
When tenure never comes - the_duck
https://thewalrus.ca/when-tenure-never-comes/
======
throw_away_777
Every student considering going to graduate school should read this article.
Professors are very misinformed about how likely someone is to get tenure
(most of them got it > 20 years ago, in a much better academic job market).
This misinformation trickles down to students.

The simple fact is that right now the average professor is graduating more
than 10 phd students, only 1 of which can become a tenured professor at a
research university. The job options in academia other than tenured professor
are horrible and exploitative. I know many post-docs who have gone into
industry after slaving away at temporary and low paying jobs for over 6 years.
These post-docs were very bright and dedicated people, but the tenure track
position requires lots of luck in addition to skill.

~~~
yeukhon
Yes. The market is very narrow for academia. I live in NYC. there are a
handful of universes and colleges. If the large institutions are not hiring,
you are left with the small fish normally just looking for teachers not
professors. Also, to grow your career a healthy environment is collaboration.
If you end up being a Professor at a small pond, your bet is external
collaboration. If you don't like the small ponds, you have to find jobs
somewhere else, that means moving to another state. Since there are thousands
of post doc actively looking to join a good research institutions, the job
market is so competitive.

For engineers, say you got rejected by Google, there are still hundreds of
engineering teams you can apply to.

Should there be a policy to force retirement? Is it fair?

~~~
cpitman
> Should there be a policy to force retirement? Is it fair?

No, artificially creating jobs does not seem like the solution. We should be
requiring all schools, for all degrees, publish relevant employment figures
for that degree. And for doctorates, that should mean giving percentages that
have tenure after X years and the percentage employed in jobs that required
their doctorate.

Informing students lets them make the choice. If they are getting a PhD for
the love of it, and don't care, power to them. But they should be given real
data for their job prospects.

~~~
yeukhon
I agree we should publish the figure. But IMO this info is quite intuitive
even without one. The market is small.

------
limbicsystem
UK University chair of a STEM dept graduate school chipping in here: Every
September during induction I point out to the PhD students that there are
(around) ten of them in the room and our department advertised (around) 1 job
last year. We also tell them this when they are applying for the PhD in the
first place. They seem unfazed. Our PhD course lasts no longer than 4 years
(good students are out in 3) and they appear to be highly employable at the
end of it - both as postdocs and in industry. Having seen the US system at
first hand as well, I'd say that the lower opportunity cost (time to finish)
makes the whole process fairer on the students - graduating with a PhD at 25
still seems like a great opportunity. Doing the same at 32 is a very different
prospect. I have no idea what the situation in the humanities is like. Finally
- UK research councils (who often fund PhD students) are very open about the
fact that PhD students must now be taught a host of 'transferrable skills' to
equip them for non-academic jobs.

~~~
Certhas
The problem isn't with PhD positions. PhDs after all are training positions.
But each postdoc position makes one less employable. There really is little
justification (other than exploitation) in my mind for having postdoc
positions that don't lead to permanent positions.

This is more of an issue in Germany (where I work now) than in the UK (where I
did my PhD).

------
pmiller2
I consider myself fortunate that I realized most of what was talked about in
this article was true while I was about halfway through grad school. The
fundamental realization that given the size of my classes, where my peers were
competition for any academic job, combined with the fact that I would
literally have to wait for someone to die before I could get one of those
jobs, was enough to knock me right off of the academic track.

I might've even put up with postdoc hell, and the "6 year job interview " that
is the tenure process if I thought it would have come to something. But, when
you have 50 people competing for the same three openings in a year, and only
one chance per year to apply, the odds don't look very good.

~~~
quantumhobbit
Me too. Sort of. I think I realized this subconsciously before I was conscious
of it. The result was two years of depression and anxiety before I got
everything straight and quit.

I don't know if it was wasted time or not. It was a long time to not be in the
workforce, but I learned a lot of skills while working on what turned out to
be dead end research projects. I have a job now that requires merely a
fraction of those skills. But maybe I wouldn't have gotten the job without my
half phd. Or maybe I'd have a better job if I finished.

I'm still pretty frustrated by the fact that what was presented to me as a
failsafe career path was anything but failsafe. This is pretty much the same
problem with all of higher education and the current economy in miniature.
Just as an undergrad degree no longer garuntees a good job a phd no longer
garuntees a tenured job.

