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Scientific American current issue has an article discussing how to recruit and educate interested and smart kids into studying science. They seem to recognize that the current teaching methods discourage creative and independent thinking. That aside, I wonder how a student, after a decade or more of studying and incurring substantial debt unless they have really wealthy parents, manages to earn enough to actually make a living as a scientist? Where are the 100k starting jobs? Where are the 250k jobs after a few years? Without these readily available no wonder the kids train to be business managers.
What field has $100k starting jobs and $250k mid-career jobs? Engineering seems to dominate this list, but even then the median isn't going to be that.
Science is not a career filed to choose if you want to be rich. You may end up rich by accident, but you likely won't. There aren't many pure science jobs and even fewer that pay that well. It's good training for any number of quantitative fields or where quantitative techniques can be helpful, though, and many who train as scientists go one to make more money in other, more applied fields.
Science is interesting and can be intellectually rewarding. That's the reason to go into science.
Get any kind of science degree. Declare yourself as a 'climate change' believer, apply for government grants [at least a million dollars] to prove your point. Instant yearly high income.
Scientific American current issue has an article discussing how to recruit and educate interested and smart kids into studying science. They seem to recognize that the current teaching methods discourage creative and independent thinking. That aside, I wonder how a student, after a decade or more of studying and incurring substantial debt unless they have really wealthy parents, manages to earn enough to actually make a living as a scientist? Where are the 100k starting jobs? Where are the 250k jobs after a few years? Without these readily available no wonder the kids train to be business managers.
Please comment.
A decade of studying? This puts you at masters or Ph.D. level and their median income is quite a bit higher than the national average for all jobs. However, the job market in academic science does suck right now.
08-09-2014, 10:28 AM
i7pXFLbhE3gq
n/a posts
A decade of studying puts you at a PhD and there are plenty of private industry jobs that are science-ish and will start one around the 100k mark. Also grad school is generally free or at least very cheap (stipends and tuition waivers) so debt isn't anything like, say, going to med or law school.
Quote:
Originally Posted by d4g4m
Get any kind of science degree. Declare yourself as a 'climate change' believer, apply for government grants [at least a million dollars] to prove your point. Instant yearly high income.
A decade of studying puts you at a PhD and there are plenty of private industry jobs that are science-ish and will start one around the 100k mark. Also grad school is generally free or at least very cheap (stipends and tuition waivers) so debt isn't anything like, say, going to med or law school.
Oh look, silly nonsense with no basis in reality.
There used to be good government jobs for physicists too, but now many of them have been sequestered.
Get any kind of science degree. Declare yourself as a 'climate change' believer, apply for government grants [at least a million dollars] to prove your point. Instant yearly high income.
I was just thinking this as I read the OP. The only way it seems to make money as a scientist is to find a cause (political or private) with a lot of money looking for someone to "prove" they're right.
08-09-2014, 11:49 PM
i7pXFLbhE3gq
n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by smommaof3
I was just thinking this as I read the OP. The only way it seems to make money as a scientist is to find a cause (political or private) with a lot of money looking for someone to "prove" they're right.
Ah, more clueless, uninformed nonsense.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a research grant at all, much less one that will let you pay yourself some exorbitant salary? You do realize you have to break down where all the money is going, right?
The way to make money in science is simple - get a job in industry and do something useful.
A handful will be able to make a go of being shills for organizations that want to promote some particular view like climate change denial.
Declaring yourself a "climate change believer" and applying for government grants is about the worst possible path to a large income, a fact obvious to anyone with even a passing familiarity with how scientific funding works.
Chemists are still in demand at the pharma companies, particularly those with advanced degrees. They typically have the title of "scientist". There's lots of detailed salary info at Glassdoor.com.
^ Chemistry in pharma is a horrible profession that is terribly unstable. At the first sight of a downturn R and D staff are laid off. More and more chemistry is being outsourced to India/China giant CROs. It is extremely difficult to get a job as a chemist in Pharma, there are literally hundreds of applications for the few decent jobs left. People with dozens of patents and publications get routinely turned down for jobs. My boss had over 300 publications and 30 patents to his name and it took him over a year to find a job as a chemist after we all got laid off. I've been in pharma and know what it is like to work as a chemist. I also suggest reading the blog In the Pipeline to see how employment is really like in pharma.
Making money as a scientist sucks. Lots and lots of firms these days offer crappy temp jobs that are low paying, offer terrible health care benefits, and no retirement contributions. I've worked at small tech companies before as well, and surprisingly they suck more than bigger firms in terms of pay, time off, management, and benefits. People with degrees in science are, for the most part, more intelligent than average and can earn much better livings as consultants, business leaders, and in finance.
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