Another Rant

Jack Wangs’s ranting house

Commentary in Science magazine

Study Suggests U.S. Could Use Fewer, Not More Science Students

Another study shows that there is no shortage of scientsits

http://www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/uploadedFiles/Publications/STEM_Paper_Final.pdf

 

Someone asks for advice

Here’s a question on Ask Metafilter

Don’t get a PhD!!! So what are some good alternative careers?

My advice: be a lawyer.

Roach College, USA

An article in Slate.

 

 

Kindred spirit

Here’s ablog on the same subject as this one:

Do not get a Ph.D.

Oh, I had an interesting experience with a head hunter recently, he was asking what kind of salary I was looking for. When I told him what I thought was a reasonable range, and what would be a raise relativ to my current situation, he said “Wow, you guys are so cheap.” Meaning, “I’m astonished that someone with your  level of education and skills would garner a such a low salary.”

Yeah.

Graduate students are indoctrinated cult drones

Are graduate schools cult-like? You bet.

Although I am currently a tenure-track professor of English, I realize that nothing but luck distinguishes me from thousands of other highly-qualified Ph.D.’s…

End the University as we know it

This op-ed in the New York Times, End the University as we know it, reiterates the problem:

My favorite part:

The dirty secret of higher education is that without underpaid graduate students to help in laboratories and with teaching, universities couldn’t conduct research or even instruct their growing undergraduate populations. That’s one of the main reasons we still encourage people to enroll in doctoral programs. It is simply cheaper to provide graduate students with modest stipends and adjuncts with as little as $5,000 a course — with no benefits — than it is to hire full-time professors. In other words, young people enroll in graduate programs, work hard for subsistence pay and assume huge debt burdens, all because of the illusory promise of faculty appointments. But their economical presence, coupled with the intransigence of tenure, ensures that there will always be too many candidates for too few openings.

But I think the only way to implement what he recommends would be to start a university from scratch.

Hey! Professors! You are responsible for the Ph.D glut

This Time article on the Ph.D glut was written in 1973. This op-ed was published in 1997. This 2006  essay asserts that there have been too many Ph.D’s issued since 1969. This piece was written in 2004. Here’s some hard data from Nature in 2007.

Yet graduate schools continuously churn out Ph.D’s like there’s no tomorrow, and college students compete to get in. Why does this happen? Who’s fault is this?

It’s the student’s fault: Graduates are nieve, delusional, and ill-advised.

It’s the Professor’s fault: they are encouraged to take on new students.

It’s the school’s fault: Grad students are cheap labor.

The worst advice I ever got

While in a postdoc a vacancy opened up that I considered applying for. I asked the advice of my mentor, who said “It’s too early to apply for a job.”  That is, I had only just started there, so why are you looking for a job now? That is, I need you here so don’t leave yet. So I didn’t apply and years later I’m still looking for a permanent position. Compare that with someone else who came in and almost immediately left for a permanent job. I should’ve done what was right for me. Thanks for the advice!