~~~
twblalock
> I think I realized this subconsciously before I was conscious of it.

This is grad school in a nutshell, in a lot of fields. I've seen three common
responses to this cognitive dissonance:

1\. Deny the brutal reality of the job market.

2\. "But I couldn't ever be happy doing anything else!"

3\. Leave.

One of the strangest things about my grad school experience was watching very
intelligent people spend years of their lives, and sometimes borrowing money
they could never pay back, to pursue a degree even though deep down, they
understood that it was a really bad idea. The rationalizations they came up
with were pretty transparent to anyone who wasn't also in the grad school
bubble.

I suppose I sound harsh, but when people ask me if they should go to grad
school in the field I did, my answer is always "not unless you are already
independently wealthy and never need to work again."

~~~
maverick_iceman
For a long time I thought that "But I couldn't ever be happy doing anything
else!" Now I'm not doing it but have a great job I'm way happier than I ever
was in grad school. I wonder how I could have been so foolish.

------
danso
I'm just an adjunct and will likely never break into the tenure track (not
having a master's degree being one of many factors against me), but I was sad
to see that even this purportedly slow and deliberate process be affected to
some degree by ageism. A good friend of mine entered grad school (in the
humanities) around 2004, when most folks he knew were easily finding tenure-
track jobs after their PhDs. He found himself the runner-up for highly-
contested jobs, and family events took him out of the hunt for a bit, but as
the years went on and he was content to be hired by not top-tier schools, he
ran into the "We'd love to hire you but your resumé is _too_ prestigious for
us and you might just use us as a stepping stone" and "If you haven't been
snapped up despite such a great pedigree, then something must be wrong with
you". He eventually got a tenure-track offer which he happily accepted, but he
was close to giving up on his decade-long career path.

I think these struggles are endemic to nearly all professions but it seems to
me that in academia, there's fewer opportunities to get tenure-track (or non-
tenure, but decently-paying) positions once you've deviated from the usual
path, even before you factor in the scarcity.

~~~
joeyo
> (not having a master's degree being one of many factors against me)

I'm not sure that I understand this. In your field is having a PhD (but
without a masters) considered a negative?

~~~
danso
I don't have anything beyond a bachelor's degree. I was hired (I'm assuming)
for my professional history. I haven't seriously considered going tenure-track
and so have found it strange when other people find it strange that I'm not
seeking tenure. In the same way a tech worker would find it strange to be
asked if they hoped to stay at Google/FB/Apple for their entire liveas.

------
eximius
Many people have pointed to an overpopulation being the root cause for this,
but I believe that ignores the increasingly inflating administrative staff at
universities. That is, it is also a budget problem. The budget for the
increase in professor staff is being diverted into additional administrative
positions that do... something, apparently. I'm not convinced that the
administrative bloat is worth a fraction of what it costs.

~~~
dharmon
You'd be appalled at how much overhead universities take out of research
grants (from NSF, DARPA, NIH, etc.) to maintain these administrations (along
with legitimate uses, like paying utility bills). 40-50% is not uncommon.

~~~
pkaye
I won some student award at school funded through an industry sponsor. I think
it was $1000. I was recommended by one of my professors. As part of the
processing fee, they deducted 20% for school overhead!

~~~
tomcam
Otherwise known as racketeering.

------
purpleidea
The author of the article never mentions _what_ faculty or program they're in,
or references any of their work. No doubt this is a real problem, but in this
particular case they could just be a lousy researcher in a faculty that
doesn't have a high demand for new professors.

