link to a repost of a great post

Data: an example of widespread cultural assumptions about women and PhDs

Don't count on it.

We've discussed the possibility of more jobs opening up when the baby boomers retire.

Hasn't happened yet. Might not ever.

This beautifully written article in the Chronicle has quite a bit to say on the subject, and is well worth the time to read completely.

One excerpt on the subject of history repeating itself (because no one was listening the first time):

Mr. Ehrenberg thinks the majority of academic retirements will occur naturally. "I don't think colleges are going to be in such a hurry to kick people out," he says. He and others say that young Ph.D.'s should not count on a windfall of jobs as their elders turn emeritus. Cost-conscious colleges, for instance, could shift some jobs off the tenure track. And past predictions of waves of retirements helping out the academic job market have flopped: A major study published in 1989 by William G. Bowen, then president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, predicted that colleges could face severe faculty shortages by the end of the 1990's, largely because of retirements. But the expectations raised for an improving job market in the arts and sciences did not materialize.

I think there is no way these retirements are going to happen naturally. The numbers just don't add up. Scroll to the bottom of the article for several useful tables citing percentages of institutions that say they want to recruit new faculty (96%) but are clearly not thinking about where they'll put us how we'll be paid, since many fewer institutions say they are thinking about retiring old faculty (19%).

How can that be? Here's another excerpt explaining why this is more of a problem now than ever before:

The average age of retirement in the general population is 62. But in academe, faculty members appear to be retiring at 66, on average, and that age is drifting upward, although retirement data is not always as crisp as demographers might like. The August telephone survey found that about one-third of those responding expected to retire at age 70 or later. The ability of colleges to enforce a mandatory retirement age of 70 ended in 1994, when an academic exemption for a federal age-discrimination law expired.

Maybe the academic exemption wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe they shouldn't have retired it!

Career Myths about Grad School and Postdocs

Today I'm thinking about some things I used to think, and some things I know are still common beliefs about science. All of them can be dangerous assumptions, to differing degrees.

1. Appearances don't matter as much in science.

One of the things that attracted me to science was the false belief that it was more about putting in an honest day's work for a good cause than anything else, and that smart people didn't care what you wear or whether you're a minority or not.

Boy was that wrong!

Looking back, I got this impression based on working in the lab, down in the trenches, as it were. I liked the uniform of jeans and a t-shirt.

It never really occurred to me until relatively recently, but I've blogged about it a lot: to get from the trenches to the office, some people will judge you based on totally irrelevant criteria.

I knew this was true in other jobs. I just didn't think it would matter as much in science.

2. A PhD automatically means people without a PhD will respect your opinion more than they would have before you got the PhD.

When I had already been a postdoc for a while, I found myself in a sticky situation with a technician who just would not listen to anything I said.

Once upon a time, I looked up to the technicians. Many of them had more experience than I did, and some were immeasurably helpful to me.

I've always believed that, in terms of day-to-day things in the lab, a PhD just means you've logged a certain number of years at the bench. And experience, so far as I can tell, reigns supreme at the bench. And you never really know how much experience anyone has until you work with them.

Appearances, even in science, can be deceiving.

I didn't expect him to just take my word for anything, I would patiently try to explain my reasoning, but he just refused to listen.

Looking back, I think things were fine until he found out I had a PhD.

I've run into this a lot. People treat you a certain way when they assume you are a grad student, and they treat you differently from the moment they find out that you are not.

In retrospect, this was a horrible example of exactly the kind of sexism I have always tried to avoid, because I literally could not get my work done.

The PI was unreceptive. On the other hand, I never really spelled it out because I sensed that it would get me in trouble AND do nothing to improve the situation. Maybe I was wrong about that, but there's no way to know. And these things do have a statute of limitations.

I was thinking about this because someone I hadn't seen in a long time was asking me how my work was going since last we met.

I was thinking back over the setbacks I've had this year, large and small.

This last year was crippled with mostly small setbacks, but several of them could be traced to the same couple of sources. But there were at least a couple of large setbacks. In at least one case I lost a lot of time, but there was nothing I could have done differently.

But I'm not sure there was anything I could have done to make things turn out differently with this guy.

The biggest problem was that it took me a while to figure out if this guy was just weird. You know how some people in labs are just argumentative. I know someone who is like this, but it's how he behaves with everyone, no matter if you're young or old or tall or short or male or female or any color of the rainbow. That's just how he is.

