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

sakky
Tue, 14 Feb 2006 19:56:01 +0000

Molliebatmit, to that I would say that much of the blame probably lies with the academic science culture itself. What I have found is that a lot of professors and departments sniff at the notion that any of their students would ever want to take jobs outside of the ivory tower. Many highly impressionable graduate students then internalize that attitude and begin thinking that it’s either tenure-track at a big-name school, or bust.

So take these guys who work 50-60 hours a week in the lab, and then 50-60 hours a week in a low-paid postdoc. The honest truth is that a lot of these people don’t really have to work that hard, if all they want is to just get finish their PhD and get a regular job. Yes, if they worked less hard, they’d probably get worse results and their papers wouldn’t be as impressive and powerful. But so what? You’d still graduate. No, the reason why they work that hard is because they want to get the amazing results and compile the amazing record to maximize their shot at getting that tenure-track position at a major university. In short, they’re going for the brass ring.

What I would say is that it’s not that bad to get your PhD and then go into industry. It’s not that bad to get your PhD and then become a high school teacher, or to become a prof at a no-name school. There are plenty of small colleges and universities out there where most of the profs have only master’s degrees.

For example, one guy I used to work with is now a prof at the University of Southern Missisippi, and he says that in his department, he is one of the few profs with a PhD. Most of them have just master’s. Sure, USM isn’t MIT, but it’s not that bad. He says that he has lots of research freedom and funding and he can pursue whatever he likes. Because he has a PhD and most of the other profs don’t, he’s considered to be a major authority and bigshot at USM, and he’s only been there for a few years.

So what I am saying is that a lot of these graduate students are working far far beyond what they need to do to just finish their degree at a minimal level. They don’t really HAVE to work that hard. And that’s what causes the burnout. It’s not really that the PhD itself is so demanding that it is causing the burnout. Rather it’s the chase for those coveted tenure-track jobs at the top 10 departments. That is what is really causing the burnout. Just getting a PhD means getting some decent results and writing a decent paper. While that’s obviously no cakewalk, it’s clearly a lot easier than trying to get superstar results and writing a superstar paper.

So what I think we really need is a change in the cultural mindset. Not every doctoral student out there is going to become a Full Professor at a major department and be gunning for the Nobel Prize. In fact, most won’t. Hence, I think a change in mindset needs to occur where people are told that it’s OK if you end up in industry, or in a small college, or end up teaching high school. These are perfectly respectable and honorable things to do.

And in fact, I think schools and the government should help their students find these kinds of opportunities. For example, Bush has talked about about high schools need more qualified science teachers. I agree. So why not offer an integrated program in which science doctoral students can complete their teaching certificates? Clearly anybody who gets a PhD in a science knows the stuff far far beyond what most current science teachers know. And most doctoral students have to work as TA’s at some point. So why not integrate that TA work with a formal teaching certification program? These are the sorts of things that will expand the opportunity available for grad students.

So even those grad students who don’t make it and have to take a consolation master’s, at least they will have a valuable teaching certification and can go teach in high school. So at least they leave school with something highly marketable.