IOW the "psychology" / "liberal arts" over population. I'm not trying to knock
any of those studies, but there is a large excess where I'm from.

~~~
pmiller2
There's an overpopulation in virtually every field. Any graduate student can
look to his or her left and right in class and realize that those people are
his or her competition for a job that only one of them is going to get. The
situation is only somewhat better in STEM fields, because there's more
industry demand (where you can get paid more and have better mobility, but get
looked down on by your academic brethren.)

~~~
maverick_iceman
> where you can get paid more and have better mobility, but get looked down on
> by your academic brethren

And then 2 years later they will be asking you to find them a job. :)

------
jerryhuang100
It's interesting to see this story on the front page at the same time with
another one titled _" We Should Not Accept Scientific Results That Have Not
Been Repeated"_. It's easy to solve both problems (killing two birds with one
stone?) by implementing protocols of purging scientists with track records of
non-repeatable results from "personal opinions" and fraudulent scholars gaming
publishing systems, including titles, positions, degrees and/or grant money
ever awarded. This should at least release _some_ vacancy in the academia
(given a 11% repeatable rate from the Amgen study).

~~~
quantumhobbit
And while you're at it, hire some of those underemployed post-docs to
reproduce new results full time.

~~~
jerryhuang100
I concur this with a proposition of a system named as _r_ epeatability _e_
valuation an _d_ _di_ gital _t_ racking, or r.e.d.d.i.t., with the crowd-
sourcing efforts.

------
mccoyspace
FWIW, this story parallels the reality that most professional artists have
experienced for a long time: hyper competition, extremely limited grant
opportunities, no direct commercial market, everything paid out-of-pocket. A
"compulsory hobby" is a great phrase.

~~~
dnautics
For STEM academes: The difference is that professional artists have long been
aware of the "starving artist" stereotype aren't strongly sold a nationalism-
backed narrative that "we need more scientists", followed by unsustainable,
hierarchical organizational structures. Moreover, science typically holds
itself to a different sort of accountability (empirical results and
uncompromising honesty) as a professional ideal, whereas the actual nature of
the beast, where funding is drawn to popular ideas and politically connected
researchers instead of the most honest and productive.

------
ptero
Being out of an academic job is a painful experience. I have a PhD in math
and, entering grad school, was aiming only for an academic career.

However, it was very clear to everyone in my grad program (as well as to my
friends doing physics PhDs across the street) that this requires 1-2
competitive postdocs (3-6 years at low salary) and a stiff competition to a
tenure track. And you do not usually get a choice: i.e., if you get offered a
position, you grab it, be it in Maine or Texas (I decided to avoid this race
and went to the industry; there are pros and cons to both paths).

IMO, the tenure system, at least in the US, is highly inefficient. Things are
pretty top-heavy (older, tenured professors who originally were expected to
retire by ~60, often do not) and graduating PhDs with decent, but not stellar
results have a very hard time on the academic research track.

~~~
secabeen
For many years, universities had mandatory retirement ages:

>Until 1982, retirement of faculty members at many universities was mandatory
at age 65. Because of amendments to the ADEA, in 1982 the minimum allowable
mandatory retirement age was increased to age 70. In 1986 Congress made
additional amendments to the ADEA, prohibiting any mandatory retirement ages
for most workers in the United States.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3737001/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3737001/)

------
pascalxus
Does anyone else see the contradiction: the amount students are spending on
college keeps going up, but the budget for professors seems to keep going
down. What accounts for the discrepancy?

~~~
cpitman
The belief that everyone should go to college. What the government spends on
public schools has actually gone _up_ over the decades, but a move to everyone
going to college means that _funding per student_ has dropped.

Edit: Link to source: [https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-
pricing/figures-tabl...](https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-
pricing/figures-tables/total-and-student-state-funding-and-public-enrollment-
over-time)

~~~
intended
This is a more accurate response than most on this issue.

To take it further, the underlying issue is that it is now compulsory for
people to have a college degree in america to keep up with their expectation
of a normal middle class life style.

Decades ago, you didn't need to be college educated to live the American
Dream.

