

Life outside the lab: The ones who got away - zbravo
http://www.nature.com/news/life-outside-the-lab-the-ones-who-got-away-1.15802

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turnip1979
Good read. "One who got away" is a nice subtitle ... it exemplifies the
strange relationships we have in academia.

The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i)
less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of
your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to
be successful.

I had heard about (i) before I started my PhD. That didn't seem like a big
deal since grad school was mostly paid for. I'd get annoyed when people
assumed being a scientist meant that you'd never get rich. (ii) was a surprise
at graduation time (around 2007). At that time, it was said to be the
economy's fault. Almost a decade later, it is clear that there were structural
changes going on in my field. If you were in CS, it was far easier to get a
professor job during the first dot-com gold rush since CS enrollments were
increasing like there was no tomorrow. Regarding (iii), I think this happens
in every field. It matters who your spouse is and how supportive they are.
Sometimes you learn to throw in the towel and get a good night's sleep. You
also need to learn to be efficient. I admit I was not the most efficient
graduate student. After working at industry research labs for many years, I am
amazed by how much I've changed. I still spend too much time on irrelevant
things like writing this comment or reading the article but hey .. no one's
perfect.

Regarding the fields picked by the first two examples, I want to bang my head
against a wall for my lack of timing. I missed the dot-com days and the app-
rush. Also, before 2007, it was obvious that a finance job paid very well - it
was hard work but so is everything worth doing. Today, it isn't clear if there
are any paths to surefire financial success. In some places I've lived in
(outside the US), it seems one of the highest compensating careers was
flipping condos. The lesson I learn is to be constantly vigilant of potential
opportunities and to strike as soon as possible.

~~~
bkcooper
_The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i)
less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of
your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to
be successful._

ii and iii are the big issues for me (and obviously interwoven.) While it's
not an original observation, one aspect of ii) that is especially bad is that
most people probably have a distorted perspective on how good they are when
they are starting out. The pool you will actually be competing with is
probably much stronger than you realized.

In discussing some of these issues with a friend of mine, he said that he
thought a good solution would be to substantially cut graduate enrollment and
fill the labor gap with an increase in staff scientist positions. I think
there's a lot to recommend that, but I can't say I see it realistically
happening.

~~~
crpatino
It is impossible for Universities to cut down graduate enrollment.

Professor productivity is defined primarily in terms of two measures: how many
papers you authored (notice I avoided using the word wrote) and how many
advanced degree students you graduate. Having a big pipeline of graduate
students to help you achieve both goals is fundamental for success.

Also, Professors are tasked with multiple responsibilities that add little, if
anything, to their perceived productivity as measured by the University. The
most time consuming of those is usually lecturing undergraduate classes.
Having an even bigger pool of graduate students where to offload time
consuming activities associated with the class (primarily T.A.s and L.A.s but
also people never met by the class doing support work like slide preparation,
library searches, capture of results in brain-dead software platforms
purchased by Uni's managers not doing any teaching themselves, etc) will allow
you to concentrate in your research and do things that really matter (a.k.a.
athoring papers and advising future PhDs).

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cryoshon
There are a few sub-issues here, which the article touches on briefly.

First, the pay and benefits are awful. This could be fixed with a cultural
attitude shift which favors scientific progress enough to actually incentivize
people to do it. The entire "STEM! STEM! STEM!" craze has not been accompanied
by increased wages, so it rings cynically hollow.

Second, the work-life balance is poor, especially for PhD students and post
docs. This could be fixed by reducing expectations and shifting to less of a
"publish or perish" mindset when it comes to funding research. Working too
many hours is frequently lamented/glorified/humblebragged about. A lot of
these people don't have a life outside of the laboratory, and it's depressing
to think about them because they choose it.

Third, the political games are fierce, relentless, and necessary in order to
move upward. In academic biology, sideways moves aren't really a thing-- you
either move upward (which really only happens a couple of times in most
careers), or tread water wherever you are. The politics of funding and who to
collaborate with are part of the game, and many people get fed up with it very
quickly. People are extremely territorial about any kind of resources they
have, even if the resources are freely replenishable or effectively infinite.
Because so much time must be spent playing politics, leadership figures are
frequently uninvolved/unreachable while occupied with political matters such
as securing funding, collaborations, or new personnel.

Fourth, I have observed many instances of a poor work environment. There is
always far more criticism than praise in the sciences, and it wears people
down. It is a common occurrence that a superior will make a tender-hearted
subordinate cry from the extensive criticism of a minor mistake. Part of the
scientific process is presenting your work to your superiors and peers, and
having them attempt to pick it apart. The gaps in your knowledge will be found
by questioning in public. The faults of your experiment will be exposed, and
discussed. It's humbling, and not in a good way. Science isn't particularly
meant to be a feel-good enterprise, but the research culture is too vicious.

