a high tolerance of awful behavior towards colleagues if your research is good, and certainly tenure can insulate people. I suspect you also get knock-off effects by what gets normalized at the "top" of fields and institutions; it is clear that some disciplines consider being nasty and aggressive to be a sign of "brilliance" and it is rewarded rather than shunned. I don't particularly think it is about there being too much competition or too little resources. My sense is that academia could be pretty toxic even before those kinds of conditions existed. The most toxic places I have seen have been those that are very close to the "top," where resources are relatively abundant and nobody is competing in a serious way anymore. To put it another way, in my experience, competition does lead to anxiety and that obviously can lead to some minor bad behavior and resentment. Certainly people who are actively on the job market and stressed about it can be ungenerous and difficult to be around, especially if they see their immediate peers doing well. I certainly was; I tried to just isolate myself from others when I felt particularly gloomy, because I had seen how some good colleagues who had a few months in which they temporarily unbearable when they were in that situation, but then they came out of it when they got a better sense of what their future might look like, even if it was just temporary (it's the uncertainty that is the anxiety-producer, that lack of control). But that kind of anxiety is not what I associate with "toxicity" — the toxic people are the people who have the solid jobs already, in my experience, but are bitter about the institution (for reasons justified or not), their colleagues (ditto), or their unattained goals (which may or may not be reasonable). More importantly, they are enabled to act on this bitterness, because their behavior is essentially unchecked. I would just note that this is one of those "be the change you want in the world" sorts of situations as well. I try to do a lot to be non-toxic, to be the very opposite of it. In some departments, the toxicity is just the defining aspect of it, and it self-perpetuates in terms of who they hire and how they act, but in some the toxicity can be isolated and minimized. Cultures can change, though. I have been sometimes impressed by the power of small attempts to improve things — even with regards to the toxic people themselves, who are used to their toxicity being reflected back at them in some way, and are sometimes quite disarmed by unexpected kindness as a result (your mileage may vary).
| 0 | 467 | 2.913043 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrhvbd
|
hfrjqga
| 1,633,633,657 | 1,633,634,440 | 33 | 201 |
The secret of STEM advanced degrees is that it’s more about competition and ego than the science itself. Those who make it to TT positions are the most driven by the competition. If you want to do cool stuff and be happy, you go into industry. Or at least this is my hot take as I finish my PhD in bio.
|
So a lot of the answers here are "competition" but the situations in which I have seen toxicity are generally not about people stabbing each other in the back or being resentful over the jobs or opportunities of others. The truly toxic people are usually those who don't have any direct competition, can get away with behavior that would get them in trouble in a different environment, and often have long-set grievances that may have nothing to do with the academic environment directly (e.g., their now-deceased parents didn't respect them enough) but somehow get expressed well in it. My own experience is that among professors there is a fair percentage of unchecked narcissists. I don't know if the absolute percentage of narcissists is higher than baseline (I could imagine why the academic selection system would favor narcissists, but this is just a pet theory), but I do think that they are more unchecked than you'd get at a lot of places. Even without tenure there is a high tolerance of awful behavior towards colleagues if your research is good, and certainly tenure can insulate people. I suspect you also get knock-off effects by what gets normalized at the "top" of fields and institutions; it is clear that some disciplines consider being nasty and aggressive to be a sign of "brilliance" and it is rewarded rather than shunned. I don't particularly think it is about there being too much competition or too little resources. My sense is that academia could be pretty toxic even before those kinds of conditions existed. The most toxic places I have seen have been those that are very close to the "top," where resources are relatively abundant and nobody is competing in a serious way anymore. To put it another way, in my experience, competition does lead to anxiety and that obviously can lead to some minor bad behavior and resentment. Certainly people who are actively on the job market and stressed about it can be ungenerous and difficult to be around, especially if they see their immediate peers doing well. I certainly was; I tried to just isolate myself from others when I felt particularly gloomy, because I had seen how some good colleagues who had a few months in which they temporarily unbearable when they were in that situation, but then they came out of it when they got a better sense of what their future might look like, even if it was just temporary (it's the uncertainty that is the anxiety-producer, that lack of control). But that kind of anxiety is not what I associate with "toxicity" — the toxic people are the people who have the solid jobs already, in my experience, but are bitter about the institution (for reasons justified or not), their colleagues (ditto), or their unattained goals (which may or may not be reasonable). More importantly, they are enabled to act on this bitterness, because their behavior is essentially unchecked. I would just note that this is one of those "be the change you want in the world" sorts of situations as well. I try to do a lot to be non-toxic, to be the very opposite of it. In some departments, the toxicity is just the defining aspect of it, and it self-perpetuates in terms of who they hire and how they act, but in some the toxicity can be isolated and minimized. Cultures can change, though. I have been sometimes impressed by the power of small attempts to improve things — even with regards to the toxic people themselves, who are used to their toxicity being reflected back at them in some way, and are sometimes quite disarmed by unexpected kindness as a result (your mileage may vary).
