Theoretical Physics PhD worthless nowadays?

[Rika]

I would like to hear these people tell me what degree DOES get you the ``dream job''...

Professional degrees. While reality is different from dreams becoming MD afrer Med school is very probable.

And people major in history because they like history, but I don't see too many historians floating around. But yesterday I found a recruiter who has a B.A. in History. How well did that degree prepare him for finding people to work on Wall Street? I did a summer research internship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and one of the scientists there, who was researching moderating a fusion reaction, had a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering.

Bachelor is a keyword here.

1. Many people like history/physics but do not think about becoming resercher/scientist. They stopped at Bachelor lvl and are fine.
2. Most people go with "I used to like history/physics during HS so I will study it at college" or with "I don't want/ I am too stupid to become engineer, lawyer, MD". Most college freshmen are teens who have no idea what to do with their lifes.

I am completely fine with fact that people with BSc/MSc (non-professional) degree are working in unrelated fields and that's true - there are some engineers who aren't working in their profession or in their field.

The point is, the probability that ANYBODY gets a job that is more or less completely unrelated to their undergrad degree is pretty high. Why on Earth would you expect that that would be any different for physicists?

I don't expect it at bachelor level. But PhD (at least in my country) is clearly a job training because "scientist" is a profession (at least here). I don't expect that every PhD will work in his/her field or profession but the truth is that jobs for MDs/lawyers/engineers aren't as rare as PhD ones. You expect that you will become MD after med school. What's wrong with expecting that you will become scientist after grad school?

I love physics, but I love physics because I think it's absolutely fascinating how you can describe Nature with relatively simple mathematical tools. The fact that you can write down a model of electrons and photons, and calculate a cross section, and then go and measure that cross section, and find exactly what you calculated is amazing. From there, it is only a short intellectual hop to try and understand financial markets in the same light. The fact that you can understand, qualitatively and quantitatively, the nature of the world financial markets using relatively simple tools is as fascinating to me as understanding nature using physics.

I am not saying that being quant is bad. It's just not good for everyone. There are people who love physics becuase they find this world decribed by physics fascinating. They don't find tools that physics use - lab work, programming or math fascinating. They find finance boring (personaly I find it quite interesting). Quant shouldn't be the most probable job that person with PhD in HEP can get.

The bottom line is, no matter what anyone here tells you, your PhD is not inherently worthless. What makes your PhD worthless is you---if you don't get out and hustle, just like everyone else in the world has to, you will end up unemployed and posting on physics forums all day long. The bad news is that people are not falling all over themselves to throw money at you. But guess what---unless you're one of the 1-in-a-1000 type physicists (you know who they are), no one ever will. This isn't just true in physics, this is true for anyone. If you want something, you generally have to work for it.

It's not true for academia isn't it? No matter how good you are your chances are still near zero.
PhD isn't worthless as long as you can get research position. If you can't then it's as worthy as med school without MD job.

 

[Rika]

At some point you have dream new dreams. It's also important to dream your own dreams rather than someone else's. One of the ironies is that the reason I got interested in money is that I was pretty curious about the questions "so why *can't* I be a tenured faculty profession?" and that got me into thinking about finance and money. And then the question "so what do I need to get what I want?" also got me to money. If I had a huge bank account, I'd just camp out at some university, and just write astrophysics papers for the rest of my life. The cool thing is that it's going to happen eventually. Whether it happens at 45, 55, or 65, at some point, I'm just going to show up at university and then teach and write papers.

So it's not a new dream because you don't want to be a quant for the rest of your life or teach and wirite about quantitive finance. you still want to do astrophysics. I wonder - do you want to work at uni for free? Because if there are no positions at uni then yours $$$ won't change this fact (or it won't be legal).

I still don't understand - why people don't want to search for jobs in academia outside US? Even if salary isn't that great you still can get permanent research position.

 

[BenTheMan]

Professional degrees. While reality is different from dreams becoming MD afrer Med school is very probable.

But going to med school seems like a bad idea if you hate the idea of being a doctor. Hence the ill-defined ``dream job''.

I don't expect it at bachelor level. But PhD (at least in my country) is clearly a job training because "scientist" is a profession (at least here). I don't expect that every PhD will work in his/her field or profession but the truth is that jobs for MDs/lawyers/engineers aren't as rare as PhD ones. You expect that you will become MD after med school. What's wrong with expecting that you will become scientist after grad school?

First of all, there are more people getting MDs and law degrees than there are people getting PhD's.

Quant shouldn't be the most probable job that person with PhD in HEP can get.

It isn't. Of all of my friends who have left physics, I only know of two who are working in finance, and only one in a front-office type quant role.

It's not true for academia isn't it? No matter how good you are your chances are still near zero.
PhD isn't worthless as long as you can get research position. If you can't then it's as worthy as med school without MD job.

Your statement is utterly unsupported by my experience and twofish-quant's experience. I know of no people with PhDs in physics who are unemployed, however, if you have some evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it.

 

[BenTheMan]

I still don't understand - why people don't want to search for jobs in academia outside US? Even if salary isn't that great you still can get permanent research position.

Because most people realize that it's not the lifestyle they want. Don't you think there are MBAs from the US who would rather do something else than work in an investment bank in Bangalore?

 

[twofish-quant]

Professional degrees. While reality is different from dreams becoming MD afrer Med school is very probable.