The collapse of those jobs has left citizens to scramble for what's left. this
leads to all sorts of secondary effects such as the reduction of extra
curricular activities, teaching the test, rote memmorization to survive tests,
and cram schools.

This pattern exsists already in many third world and developing world nations,
and it is a shit show. Our worst scams when it comes to education are
horrifying. (Search: vyapam for the most recent education related scam in
india.)

The education problems in america are a jobs/employment problem.

------
Chinjut
Every time one of these articles is posted, there are a number of comments
about how we need to tighten the number of students accepted into PhD
programs, to line up with the number of academic jobs realistically available
to them. Of course, I understand where these comments come from. But if so
many people are so keen to become researchers in a field they love and are
clearly highly qualified to work in, I would hope we could instead find a way
to broaden the number of people supported in doing such work. Attacking the
problem from the more troubling end.

------
wyclif
_I don’t need to be dealing with signing religious codes of conduct or dealing
with campuses where eighteen-year-olds can carry concealed guns_

Quelle horreur! So he wants tenure at a US university, but he won't go to the
UK or Europe because...oh dear, that might involve sacrifice.

~~~
semigroupoid
I understood this as a reference to US states in the midwest (maybe Texas?),
not to Europe or the UK. In fact, in most of Europe an eighteen-year-old
wouldn't be allowed to purchase a gun, much less carry it around.

------
gravypod
Can someone please explain to my why tenure is needed? I've had some
professors attempt to do it to me in the past and I never got it.

I _maybe_ understand it for a humanities subject, but for STEM no chance for
me.

I don't have tenure when it comes to working in the industry. If I'm a good
enough employee I'll stay on, if I'm a bad enough employee I'll be replaced.

Tenure just seems to protect mediocrity. Can someone help paint this in a
different light to me?

~~~
bachmeier
When you work in industry, your job is to do what you're told. When you do
research, your job is to learn new things and tell others about them, no
matter who doesn't like those results. If you're studying earthquakes in
Oklahoma, the oil companies won't like it. If you're studying evolution,
certain segments of the population won't like it.

Tenure is one way of protecting academic freedom. You seem to be thinking of
it in terms of job security. As many tenured professors that have been fired
over the years for reasons like the university having financial difficulties
can tell you, tenure does not provide job security. Of course there is a
correlation between the two.

~~~
gravypod
This makes sense, but are we not at a time where you can simply do all of
those things and people won't crucify you?

> When you work in industry, your job is to do what you're told.

You are told to publish, are you not? It's the same principle except your job
has extra steps.

I'd also like to point out colleges aren't the end all be all of R&D. The
industry does R&D as well and they do crazy R&D without tenure. I've met
people who have started companies just so they could do what they want, moved
to companies just so they could research one thing, or even convinced their
current boss as to why a certain piece of research would be of value.

I think this is a much more complete answer then what I've been told before,
but it's still quite fishy.

~~~
bachmeier
"are we not at a time where you can simply do all of those things and people
won't crucify you?"

Are you in the US? I'd say it's pretty clear you can get crucified for stating
an unpopular opinion.

"I'd also like to point out colleges aren't the end all be all of R&D."

And they shouldn't be. They should primarily do work that the private sector
is not willing to fund.

"I think this is a much more complete answer then what I've been told before,
but it's still quite fishy."