| 0 | 783 | 6.090909 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfr891m
|
hfrjqga
| 1,633,629,675 | 1,633,634,440 | 8 | 201 |
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
|
So a lot of the answers here are "competition" but the situations in which I have seen toxicity are generally not about people stabbing each other in the back or being resentful over the jobs or opportunities of others. The truly toxic people are usually those who don't have any direct competition, can get away with behavior that would get them in trouble in a different environment, and often have long-set grievances that may have nothing to do with the academic environment directly (e.g., their now-deceased parents didn't respect them enough) but somehow get expressed well in it. My own experience is that among professors there is a fair percentage of unchecked narcissists. I don't know if the absolute percentage of narcissists is higher than baseline (I could imagine why the academic selection system would favor narcissists, but this is just a pet theory), but I do think that they are more unchecked than you'd get at a lot of places. Even without tenure there is a high tolerance of awful behavior towards colleagues if your research is good, and certainly tenure can insulate people. I suspect you also get knock-off effects by what gets normalized at the "top" of fields and institutions; it is clear that some disciplines consider being nasty and aggressive to be a sign of "brilliance" and it is rewarded rather than shunned. I don't particularly think it is about there being too much competition or too little resources. My sense is that academia could be pretty toxic even before those kinds of conditions existed. The most toxic places I have seen have been those that are very close to the "top," where resources are relatively abundant and nobody is competing in a serious way anymore. To put it another way, in my experience, competition does lead to anxiety and that obviously can lead to some minor bad behavior and resentment. Certainly people who are actively on the job market and stressed about it can be ungenerous and difficult to be around, especially if they see their immediate peers doing well. I certainly was; I tried to just isolate myself from others when I felt particularly gloomy, because I had seen how some good colleagues who had a few months in which they temporarily unbearable when they were in that situation, but then they came out of it when they got a better sense of what their future might look like, even if it was just temporary (it's the uncertainty that is the anxiety-producer, that lack of control). But that kind of anxiety is not what I associate with "toxicity" — the toxic people are the people who have the solid jobs already, in my experience, but are bitter about the institution (for reasons justified or not), their colleagues (ditto), or their unattained goals (which may or may not be reasonable). More importantly, they are enabled to act on this bitterness, because their behavior is essentially unchecked. I would just note that this is one of those "be the change you want in the world" sorts of situations as well. I try to do a lot to be non-toxic, to be the very opposite of it. In some departments, the toxicity is just the defining aspect of it, and it self-perpetuates in terms of who they hire and how they act, but in some the toxicity can be isolated and minimized. Cultures can change, though. I have been sometimes impressed by the power of small attempts to improve things — even with regards to the toxic people themselves, who are used to their toxicity being reflected back at them in some way, and are sometimes quite disarmed by unexpected kindness as a result (your mileage may vary).
| 0 | 4,765 | 25.125 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfr4h43
|
hfr56x9
| 1,633,628,142 | 1,633,628,430 | 83 | 102 |
I think a big part of it is that most people with PhDs have spent their whole life being told how smart they are, and getting the highest academic degree feeds into that. On top of that, you're the one at the front of the classroom, imparting your knowledge to everyone else, and you're often one of the smartest people in the room, if not the smartest. But far too many people take their expertise in one tiny little area to mean that they're equally knowledgeable about everything, instead of instilling the humility it should.
|
There's a whole article article on the the subject! But seriously, everyone thinks they'll make it big (read: become a TT professor) because of survivor bias - all you see for years is professors!
| 0 | 288 | 1.228916 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrimg2
|
hfrhvbd
| 1,633,633,973 | 1,633,633,657 | 69 | 33 |
Because it is disproportionately populated with extremely privileged people who have rarely had to interact with people in situations in which they werent in the advantageous position. Do y'all *reallllly* think academia is so much more taxing on your body, mind, and soul than, say, ohhhhhh working in a shitty blue collar job where your boss treats you like a stupid asshole and you have to put on a smile for fuckface customers all day? Do you really think academia is so much more taxing than working in fast food or a million other places? Haha, go work on a city work team and get back to me. It's just that people in academia, myself included, are not used to not being in control. Oh I'm so sorry. A stressful, underpaid work environment in which you are never quite sure what future opportunities will materialize? Yeah, welcome to the club.
|
The secret of STEM advanced degrees is that it’s more about competition and ego than the science itself. Those who make it to TT positions are the most driven by the competition. If you want to do cool stuff and be happy, you go into industry. Or at least this is my hot take as I finish my PhD in bio.
| 1 | 316 | 2.090909 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrimg2
|
hfr891m
| 1,633,633,973 | 1,633,629,675 | 69 | 8 |
Because it is disproportionately populated with extremely privileged people who have rarely had to interact with people in situations in which they werent in the advantageous position. Do y'all *reallllly* think academia is so much more taxing on your body, mind, and soul than, say, ohhhhhh working in a shitty blue collar job where your boss treats you like a stupid asshole and you have to put on a smile for fuckface customers all day? Do you really think academia is so much more taxing than working in fast food or a million other places? Haha, go work on a city work team and get back to me. It's just that people in academia, myself included, are not used to not being in control. Oh I'm so sorry. A stressful, underpaid work environment in which you are never quite sure what future opportunities will materialize? Yeah, welcome to the club.
|
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
| 1 | 4,298 | 8.625 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfr891m
|
hfrhvbd
| 1,633,629,675 | 1,633,633,657 | 8 | 33 |
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
|
The secret of STEM advanced degrees is that it’s more about competition and ego than the science itself. Those who make it to TT positions are the most driven by the competition. If you want to do cool stuff and be happy, you go into industry. Or at least this is my hot take as I finish my PhD in bio.
| 0 | 3,982 | 4.125 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrvqnv
|
hfropqz
| 1,633,639,443 | 1,633,636,502 | 32 | 22 |
I worked as a lab manager in academia for a few years. From an employee perspective, I have to say that it's toxic because academics can be quite full of themselves. It's all about that power structure and the way they perceive it. They don't really treat you like a person if you don't have a fancy degree attached to your name. I've been told to my face that my job is "not that hard" on several occasions. It was only after I left the job and talked to some other people in similar situations that I realized that I was doing the job of at least 2 people (on top of research), and that I was being milked for what I can do. I can confirm this because after I left that lab, my PI hired 2 managers to replace one of me. As a grad student now, I think it highly depends on what lab you join and the environment your lab cultivates. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Not that there's no pressure, there definitely is. But I can definitely appreciate my lab for how it's run and people's attitudes. It's far better. People are honest. I think having a good PI sets the standard.
|
It's a dying industry where there are fewer and fewer TT jobs each year, while the people who tend to get the TT jobs are often obnoxious, anti-social narcissists.
| 1 | 2,941 | 1.454545 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrk03w
|
hfrvqnv
| 1,633,634,549 | 1,633,639,443 | 14 | 32 |
Are we... certain that academia is comparatively more toxic than other fields? Having worked in tech-adjacent and journalism jobs, in addition to academia, I find the level of toxicity comparable, as a byproduct of the demands of capitalism to milk productivity out of every person. The one benefit of growth industry jobs, is you can always quit a toxic work environment for a better one, whereas in a declining field like academia, one can't quit because there are no other jobs if one has a job already.
