
The PhD Factory (2011) - Petiver
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html
======
cozzyd
I find these articles to be missing the point. It's probably not rational to
enter a PhD program if you're primarily motivated by making money. It's
usually only a worthwile if you enjoy the subject enough that you don't mind
spending 5+ years being underpaid (relative to what other salaries your skill
set could command) to think really hard about it and try to leave an imprint.
Then, even if you don't get to stay in the field afterwards, the PhD on its
own will have been a good experience.

(full disclosure: currently slogging away on my dissertation).

~~~
daemonk
Yes, I agree with you that the reality of current academia makes it more
rational to enter a phd program with no expectations of a stable/decently-paid
career.

But that's kinda ridiculous. That to do research science, we are expected to
choose between, as you say "leaving an imprint", over personal/financial
stability. We are not monks of science. And science is not something to be put
on a pedestal like religion.

I feel like current academia likes to (for a lack of better term) brainwash
prospective students into thinking the life of a research scientist is
supposed to be hard. And if you don't have a hard life, you are not really a
good scientist. As if personal/financial sacrifice is a virtue when doing
research science.

Having this expectation when considering doing research science shouldn't be
okay. But we are made to think it is.

(I am currently doing post-doc research)

~~~
cozzyd
I agree that it would be nice if it were easier to be a research scientist,
and I certainly support more funding for basic science research, but mostly
because I think it's important, not necessarily because scientists are
especially exploited.

If you are really good, connected, or lucky, and are willing to make the
requisite "sacrifices," then you can end up in a permanent research scientist
role. I put "sacrifices" in quotes because these are many careers that people
choose to go into (social work, community organizing, arguably teaching) that
require much greater sacrifices and would be equally irrational if one were
not passionate about the work. The correct response is probably that all these
groups should be compensated better, and I (perhaps selfishly) agree, but
right now. a research scientist is a much cushier, more prestigious, job than
a social worker, and arguably marginally less important to society. (more
disclosure: my wife is a social worker)

If, like most, you aren't able to get a permanent research job, or aren't
willing to make the "sacrifices", you can go into industry, where (usually)
you will make much more money but not get to work on things as interesting. If
you hadn't gone into a PhD program, this is likely where you would have ended
up in the first place. There is some opportunity cost of reduced total
earnings (even if you get a higher salary with a PhD, it's likely you would
have made up for that by not being a low-paid graduate student or postdoc for
so long), but if you are passionate about science, then at least you will have
spent 5-10 years doing it before getting a "real job."

I, like most of my peers, do want to end up being a researcher, but I harbor
no illusion that this is the most likely eventual outcome. If I can't find a
comfortable arrangement, I'll leave the field, do something else and be no
worse off for it. I do realize that I am fortunate to be in a field
(experimental high energy physics) where the impedance mismatch to industry is
relatively good. Other fields may require different ratios of passion to
"sacrifice" to be a good choice.

~~~
daemonk
I think the importance or practical impact of a profession is a whole another
issue I'd rather not get into. I take your point that there is a hint of
entitlement to anyone complaining about a job that, comparatively, is better
off than many other jobs.

I am all for people who are willing to tough it out for something they are
passionate in. However, I hope these people are passionate because of some
kind of internal motivation and not due to external pressure or culture to
accept the status quo.

------
acadien
You get a range of skills while working on a science PhD that will benefit you
in industry no matter where you end up. If you choose to study an area that
actually has industry applications then its even better.

If, on the other hand, you get a science PhD and spend all of your time
working with some insanely complex device that only has 1 application studying
an esoteric process that has no industry applications... then yeah you're
going to have a hard time finding work. This is the story I have seen over and
over again among my friends and colleagues that get PhDs.

If you're a graduate student be smart about it and make sure you get the
experience necessary to help you find work after graduation! No one else is
going to help you with that, it is up to you to build your resume.

Professors that take advantage of cheap labor and don't help their students
transition after graduation are a problem that Universities should take up. It
is to the University's benefit to get their students into nice industry
positions.

~~~
analog31
I would say it like this: You either make yourself employable or you don't, in
spite of working on a PhD.

What I observed during grad school was that students who wanted to be
employable in industry pretty much had to direct their own efforts in that
regard. They had to get into the right professor's research group in order to
have the leeway to steer their goals. The soft skills needed to function in
the business world were those that they were born with, or somehow learned
outside the academe. Luck played a role too.

------
twblalock
Overproduction of PhDs serves the interests of academia, which wants cheap and
easily replaceable adjunct labor. Nobody is particularly motivated to change
this, not even the adjuncts themselves, because they have convinced themselves
that they have a shot at a tenure-track position, which is a remote
possibility for most of them.

~~~
tellarin
While I agree with you in general, at least in CS and EE it seems to be a good
time for PhDs. At least for those considering industry.

The amount of opportunities seems to be only growing and companies are
fighting for them in some areas.

~~~
twblalock
That is one of the few PhD programs whose graduates can find industry jobs,
and whose graduates also _intend_ to find industry jobs.

------
madengr
Over the last 20 years: BS is the new HS degree, MS is the new BS, PhD is the
new MS

At least that's my observations as an EE for the last 20 years, the quality
has gone down a notch.

~~~
johnlabangbong
Do highschools award degrees?

~~~
loganfrederick
Diplomas.

------
sagargv
I think college is a fun place to be until you figure out something productive
to do. A lot of people feel that this is a "wrong" reason to do a PhD, but I
actually agree with this view.

