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I know but 5 more years of no life, studying all night, plus 150k+ of college loans. If I can get a decent job now making a modest income of say 45-50k that would be the best option.
The only thing I am absolutely sure of is I want science out of my life forever.
I know but 5 more years of no life, studying all night, plus 150k+ of college loans. If I can get a decent job now making a modest income of say 45-50k that would be the best option.
The only thing I am absolutely sure of is I want science out of my life forever.
I hear you I never told anyone but the last few months I was in science I was near suicidal I was so depressed. I felt so traped and ashamed for being scammed and having my life ruined. Since I've been in PT I've found a new passion and a renewed hope. However, everytime I hear some J__g off preach how much we need more scientists I feel as though I'd like to beat them to near death with a crow bar. I just hope our message gets out.
If you are outgoing you too might want to consider PT. You mentioned you love bicycling and exercise.
Pharmacy is also a good option.
Perhaps dental.
I just read a blog that puts at arround 1/3 the number of science graduates who stay in science. People smart enough for science eventually find better alternatives.
Those programs are so damn hard to get into. I've checked into going back to school as my career fell apart, and man those programs are uber competitive and expensive.
I'd suggest that it would not be a room full of scientists, rather a room full of people with degrees in science most likely from lower ranking universities.
The actual scientists are working and making a decent living
User_Id could argue for slavery, since there were actual slaves and guards who did well .
Where would all those "actual scientists" be without an army of the cheap, disposable, overworked, with little or no life, educated, competent and somewhat less politically, people &business savvy "non actual scientists" ? Hefty average 70-80k of the "actual academia scientists (they invested 15+ years of schooling and no life to earn) stand on the shoulders of the misery, hard work and smashed dreams of hundreds of thousands of the less savvy peons.
Science is a two tier semi-feudal system. Lords (if they get funded ) and Peons. Depending on what caste you belong(ed), your point of view reflects that. Modern Peonage system was (allegedly) designed to "weed out" less scientifically gifted/dedicated. However, cross breeding Semi-Feudal Peonage (Science was built upon since the time immemorial) with Chinese Sweatshop, mass Government Funding and "Supply and Demand" produced far less straight forward responses. I'm not sure whether current system selects for intellectual fitness to be a scientist but it most certainly selects for endurance to put up with "unlimited hours" work weeks, mind numbing routine&boredom and having little or no life/interests outside of the lab. Those are a few "skills" you MUST have to join "actual scientists are working and making a decent living". However, the list of "musts" is much longer than that. If you are not people savvy, office/lab politics savvy, if you don't have good salesmanship (gift for used car sales is especially helpful), great chances are (not 100% though) you'll be joining second tier and/or used up & discarded regardless of your potential. Really, if you've got what it takes to sell used cars, why science ? Also, there are certain "non material" costs of attempting to become a scientists, but we are talking 50k jobs in this thread.
Sure, if you are burning with desire to become a scientists and follow the trail of grant money as a greyhound, go for it. There is a substantial chance you'll break into the 1st tier caste (those with good paying "permanent" jobs) ... after sacrificing 10+ years of your life. Again, if 70k job is your sole objective and you have what it takes to "sell used cars" + intelligence sufficient to earn a Ph.D. why bother with science career path? It doesn't make any financial and/or rational sense.
The more you know about "what it takes" the greater your chances. No worries, if USA will run out of uninformed suckers to fill "2nd tier" science jobs (low pay, temporary) to make your "success"" possible, it doesn't look like Chinese comrades will run out of the poor educated peasants any soon
Where would all those "actual scientists" be without an army of the cheap, disposable, overworked, with little or no life, educated, competent and somewhat less politically, people &business savvy "non actual scientists" ? Hefty average 70-80k of the "actual academia scientists (they invested 15+ years of schooling and no life to earn) stand on the shoulders of the misery, hard work and smashed dreams of hundreds of thousands of the less savvy peons.
There is obviously a need for workers to do more mundane work, but since people are not equal in terms of intelligence, work ethic, etc that is not problematic. Those with lower intelligence, etc can do them.
Also, the discussion was not about scientists in academia. Academics on average get paid noticeably less than those in private industry.
There is obviously a need for workers to do more mundane work, but since people are not equal in terms of intelligence, work ethic, etc that is not problematic. Those with lower intelligence, etc can do them.
Also, the discussion was not about scientists in academia. Academics on average get paid noticeably less than those in private industry.
Except they are, often, not less intelligent, they are less fortunate and less well-connected. So the advice becomes stay the heck away from science unless you have someone who can grease the wheel for you.
Except they are, often, not less intelligent, they are less fortunate and less well-connected.
These variables are not independent, ones connections and fortunes are correlated with one's intelligence. But also, its not so much general intelligence that matters here but aptitude in the particular discipline.