|
I worked as a lab manager in academia for a few years. From an employee perspective, I have to say that it's toxic because academics can be quite full of themselves. It's all about that power structure and the way they perceive it. They don't really treat you like a person if you don't have a fancy degree attached to your name. I've been told to my face that my job is "not that hard" on several occasions. It was only after I left the job and talked to some other people in similar situations that I realized that I was doing the job of at least 2 people (on top of research), and that I was being milked for what I can do. I can confirm this because after I left that lab, my PI hired 2 managers to replace one of me. As a grad student now, I think it highly depends on what lab you join and the environment your lab cultivates. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Not that there's no pressure, there definitely is. But I can definitely appreciate my lab for how it's run and people's attitudes. It's far better. People are honest. I think having a good PI sets the standard.
| 0 | 4,894 | 2.285714 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrvqnv
|
hfrufyn
| 1,633,639,443 | 1,633,638,903 | 32 | 12 |
I worked as a lab manager in academia for a few years. From an employee perspective, I have to say that it's toxic because academics can be quite full of themselves. It's all about that power structure and the way they perceive it. They don't really treat you like a person if you don't have a fancy degree attached to your name. I've been told to my face that my job is "not that hard" on several occasions. It was only after I left the job and talked to some other people in similar situations that I realized that I was doing the job of at least 2 people (on top of research), and that I was being milked for what I can do. I can confirm this because after I left that lab, my PI hired 2 managers to replace one of me. As a grad student now, I think it highly depends on what lab you join and the environment your lab cultivates. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Not that there's no pressure, there definitely is. But I can definitely appreciate my lab for how it's run and people's attitudes. It's far better. People are honest. I think having a good PI sets the standard.
|
Lots of reasons already stated, but I’ll add a few: The work is a (supposed) reflection of your passion- and so overwork demonstrates that you REALLY REALLY care about the questions you study. Another is the formalized hierarchy structure, which almost turns into a pyramid scheme- and so there is rampant opportunity for exploitation. These issues are not unique to academia, but I think are more widespread than generally acknowledged.
| 1 | 540 | 2.666667 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrvqnv
|
hfrunvp
| 1,633,639,443 | 1,633,638,995 | 32 | 12 |
I worked as a lab manager in academia for a few years. From an employee perspective, I have to say that it's toxic because academics can be quite full of themselves. It's all about that power structure and the way they perceive it. They don't really treat you like a person if you don't have a fancy degree attached to your name. I've been told to my face that my job is "not that hard" on several occasions. It was only after I left the job and talked to some other people in similar situations that I realized that I was doing the job of at least 2 people (on top of research), and that I was being milked for what I can do. I can confirm this because after I left that lab, my PI hired 2 managers to replace one of me. As a grad student now, I think it highly depends on what lab you join and the environment your lab cultivates. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Not that there's no pressure, there definitely is. But I can definitely appreciate my lab for how it's run and people's attitudes. It's far better. People are honest. I think having a good PI sets the standard.
|
Because it's run by a majority of people that are fundamentally insecure and desperate for confirmation of their brilliance and their achievements. All of whom have to fight each other for the crumbs of money that have fallen off of the government's table for university research (hence many universities try to work with companies in order to plug the gap but have to on occasion sacrifice some scientific integrity to do so). More significantly though, the university model is so outdated and conservative that oftentimes psychopaths that make it to professorship will get away with truly heinous behaviour as many universities don't have any system for accountability.
| 1 | 448 | 2.666667 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrvqnv
|
hfrt0ty
| 1,633,639,443 | 1,633,638,311 | 32 | 9 |
I worked as a lab manager in academia for a few years. From an employee perspective, I have to say that it's toxic because academics can be quite full of themselves. It's all about that power structure and the way they perceive it. They don't really treat you like a person if you don't have a fancy degree attached to your name. I've been told to my face that my job is "not that hard" on several occasions. It was only after I left the job and talked to some other people in similar situations that I realized that I was doing the job of at least 2 people (on top of research), and that I was being milked for what I can do. I can confirm this because after I left that lab, my PI hired 2 managers to replace one of me. As a grad student now, I think it highly depends on what lab you join and the environment your lab cultivates. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Not that there's no pressure, there definitely is. But I can definitely appreciate my lab for how it's run and people's attitudes. It's far better. People are honest. I think having a good PI sets the standard.
|
Because it involves people, money and power—in other words it’s political and made of humans.
| 1 | 1,132 | 3.555556 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfr891m
|
hfrvqnv
| 1,633,629,675 | 1,633,639,443 | 8 | 32 |
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
|
I worked as a lab manager in academia for a few years. From an employee perspective, I have to say that it's toxic because academics can be quite full of themselves. It's all about that power structure and the way they perceive it. They don't really treat you like a person if you don't have a fancy degree attached to your name. I've been told to my face that my job is "not that hard" on several occasions. It was only after I left the job and talked to some other people in similar situations that I realized that I was doing the job of at least 2 people (on top of research), and that I was being milked for what I can do. I can confirm this because after I left that lab, my PI hired 2 managers to replace one of me. As a grad student now, I think it highly depends on what lab you join and the environment your lab cultivates. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Not that there's no pressure, there definitely is. But I can definitely appreciate my lab for how it's run and people's attitudes. It's far better. People are honest. I think having a good PI sets the standard.
| 0 | 9,768 | 4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrvqnv
|
hfrkj89
| 1,633,639,443 | 1,633,634,769 | 32 | 5 |
I worked as a lab manager in academia for a few years. From an employee perspective, I have to say that it's toxic because academics can be quite full of themselves. It's all about that power structure and the way they perceive it. They don't really treat you like a person if you don't have a fancy degree attached to your name. I've been told to my face that my job is "not that hard" on several occasions. It was only after I left the job and talked to some other people in similar situations that I realized that I was doing the job of at least 2 people (on top of research), and that I was being milked for what I can do. I can confirm this because after I left that lab, my PI hired 2 managers to replace one of me. As a grad student now, I think it highly depends on what lab you join and the environment your lab cultivates. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Not that there's no pressure, there definitely is. But I can definitely appreciate my lab for how it's run and people's attitudes. It's far better. People are honest. I think having a good PI sets the standard.