There are no doubt advantages and disadvantages of tenure. Whether tenure is a
good system is definitely up for debate, but the tradeoff is that some
research will not be done and some topics will not be addressed in the
classroom. There's little incentive to risk your career by jumping into
controversial situations. Perhaps we are willing to move to a different model.

~~~
gravypod
Let me be clear for others who come across this because I'm completely sure
that since you've been a student and now work in the system you know where I
am coming from as a student. Surely there will be people who read this who
have not had the 'pleasure' of being graced with the "bad kind" of tenured
professor.

In my college experience, which has only been one year, I've met a few types
of professors.

There is the kind who LOVES teaching and who is amazing at it. This is the
only kind of teacher that I'll give a real life example of. If you're going to
NJIT and need a math teacher you're going to want to look for these two names:
Jimmy Hayes and Kenneth Horwitz.

Both don't only want you to learn but they also want to be the one who teaches
you. If I could have every professor I meet conduct themselves like this I'd
have no problem with tenure. And that's coming from someone who failed the
class taught by Hayes. The reason I'm giving such praise to these professors
is there is absolutely no way my failing grade was their Hayes fault, it was
my own (I had some problems going on in my life at the time).

They spent all the time they could preparing us for the exams and also gave us
points back if we did something that was incorrectly graded and we could prove
it was right.

Next there is the kind who "believes in the system". They teach because they
enjoy it, they are usually charismatic and good at teaching but that isn't
their main focus. They either do this while engaging in research or other
projects to help the school or further their field.

I have no problem with this second group. It is again someone who puts time
and effort into their job. Someone who cares about their work. It's altogether
someone who is furthering humanity while not harming others around them.

The last professor is someone you don't want. It's the professor who is
tenured. That's how all of us students refer to them since these seem to be
the only kind of people, in the eye of a student, who actually has it. They
are the professor who comes in 15 minutes late to class, consistently, refuses
to answer emails or questions, and leaves randomly through the semester.

I've actually had one of or physics professors come in on the first day 15
minutes late. He started the lecture (for the class that was meant to be taken
along side of Calculus 1) by saying "So does everyone here know how to take
the derivative." When everyone is confused, he does a 10-second-basic drawing
of what it was. Asked if anyone had any questions. He scanned the room full of
raised hands and said "Ok" then went on with the lecture.

This happened 10-15 times across the semester.

Another incident was that the physics department cobbles together a "sort of
practice exam" for each test. I found this out from a friend as my teacher had
never talked about nor handed this exam out.

The last story I'll share of this horrible professor took place around the
time of the 3rd exam. I took the exam and went in the next class to get my
scores only to find he had absconded with the only copies of our exam on a
"business trip"; we had to wait 3 weeks to get our exam scores. (I had given
up at that point and started randomly answering on the exams. For this test I
got 17/20 placing me in the top 20% of the test takers.... that might tell you
a bit about our exams)

So this is my problem with tenure. It's often the WORST of the worst you
notice have it while the best of the best struggle to get it since it seems
they aren't one to shut up and play ball with the stupid processes needed to
get it.

~~~
arghnoname
The confusion here is that you seem to think tenure has something to do with
teaching. For a research university, tenure mostly (but not entirely) is a
reward for research (and grant-getting) excellence.

It's a quirk of our system that excellent world-class researchers are
obligated to teach basic materials to undergraduates, and sadly not all of
them are very good at it. Further, while poor grading reviews don't help
someone seeking tenure, a poor publishing record and no grants will kill it.
The incentive is to prioritize research at all costs. One of the best
researchers I know is also one of the worst rated instructors in course
evaluations I've seen.

This quirk is why coursework from non-research universities might on average
be better in your standard topics. For 101 stuff, you're better off being
taught the material from someone who is a great instructor but isn't on the
research frontier than the other way around.

~~~
gravypod
Well you'd say that, but coinicdently the teacher I'm talking about has no
published research listed on his profile page for our school, only "research
interests." It doesn't look like he's done much, just that he's friends with
the type of people who are in charge.

This is mirrored in the CS department where I am. One full time professor was
given an offer by the school, a "retirement package." It was rumored to be in
the 250k range. He is unanimously refereed to as "the weed-out professor" by
everyone of my peers since he is the only teacher for one of the mandatory CS
classes.

Sadly he has not taken the retirement package and has one of the highest
failure rate classes in the college.

He has not been fired due to his tenure.

This is the reason why I and many other students have this distaste for
tenure: because whenever we are confronted with it, it is because our lives
are made infinity more difficult because of it.

In the years to come as students who have been poorly treated by tenured
professors seep into administration of colleges there will be problems because
of this.

I can't fix it and I don't mind at all if professors loose tenure as an
option. That being said, if the research community wants to keep it they are
going to need to shift public opinion of it and that will only happen by
hiring professors who are _good_ at teaching to replace the brilliant
researchers in that regard.

------
Fej
Just an anecdote... a professor whose classes I've taken, which were
fantastic, recently got tenured. In the liberal arts, too!

I like to think that tenure isn't quite dead yet. Depends on the college,
naturally. (I deliberately use the word "college" instead of "university"; I
find that the liberal arts college at my university is more organized than the
computer science department.)

Eventually the college loan bubble will burst, and universities will no longer
be able to be run like businesses.

