BA in Chemistry

sschoe2
Sat, 03 Aug 2013 19:15:45 +0000

There are very poor career prospects for Ph D scientists in the majority of fields in the USA. That is why we have so many languishing in post-docs some for almost a decade.

When I was going for my MS I was strongly encouraged to go for my PhD. However, I took a good look at what was happening to the students in the group who got their PhD and decided heck no. They took as long as 7 years, did not get jobs when they graduated, ended up in post-doc limbo which nowadays has become a science career death spiral, and the final nail was when a few of the close to graduating PhD’s were discussing hiding the PhD off their resume to get a job. Why should anyone work for 7 years at near minimum wage level stipends to get a degree that offers worse pay and job prospects. It made no sense to me. Even if you love science with every fiber of your being it won’t take to many years of poverty and unemployment to change your prospective.

One of the PhD’s floated a half satircal idea of starting a PhD expunging service so jobless PhD’s could cover up their PhD for a job by having a fake job occupying the gap years on their resume in grad school.

I’d suggest visiting Derek Lowe’s Chemjobber blog for more insight on the broken science career crisis in the USA.