Ph.D. Bust, Pt. 2: How Bad Is the Job Market For Young American-Born Scientists?

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-phd-bust-pt-ii-how-bad-is-the-job-market-for-young-american-born-scientists/273377/

by jseliger • 13 years ago

36 21 13 years ago

theatlantic.com

jseliger• 13 years ago

The first part, and associated discussion, is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5253747 .

aheilbut• 13 years ago

It really isn't useful to base discussions on the nonsensical graphs in this series, which seem to be an artifact of how and when people are being surveyed.

jbdeboer• 13 years ago

Indeed. None of these numbers answer the question "How many graduates who wanted a job could not find one?".

bikenaga2• 13 years ago

(From the 2010-2011 final survey done by the American Math. Society, for new Math Ph.D.s, which I linked elsewhere)

Unknown (U.S.): 85 Not seeking employment: 18 Still seeking employment: 53 Unknown (non U.S.): 83

If you count all of these as "unemployed" (which is probably a significant overestimate), that's 239 out of 1653 new Ph.D.'s, or around 14.4%. If you count only "Still seeking employment" as "unemployed", that's around 3.2%. But I don't know how the numbers in the sciences or in engineering would be similar to those in math.

jamesaguilar• 13 years ago

One other thing I've been thinking about. At least among the PhDs I've met, many of them are NOT scientists. That is, they play at science for a while, but it's no great tragedy that they aren't being employed in the academic pursuits. One thing I do wonder is how many scientist-PhDs doing solid work are actually going unfunded, and how many of them are guys and gals researching the CS equivalent of how many angels can stand on the head of a pin.

ank2862• 13 years ago

In CS/ECE, if there is no application for your research i.e. cannot be commercialized or patented, you will not have funding. There is very little room for theoretical-based research where you play around with math (like counting angels on the head of a pin) to see if it works out with unknown applications. Everything begins with an application in mind --> funding.

seanmcdirmid2• 13 years ago

Theoreticians do get funding, just not much, and most CS researchers are not hardcore theoreticians (theory is a tool to be used occasionally in support of something else).

seanmcdirmid2• 13 years ago

Science is something PhDs do only occasionally. Actually, most of the time most of us are innovating, inventing, designing, engineering, managing, ... Even the most white coat researcher in the most sciency field!

Unless you are using a different definition for science? Do you just mean a non-industry academic position?

mzs• 13 years ago

That article is just some graphs almost totally unrelated to the argument. It's been bad for more than ten years in math, physics, and CS. It's intended to be bad. You do a bachelors and some internships or REs depending on field. Then grad school. Then postdoc or private sector again depending on field. Somewhere in there you start at the bottom with lecturer or so. After years you might get to tenured prof. It's a process that selectively weeds-out those that do not have the right mix of dealing with dept BS, funding, writing, reviewing, and advising. It would be very bad if all the PhDs went on in academia and not even remotely many go into it wanting that.

dr_doom• 13 years ago

Would HN recommend grad school for a friend that just graduated with a biochem degree from a tier 2/3 school?

I ask because he makes it seems like there are hundreds of well paying biotech and pharmaceutical positions that are easy to get in the Boston area. He didn't go to a top science school(Georgetown) and his grades are mediocre, so I imagine he could only get into an ok phd program. But then again what other options are available for undergrad science majors with no interest in programming, even though I tell him it could really separate him from the rest of the biochem pack.

Any insight from ya'll, I don't know anything about east coast research positions.

ank2862• 13 years ago

does this person have publications in undergrad? If so, then they can still get into the top-schools because of track record of doing research. If not, then try and get into a program with known advisors/researchers that can be on your publications. Its all about funding. Look at NIH's Project Reporter.

rflrob• 13 years ago

There is also always the possibility of being a lab tech in an academic lab for 2-3 years to boost his application. It typically pays better than grad school, and the close interaction with grad students will give him a better idea of whether that's something he actually wants to do.

rwallace• 13 years ago

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If you have an opportunity to walk into a well-paying job in your chosen profession today, take it.

socalnate1• 13 years ago

This and the previous article are really about the difficulty of finding tenure track positions for newly minted Phds.