"The hopeless ones become college professors" \-
[http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2015/02/25/hopeless-
ones/](http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2015/02/25/hopeless-ones/)

------
mrdrozdov
Perhaps there is not an abundance of PhDs, rather a shortage of jobs for PhDs.
Something close to 1 of 75 PhDs will become a professor (from the PhD Grind),
so almost every PhD should be preparing to work not as a Professor.

------
elmar
33,655 Ph.D. on food stamps

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9248493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9248493)

------
eng_monkey
They did not include Australia. In my opinion it suffers from the same
problems as China. These days, many students get a PhD in just three years.
The control mechanism are so soft that a large amount of PhD projects would
not pass as master (by research) dissertation in other countries.

~~~
vacri
My own experience with PhDs was an aborted one around '97 in Melbourne. I
fully own the end of it - I just was not interested in the topic I had (BIG
mistake), plus the more I saw of academia, the less I wanted to deal with it's
politics.

But what was startling was how the PhD students were treated like cattle by
our department. Shoved into the shittiest room in the building, where the
airconditioning ducts were in backwards so it was freezing all the time, I
watched number-crunching computers destined for PhDs get redirected to admin
temps, amongst other general shake-your-head day-to-day stories.

The kicker story for me was that the dean had managed to poach some
prestigious astrophysicist ("Astrophysicist? But this is Biophysical
Sciences...") from another university, and in the afternoon of the last
faculty day of the year, three days before christmas, one of the supervisors
came and said we might want to talk to the dean as there were rumblings. Our
office was receiving the astrophysicist and his staff on the next day the
faculty was open and naturally they wouldn't be expecting a room full of
people. The dean didn't even bother to proactively inform us that we had to
move out! Did we have another office tagged for us to go to? Not really, no.
So the dying hours of that afternoon were spent shuffling our stuff out and
into some storage/office somewhere.

My supervisor hated the way we were treated. Basically we were a head count.
Dean gets funding, then fuck 'em after that. My supervisor said that when he
did his PhD back in the early 70s, a doctoral student was handled like gold.
They were effectively considered another member of faculty. In only two
decades we'd become 'room meat'...

------
jseliger
It's worse in the humanities: [http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-
should-know-befor...](http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-
before-you-start-grad-school-in-english-literature-the-economic-financial-and-
opportunity-costs) .

As others have said, a PhD may be worth it if and only if you don't expect a
job in academia at the end. But that's a long time not spent on one's career,
and boy, that love for the subject has to be _really_ strong.

For the vast majority of people I don't think it worthwhile. I said in another
thread like this one that I don't think most people in academia want to be
rich and famous, but they should expect a reasonable material existence.
Academia currently doesn't deliver that. As Louis Menand points out in _The
Marketplace of Ideas_ , median times to a PhD degree is now hitting seven
years in the sciences and ten in the humanities.

That's a very, very long time in a person's life.

------
cgearhart
One of the compounding factors is that academic positions disproportionately
go only to graduates of top-rated institutions. For CS faculty, 50% of tenure-
track positions graduated from the top 18 schools, while 80% came from the top
25. If you want a PhD for academia, then it almost certainly isn't worth it if
you don't go to an elite institution.

[http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005)

------
ylem
Some people have brought up the idea that people should not enter into a PhD
program if they are interested in money. I agree, but the problem goes beyond
that. For those of us who are fortunate to find permanent positions doing
research, it's actually an amazing life. We're not rich, but we are
comfortable and we have jobs that we love.

But, there are relatively few of us who end up with permanent research
positions in the sciences. So, let's take my field of physics and consider the
situation in the US. Let's imagine two tracks for a student. She's skilled in
math, computer science, and physics. She could go into computer science and
start working in her field immediately after college. Depending on where she
goes, she could make $100K/yr shortly after graduation (ok, a lot of that may
go towards rent, but let's just use this as a round number).

Now, let's suppose that she decides to go the physics route. She will likely
spend 6 years as a PhD student. Back in my day, I remember making a stipend of
$13K/yr. Checking online, these have now gone up to ~30K/yr at a number of
institutions. So, at the end of 6 years, that's already a huge opportunity
cost. She hasn't bought a house, she probably has few if any retirement
savings. Now, let's suppose that she continues for a postdoc for 3 years.
Let's say that she makes $50K/yr (it's probably more likely that she'll make
$40-$45K/yr, but let's again take a round number). So, at the end of this,
she's lost $570K of potential earnings. This is ignoring taxes, but to be
fair, it's also ignoring any interest growth that she would have made on
retirement savings while working for a company.

Now, one might argue that for quality of life and doing what she loves, this
might be worth it if she became faculty at this point. However, the chances of
this happening are slim. So, at the end of the day, she'll probably examine
her options and in many cases (I have had friends and students that have taken
different paths to leave physics--ranging from teaching high school to
finance) leave physics to do something else.

So, the question isn't whether it makes sense to do a career in physics vs say
a career in CS. It's a question whether it's worth the opportunity cost to do
a PhD in physics and perhaps a postdoc in physics before doing something
completely different. There are of course some areas of physics where people
are able to find industry positions doing physics, but this is often not the
case...

I think that departments need to be upfront about this and provide students
with training opportunities to do other work if they are interested in doing
so after their PhD...

The calculation may be different for those in engineering fields...