And for a while there were no other women around, so I couldn't help wondering if it was really just me, or if it was actually because I was a woman.

The worst kind of woman. A woman with a PhD.

3. Sexism used to be worse, so women who complain about it now are just ungrateful and negative.

Maybe it's actually worse to be aware of sexism. That's certainly the message I've gotten from talking with older women faculty, who were either born with blinders on and apparently never took them off, or cultivated a kind of denial that I just can't muster.

It's like the conversation over at Jenny F. Scientist about whether outright falsification is worse, or not as bad, as cherry-picking from non-robust data.

The argument is that totally false data is much easier to identify than data that has been 'massaged.' By this reasoning, cherry-picking or massaging data is much more insidious, and much more dangerous, because it's a much bigger waste of everyone's time.

So while it might seem intuitive that blatant sexism is worse than subtle sexism, I don't think that's really the case anymore. Everyone agrees that blatant sexism is bad, and most people will speak out against it.

The problem with subtle sexism is that it's not minor. Passive aggression can be just as destructive as overt aggression. But it's much harder to prove.

Seems to me this is like the cherry-picking. Everyone's first inclination, when they can't be sure otherwise, is to blame themselves. And then we end up in situations like the one I just described, where you miss the crucial moment to do anything about it.

4. Faculty have not only personal experience, but also lots of ideas about what you should learn in grad school and as a postdoc.

False, false, and false!

For a while now in science, the gradual creeping increase of time in grad school and postdoc has been widening the generation gap.

But I had the unusual experience recently of hearing someone with an MD talking about what should be taught in grad school.

This same person was telling students to finish their PhD just because it would be useful.

I'm sorry, but what the hell would you know about it???

Similarly, I noticed pretty early in my postdoc that most older PIs have no concept whatsoever of what it's like for us as postdocs now. Most of them did a postdoc that lasted a maximum of two years, and then they got a job.

The end! Ta da! Wouldn't that be nice??

Again, if you haven't ever been through it, how much could you really know?

And yet, these are the people in charge (you know, the ones I'm always ranting about).

Worse than that, I heard a PI recently exhorting grad students to do a postdoc, but when asked about what exactly should be learned in a postdoc position, this PI had no idea how to respond.

(Here's a hint: if you're a PI, you should know the answer to this!)


5. A PhD is a useful jumping-off point for many careers, so it's a degree worth getting, even if you realize early in grad school that you're miserable.

This was probably true when grad school was less than 5 or 6 years. It may still be true in the UK and some European countries where grad school is ~ 3 years max.

But I don't really think it's true anymore, or good advice at all.

I mean, sure, if you're miserable and more than halfway done, you should probably finish. But isn't that true for most endeavors?

But if you know before you take your qualifying exams that you hate it?

Get out.

And whatever you do, DO NOT go to grad school to figure out what you want to do.

Figure it out first.

Along those lines, I'm starting to wonder if we shouldn't be requiring students to go out and work for a few years before grad school.

I sincerely doubt that graduate programs could get away with the same kinds of abuse if students knew a little more about how much better it could be, and demanded it.

But that's just one theory.

On the flip slide, I've noticed a disturbing trend among my friends who worked before grad school: they tend to want to just put their head down, do their work, and get back out of academia as fast as possible.

I think this is bad because these kinds of students are not invested in giving back as they go along. I don't like the idea of grad school as a purely selfish undertaking to get a degree. I think this really misses the point.

If you just want to pay your dues and get your degree, get an MBA or a JD.

If you can see that things need to be better, but you're not willing to say it, please go away. We already have enough people like you.

Response to comment on last post- in defense of reading a lot.

Dear Anonymous,

In terms of getting a PhD whether you like reading or not, I think that we shouldn't abuse students who realize halfway through that they don't like reading. I'm in favor of terminal master's degrees (TMS) as per the discussion over on FSP's post about that. I think it's better for people to leave at that point than to try to finish "just because", or even worse, go and do a postdoc because they can't figure out what else to do with their lives.

But, I do think that a certain amount of reading (and of course, writing!) should be a requirement for a PhD.

So maybe if you don't like reading, you shouldn't have gotten a PhD in the sense that it was not the best use of your talents?