~~~
repsilat
> Eventually the college loan bubble will burst, and universities will no
> longer be able to be run like businesses.

Can you explain this sentence?

If you mean, "Students will be less likely to get crazy loans," I can only
imagine that would _encourage_ universities to "be run like businesses.)

------
coldtea
> _I don’t need to start building a life from scratch in my late thirties. I
> definitely don’t need to do it for a nine—or three-month contract without
> benefits, or costs of moving._

Well, it's not like the academic world, even when it was much better itself,
has done much to protest and assist with the same and much worse situation in
blue collar (and even office) jobs.

First they came for the McDonalds burger flippers, and I did not speak out —
Because I was not a McDonalds burger flipper...

et al

~~~
gohrt
Does McDonald's lay off staff every 9 months?

~~~
throw_away_777
McDonald's turnover is at least 44%, so basically yes.
[http://fistfuloftalent.com/2008/05/can-this-
turnov.html](http://fistfuloftalent.com/2008/05/can-this-turnov.html)

~~~
Mtinie
The comparison doesn't hold up when rates of voluntary job separation and
involuntary laid offs are being discussed.

~~~
coldtea
When you pay employees crap, and give them crap opportunities, "voluntary job
separation" is mostly a euphemism.

~~~
Mtinie
I don't disagree with that, but there's a difference between someone walking
off a job after they quit and when a company terminates someone's employment.

------
mrb
Something doesn't add up. University education costs have been increasing over
at least the last one or two decades. But universities keep reducing costs by
hiring adjunct, sessional, or contract faculty who are presumably less well
paid than full-time professors. So where is the universities' money going to?
Are they losing it by mismanaging their endowment funds? Are they spending
more in other areas?

~~~
mbreese
For public (state-funded) universities, they receive a large percentage of
their operating budget not from tuition or endowments, but directly from the
state. In many cases, over the past 10+ years, this direct support has been
slashed. So, for these institutions, even as tuition has been increasing,
their total budget was likely dropping. Tuition hasn't been able to keep up
with the loss of state funding, so the universities try to make the numbers
work in a variety of ways... one of which is to limit the number of
professors.

~~~
pkaye
Then why do they keep increasing the administrative staffing?

~~~
tomcam
Compliance. Massive amounts of federal regulations, plus empire building and
things like deluxe dorms and insanely corrupt athletic programs.

------
arcanus
Saddening story. However, as an academic myself, some bits were misleading or
odd:

> funding regulations meant the grant couldn’t pay my salary as its lead
> researcher

I've never, ever heard of anything like this occurring. The most I have seen
are cost sharing pieces where a grant cannot more than a certain % of your
salary. But these are often known upfront by the PI!

> The two disclosed who had submitted a grant proposal and whose book was near
> publication—all of which are needed for tenure. I was the only one in the
> room with books, articles, and a recently awarded grant.

This strikes me as a highly bitter position to take. There is far more to
tenure than only the number of grants, books, articles, etc. Were the articles
published in high impact journals? How much $$ was the grant for? A researcher
5 years younger might get a tenure-track position with no prior grants, but a
hot research topic, a few good publications and an excellent pedigree.

