TIME magazine's cover article "Is America flunking science?"

molliebatmit
Tue, 14 Feb 2006 19:11:32 +0000

And to extend sakky’s argument, science and engineering aren’t just difficult during the undergraduate years, they’re always difficult – both in terms of subject matter and in terms of the sheer number of hours you have to put in to succeed.

For example, I’ve been talking to biology graduate students during my interviews, and most of them are putting in 50-60 hour weeks in the lab. Then they get their PhDs and move to postdoctoral positions, at which they’re putting in 50-60 hour weeks as well (according to a recent survey in the journal Nature). There’s obviously a pretty serious burnout problem in academic science – it’s fine to work that hard for a few months, or a few years, but many people just lose the desire to put up with it after a few years.

Of course, changing grading in undergraduate courses is something which can actually be done. I’m not sure that anything can be done about the attrition rate in higher levels of the science/engineering career path.