Did you think about quitting? How did you end up finishing? Do you mind telling us (however vaguely), what you do now?

For me, getting a PhD was not easy. In fact, it would have been easier to quit (and justify quitting) than to finish.

So I wouldn't give back my PhD, either, because I know I earned it.

Whether I would do it all over again, if I had the chance, is a different question.

So I'm curious about what got you through? In fact, I generally invite comments, for the benefit of our grad & younger student readers, on that topic.

But I digress. To me, reading papers is not so much about minutiae.

I think a lot more experiments work when you read a lot and plan carefully based on what's already been done. That might sound hopeless trite, but bear with me.

Even when no one has ever done what you're setting out to do, there are always common features to be found, and those things can make or break your experiments.

I can see how those details would be boring to some, but I really like having experiments work (as you say you do). So details of that sort matter a lot to me. To me, one of the worst feelings in the world is when you find out later that someone else got your difficult experiment to work using some little trick you didn't know about. I HATE that.

Reading a lot helps me avoid getting into situations where I have to feel like that! It's that same feeling like when you leave your wallet in the backseat of the taxi cab. ARGH!

Today I was thinking about how a couple of people in my lab missed something kind of critical because of just that sort of mistake- they didn't pay attention to common features and they didn't do enough reading.

It's not my project, so who's to say I wouldn't have also missed all the clues, too. But it's kind of sad, because in retrospect, it was all sitting there in pubmed if they had just bothered to read it.

But you know, you can only do so much. And everyone handles the 'down time' differently. I think that's as much about personality as anything else. I am always in a better mood when my experiments are working!

Sometimes reading is the only thing to get me out of an experimental rut- and actually in this case, it did. The only reason my experiments are working so well lately is because of a paper I read that gave me an idea for something to do, and how to do it.

I like ideas. But I like them even better when I can show why they're right.

Counts.

On counting PhDs:

Today I read in USA Today (though I can't find it now online) that 2005 had a record high number of PhDs in science and engineering, close to 28,000. I'm guessing it has continued to go up in the last 2 years, but they don't have those data yet?

On counting mentors for PhDs:

Yesterday I had to laugh, because MentorNet sent me a survey to fill out.

They had a series of questions where you had to tick off who had helped you with each of several career issues, and after your PI, other faculty, students, postdocs, etc.... 'virtual online community' was one of them.

For some of the categories, I had to check 'No one helped me.' That was sad, but I took some evil glee in thinking it's good that NSF is sponsoring MentorNet to do this study where they're actually collecting data on the lack of mentoring.

But my pseudonyminous (is that a word? maybe not, but it makes me giggle to say it out loud) friends here (i.e., YOU) scored very well as having helped me deal with career issues, particularly those issues where I feel I can't ask anyone in my lab or at my university.

Thanks again!

And I'm happy because it validates the blogging and blog-reading I've been doing 'on the side' - and the time I've spent doing it - as legitimate career-building exercises (not just as therapy!).

So blogging counts. I'd do it anyway, but still.

Oversupply of PhDs: consequence, not conspiracy

So, an alert reader sent me this link economics of science? and asked what do I think.

I think the first 3/4 of it are right on, I agree with everything.

Then in the last 2 paragraphs, it seems that this person has a hypothesis but they don't support it very well, they are asking a question, I guess, but it is kind of strange.

This oversupply created by academia and the immigration of foreign scientist creates a high supply and low demand in the U.S., which allows industry to be highly selective of employees. They demand highly qualified and trained personnel, yet providing less on the job training. Also, their salaries are lower than other jobs requiring personnel with less academic training due to oversupply of Ph.Ds and a cheap but highly-skilled foreign workforce.

This makes no sense to me. Keep in mind, I don't work in industry, so I can't say from firsthand experience, but here goes:

First, I wouldn't say that industry is any more selective of employees than academia, they just use different criteria. For example, experience with teamwork, success with teamwork, and a personal preference for teamwork is usually much more important for industry. Academia still values independence and self-sufficiency more highly than social skills (although not much more highly).

I wouldn't say that there is less on-the-job training in industry. There is essentially no training involved in a postdoc or a PI position, beyond what you can glean from your own efforts (asking questions, mostly). If anything, industry seems to provide more training, from my perspective.