|
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
| 1 | 4,674 | 6.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrqoho
|
hfrvqnv
| 1,633,637,320 | 1,633,639,443 | 5 | 32 |
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
|
I worked as a lab manager in academia for a few years. From an employee perspective, I have to say that it's toxic because academics can be quite full of themselves. It's all about that power structure and the way they perceive it. They don't really treat you like a person if you don't have a fancy degree attached to your name. I've been told to my face that my job is "not that hard" on several occasions. It was only after I left the job and talked to some other people in similar situations that I realized that I was doing the job of at least 2 people (on top of research), and that I was being milked for what I can do. I can confirm this because after I left that lab, my PI hired 2 managers to replace one of me. As a grad student now, I think it highly depends on what lab you join and the environment your lab cultivates. So far, I've been pretty lucky. Not that there's no pressure, there definitely is. But I can definitely appreciate my lab for how it's run and people's attitudes. It's far better. People are honest. I think having a good PI sets the standard.
| 0 | 2,123 | 6.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfropqz
|
hfrk03w
| 1,633,636,502 | 1,633,634,549 | 22 | 14 |
It's a dying industry where there are fewer and fewer TT jobs each year, while the people who tend to get the TT jobs are often obnoxious, anti-social narcissists.
|
Are we... certain that academia is comparatively more toxic than other fields? Having worked in tech-adjacent and journalism jobs, in addition to academia, I find the level of toxicity comparable, as a byproduct of the demands of capitalism to milk productivity out of every person. The one benefit of growth industry jobs, is you can always quit a toxic work environment for a better one, whereas in a declining field like academia, one can't quit because there are no other jobs if one has a job already.
| 1 | 1,953 | 1.571429 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfr891m
|
hfropqz
| 1,633,629,675 | 1,633,636,502 | 8 | 22 |
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
|
It's a dying industry where there are fewer and fewer TT jobs each year, while the people who tend to get the TT jobs are often obnoxious, anti-social narcissists.
| 0 | 6,827 | 2.75 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrkj89
|
hfropqz
| 1,633,634,769 | 1,633,636,502 | 5 | 22 |
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
|
It's a dying industry where there are fewer and fewer TT jobs each year, while the people who tend to get the TT jobs are often obnoxious, anti-social narcissists.
| 0 | 1,733 | 4.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrk03w
|
hfr891m
| 1,633,634,549 | 1,633,629,675 | 14 | 8 |
Are we... certain that academia is comparatively more toxic than other fields? Having worked in tech-adjacent and journalism jobs, in addition to academia, I find the level of toxicity comparable, as a byproduct of the demands of capitalism to milk productivity out of every person. The one benefit of growth industry jobs, is you can always quit a toxic work environment for a better one, whereas in a declining field like academia, one can't quit because there are no other jobs if one has a job already.
|
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
| 1 | 4,874 | 1.75 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrt0ty
|
hfrufyn
| 1,633,638,311 | 1,633,638,903 | 9 | 12 |
Because it involves people, money and power—in other words it’s political and made of humans.
|
Lots of reasons already stated, but I’ll add a few: The work is a (supposed) reflection of your passion- and so overwork demonstrates that you REALLY REALLY care about the questions you study. Another is the formalized hierarchy structure, which almost turns into a pyramid scheme- and so there is rampant opportunity for exploitation. These issues are not unique to academia, but I think are more widespread than generally acknowledged.
| 0 | 592 | 1.333333 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfr891m
|
hfrufyn
| 1,633,629,675 | 1,633,638,903 | 8 | 12 |
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
|
Lots of reasons already stated, but I’ll add a few: The work is a (supposed) reflection of your passion- and so overwork demonstrates that you REALLY REALLY care about the questions you study. Another is the formalized hierarchy structure, which almost turns into a pyramid scheme- and so there is rampant opportunity for exploitation. These issues are not unique to academia, but I think are more widespread than generally acknowledged.
| 0 | 9,228 | 1.5 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrufyn
|
hfrkj89
| 1,633,638,903 | 1,633,634,769 | 12 | 5 |
Lots of reasons already stated, but I’ll add a few: The work is a (supposed) reflection of your passion- and so overwork demonstrates that you REALLY REALLY care about the questions you study. Another is the formalized hierarchy structure, which almost turns into a pyramid scheme- and so there is rampant opportunity for exploitation. These issues are not unique to academia, but I think are more widespread than generally acknowledged.
|
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
| 1 | 4,134 | 2.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrqoho
|
hfrufyn
| 1,633,637,320 | 1,633,638,903 | 5 | 12 |
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
|
Lots of reasons already stated, but I’ll add a few: The work is a (supposed) reflection of your passion- and so overwork demonstrates that you REALLY REALLY care about the questions you study. Another is the formalized hierarchy structure, which almost turns into a pyramid scheme- and so there is rampant opportunity for exploitation. These issues are not unique to academia, but I think are more widespread than generally acknowledged.
| 0 | 1,583 | 2.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrt0ty
|
hfrunvp
| 1,633,638,311 | 1,633,638,995 | 9 | 12 |
Because it involves people, money and power—in other words it’s political and made of humans.
|
Because it's run by a majority of people that are fundamentally insecure and desperate for confirmation of their brilliance and their achievements. All of whom have to fight each other for the crumbs of money that have fallen off of the government's table for university research (hence many universities try to work with companies in order to plug the gap but have to on occasion sacrifice some scientific integrity to do so). More significantly though, the university model is so outdated and conservative that oftentimes psychopaths that make it to professorship will get away with truly heinous behaviour as many universities don't have any system for accountability.
| 0 | 684 | 1.333333 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrunvp
|
hfr891m
| 1,633,638,995 | 1,633,629,675 | 12 | 8 |
Because it's run by a majority of people that are fundamentally insecure and desperate for confirmation of their brilliance and their achievements. All of whom have to fight each other for the crumbs of money that have fallen off of the government's table for university research (hence many universities try to work with companies in order to plug the gap but have to on occasion sacrifice some scientific integrity to do so). More significantly though, the university model is so outdated and conservative that oftentimes psychopaths that make it to professorship will get away with truly heinous behaviour as many universities don't have any system for accountability.