Trying to apply this figures broadly to all hard science education and across all industries is a mistake.

juiceandjuice• 13 years ago

Did anyone even bother checking the author's numbers or methods?

My biggest problem with this series of articles is that it's largely based on the "No commitment" answer to a questionnaire given to postdoctoral students. His "Nothing" section is actually "No definite commitment for employment or postdoctoral study" ( here http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/2011/pdf/tab42.pdf )

which:

"Includes respondents who indicated "other" in all years and respondents who indicated "do not plan to work or study" in 2006 and 2011. Also includes 715 respondents for 2011 who indicated definite plans for "other full-time degree program."

That 715 is 1.5% total, or 25% of the 6% difference between 2006 and 2011.

I spent nearly all my time between 2006 and 2009 around grad students (mostly physics, but bio and engineering too). There was a fundamental shift in thinking in 2008, both for grad students and professors. Professors could keep grad students working after their PhD was conferred, in a position somewhere described as between a postdoc and student for a year or two, a longer holding pattern - because people were having a hard time finding jobs. This goes double for international students.

According to this ( https://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795... ), 23000 more doctoral students are receiving some sort of financial aid from the government than in 2007. Even if those numbers are increasing, the total percentage of people with a masters or higher is only 1.5% of the apparent population.

According to BLS, there's ~3.2 million people with a PhD. That means there was an increase of people, from ~.3% to ~1% of total people applying for aid. (I'm probably off by a little bit because I'm using numbers from different years and estimating, but not by a factor of 2)

So, we had an increase of 20,000 people applying for some sort of aid between 2007 and 2011 with a PhD. Cumulatively, if we were assuming that increase was purely from new grads and accurately portrayed the unemployment of a new grad, that would mean an increase of 5k year over year, or 11% of new graduates. But to say that was all new graduates would be doing quite a disservice: There has been major cuts in research at national labs, universities, and all sorts of other publicly funded institutions.

I'll admit, finding the right job is probably harder and takes longer today than in 2006/2007. I agree that we have much more foreign students who have a harder time figuring out what they will do after graduation, because of problems with visas and money. But at 2.5% unemployment and a median salary 50% higher than a bachelors degree, ( http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm ), I think it's hard to argue there's PhD bust.

If I had more time I'd delve into this deeper, but I got to get back to science...

nachteilig• 13 years ago

Where's the story here? As education expands all top-tier job markets become more competitive. Science isn't and shouldn't be any different, particularly with the reduced levels of funding available.

bgalbraith• 13 years ago

The initial motivation for these articles - the government says we need more STEM students, but look how many underemployed PhDs there are! - is flimsy. The US does not necessarily need more graduate students, what it needs is more skilled technical workers, especially in manufacturing.

Few students who go into PhD programs anticipate ending up in industry, unless you goal is R&D. The opportunity cost is so great that you are better off in most cases going straight into industry if that is your ultimate goal. As a current PhD student, my advice to anyone considering it is to not do it unless you are truly passionate about your research field.

geebee2• 13 years ago

Couldn't agree more about the need for more general skilled immigration.

But keep in mind, the current legislation in the Senate is about awarding green cards to all recipients of graduate degrees in STEM fields, so the topic here is very relevant to public policy.

geebee2• 13 years ago

Interesting, but I wish the author had considered attrition rates rather than just employment.

A US citizen is free to leave a graduate program without jeopardizing residency rights (and is also free to pursue career paths that are less likely to have visa sponsorship). As a result, unsuccessful American PhD students may be less likely to muddle through and complete a degree (but be difficult to place). I could see this affecting numbers where it comes to placement after the PhD is obtained.

bikenaga2• 13 years ago

The AMS (American Mathematical Society) has done an employment survey for years --- see http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/annual-surv... I'd hope other professional organizations do the same thing, so there should be no need to guess or extrapolate to get pretty good numbers.

ekm2• 13 years ago

"Law school is bust", "Wall street is dead", "Dont get a humanities Phd", "There is no meritocracy in Silicon Valley","There is no shortage of engineers"etc ..if every place looks like hell where is heaven?

Ph.D. Bust, Pt. 2: How Bad Is the Job Market For Young American-Born Scientists?

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