

Should you become a scientist?   - hhm
http://preposterousuniverse.blogspot.com/2005/01/should-you-become-scientist.html

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paulsb
Well I am glad I became (/was?) a scientist; I wouldn't be where I am today if
I hadn't...which is skint and bootstrapping a couple of start-ups! I spent
four years doing my PhD in biochemistry and it was those four years (maximum
UK time allowed) that made me, but you should only do it if you love the
science. If you don't love the science, being a post-grad can be incredibly
tough, slow and soul destroying. I started my PhD because of a love of science
(especially lab work), but things happen and times change, which has now led
me to detest lab work. I still enjoy the science, however. And now, because of
the things that have put me off lab work, I plan to get a start-up off the
ground that will help other researchers be more efficient and effective
through the organisation of biological data.

As for there being too many people for the number of jobs available, here in
the UK, getting a PhD can sometimes be a piss-take. The number of idiots that
can't even hold a pipette, let alone use one, who get PhDs is shocking. Most
of them should have failed, but it's too much effort for the examiners to re-
examine someone or they don't want to offend their "buddy" by failing their
student, so they just let them through. Therefore, I blame the examiners.

I think to become a professor can partly be because of luck. You have to be
doing the right science at the right time X the 'sexy' science of the moment
that will get published in high impact journals, because it's all about the
publication record.

My advice: become a scientist if you love the science and can do the science
you love, and not because doing a PhD will buy you more time until you can
figure out what you really want to do. If you come to love something else
(like trying to be an entrepreneur in my case), then you can always apply the
skills you have learnt to that...although, knowing how to use a pipette has
yet to prove its worth in business!

------
mechanical_fish
"Who can we blame for the fact that there are fewer jobs than people who get
Ph.D.'s?"

What, you expect the tenured professors to write the grants, take the data,
and teach the classes?

Not that you need a Ph.D. to do any of these things. But the establishment has
decided that you can't get a job as an academic scientist without either
having a Ph.D. or being in the process of getting one. (Things are a little
better in industry, but only a little better.)

Why did they decide that? Well, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact
that grad students, being mere "students" and certainly not "employees", have
lower wages, substandard benefits, and fewer workplace rights than, say, a new
college hire at Microsoft. Nor is it because "students" from foreign countries
are relatively happy to work under these conditions in exchange for their
"student" visas [1]. And it's not because grad students -- particularly those
from foreign countries -- are easily blackmailed [2]. It certainly can't have
anything whatsoever to do with that.

\- - - -

[1]: Not that there's anything wrong with student visas. Many of my best
friends arrived on those visas! The problem is that, as indentured servants
who are constantly threatened with deportation, student visa holders aren't
exactly in a position to demand better wages or working conditions.

Of course, since the likely alternative to student visas is no visas at all,
I'm strongly in favor of them. I like having the world's smartest people
living in my neighborhood. Of course, this means that scientists will continue
to have artificially depressed wages relative to, say, doctors. C'est la vie.

[2]: Yes, blackmailed. I know people whose Ph.D.s were mysteriously delayed
while they worked extra hours on unrelated projects for their adviser's
startup company. I know someone who quit grad school in disgust after 8.5
years because his project turned out to be impossible but his adviser wouldn't
let him surrender. Fortunately, my own adviser was a very reasonable guy...

Did you ever see the movie "Real Genius"? The only unrealistic parts are the
lasers and the popcorn: the villains are all too real.

------
npk
BTW -- the author of this blog was denied tenure (fired) from Chicago after
posting.