|
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
| 1 | 9,320 | 1.5 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrunvp
|
hfrkj89
| 1,633,638,995 | 1,633,634,769 | 12 | 5 |
Because it's run by a majority of people that are fundamentally insecure and desperate for confirmation of their brilliance and their achievements. All of whom have to fight each other for the crumbs of money that have fallen off of the government's table for university research (hence many universities try to work with companies in order to plug the gap but have to on occasion sacrifice some scientific integrity to do so). More significantly though, the university model is so outdated and conservative that oftentimes psychopaths that make it to professorship will get away with truly heinous behaviour as many universities don't have any system for accountability.
|
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
| 1 | 4,226 | 2.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrunvp
|
hfrqoho
| 1,633,638,995 | 1,633,637,320 | 12 | 5 |
Because it's run by a majority of people that are fundamentally insecure and desperate for confirmation of their brilliance and their achievements. All of whom have to fight each other for the crumbs of money that have fallen off of the government's table for university research (hence many universities try to work with companies in order to plug the gap but have to on occasion sacrifice some scientific integrity to do so). More significantly though, the university model is so outdated and conservative that oftentimes psychopaths that make it to professorship will get away with truly heinous behaviour as many universities don't have any system for accountability.
|
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
| 1 | 1,675 | 2.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfsbyuf
|
hfrt0ty
| 1,633,646,706 | 1,633,638,311 | 12 | 9 |
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
|
Because it involves people, money and power—in other words it’s political and made of humans.
| 1 | 8,395 | 1.333333 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfsbyuf
|
hfs0th5
| 1,633,646,706 | 1,633,641,631 | 12 | 9 |
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
|
Because the stakes are so low. Seriously: Sayre's law.
| 1 | 5,075 | 1.333333 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfsbyuf
|
hfr891m
| 1,633,646,706 | 1,633,629,675 | 12 | 8 |
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
|
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
| 1 | 17,031 | 1.5 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfs6qpl
|
hfsbyuf
| 1,633,644,256 | 1,633,646,706 | 8 | 12 |
Success is very individualized - (success of PI within the field, individual grad students within the field, and sometimes even individual students within a single lab). And individual success becomes even more pronounced when others fail. Teamwork and collective success are rarely emphasized or genuinely celebrated.
|
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
| 0 | 2,450 | 1.5 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfs224b
|
hfsbyuf
| 1,633,642,167 | 1,633,646,706 | 8 | 12 |
I really think it's, at heart, about the funding agencies; the other problems tend to flow from them not being fit for purpose (as far as I can tell for my field). We have a tiny percentage of winners, selected by funding agencies, who become PIs and hire people whose work is effectively credited to the PIs, who are the only people with a chance of getting more and more and more of the scarce funding. That kind of feudalism isn't a \*necessary\* state of affairs at all in my broad line of research - we could have ten times the number of independent researchers \*free\* to collaborate, rather than the academic oligarchy. And who gets to be a winner is based on the funders' perceptions and politicking - they can't know who's a good scientist based on a proposal that we all know is written by other people and a shiny presentation that's one big halo effect fallacy. Everywhere has some kind of hierarchy and corruption, sure, but academia has that \*very\* weird system and there's almost no corrective mechanism, since there's definitely no real competition once the new ruling class members have been selected (since how can anyone else compete?). It's tailor-made to create bad research, bullying and intimidation, and overwork as people are forced to join a rat-race - even if it's highly questionable it'll do them any good. The idealism of a lot of people who love science and will put up with far too much sacrifice for far too long feeds that machine with cannon fodder losers who don't know better. I think it's very good people are looking elsewhere, for them but it also seems to be driving some change. I read something about Germany looking at a grants-by-lottery system which cuts off the power brokers at the knees and that's the kind of thing that might shift the whole toxic system (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/german-funder-sees-early-success-grant-lottery-trial).
|
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
| 0 | 4,539 | 1.5 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfsbyuf
|
hfrkj89
| 1,633,646,706 | 1,633,634,769 | 12 | 5 |
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
|
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
| 1 | 11,937 | 2.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrqoho
|
hfsbyuf
| 1,633,637,320 | 1,633,646,706 | 5 | 12 |
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
|
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
| 0 | 9,386 | 2.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfsbyuf
|
hfrycsk
| 1,633,646,706 | 1,633,640,551 | 12 | 6 |
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
|
To get a PhD, you generally have to be low on the personality factors agreeableness and extroversion. Add in one more negative trait, like neuroticism or a personality disorder, and you have someone who is toxic to work with. Coupled with an employment environment that tolerates incivility under the banners of academic freedom and tenure, and you have a grade A shitshow.
| 1 | 6,155 | 2 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfsbyuf
|
hfs56hb
| 1,633,646,706 | 1,633,643,548 | 12 | 6 |
The system of grants, publish or perish and the amount of time and effort it takes to succeed can attract a certain type of personality. Unfortunately, that personality is more likely to have the side effect of being an asshole. Not all researchers are toxic some of them are lovely and driven by a desire to make the world a better place. But the unique and insular environment of academia does attract toxic people. It sucks and is an unpleasant shock when you see it for the first time.
|
Because the stakes are so small.
| 1 | 3,158 | 2 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrt0ty
|
hfr891m
| 1,633,638,311 | 1,633,629,675 | 9 | 8 |
Because it involves people, money and power—in other words it’s political and made of humans.
|
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
| 1 | 8,636 | 1.125 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrt0ty
|
hfrkj89
| 1,633,638,311 | 1,633,634,769 | 9 | 5 |
Because it involves people, money and power—in other words it’s political and made of humans.
|
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
| 1 | 3,542 | 1.8 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrt0ty
|
hfrqoho
| 1,633,638,311 | 1,633,637,320 | 9 | 5 |
Because it involves people, money and power—in other words it’s political and made of humans.
|
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
| 1 | 991 | 1.8 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfr891m
|
hfs0th5
| 1,633,629,675 | 1,633,641,631 | 8 | 9 |
invincibility from tenure, ego, entitlement, ego, celebrity status
|
Because the stakes are so low. Seriously: Sayre's law.
| 0 | 11,956 | 1.125 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfs0th5
|
hfrkj89
| 1,633,641,631 | 1,633,634,769 | 9 | 5 |
Because the stakes are so low. Seriously: Sayre's law.