> My financial reality still makes it hard to keep up with conferences. I
> haven’t had access to professional development funds since 2010

The author states he has funding grants but these did not explicitly cover
several conferences? I'm very surprised by this, and this is not at all
consistent with my experience. I had funding to attend conferences as a first
year graduate student.

> There are jobs in the southern US and in the UK, which would take me away
> from family and a new relationship that I cherish. I don’t need to start
> building a life from scratch in my late thirties. I definitely don’t need to
> do it for a nine—or three-month contract without benefits, or costs of
> moving. And if we’re talking about the US, I don’t need to be dealing with
> signing religious codes of conduct or dealing with campuses where eighteen-
> year-olds can carry concealed guns.

The sad truth of the matter is: if you want to get a tenure track job, 99% of
us will not truly have a choice in location where you live. Expect to move
across the country (or across countries!). That is quite apparent when you
sign up. You take what you can get. A friend took a position in upstate NY,
and he hates the cold...

~~~
scott_s
I suspect the author is from the humanities, which have starkly different
funding realities than what you and I are used to. (Your profile says you are
a computational scientist, and while I work in industry, I still publish in
computer science academic conferences.)

~~~
schoen
> I still publish in computer science academic conferences

Having just recently attended an academic conference as a non-academic (but
not submitted anything this time), I was wondering whether non-academics do,
or should, feel guilty about publishing at these venues. It was _very_
apparent how other people there were looking for jobs and using their
publications and presentations as a part of that process. If non-academics
publish in journals and conferences, should we feel bad that we're potentially
taking away spots from those these venues are "meant for"?

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
I don't think you should feel bad about that at all. The amount of jobs
available is not going to decrease due to you publishing papers. If you "take
away a spot" for someone's paper it might mean that that person doesn't get a
job, but some other academic will get it instead (and none of them will know).

In fact I'd say non-academics publishing in conferences and journals can be
good for academics even from an egoistic standpoint, as it can help break the
popular perception of science/academia as an ivory tower of self-absorbing
smartasses out of touch with reality. And better popular perception of science
indirectly means more funding. So as an academic I would definitely see an
increase of submissions by non-academics as good news for my interests.

------
kleiba
This article has been posted and discussed on HackerNews before. I mean, not
this exact same article, but the same narrative written by different authors.
That shows on the one hand that a lot of people are unfortunately affected by
the same problem, but it also means that it's not a new problem.

Whether it's academia or industry, after working at the same place for some 8
years or so, I think it's only human that you get a feeling that your employer
"owes you" for your commitment. And perhaps they really do? But people lose
their jobs all the time, why would academia be any different to any other work
place?

~~~
audleman
> why would academia be any different to any other work place?

If anything it should be worse. Companies realize a profit which the pay some
of to their employees. Education, on the other hand, is a net loss operation.

~~~
Mtinie
At many institutions, but not all.

------
veddox
As somebody looking to go into research (in a STEM field), this is a rather
chilling article... And it's by far not the first time I have heard about this
problem of getting a long-term job in academia.

I'm just wondering: this guy was from Canada. What's the situation like in
Europe? Especially Germany?

~~~
sevensor
I'm not European, but I've heard the situation is hard there too, although not
in the same way. The European academics I've met are, years after finishing
the PhD, still quite dependent on their advisors for patronage. Those advisors
likewise have to defer to _their_ advisors. For decades. Until somebody dies.
It's very feudal.

------
smallnamespace
My experience in finance was that 50% of quants (especially physics PhDs from
the 90s, when all the Cold War-era funding dried up) were failed academics.

Most of the rest were PhDs jumping straight to industry to avoid chasing
tenure for years.

~~~
alasdair_
It depends on how you define "failed". Even the best academics may think it
rational to make millions of dollars as a quant over a more conventional
salary as an academic.