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Originally Posted by MSchemist80
So the advice becomes stay the heck away from science unless you have someone who can grease the wheel for you.
No, if one has the appropriate personality they can do just fine in science without having the wheel greased. It is clear you don't have this personality type, you are doing little other than whining and blaming everyone else.
So the well founded advice is stay away from science if you don't have the personality and/or connections to make a career in science work.
The problem here is that kids are feed a bunch of nonsense about how they can "be whatever they put their mind to", etc while in school. The reality is that people need to pick careers that match their attributes well, the people that do this are not only the most successful but the most satisfied.
There is obviously a need for workers to do more mundane work, but since people are not equal in terms of intelligence, work ethic, etc that is not problematic. Those with lower intelligence, etc can do them.
Obviously, you have very distant idea about reality & economics of academic & government lab science, tonnes of positive attitude alone is not enough.
People with supposedly lower intelligence like technicians with H.S. and/or community college diplomas are replaced en mass with hordes of graduate students, postdocs, visiting researchers, etc.. H.S. educated are replaced by M.S. or Ph.D.s (the titles supposedly conveying higher intelligence status) to do mostly mundane work. It has nothing to do with intelligence, pure economics and "peculiarity" of tenure acquisition and government lab funding. H.S. educated technicians (while earning the same pay or more than a postdoc and way more than a grad student) will not work insane hours, will not take work home, cannot be disposed of easily, .... will not/cannot do many things. An indentured Chinese grad student or a postdoc (constantly under a threat of a boot and/or having a green card hanging in front of his nose) will do all of the above, do it well + he may even kiss your arse if requested.
Government lab technician' work must be charged to PI (Principal investigator) accounts on a task to task basis (and it's not cheap, a few dozens of charges of this sort and your grant money will be melting away like an ice cube in Africa' desert). Postdocs, on the other hand, are "prepaid", which is a great temptation for the less financially blessed PIs to utilize his/her prepaid grunt for mundane tasks.
What do you think is a number of Ph.D.s an average academia professor needs to graduate to obtain and retain his tenure under the most favorable financial circumstances (i.e. no need to replace H.S. technicians with Ph.D. technicians)? It's not 1, it's not 2 or 3 (depending on a school, of course). Now, let's put financial pressures into equation. A financially stressed professor (or financially stable ambitious "go-getter" ) not only needs Ph.D.s to graduate in order to obtain/retain his spot, frequently he needs extra Ph.D. aspiring cheap labor on top of those. There is also demand for the cheap lecturers/lab assistants coming from departments not individual profs. You cannot become "real scientist making decent living" without producing new Ph.D.s like a rabbit. Now imagine all that snowballing Ph.D. mass our universities graduate each year. It's just too bad that the number of jobs (that Ph.D. is good for) doesn't snowball at all.
The medieval times of "apprenticeship" in science are gone, now it's pure economics of research sweatshops, nothing personal.
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Also, the discussion was not about scientists in academia. Academics on average get paid noticeably less than those in private industry.
I don't know where you get your info, but on the average tenured profs in first tier Universities make the same (at least) or more than your average industry research scientists. If we to consider year long job searches (i.e. lost income) your average industry research scientists are subjected to from time to time and ever present threat of early disposal.... Besides tenure doesn't mean you cannot make extra cash in "consulting" etc.. Some research oriented Universities pay tenured professors something like 20k/year base pay. Everything on top of that a prof. earns by winning as many grant proposals as possible, on a good year it could mean some serious cash, there are no too many bad years though, university will find a way to get rid of your tenured arse if you'd stop bringing research money in.
Of course, if it took you 20 years of low wage temping to get tenured, arithmetic could be different, but if you are a rare "rising star" who avoided postdoc trap.
Last edited by RememberMee; 10-08-2010 at 09:07 PM..
Even though culturally we are conditioned to feel warm and fuzzy at the sound of the words "science" and "scientists", I want you to remind you that science is just another wage job people do to make a living. All the rules of thumb, skills, tricks, games, nastiness, etc. people use to climb the ladder in other lines of wage work are also applicable to science & scientists. But there are a few science specific "features":
Scientists are in business of getting money for their research. That's the number 1 objective. Discovery, curiosity, saving the world and humanity comes after objective #1 is met. Unfortunately, most scientists are just mere mortals with fairly average intelligence one can expect from educated caste. In other words, truly good, cutting edge ideas appears to them rather infrequently (never to some). Unfortunately, human physiology requires regular feeding, clothing & shelter. Unfortunately, existing funding system doesn't acknowledge conflict between regularity of feedings and irregularity of insights, it wants continuous output. Since most scientists are no suicidal and regularity of insights cannot be boosted at will, you all can guess how the above conflict is being resolved .
All I can tell you, hyping skills and used car salesmanship would help you greatly to secure funding. That's why it's unwise to trust everything your average scientists saying about his/her research. They just playing the game.
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