|
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
| 1 | 6,862 | 1.8 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfs0th5
|
hfrqoho
| 1,633,641,631 | 1,633,637,320 | 9 | 5 |
Because the stakes are so low. Seriously: Sayre's law.
|
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
| 1 | 4,311 | 1.8 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrycsk
|
hfs0th5
| 1,633,640,551 | 1,633,641,631 | 6 | 9 |
To get a PhD, you generally have to be low on the personality factors agreeableness and extroversion. Add in one more negative trait, like neuroticism or a personality disorder, and you have someone who is toxic to work with. Coupled with an employment environment that tolerates incivility under the banners of academic freedom and tenure, and you have a grade A shitshow.
|
Because the stakes are so low. Seriously: Sayre's law.
| 0 | 1,080 | 1.5 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrkj89
|
hfs6qpl
| 1,633,634,769 | 1,633,644,256 | 5 | 8 |
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
|
Success is very individualized - (success of PI within the field, individual grad students within the field, and sometimes even individual students within a single lab). And individual success becomes even more pronounced when others fail. Teamwork and collective success are rarely emphasized or genuinely celebrated.
| 0 | 9,487 | 1.6 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrqoho
|
hfs6qpl
| 1,633,637,320 | 1,633,644,256 | 5 | 8 |
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
|
Success is very individualized - (success of PI within the field, individual grad students within the field, and sometimes even individual students within a single lab). And individual success becomes even more pronounced when others fail. Teamwork and collective success are rarely emphasized or genuinely celebrated.
| 0 | 6,936 | 1.6 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfs6qpl
|
hfrycsk
| 1,633,644,256 | 1,633,640,551 | 8 | 6 |
Success is very individualized - (success of PI within the field, individual grad students within the field, and sometimes even individual students within a single lab). And individual success becomes even more pronounced when others fail. Teamwork and collective success are rarely emphasized or genuinely celebrated.
|
To get a PhD, you generally have to be low on the personality factors agreeableness and extroversion. Add in one more negative trait, like neuroticism or a personality disorder, and you have someone who is toxic to work with. Coupled with an employment environment that tolerates incivility under the banners of academic freedom and tenure, and you have a grade A shitshow.
| 1 | 3,705 | 1.333333 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfs6qpl
|
hfs56hb
| 1,633,644,256 | 1,633,643,548 | 8 | 6 |
Success is very individualized - (success of PI within the field, individual grad students within the field, and sometimes even individual students within a single lab). And individual success becomes even more pronounced when others fail. Teamwork and collective success are rarely emphasized or genuinely celebrated.
|
Because the stakes are so small.
| 1 | 708 | 1.333333 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrkj89
|
hfs224b
| 1,633,634,769 | 1,633,642,167 | 5 | 8 |
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
|
I really think it's, at heart, about the funding agencies; the other problems tend to flow from them not being fit for purpose (as far as I can tell for my field). We have a tiny percentage of winners, selected by funding agencies, who become PIs and hire people whose work is effectively credited to the PIs, who are the only people with a chance of getting more and more and more of the scarce funding. That kind of feudalism isn't a \*necessary\* state of affairs at all in my broad line of research - we could have ten times the number of independent researchers \*free\* to collaborate, rather than the academic oligarchy. And who gets to be a winner is based on the funders' perceptions and politicking - they can't know who's a good scientist based on a proposal that we all know is written by other people and a shiny presentation that's one big halo effect fallacy. Everywhere has some kind of hierarchy and corruption, sure, but academia has that \*very\* weird system and there's almost no corrective mechanism, since there's definitely no real competition once the new ruling class members have been selected (since how can anyone else compete?). It's tailor-made to create bad research, bullying and intimidation, and overwork as people are forced to join a rat-race - even if it's highly questionable it'll do them any good. The idealism of a lot of people who love science and will put up with far too much sacrifice for far too long feeds that machine with cannon fodder losers who don't know better. I think it's very good people are looking elsewhere, for them but it also seems to be driving some change. I read something about Germany looking at a grants-by-lottery system which cuts off the power brokers at the knees and that's the kind of thing that might shift the whole toxic system (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/german-funder-sees-early-success-grant-lottery-trial).
| 0 | 7,398 | 1.6 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrqoho
|
hfs224b
| 1,633,637,320 | 1,633,642,167 | 5 | 8 |
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
|
I really think it's, at heart, about the funding agencies; the other problems tend to flow from them not being fit for purpose (as far as I can tell for my field). We have a tiny percentage of winners, selected by funding agencies, who become PIs and hire people whose work is effectively credited to the PIs, who are the only people with a chance of getting more and more and more of the scarce funding. That kind of feudalism isn't a \*necessary\* state of affairs at all in my broad line of research - we could have ten times the number of independent researchers \*free\* to collaborate, rather than the academic oligarchy. And who gets to be a winner is based on the funders' perceptions and politicking - they can't know who's a good scientist based on a proposal that we all know is written by other people and a shiny presentation that's one big halo effect fallacy. Everywhere has some kind of hierarchy and corruption, sure, but academia has that \*very\* weird system and there's almost no corrective mechanism, since there's definitely no real competition once the new ruling class members have been selected (since how can anyone else compete?). It's tailor-made to create bad research, bullying and intimidation, and overwork as people are forced to join a rat-race - even if it's highly questionable it'll do them any good. The idealism of a lot of people who love science and will put up with far too much sacrifice for far too long feeds that machine with cannon fodder losers who don't know better. I think it's very good people are looking elsewhere, for them but it also seems to be driving some change. I read something about Germany looking at a grants-by-lottery system which cuts off the power brokers at the knees and that's the kind of thing that might shift the whole toxic system (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/german-funder-sees-early-success-grant-lottery-trial).
