Over at Unqualified Offerings, Thoreau calls out unnamed ScienceBloggers for cognitive dissonance:
I think scientific training is of great intellectual and practical benefit to students with the interest and ability to pursue it. I would like to see more people choose to study science (whether at the undergraduate level or beyond). However, I am amused that otherwise intelligent and highly analytical people can simultaneously discuss the following ideas without displaying any awareness of the tensions: The competition for science faculty jobs is too intense, it’s bad when people leave the competition and pick a different path, this is the best job in science, too many people are competing for it, and we need to get more kids interested in doing this.
I’ve tried to be consistent in calling for an expansion of the definition of success in science, to go along with my calls for improved science outreach and education. I think that the “Tenure-Track at a Research I or Bust” attitude is one of the most harmful of the many dumb ideas to take hold of academia, and it’s particularly stupid in the sciences, where people actually have other good options.
At the same time, though, it’s hard not to fall into the trap of evangelizing about the difficult-to-obtain academic lifestyle. As Thoreau notes, it’s great work if you can get it– near-total freedom to explore whatever you like, plus job security. It’s tough to beat.
So, when I run across a student who I think would be good in an academic role, it’s hard not to push them that way, because it really is an incredibly rewarding life. The tricky job we face as academics is to strike the right balance between giving students a realistic assessment of the difficulty involved in pursuing an academic job and explaining the rewards of success.
It’s a tough spot to hit in the classroom, let alone in a blog post. The last time I tried in a class setting, I managed to scare the hell out of the students who stood the best shot of making it in grad school, while pumping up those least likely to succeed. So I think I can forgive a little blog-based cognitive dissonance.
Chad,
First, you weren’t one of the ones I am thinking of. But I won’t confirm or deny any others, because the process will turn into “Blogger #1? No. Blogger #2? No. Blogger #3? Um, I can neither confirm nor deny.”
Second, I never urge a student to go to grad school. If a student expresses interest in grad school, and that student shows promise, I will give encouragement, but I never raise the subject. Even then, I always tell them to keep their eyes on other opportunities rather than have tunnel vision.
I nearly dropped out of grad school. Twice. (And I did job interviews during both crises.) While in grad school I took classes in a program to prepare students for industrial careers. I went to every alternative career workshop. But I also took an adjunct position while writing my dissertation, and I loved it. This told me what I needed to know. But even then, as a postdoc I continued to go to alternative career workshops. I only chose this path after every other avenue had been exhausted, because I knew it was a dangerous path, and I wanted to know that I was doing it out of love, not out of tunnel vision.
BTW, I think this problem is less urgent for you and me, since we’re at undergraduate institutions. We might send students to grad school, but we don’t groom them for professorships, we don’t steer people into postdocs when they belong elsewhere, and we don’t keep postdocs around forever. We aren’t supervising the masses of desperate grad students and postdocs chasing after just a handful of faculty jobs. This is more of a problem for the people directly participating in Ph.D. over-production.
Which is not to say that we shouldn’t do our part, especially on the culture of science and the attitudes that we pass on, but some of the worst problems are institutional, and we aren’t in the institutions that perpetuate these problems. Some might see that as irresponsibly washing our hands of the problem, but at least we aren’t churning out desperate Ph.D.’s.
I was at a regional university without PhD programs. I was pleased that it was so. I thought if we had had a PhD program it would not be particularly good. Never the less, there are some fifteen PhD’s, active in the profession, who will, at meetings, introduce me as someone who affected their career. A high point was hearing five of my ex students report on their independent-of-me research, at an international meeting.
In regard to my reader request thing many moons ago (well, ~4 moons ago): http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2008/08/reader_request_career_options.php
This was definitely a concern I’ve had–on one hand, for all this talk about keeping people in the sciences as possible there’s certainly not enough room for everyone to do research (much less interest). Few of my professors have done much beyond academia (though I know of more chemistry profs who have been “industrial” than physics ones) so my requests for advice have been a bit slim. And while, one way or another, I’m sure I’ll find some sort of job, it currently seems to involve being an ersatz engineer.
And speaking of engineers, I’ve noticed almost every single job fair at my university seems to offer engineering jobs to nat sci ones at a rate of 10:1. We get a few job offers through the physics and chemistry department listservs, but I definitely feel much less catered to than the engineers.
So, with that in mind, some things I think it would be great for physics departments to do:
– As CCPhysicist said “make it a point to keep in touch with every one of your grads. Make it very clear to them that taking a non-academic path is not failure and that you want them to contact you in 5 or 10 or 15 years and tell you what they are doing. After all, AIP stats show that only about 1/3 of all PhD grads end up in an academic position but I know my alma mater was utterly ignorant of where any of the other 2/3 went.” Now the trick is to make a large fraction of our professors do this.
– I know our school of humanities has a class specifically intended to let said people know what sorts of jobs are available for those graduating with a degree is History, English, etc. While I’m not saying we need a whole class for this (though it might be an excellent idea) a few departmental seminars for students about life after college/grad school would be fantastic (after all, we have them to explain to students how best to apply to grad school).
– As far as I understand things (and to be honest, my understanding is slim at best) a lot of the companies who come by my universities job fair have a fair relation with our engineering school, and said school does a bit of outreach for companies (mostly oil/energy, but given our location that’s our industrial base). Can Natural Science departments step up their connection with industry?