The last sentence of this paragraph makes the least sense of all. Industry salaries are not lower, but this sentence is grammatically strange so I'm not sure what they're trying to say. I wouldn't say that foreign workers are more highly trained than American scientists. If anything with the language barrier and differences in the educational systems, foreign workers are usually at a disadvantage, at least during an initial adjustment period. And most companies don't want to pay for visa/Greencard lawyer fees if they don't have to. There are distinct advantages to hiring American in industry. In contrast, in Academia, for a long time no one was paying any attention to how much postdocs were getting paid, so foreign postdocs frequently got the short end of the stick, and didn't even know they should be asking for more. Fortunately, this is starting to change.

As for obtaining a government job (e.g. NIH), I have very little information, but I'm assuming it is similar to the structure of academia. Except the positions are far more stable and the pay is a bit better. I'm assuming these positions are few and very coveted?

I wouldn't say that government positions are more coveted than academic ones. Working for the government involves a lot more paperwork, many more regulations and restrictions on personal freedom - as well as creative, intellectual freedom- than working in academia. I think it appeals to a different sort of person than the ones who are really gung-ho for being professors.

The whole oversupply or Ph.Ds through academia providing a limitless supply of workers for industry sounds very much like a conspiracy theory to me. In a way it sounds unbelievable.

I have no idea whose conspiracy theory this is, but it's just wrong. Industry doesn't directly fuel the oversupply, Universities do. Universities have an immediate need to expand their graduate programs: teaching assistants. They don't care what happens to these graduate students once they are done with their teaching obligation. Despite many studies and very vocal complaints from the scientific community, Universities keep expanding their graduate programs. I would blame them long before I would blame industry. Industry just profits from the spoils.

Horrorscope

Well, it is Monday and I had to laugh this morning, I was reading Jane at the breakfast table, and got to the horoscope section. It said something like "the 24th is your day to stop being a failure."

ha!

We are at least halfway through the day and so far, I'm not feeling any earthshaking changes.

Was particularly amused that this month's issue of Jane has an article that is *semi* relevant to us- it's about grad school. Granted, as per usual, they picked women in non-science disciplines, in this case Philosophy students at the University of Washington. Who have major drinking problems. Who are 36 years old and taking Ritalin to stay awake and party.

I'm sorry, but it seemed like they deliberately picked people who must be major losers with no direction, no work ethic, and very little self-respect to continue in a job like that for $13,000 or less per year - and with very little sign of ambition to finish and get out. Many of them quit in the middle of writing their dissertation. I mean, if you're going to quit, why quit then?? You just leave empty-handed. At least if you finish your degree and have no job, you can say "Hey, that's Dr. Failure to you!"

Anyway, typical of Jane to sort of miss the point that people going into PhD programs in the humanities are either totally obsessed with their topic, totally naive, or both. They either don't notice or don't care that there are not going to be many job opportunities for a professional philosopher.

Whereas, I would argue that most people going into PhD programs in the sciences are actually duped into thinking it's going to improve their chances of getting a job. The programs are marketed that way, they deliberately use false advertising to draw in new recruits. And everyone participates: the undergraduate institutions the students are coming from, and the graduate schools that are trying to recruit them. I've actually participated in career seminar panels where I sat with deans and professors, who were trying to convince a crowd of clueless undergrads that going to grad school would somehow solve all their problems.

!!!!

Not to mention the NSF, which is only now starting to realize that all their own reports on the 'shortage' of scientists were completely outdated by the time the data were ready to be released.

Catch up, people! The Biotech boom is over! And Jane, I really do hope you plan to do a story on female scientists one of these days. You like to talk big about women's issues, etc. but you seem more concerned with women in other countries, you know, starving and getting raped and stuff. I mean, sure, that's important and heartbreaking and it's good for us to learn about it so we can feel guilty about our pampered, sheltered lives. But at the same time, why not do some good at home, in the U.S.? You've got the right demographics...


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Also-
Got a reasonably nice and thoughtful email from the guy I ragged on in my last post, although now I'm afraid to go to the site and read his 'public' reply since I'm not sure what to expect. It made me feel better to hear from some of you that you had similar experiences on some of these discussion groups.

I should get back to looking busy, or something. Plenty of stuff to do, but yesterday was my 'day off' and it ended up being a major chore day: laundry, Costco , and other annoying errands. But hey, won't have to buy toilet paper again for a while.