| 0 | 4,847 | 1.6 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfs224b
|
hfrycsk
| 1,633,642,167 | 1,633,640,551 | 8 | 6 |
I really think it's, at heart, about the funding agencies; the other problems tend to flow from them not being fit for purpose (as far as I can tell for my field). We have a tiny percentage of winners, selected by funding agencies, who become PIs and hire people whose work is effectively credited to the PIs, who are the only people with a chance of getting more and more and more of the scarce funding. That kind of feudalism isn't a \*necessary\* state of affairs at all in my broad line of research - we could have ten times the number of independent researchers \*free\* to collaborate, rather than the academic oligarchy. And who gets to be a winner is based on the funders' perceptions and politicking - they can't know who's a good scientist based on a proposal that we all know is written by other people and a shiny presentation that's one big halo effect fallacy. Everywhere has some kind of hierarchy and corruption, sure, but academia has that \*very\* weird system and there's almost no corrective mechanism, since there's definitely no real competition once the new ruling class members have been selected (since how can anyone else compete?). It's tailor-made to create bad research, bullying and intimidation, and overwork as people are forced to join a rat-race - even if it's highly questionable it'll do them any good. The idealism of a lot of people who love science and will put up with far too much sacrifice for far too long feeds that machine with cannon fodder losers who don't know better. I think it's very good people are looking elsewhere, for them but it also seems to be driving some change. I read something about Germany looking at a grants-by-lottery system which cuts off the power brokers at the knees and that's the kind of thing that might shift the whole toxic system (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/german-funder-sees-early-success-grant-lottery-trial).
|
To get a PhD, you generally have to be low on the personality factors agreeableness and extroversion. Add in one more negative trait, like neuroticism or a personality disorder, and you have someone who is toxic to work with. Coupled with an employment environment that tolerates incivility under the banners of academic freedom and tenure, and you have a grade A shitshow.
| 1 | 1,616 | 1.333333 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrkj89
|
hft6m6j
| 1,633,634,769 | 1,633,661,700 | 5 | 7 |
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
|
Still a high school popularity competition.
| 0 | 26,931 | 1.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hft6m6j
|
hfrqoho
| 1,633,661,700 | 1,633,637,320 | 7 | 5 |
Still a high school popularity competition.
|
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
| 1 | 24,380 | 1.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hft6m6j
|
hfrycsk
| 1,633,661,700 | 1,633,640,551 | 7 | 6 |
Still a high school popularity competition.
|
To get a PhD, you generally have to be low on the personality factors agreeableness and extroversion. Add in one more negative trait, like neuroticism or a personality disorder, and you have someone who is toxic to work with. Coupled with an employment environment that tolerates incivility under the banners of academic freedom and tenure, and you have a grade A shitshow.
| 1 | 21,149 | 1.166667 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfs56hb
|
hft6m6j
| 1,633,643,548 | 1,633,661,700 | 6 | 7 |
Because the stakes are so small.
|
Still a high school popularity competition.
| 0 | 18,152 | 1.166667 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfsef7k
|
hft6m6j
| 1,633,647,881 | 1,633,661,700 | 5 | 7 |
People on the autistic spectrum are more likely to enrol in STEM, and I've read that at the graduate level it can be more than half the student body in some places (source on that last part: my dodgy memory. I can't find the article atm so take it with a block of salt). Don't take that as a critique of people on the spectrum, because frankly most of the people I know in that situation are really cool and frankly seem to have better social lives than I do. But it does mean a larger pool of individuals in general who just might not do well with empathy or social interaction overall. I'm not in STEM, so not facing the same degree of toxicity that I read about in this sub. But what I do encounter from time to time are cartoonish snobs of the nose-snort-laugh variety who've never really been off the high school-> undergrad -> grad conveyer belt. They're nerds who were bullied growing up, and as is too often the case became bullies themselves. Once they got to university it was a consistent state of being rewarded, and they never really had to hit the "serious self reflection" point. Others are just children of privilege, insecure people who handle it poorly, or yes, narcissists (though I've largely been spared them). I was actually pretty surprised when I originally got to graduate school that it seemed to be a step *back* in maturity compared to what I was used to. More sniping, gossip, moral panics after someone said \[oblivious thing\], it felt like high school al over again. Fortunately most of those people seemed to get weeded out after masters.
|
Still a high school popularity competition.
| 0 | 13,819 | 1.4 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrycsk
|
hfrkj89
| 1,633,640,551 | 1,633,634,769 | 6 | 5 |
To get a PhD, you generally have to be low on the personality factors agreeableness and extroversion. Add in one more negative trait, like neuroticism or a personality disorder, and you have someone who is toxic to work with. Coupled with an employment environment that tolerates incivility under the banners of academic freedom and tenure, and you have a grade A shitshow.
|
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
| 1 | 5,782 | 1.2 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrkj89
|
hfs56hb
| 1,633,634,769 | 1,633,643,548 | 5 | 6 |
Some people are, in all fields. Academia is no exception.
|
Because the stakes are so small.
| 0 | 8,779 | 1.2 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrqoho
|
hfrycsk
| 1,633,637,320 | 1,633,640,551 | 5 | 6 |
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
|
To get a PhD, you generally have to be low on the personality factors agreeableness and extroversion. Add in one more negative trait, like neuroticism or a personality disorder, and you have someone who is toxic to work with. Coupled with an employment environment that tolerates incivility under the banners of academic freedom and tenure, and you have a grade A shitshow.
| 0 | 3,231 | 1.2 | ||
q3do6k
|
askacademia_train
| 0.91 |
Why is academia so TOXIC? As title.
|
hfrqoho
|
hfs56hb
| 1,633,637,320 | 1,633,643,548 | 5 | 6 |
lack of accountability and lack of external oversight
|
Because the stakes are so small.
