Career Stuff
mikethemadbiologist | April 26, 2011I've written before about the problem of the Ph.D. glut, so I was pleasantly surprised (shocked, actually) to read several articles in a recent edition of Nature hitting the same themes. For those who don't think there's a Ph.D. glut, here are some data for you:
Post-doc numbers shouldn't be increasing, unless there's a glut. While Nature accurately identifies the problem, they fall short in explaining what's driving it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Cyranoski et alia:
The proportion of people with science PhDs who get tenured academic positions in the sciences has been dropping…
mikethemadbiologist | April 4, 2011Clearly, I'm suffering from instructor error here, but I'll try it one more time. Back in my parents' day, mothers told daughters, "Learn how to type." Because one never knew if you might have to go it alone, and accurate, rapid typing, at the time, was a genuinely employable skill in demand. Remember is that most biomed Ph.D.s won't wind up in academic tenure-track jobs, so, like it or not, employment prospects out in the real world matter. We're failing our Ph.D's and post-docs if they wind up with the equivalent of English Ph.D's, especially in light of the hundreds of thousands of…
mikethemadbiologist | April 1, 2011So my post about why biomedical scientists suffer more than others in STEM fields seems to have received some attention. ScienceBlogling Chad Orzel writes:
That's true, but here's the thing: it's not unique to biomedical science. The same problem afflicts physics-- every time I post something about wanting to attract more students into physics, I'm guaranteed to get a few hectoring comments about how irresponsible it is to try to recruit students to a field with too many Ph.D.'s and not enough jobs. And it's not like being on the tenure track in physics is all hugs and flowers and adorable…
mikethemadbiologist | March 30, 2011Science Professor makes what I think is an entirely accurate assessment of the misery of many in the biomed academic world (emphasis original):
However, much of what I have learned, although fascinating, has been second-order compared to this:
People in the biomedical sciences seem to suffer a lot more than those of us in just about every other STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] field.
...My data: 87% of my blog-related e-mail is from unhappy, bitter, troubled, distraught biomed grad students, postdocs, technicians, and early-career faculty. Others write to me with problems,…
mikethemadbiologist | March 8, 2011There's been a lot of interesting discussion about the poor job prospects of post-docs, much of which was sparked by this Nature News column by Jennifer Rohn. I responded with the idea that we need more research centers (although if what you want to do is teach, you should continue in academia). But what I find odd is that there really isn't an understanding of what a research center (or could be). For instance, Steve Caplan writes (and I don't mean to pick on him; I've had various exchanges with other people that are similar):
Jenny has proposed that it would be a good idea to have "…
mikethemadbiologist | March 3, 2011Jennifer Rohn describes a dirty secret of academia:
The career structure for scientific research in universities is broken, particularly in the life sciences, my own overcrowded field. In coffee rooms across the world, postdocs commiserate with each other amid rising anxiety about biology's dirty little secret: dwindling opportunity. Fellowships are few, every advertised academic post draws a flood of candidates, and grants fund only a tiny fraction of applicants.
The scientific job market has been tight for decades, but the recent global recession and accompanying austerity measures have…
mikethemadbiologist | February 10, 2011There's a very interesting Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences article, "Understanding current causes of women's underrepresentation in science" that's available to the public. Andrew Moseman summarizes it quite well:
...Ceci and Williams say, external and social factors--some matters of choice, some not--are the major ones hindering women in science today. Those factors include the much-discussed, such as the fact that a mother with young kids is still expected to stay on the fast tenure track, and the less-obvious, such as caring for aging parents or following a spouse who gets…
mikethemadbiologist | January 14, 2011...getting an abortion. Because that seems to be the message from the presidents of the third-year class of the UC Davis veterinary school--with the apparent approval of the Chair of the Department of Medicine & Epidemiology. By way of ScienceBlogling Dr. Isis, the enlightened solons:
Dear Colleagues,
One of our classmates recently gave birth and will be out of class for an unknown period of time. This means she will undoubtedly miss one, or more, or all quizzes in VMD 444. Dr. Feldman is not sure how to handle this and has requested the class give input and vote. He has provided us…
mikethemadbiologist | October 4, 2010You might have, by now, seen that obnoxious article by Scott Kern bemoaning the sorry state of the cancer research facility at which he works. Apparently, the building is nearly empty on weekends, so people aren't working hard enough, and thereby killing cancer patients. Rebecca sums up the tone of the article:
There have been a few responses (updated: Janet has one also) to this chuckleheaded essay by Scott Kern (pdf) chiding, well, basically anyone who isn't in the lab 60+ hours every week about how they lack passion about their research, and are essentially letting sick people die…
mikethemadbiologist | June 15, 2010By way of Seeing the Forest, we note that at Miller-McCune, Beryl Lieff Benderly has a must-read story about the supposed shortage of scientists in the U.S. A while ago, I described the supposed shortage of scientists as a problem of incentives:
As long as financial 'engineering' is more lucrative than actual engineering (and other disciplines)--both in terms of pre- and post-tax salary--and has better job security, many students, particularly when too many graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt, will choose to do something other than science.
And consider defending…
mikethemadbiologist | May 11, 2010ScienceBlogling Revere calls for an open data policy for federally-funded research (italics mine):
We've inveighed often here about the shameful practice that many senior and well-respected flu scientists have of keeping their sequences private until they publish -- if they publish using them. If not, no one gets to see them, even if we paid with tax money to collect them. The motives are often unselfish -- a senior scientist trying to protect post-docs or grad students from being scooped. Very Old School. This is the 21st century. We have our own students and we take mentoring very seriously…
mikethemadbiologist | February 25, 2010...if you're not a tenure-track PhD (and that will be most of you. Sorry). I'll have more to say about ScienceBlogling DrugMonkey's training post tomorrow, but one of the disturbing things in the comments of his post was the high numbers of people who viewed PhD training only in light of producting more tenure-track faculty. Since that's something I've blogged about before, I was going to respond, but then science got in the way (stupid SCIENTISMZ!). Fortunately, two excellent pieces showed up discussing this topic (my timing is exquisite). Over at Scientific American, Beryl Lieff…
mikethemadbiologist | December 30, 2009Ever since I was a wee Mad Biologist, I've been told by Very Senior People that 'in five years, there's going to be a massive wave a retirement of older faculty.' This, in my mind, ranks up there with the Friedman Unit (in the next six months, we'll know if we have to leave Iraq, and six months later, we need another six months to know this), and the Samuelson Unit (the length of time to the ULTIMATE DOOOMMM!!! of Social Security is always 30-38 years from the time of prediction). Consequently, we will have a 'science gap' since not enough U.S. students know TEH SCIENTISMZ!!, even though…
mikethemadbiologist | December 8, 2009Dr. Becca asks some career-related questions and the Mad Biologist has answers (given that it's free to read this blog, take them for they're worth....). Dr. Becca:
It recently occurred to me that I need to wrap my head around the possibility likelihood (???????) that I won't get an offer this year. I might not even get an interview. And unlike eleven years ago, I'm not quite prepared to chuck the whole science thing and flee the country. So...what's the backup plan now?
....There's another option, too--and I would really like your advice here--which is that I could be promoted to the "…