I am not a "failed mcdonalds cashier" if I choose to quit and something that
pays more, even if I started out in that particular field.

~~~
smallnamespace
Maybe I'm being blunt, but my definition is that I spoke to them personally
and they told me they would still be in academia if they had managed to land a
job.

I asked, because at the time I was considering leaving to pursue a graduate
degree myself.

Of course, I didn't literally speak to every quant in on the street, but I
sampled from the ones who were around me. Most people were quite open about
the situation but glad they had left; some were still very bitter.

------
ilarum
Does HN have any advice for those looking to get a PhD because they love the
field (Computer Science)? And then follow up the PhD with a job at one of the
tech companies' research arm?

~~~
pjmorris
If you really love it, there's no sense in talking about reason. "And yet, to
say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays." \-
Bottom, Midsummer Night's Dream

As for tech company research arms, look carefully at who recruits where you
intend to go, and who your potential advisors publish with. If you land in a
place with good connections, it increases your chances of landing a gig like
that.

~~~
bachmeier
"If you really love it, there's no sense in talking about reason."

Not getting a PhD does not prevent you from working in the field or from
reading the literature. IMO the only reason to get a PhD is that it will open
jobs that otherwise wouldn't be available.

------
Hermel
An academic career should never be your only option. Make sure you study
something that is useful in the real economy.

~~~
pm90
I sincerely hope that people who are genuinely excited about research do not
adopt this attitude. Our affluent society allows us to specialize in what we
like; allowing the best of us to create art and mathematics and make
discoveries in science is as important as being a "contributing member of
society".

~~~
ghaff
We all have to make choices between what we enjoy and have a passion for and
what pays the bills. For many of us, there is a degree of overlap though
likely not 100%.

Our society is not so affluent that, if what you are genuinely excited about
is medieval German poetry, you can reasonably expect to be supported with that
passion unless you win a very specific academic track lottery (or have other
sources of income).

~~~
pm90
I was thinking more about scientific research, such as funding for pure
mathematics, theoretical computer science and such. These are skills that
require years of dedicated effort to master the basics and reach a level of
understanding that is rigorous enough to start making original contributions
and yet offer very little financial compensation in industry.

You are right in that a decision has to be made in what areas we consider
important enough to allow a sustainable career from it. In your example, I
would certainly not fund a person for studying Medieval German poetry only;
but more funding for research into history? Sure thing.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
Who decides where "funding for research into history" goes? In our STEM
graduate program (a fairly prestigious one), it was pretty widely argued that
you basically had to attach yourself to one of the big name grants to try and
get funded.

I had a few friends who had some ideas but their professors weren't too happy
with those. They found a way to incorporate some of the buzzwords for a giant
grant our university had, pitched it to the professor, who submitted a grant
application, and got them funded on the idea. Professor was happy (he had
money), students were happy, but at the end of the day, the process was
idiotic.

------
mjevans
I hate having to enable JavaScript just to read a website.

It was worth it for this one though, just one main thing; still I almost
didn't click it, I often don't.

-

I see that same mentality reflected in far too many places, no one wants to
hire for a career anymore; and that's what 'tenure' is at a college. The
'contract' in society between the working class and those who employee them is
beyond broken.

~~~
fsck--off
You can read the site with JavaScript disabled if you also disable CSS.

------
searine
The fun part of this article is where he never mentions his field...

~~~
chinathrow
Why? Isn't that highly irrelevant to his story?

------
nikanj
"I forked out over $2000 to attend two conferences [..] at the second I was
cut off half-way into my paper."

I have never seen this happen at any conference. It makes the author sound
like a crackpot.

~~~
exolymph
"I have never seen this happen" =/= "This has never happened"

~~~
nikanj
I'm not questioning whether it happened or not, I'm curious about the reasons
their presentation was cut short.

"There’s nothing quite like having an established academic decide that hearing
eight minutes of the allotted twenty would be sufficient. As a self-funded
under-employed contingent, I wasn’t going to say anything useful anyway."

How would this established academic know they're self-funded and under-
employed?

~~~
the_duck
The author's job title might have given this away. In Canada
(assistant|associate|full) professors are tenured or tenure track, and hence
higher status. Any other title could be assumed to mean non-tenure track and
under-employed, hence lower status.