On the other hand, when the life of science is good, it's great. Currently I
have tons of funding, a good work-life balance, effective leadership, and
outrageously interesting research projects. The pay is still awful, and there
are still a lot of vicious politics, but there's absolutely nothing like being
able to plan an experiment, execute it, analyze the results, and then explain
your results to others, thereby actually expanding human knowledge in some
small or large way. That sensation is what keeps people in science, putting up
with the bullshit-- the bad things just don't seem so heavy if you're one of
the people who are electrified by the science.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I thought STEM already are the highest-paying industry jobs, so already
worthwhile. Or does 'increased wages' mean relative to academia?

And regarding academia and politics, the old saw "The infighting is so fierce
because the stakes are so small"

~~~
chrisbennet
The "E" (Engineering) part of STEM _is_ high paying but the pay for "S"
(Science) sucks because there is insufficient market/demand relative to the
supply of Phds.

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cpks
It's usually the smartest ones who get away.

Spend 7 years for a chance at tenure?

In many fields, spend years in a postdoc for a chance at a tenure-track job?

Not smart.

The image that the smartest, most promising ones stay in is just false. Most
of the cut-offs in academia are crabshoots. Smart people realize that. The
intense competition makes for horrific working conditions, at least until
tenure. Smart people realize that as well. Some of the competition is based on
ability, but a lot is based on politics. Pick a 'hot' topic. Focus on one
field, don't do anything interdisciplinary. Make friends with the people who
will write letters. Play department politics. Teach just barely well enough --
to leave enough free time for research. Play the grants game. Etc. None of
that is fun.

So smart people go elsewhere.

One of the first things I learned after getting my Ph.D was to go where you
were in demand. I switched from my most desirable field to my second (which
was more in-demand, and had a younger, more startup culture), and immediately,
the amount of respect, independence, flexibility, and just about everything
else went up. Difference was like night-and-day.

Always be in a position of leverage.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Whenever people complain about society lacking scientists or scientific
progress, I think, "Have you tried paying us money and giving us job
security?"

~~~
turnip1979
When one thinks about the big picture, it gets ridiculous. I read a stat about
how each of the major league sports in the US has more money spent in it by
consumers than the research funding for all forms of cancer combined. In an
age where there is massive productivity in production, society should be
funding the heck out of research. We could probably knock out a major disease
every two years!

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
You're not supposed to suggest that the free market is not solving the right
kinds of problems.

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gpvos
From the title, I expected something about escaped biological experiments. Ah
well, this is interesting too.

~~~
pqs
I thought the same.

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k__
I like those stories about people doing on thing and then, after years, they
start something different.

Seems like those kind of lifes aren't simply possible in Germany, where I come
frome. Studying Chemistry and then going to a bank and tell then you wanna be
a investment banker.

I already have a struggle with going from software engineering to usability
engineering.

~~~
brational
I have 4 close German friends, 1 MS Math, 2 PhD Math, 1 PhD Physics who all
completed their terminal degree at the same university as me.

3 of them decided to go back to Germany mainly for the vacation culture. All
big travelers with no interest in the US work environment. The 4th integrated
into American culture more but is also the biggest traveler. While he wants to
go back to Germany, he is currently working in the US because he says he still
doesn't know what he wants to do and he doesn't think he could get away with
that lack of direction anywhere else but the US.

For completeness, hes one of the phd maths and does research for an acturial
software company. But he will be switching to something else soon.

You may like that the physics guy was doing post doc in the US and then
decided to bail and joined a telecom consulting company in Germany. That's not
as unrelated as chem to finance but for him it was a huge switch. The company
was just willing to take on a long ramp-up time and teach him.

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micro_cam
As someone who just left academia for industry a big factor in my decision is
that I'll actually get to do more of the fun parts of research in industry. Ie
develop a system, test it in real world situations and then see it pushed into
actual use within the span of a few months and be part of the group that
benefits materially from it.

By comparison the cycle in academia would be something like come up with an
idea, submit grants wait months to hear back while working on other projects,
do the work, write it up and submit it somewhere then wait months to hear back
again and hope someone reads it and finds it useful.

I think this also points at part of the solution: less of a wall between
academia and industry and allow people to move more freely between the two.
Machine Learning and data analysis is leading the way here with great
publications coming out of industry and professors holding positions at
companies etc.

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lolindian1
It's just what happens in the natural progression of life.

You might have started with one field in mind, but life happens. At times
decisions are also influenced by sad fact that your field is just too
stagnated, or plain toxic, as is the case with medicine.

------
azurelogic
This makes sense to me. I did my undergrad work in biochem, and got my masters
in computer science. My favorite thing about chemistry was figuring out
organic synthesis steps on paper. I later realized that writing code to
manipulate systems and data allowed me to scratch this same itch.

