Comments on: Astronomy jobs in trouble again?

By: TMB

TMB — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:16:28 +0000

I’m on my second postdoc, and I thought the job market last year was pretty good, quite a bit better than the previous couple of years.

That said, there are of course fewer astronomy tenure-track faculty jobs than there are people who are qualified to fill them. I’m not sure that’s a horrible thing – people with astronomy PhDs are extremely good at quite a variety of non-astronomy jobs (I used to work for a computer company that by far preferred to hire former astronomers and physicists over people with computing degrees) that are better off for being staffed by astronomers. Also, I take issue with the idea that there are no other permanent astronomy positions – a good fraction of the people I did my PhD with are in permanent staff scientist positions now.

Of course, when I can’t find a job after my current postdoc, I’ll probably be singing a different tune.

[TMB]

By: Cusp

Cusp — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 07:43:36 +0000

>>PS – The dirty little secret is that Astronomy in particular has been producing way more Ph.Ds than there are permanent jobs for some time. And they know it. Itâ€™s a way to get cheap labor.

** ONLY ** if you think all you can do with an astronomy phd is become an astronomer. Quite a few people do astronomy phd cos they like it, but don’t want a career in it. Several of my phd peers went off into banking, with the employer impressed with their maths skills (usually lacking in finance graduates).

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 05:03:14 +0000

PS – The dirty little secret is that Astronomy in particular has been producing way more Ph.Ds than there are permanent jobs for some time. And they know it. It’s a way to get cheap labor.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 05:01:54 +0000

I can tell you from my perspective as post-doc/research fellow, the job market is bad, the worst I’ve seen in six years of being out there. Last year, I knew a number of good scientists who got no offers at all. The number of soft-money scientists is soaring. And this year looks even worse. I’m not the only one who may be out of the profession by next year.

PS – I’m not sure how Republicans are throttling science. Overall science funding has increased 50% in the last six years. It flattened a bit in the late 90’s.

By: watchingthesky

watchingthesky — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:49:44 +0000

When I began studying for an M.S. with a goal to teach at the community college level, the instuctor said there was a big demand. By the time I obtained my degree in 1989, the jobs dried up. My understanding is that many scientists, many with Ph.D’s, were now out of work and were moving to the community colleges to teach. I was unable to find a full-time job in a three-state area and wound up teaching part-time. When a full-time position at that college came open, they brought in someone with a Ph.D. I had to settle for work totally unrelated to my degrees.

Many times I’ve felt I’d have been better off if I never had a dream of a career in science. I originally went to college with the intent to become an astronomer. I was so ignorant of what it took to be a scientist despite my strong math and science scores through high school that I struggled to find a path involving a career in science and never did.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from a career in science. Be sure you really know what you are getting into. Today, information is far more readily available than when I was in high school.

By: MO Man

MO Man — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:07:49 +0000

Before you go to college, you go to high school (unless you’re a prodigy as is the BA). And before you go to high school, well,….you know. And to have science at any level you have to have teachers, and there is indeed an incredible shortage, at least here in the South. I know. My wife is from the Philippines, and we now have close to fifty Filipinos here in our county who were recruited solely to teach math and science. Since they have an incredible time handling our juvenile delinquents….students….they often quit within a month and go home, and the openings remain unfilled. I’m retired, with a degree in English, but when they saw that I had almost 30 hours of science the local school system urged me to apply to teach science. But, I’m afraid I would slap the crap out of one of these totally wild kids and that would be the end of me. One of the kids spat in the face of one of the Filipino teachers two weeks ago and no discipline was imposed, to give you some idea of how bad it is. And an assistant principal and two coaches were attacked by three boys last week. So, if you can “lower” your sights to teach other than in college, there is plenty of need, but I wouldn’t do it unless I were big, with a deep voice and ready to intimidate the worst of these monsters our schools are turning out. America….how I loved you, once.

By: BaldApe

BaldApe — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:50:00 +0000

Nate beat me to my main point, but I can still add something:

We science teachers are now being told that there will be an extreme shortage of American citizens who can take the science jobs (read “technically oriented jobs”) with DOD and the military, since they want “real Americans” to avoid security risks. (Something that didn’t seem to slow down the Manhattan project…)