Chris Mooney posted a couple of things last week-- one article at ScienceProgress and one blog post-- talking about the supposed shortage of scientists in the "pipeline." Following an Urban Insitute study, he says that there's really no shortage of scientists being trained, but rather a shortage of jobs for those scientists. Coming as he does from the policy/ journalism side of things, he brings the article to a ringing conclusion:
The numbers presented by the Urban Institute lead to an uncontestable conclusion: Some young scientists aren't going to be working in purely scientific positions. There simply aren't enough jobs for them. Instead, some will be going into fields like journalism, or advertising, or politics--and if so, they ought to be learning more than simply scientific skills.
Learning about science is wonderful--but in today's complex world, it's rarely enough. Sure, it helps in any number of occupations, ranging from law to business, to know something about science. But it helps even more if you also know something else (like, say, how to speak in public or write, or design a website). Knowing how to think scientifically is pretty good on its own; but in combination with other skills, it's truly sublime.
In fact, we can go further. If the core concern is ensuring U.S. competitiveness, doesn't interdisciplinarity--the ability to combine scientific skills with another type of expertise--both enhance creativity and also give someone an edge? Doesn't a scientist who also speaks Spanish or understands patent law have a leg up in the global marketplace?
If so, it follows that not only do we need more scientists, we need more scientists with additional skills to boot. Why can't the scientific community release major reports stating that?
Like most rhetorical questions, it has an easy answer. You don't get major policy reports calling for more training to help science grads succeed in non-science jobs because it's not a policy problem. It's a cultural problem. What we need to address this problem is for scientists to stop acting like indie rockers.
You know the steroetype I'm referring to-- the bands and music fans who are poor and unrecognized, and make that a point of pride. Any band who manages a hit song or a major record deal has "sold out," and sacrificed whatever was good about their earlier work. Anybody who hangs it up and gets a regular job is even lower on the food chain, having completely abandoned the whole idea of art.
Science isn't quite as bad as that-- you can actually make a decent living as an academic scientist-- but there's something of the same attitude. In the current scientific culture, students are expected to be aimed directly at a tenure-track job at a major research university from day one of graduate school. Everyone is assumed to be working toward that goal, and any deviation from that track is either because they couldn't hack it, or they're selling out.
In much of the physics community, if you talk to people about former students or post-docs who have stepped off the presumed path toward a research university job, you'll hear them spoken of with the same edge of pity that indie rockers use to speak of people who quit bands and got office jobs. "Yeah, he was a good physicist, but for some reason he's teaching at a liberal arts college..." People who leave to go to industrial positions or Wall Street are like bands with major-label deals-- they gave up their calling in favor of pursuing money.
Just take a look at some of the academic job market discussions that crop up here and at Cosmic Variance, and you'll see what I mean. Some of the Cosmic Variance threads are particularly toxic in their pervasive if-it's-not-a-tenure-track-job-at-an-Ivy-it's-crap attitude (this is not, I hasten to add, from any of the CV principals, but rather their commenters).
We don't really need to provide much extra training for most of the skills Chris cites, for the simple reason that good scientists are already trained in most of them. Scientists need to be able to communicate effectively, both in writing and in public speaking. Very few people get through a scientific degree program these days without enough knowledge of computers to be able to design a web site, or to learn how very quickly. Lots of people in science already speak Spanish, or any of a host of other languages.
The real problem Chris is speaking of is not a matter of getting the scientific community to provide students with more skills, but rather giving them approval and even encouragement to use those skills in careers that are not on the default major-research-university track. We need to stop thinking of taking those jobs as something just one step up from total failure, and two steps up from an English major.
In short, as a community, we need to stop acting like indie rockers with math skills.
But that's not something that can be accomplished by writing white papers and lobbying Congress for more money. It's a cultural change, that has to come about from within the community.
Education & Careers
Comments
# 1 | Perry | December 17, 2007 12:15 PM
You sound like an indie rocker who secretly wants a big label contract :-)
I think the main thing is to be straight with students about the job market, and encourage interdisciplinary (and not just across two sciences...) stuff. I tell my students if they want to earn money with their degree to get an MBA, and be able to talk to the geeks and the greeks and translate. Graduate school is for those who can't sleep at night until they learn more physics, AND have some skills too!
So who's the Neil Young of physics????
# 2 | Johan Larson | December 17, 2007 12:17 PM
I don't think this analogy quite works. Indie rockers make a virtue of necessity by valorizing what most of them end up doing: eking out a living on the ragged lower edge of the music industry. Conversely, they scorn anyone who actually manages to break through into popular consciousness, and get paid well for it.
If scientists were actually doing this, they would be valorizing jobs at podunk state colleges, teaching intro classes to undereducated numbsculls while trying to get some research done. And that's not what they do.
# 3 | Aaron Bergman | December 17, 2007 12:29 PM
if-it's-not-a-tenure-track-job-at-an-Ivy-it's-crap
Tenure-tracks at Ivy's generally suck, actually, because the odds of getting tenure are so low. Some of them aren't much more than long-term postdocs.
People who leave to go to industrial positions or Wall Street are like bands with major-label deals-- they gave up their calling in favor of pursuing money.
Gave up?!?
And, to be honest, these days the tone I get has a not-so-subtle undercurrent of envy for those who have gotten out. (Or perhaps I'm projecting?)
