Comments on: Stimulating the Postdocs

By: Postdoc without a job

Postdoc without a job — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:25:56 +0000

That’s great for the future, and I agree with the sentiment. But what about us postdocs who are pushing 6 yrs and are kinda worried about the soon-to-be 10% unemployment rate out there in the real world? Finance ain’t looking so hot anymore.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 03:21:32 +0000

I agree about the overpopulation of postdocs. In my opinion, at least for “basic” sciences like astronomy, cosmology, and particle physics for which there are no industry jobs, there should be a *REDUCTION* in the number of graduate students accepted—>followed by a reduction in the number of postdocs—>followed by a much better faculty job market.

It may be better for science to have an over population of grad students and postdocs. But it really ruins the lives of so many grads/postdocs who endure high stress and low pay only to be eventually forced out into industry or finance. If they had just not been accepted into grad school in the first place they would have saved themselves 7 to 10 years of agony.

The system just seems to “use” people by giving them grad student and postdoc positions knowing full well that a majority will be forced out. Why not be honest from the start and make it much harder to get into grad school for basic sciences?

Note that overpopulation in grad school for other fields like biotech makes perfect sense because people have many more options in industry where they can do biotech research and are not confined to academia.

So, NO! please do not use the stimulus to enlist more grad students and postdocs…this is the worst thing that can be done!

By: The AstroDyke

The AstroDyke — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:20:03 +0000

It’s interesting how quickly this discussion converged on the problem of postdoc overpopulation — that there’s a glut of PhD astronomers compared to faculty jobs. (Richard Reiss wrote about the glut’s origins in the book “Tomorrow’s Professor”.)

Today I got a rejection letter today for the Clay fellowship, which claimed 241 people had applied. As an overpopulated postdoc, I feel reasonably sanguine about my prospects in academia (and my ability to thrive in industry as a Plan B), but I can’t see how to avoid, with or without a stimulus, a large migration of postdocs to industry or under-employment.

Industry, in my opinion, is a great career for someone with an analytic mind and a technical background. Un- or under-employment is not. And with 10% unemployment in my county, it’s a terrible time for a young scientist to go looking for industry jobs.

By: ts

ts — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:24:14 +0000

I wonder what people in academia really think of the current postdoc system. It has become a very important stage in one’s scinence career, but it started as a sort of necessary evil, to keep people employed while they (quickly) move to the next step. Now, it’s assumed that you do like 3 – 6 years of postdoc before you luckily find a place to stay or get forced out.

Why is reducing the number of students going after PhDs not a better solution?

While it is true that PhDs going into nonacademic sectors with their ability and expertise can be beneficial for society, I feel it is still not very sincere for people to lure young people into PhD programs in basic research, unless it is made clear that they are much more likely to be doing something else in 10 – 15 years. Of course, part of all that schooling and training in science can end up making them employable one way or another, but the fact is that they can get there faster while accumulating more useful experiences elsewhere, without those years spent for getting a PhD.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:35:31 +0000

I feel supporting more postdocs is the worst thing that can be done. If there is no money to move these postdocs into eventual faculty positions, then you are just prolonging postdoc misery until you are forced to leave the field. There was to be money supply from the top down.

By: NSFer

NSFer — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:16:26 +0000

Dear E – The NSF fellowship is hardly a backup to the Hubble/Einstein, etc. Its past fellows have a higher rate of obtaining faculty jobs than Hubble Fellows, and was once better paid, have rejected people who got Hubbles in the same year, etc. I fear that you associate having an outreach/teaching component with being inferior, and should reexamine this idea, since all NSF programs have a teaching component, including the CAREER program and the regular grants.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:59:21 +0000

Well said Lab Lemming.

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:01:44 +0000

What do PhD level scientists do aside from academia?

We work in private industry to design and build the instrumentation that y’all use in your labs.

We find the raw material used to create those instruments.

We work as technical advisors in policy and finance organizations so that they can make informed decisions about up and coming technology.

We apply the science we discover in real world applications.

We float startups, sink investors, and navigate steering committees.

A PhD is not a custodial sentence. Recipients are not doomed to lecturing without the possibility of parole. Rather, it is an indication that the recipient has the demonstrated ability to discover things about the natural world which nobody has ever known, and evaluate the attempts of others to do the same.

By: youngfac

youngfac — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:39:18 +0000

I agree that funding postdocs with stimulus money makes a lot of sense… They’re approaching their prime in terms of scientific productivity. They’re relatively cheap, so you put a lot of highly educated people to work. Yes, there are down sides… this will lead to an even bigger supply of highly educated scientists who are not all needed to fill the shrinking number of tenure track positions. From the perspective of government and industry, that can be good… some of these postdocs will eventually find their way to industry, when they get there they will be even better positioned to develop or apply technology to real world problems. Of course, this would tend to push down wages for highly educated scientists, but I suspect most of the postdocs on the job market this year and next would accept the long-term problems of oversupply of science Ph.D.s in return for more jobs to get them through until universities and industry start hiring again.

Certainly offering several more NSF fellowships (or NSF GRFs) this year would make sense. However, I’m not convinced that prize fellowships should absorb a significant fraction of the NSF or NIH stimulus money. I’ve worked with several postdocs, most of whom came from top universities, highly recommended, and either with a prize fellowships or to my group on grant money after being on the wait list for a prize fellowship. In my opinion, most of them still need help to learn how to ask the right questions. I think working with a good mentor on a specific project is more effective than telling them “go learn how to ask good questions by trial and error”. So I think NSF should also expand funding for PI grants that will indirectly support postdocs working on specific projects and closer interactions with the PI. (I totally support programs like NSF, Hubble, Sagan, etc., and I would like to see them expand, but I think they should do more to see that postdocs receive significant mentoring.)

While the deadline for the “first round” of postdocs has passed, I know there are still plenty of good people looking for an offer. I advertised for a postdoc this year. So I have a list of probably half a dozen good people who were on my shortlist and are still looking for a position.

Disclaimer: I recently had an “Excellent/Very good” NSF proposal declined that obviously I’d like to see funded. If that happens, I would be happy to offer a position starting as soon as a month after the putative funds arrive (or in a few cases as soon as their librarian signs off on their thesis, probably May-August).

By: Brad H

Brad H — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:26:20 +0000

There seems to be some misunderstanding here about the disbursement timescale. We received an analysis of the final bill from some kind of legal counsel, which states that the money only has to be spent by Sep 2010. The one thing with a short deadline is the
spending *plan*. The NSF has 60 days from the signing of the bill to present its plan to congress. Of course, there is pressure to spend it fast, but one doesn’t have to be driven to reckless lengths – some measure of spreading it out over the next year or two is allowed and probably the most prudent course.