<p>Many people often discourage people from going into grad school since there are far more grad students than faculty openings.</p>
<p>But what about national laboratories? Is it much easier for someone with a PhD to enter a national laboratory than it is for someone to successfully get a position in academia? How does a position in a national laboratory compare to a postdoc position?</p>
<p>For the purposes of this post, I will assume you are referring to working in the NIH intramural research programs. The only NIH institute outside of Bethesda is in the Research Triangle, so I have a bit of exposure to various people at NIEHS. </p>
<p>Postdoc positions in NIEHS are very similar to postdocs in academia except that you don’t write grants. All the funding comes internally, so you don’t need/don’t get the opportunity to write fellowships. They do however, have grant writing courses for postdocs in order to help them get the pathways to independence grants that help people become independent investigators in academia. For what it’s worth, postdocs coming out of NIEHS do just as well if not a little better than their academic counterparts.</p>
<p>The PIs at NIEHS remark about the sweet setup they have. They don’t apply for grants, but all the funding comes through the laboratory head. This means that political issues could kill your career, or dramatically improve it in a way that wouldn’t happen in academia where there is open competition for grant funds. The people who get PI positions at NIEHS get similar offers from academic institutions. The tenure process is pretty identical to academia. An important difference though is that you will not have a grad student (it is very unlikely), instead you will just have techs and postdocs in your lab.</p>
<p>Aw thanks for the reply. unfortunately I was looking for the types of laboratories that physical scientists work at.</p>
<p>You can postdoc at a national lab-- it pays far better than academia. However, working at a national lab gives you somewhat less freedom (you’re more likely to be stuck with whatever gets funding). The exception is that when you are a funded postdoctoral fellow, you might be able to do whatever you want.</p>
<p>My impression is that getting a national lab gig is harder for ppl in physical sciences than in more applied fields like engineering and cs… but if you’re somewhere like LBL, it would look just as good as working at any top university.</p>
<p>If you’re looking for a tenure-track position, the question is: are you working on research that could have a real, tangible impact on your academic community (i.e, start a new sub-sub-field of physics).</p>
<p>If a national lab has a project that seems like it could serve this purpose, you’re golden. The risk is that you’ll end up on some massive project where you don’t play a prominent role, or a project with a marginal contribution to academia (but perhaps an important practical contribution for the laboratory itself).</p>
<p>I agree. It depends on the national lab and what you are doing there. If you are working on nuclear physics at LBL then it is perhaps as good as post-docing at Harvard. But you could be better off doing a post-doc at ucla than Idaho national lab. National labs, similar to schools, have some form of ranking/prestige degree.</p>
<p>As for National labs, what is the pay like?..for a permanent position? for a post-doc?</p>
<p>How likely is it to get a permanent position just after graduating with a PhD?..Somebody in my lab recently did this(in engineering).</p>
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<p>I wonder how true this is</p>
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<p>for post-docs, I think around 60-80k. For permanent, I think 80-100k. This is just a guess</p>
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<p>From what I’ve heard , they’re just as hard to get as faculty positions, as least in the sciences. Don’t know about engineering</p>
<p>I have worked closely with researchers at various national labs (Oak Ridge, etc). Here’s how I see it:</p>
<p>Pros
-Way better pay – especially as a postdoc. I have seen salaries of up to $100k a year for a postdoc.
-Access to some of the best equipment out there. Most people have to propose 6 months in advance and maybe get a week on a machine. You get to use it whenever you feel like (and no users are scheduled).</p>
<p>Cons
-Most national labs are in the middle of nowhere, and I don’t think the scientists are very happy from a quality of life standpoint.
-The bureaucracy at a national lab rivals any other government organization. Your bosses will probably be incompetent, and everything needs a committee.</p>
<p>I haven’t noticed a significant difference in the quality of researcher at a national lab versus a top 50 university.</p>