# 4 | Uncle Al | December 17, 2007 12:42 PM
The American Chemical Society with its Project SEED and the like has amazingly choked the pipeline with "qualified" minorities. Anybody else who engages chemistry as a profession will be Liberally educated (R&D to manufacture moved offshore). Physics overflow slopped into Wall Steet where it formulated collateralized debt obligations so beyond human cognition that their recursive implosion promises US financial collapse.
The stupid wrung prosperity from heinous exploitation of the able. Heisenberg tells us arbitrarily specification of one of a pair of conjugate variables fuels Hell in the other one. "If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" Abundant empirically validated reasons are set to follow.
# 5 | Colst | December 17, 2007 1:43 PM
"In the current scientific culture, students are expected to be aimed directly at a tenure-track job at a major research university from day one of graduate school."
I agree with the overall diagnosis, but I always wince at this generalization when it's made. From my experience, an academic career seems to be only a minority aspiration in analytical chemistry. Chemistry in general seems to have a stronger link to industry than other sciences and there doesn't seem to generally be a stigma attached to going in that direction.
# 6 | Dave | December 17, 2007 2:57 PM
This problem isn't necessarily one of graduate students alone - most undergraduates going into the sciences expect to "get a job" once they're done their BSc. However, is this "job" in their field? Usually not - they are forced to apply their knowledge outside their narrow academic field of undergraduate study. Is this a bad thing? No, I'd say its great, but its still a misconception among many undergrads (myself included, when I started my BSc)
# 7 | SabrinaW | December 17, 2007 4:30 PM
Great post, and very resonant to my situation at the moment. I have always loved science and identify as a geek, but my true calling seems to lie in issues surrounding science and technology - ethics, cultural shifts, framing of scientific fact, etc. So I am taking a leap of faith (small "f"!) and pursuing advanced interdisciplinary studies at the Masters and PhD level with the goal of being a facilitator between specialists within the science community and between the science community and other professional fields like communications and policy. This is not just a problem with scientists; at a recent bioethics conference, there is a clear "old guard" faction that refuses to recognize a bioethicist aspirant who does not hail completely from one of the traditional, specialized disciplines (medicine, philosophy, or law). Going with the indie rocker analogy, it would be comparable to genre tribalism ("that's not REAL metal!").
I am willing to take this risk because I believe that Science needs more of a voice and needs to be able to work constructively with other segments of society. So when we run into each other in the professional world, give me a chance to help get your message out, and we'll find ways to rock the world together.
# 8 | Dave Briggs | December 17, 2007 5:51 PM
Knowing how to think scientifically is pretty good on its own; but in combination with other skills, it's truly sublime.
Yep! I agree wholeheartedly! A couple of my heroes are Einstein and Thomas Edison. Einstein for the theoretical physics, and Edison for being able to pull the abstract down to earth where it could help mankind. We need both, but it certainly doesn't hurt a thing to be multifunctional!
Dave Briggs :~)
# 9 | jeffk | December 17, 2007 8:16 PM
I would have no problem seeing physics students become liberal arts college professors, or industry researchers/engineers, etc - I certainly don't have my plans figured out yet. But am kinda bummed by physicists who leave to go into finance. Physicists, like engineers and teachers, are people who are trained to contribute to society - in the form of ideas, or the passing of knowledge, or inventions, or scientific discovery. To leave those sort of principles behind to go move money around while taking a disgusting slice off the top doesn't seem to fit with the idealism I see in my fellow graduate students.
# 10 | BikeMonkey | December 17, 2007 8:33 PM
"You sound like an indie rocker who secretly wants a big label contract :-)"
Naaah. Sounds like he's in a BoyBand.
# 11 | Janne | December 17, 2007 8:59 PM
It needs to go the other way too. For non-research career options to become a normal option rather than a safety, graduate programs need to accept not just people who see doing research as the be-all end-all, but also accept students who are upfront from the start about wanting the skill sets and accredition for other purposes. How many science graduate programs today will accept a student who says the purpose of them getting a PhD is to become a science writer or journalist, or to qualify for an R&D position in a large company?
# 12 | Dave S | December 18, 2007 2:14 AM
Perhaps if instead of indie kids, scientists became hipsters - ya know, all booze, blow, and an untamed expression of apathy - our public image would be greatly enhanced.
Just an idea.
# 13 | CC | December 18, 2007 10:10 AM
The real problem Chris is speaking of is not a matter of getting the scientific community to provide students with more skills, but rather giving them approval and even encouragement to use those skills in careers that are not on the default major-research-university track.
Unfortunately, the other real problem is that professors don't have the slightest idea what those skills are! Chris Mooney is just making stuff up* when he says things like "Doesn't a scientist who also speaks Spanish or understands patent law have a leg up in the global marketplace?" but academic PIs know even less than he does about what anyone non-professor does.
* Incidentally, I notice that no one here or there seems bothered by the question "Why can't the scientific community release major reports stating [stuff that Chris Mooney just made up]?" Regrettably, that is pretty much the standard of accuracy for such "major reports".
# 14 | perry | December 19, 2007 1:37 PM
Janne, if they can pass the qualifier and get the work done, I think I'm OK with whatever they want to do later. Less PhD's and more MS may be an answer, but that gets rid of lots of slaves (I mean slightly paid seekers of knowledge....:-) ) and at many places that may or may not work.
Biggest problem is non science majors that have no clue how we think and think that "theory=wild ass guess by wild haired man that doesn't have a real job...."