| 0 | 6,228 | 1.2 | ||
h9fkta
|
askacademia_train
| 0.98 |
A one-year followup of a prospective randomized trial shows that tweeting research articles leads to more citations over time. The study is available at: https://www.annalsthoracicsurgery.org/article/S0003-4975(20)30860-2/pdf Title: "Does Tweeting Improve Citations? One-Year Results from the TSSMN Prospective Randomized Trial" **Abstract** > *Background* > The Thoracic Surgery Social Media Network (TSSMN) is a collaborative effort of leading journals in cardiothoracic surgery to highlight publications via social media. This study aims to evaluate the 1-year results of a prospective randomized social media trial to determine the effect of tweeting on subsequent citations and non-traditional bibliometrics. > *Methods* > A total of 112 representative original articles were randomized 1:1 to be tweeted via TSSMN or a control (non-tweeted) group. Measured endpoints included citations at 1-year compared to baseline, as well as article-level metrics (Altmetric score) and Twitter analytics. Independent predictors of citations were identified through univariable and multivariable regression analyses. > *Results* > When compared to control articles, tweeted articles achieved significantly greater increase in Altmetric scores (Tweeted 9.4±5.8 vs. Non-Tweeted 1.0±1.8, p<0.001), Altmetric score percentiles relative to articles of similar age from each respective journal (Tweeted 76.0±9.1%ile vs. Non-Tweeted 13.8±22.7%ile, p<0.001), with greater change in citations at 1 year (Tweeted +3.1±2.4 vs. Non-Tweeted +0.7±1.3, p<0.001). Multivariable analysis showed that independent predictors of citations were randomization to tweeting (OR 9.50; 95%CI 3.30-27.35, p<0.001), Altmetric score (OR 1.32; 95%CI 1.15-1.50, p<0.001), open-access status (OR 1.56; 95%CI 1.21-1.78, p<0.001), and exposure to a larger number of Twitter followers as quantified by impressions (OR 1.30, 95%CI 1.10-1.49, p<0.001). > *Conclusions* > One-year follow-up of this TSSMN prospective randomized trial importantly demonstrates that tweeting results in significantly more article citations over time, highlighting the durable scholarly impact of social media activity.
|
fuy2tft
|
fuyooj2
| 1,592,257,645 | 1,592,268,710 | 0 | 1 |
I'm going to have to show this to my department head. Intriguing!
|
The result isn't a surprise but finding some data to support it is good to see. People have been tweeting their articles for a long time. Practice has already shown that that results in favorable publicity and hence perhaps more citations.
| 0 | 11,065 | 1,000 | ||
hbkrzh
|
askacademia_train
| 0.98 |
Academia made me forget how to read, need advice This is my 3rd year working in a research lab (am STEM grad student). I've downloaded and read/skimmed at least 200 papers on my research topic (or related topics) at this point. But I think there's something seriously wrong with me - I can't seem to be able to read more than two paragraphs at a time nowadays. Skimming papers at a rapid rate to finish my literature reviews and satisfy my PI has conditioned me to skim, and I think I've forgotten how to actually read a piece of text. I literally have to force myself to resist the temptation of skimming to actually get through a paragraph. I've also pretty much stopped reading anything that isn't social media or research papers. This sucks. I used to be someone who read widely and for pleasure, going through an average of like 5-10 novels or paperbacks a month. Now, it's a pain to even get through one. Any advice?
|
fv9e2gq
|
fv9evmo
| 1,592,507,526 | 1,592,507,931 | 7 | 187 |
I don’t know if this would help but my postdoc creates PowerPoint documents (themed by topic) of papers with important notes/figures relevant to the claims in the paper. Alternatively, I make sure to write notes on each figure of a paper. It helps me think critically and slow down. Or you could try to read some really fun/unique (not necessarily relevant) papers. Might pique your interest in reading again :).
|
I also lost my ability to read for pleasure after grad school, now I’m about a year and a half out and I’ve only slogged through a handful of books since finished whereas in the past I’d have finished maybe a dozen or so in that same time period. I think it’s maybe something to do with the joylessness of reading academic articles. I’ve never felt satisfied reading an academic article, the feeling I get after finishing one is a combination of drained and skeptical.
| 0 | 405 | 26.714286 | ||
hbkrzh
|
askacademia_train
| 0.98 |
Academia made me forget how to read, need advice This is my 3rd year working in a research lab (am STEM grad student). I've downloaded and read/skimmed at least 200 papers on my research topic (or related topics) at this point. But I think there's something seriously wrong with me - I can't seem to be able to read more than two paragraphs at a time nowadays. Skimming papers at a rapid rate to finish my literature reviews and satisfy my PI has conditioned me to skim, and I think I've forgotten how to actually read a piece of text. I literally have to force myself to resist the temptation of skimming to actually get through a paragraph. I've also pretty much stopped reading anything that isn't social media or research papers. This sucks. I used to be someone who read widely and for pleasure, going through an average of like 5-10 novels or paperbacks a month. Now, it's a pain to even get through one. Any advice?
|
fv9jtoe
|
fv9ry45
| 1,592,510,376 | 1,592,514,378 | 31 | 117 |
I feel the same, I still find myself skimming novels to this day. I think it's important to designate some time to yourself, think of reading kind of like pampering. Make sure you've got a relaxing space, you're not likely to be interrupted and you're reading something you know you want to read, especially as you're getting back into it. Maybe something you've read before or if you don't like re-reading then a favourite author or comfortable genre. If you're starting to feel yourself skim, start reading aloud, like you're telling the story/text to someone else. This may seem strange but it's the best way to slow yourself down and it makes you pay attention to the words and the image they're painting.
|
Exact same boat. Didn't ever read your post tbh.
| 0 | 4,002 | 3.774194 | ||
hbkrzh
|
askacademia_train
| 0.98 |
Academia made me forget how to read, need advice This is my 3rd year working in a research lab (am STEM grad student). I've downloaded and read/skimmed at least 200 papers on my research topic (or related topics) at this point. But I think there's something seriously wrong with me - I can't seem to be able to read more than two paragraphs at a time nowadays. Skimming papers at a rapid rate to finish my literature reviews and satisfy my PI has conditioned me to skim, and I think I've forgotten how to actually read a piece of text. I literally have to force myself to resist the temptation of skimming to actually get through a paragraph. I've also pretty much stopped reading anything that isn't social media or research papers. This sucks. I used to be someone who read widely and for pleasure, going through an average of like 5-10 novels or paperbacks a month. Now, it's a pain to even get through one. Any advice?
|
fv9ry45
|
fv9e2gq
| 1,592,514,378 | 1,592,507,526 | 117 | 7 |
Exact same boat. Didn't ever read your post tbh.
|
I don’t know if this would help but my postdoc creates PowerPoint documents (themed by topic) of papers with important notes/figures relevant to the claims in the paper. Alternatively, I make sure to write notes on each figure of a paper. It helps me think critically and slow down. Or you could try to read some really fun/unique (not necessarily relevant) papers. Might pique your interest in reading again :).
| 1 | 6,852 | 16.714286 |
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