The trouble with med school is that you end up with pretty massive amounts of debt, which doesn't happen if you go through a physics Ph.D.

I don't expect that every PhD will work in his/her field or profession but the truth is that jobs for MDs/lawyers/engineers aren't as rare as PhD ones. You expect that you will become MD after med school. What's wrong with expecting that you will become scientist after grad school?

Because the economics don't work out. The way that academia is structured, one professor produces five or so Ph.D.'s. If these all become academics who then produce Ph.D.'s, then you end up with a classic Malthusian process, you just run out of funding. You can only sustain this sort of system by exponentially increasing the amount of funding.

It's not a coincidence that you have a one to five chance of becoming tenured faculty, because if you assuming that the number of jobs is stable, then the odds of getting a job is closely tied to the number of Ph.D.'s that a professor produces.

I am not saying that being quant is bad. It's just not good for everyone. There are people who love physics becuase they find this world decribed by physics fascinating.

And I'm one of them. However, one thing that you learn from physics is to respect reality. I'd really like to be a starship captain, but it turns out that special relativity gets in the way. I'd really like to be tenured faculty, but it turns out that there are economic realities that get in the way of that.

Also one thing cool think about asking "why are things what they are?" is that you find out interesting things about history. I think I have a good sense about why astrophysics is so important to me, and it involves talking about the last several hundred years of history.

Quant shouldn't be the most probable job that person with PhD in HEP can get.

And the speed of light shouldn't be a limit on how fast you can travel, but it is...

If you don't like reality then change it. Come up with a viable funding system in which all Ph.D.'s can become tenured faculty. I have a few ideas here that I'm working on.

It's not true for academia isn't it? No matter how good you are your chances are still near zero.
PhD isn't worthless as long as you can get research position. If you can't then it's as worthy as med school without MD job.

What's worthy or worthless depends on the person. For me, it's not the destination but rather the journey. I got the Ph.D. because I wanted to be a professional student, and the cool thing is that a decade after I got my Ph.D., I'm still in school and am still a professional student.

 

[twofish-quant]

So it's not a new dream because you don't want to be a quant for the rest of your life or teach and wirite about quantitive finance.

I get bored easily. I figure in about a decade, I'll get bored with finance, and I'll need some other challenge.

I wonder - do you want to work at uni for free? Because if there are no positions at uni then yours $$$ won't change this fact (or it won't be legal).

In order to do research, all you need are facilities and collaborators. Just show up at some university, attend seminars and conferences, coauthor papers, and tutor students.

Also, it's trivially easy to get an adjunct position.

I still don't understand - why people don't want to search for jobs in academia outside US?

Because there aren't that many jobs outside the US and Europe. The job market in Europe is as saturated as the US. If you go into the developing world, you run into the problem that science is expensive, and most places don't have the funding to pay for research scientists. There are some situations in which a government will decide to pour money into science, but they are looking for big-name US/European scientists with track records and prestige.

China is putting lots of money in science, but they are looking for people in the US/Europe that are already big name stars to go back and then manage research institutes to develop local talent. It's not clear where newly minted Ph.D.'s that can't find a job in the US fit in this scheme.

Even if salary isn't that great you still can get permanent research position.

You really can't. If the salary isn't that great, then the facilities are likely to be substandard.

 

[some_dude]

How good of a programmer can one become just from the required numerical calculations for a physics PhD? Presumably a lot of such people would have been good programmers before hand, but ignoring that, I'm wondering how much I'll miss out in terms of skill development if I do a very theoretical PhD that has little required programming?

I would think that for a physics PhD, the programming would consist primarily of writing very optimized and small computational (say, <20,000 lines of C) programs with simple I/O. And then working with very large scientific libraries. Is that accurate?

 

[Andy Resnick]

In order to do research, all you need are facilities and collaborators. Just show up at some university, attend seminars and conferences, coauthor papers, and tutor students.

That's not exactly correct- why not claim that in order to do (theoretical/mathematical) physics research all you need is a piece of paper and a pencil?

Having a viable research program means that some agency (government, foundation, industry(*)) is willing to pay your salary and pay for (in experimental work) the supplies and *not get anything in return*. That won't happen unless you have an original idea that makes sense to people who have been thinking about the exact same question for a lot longer than you.

To do research, you must demonstrate, to others, a command of your discipline and the ability to do something they cannot. "Just showing up" is insufficient, and nobody is going to include you as an author unless you have something to add to the discussion. Tutoring students has nothing to do with research.

(*) getting money for industrial research (Not SBIR) is different because of IP issues, but in general, it is structured like a consulting gig.

 

[twofish-quant]

That's not exactly correct- why not claim that in order to do (theoretical/mathematical) physics research all you need is a piece of paper and a pencil?

What you really need is computers and social networks and time.

Having a viable research program means that some agency (government, foundation, industry(*)) is willing to pay your salary and pay for (in experimental work) the supplies and *not get anything in return*.

Funders always get something in return, and part of the trick of fundraising is to figure out what they are getting. It could be prestige, national security, or something else, but if you are spending someone else's money there is always a string attached.

Since I'll have large amount of money in the bank, I won't need anyone to pay my salary. I'll even pay the university a fee for facility use if necessary. If I make it really big, then I can line up funders that will pay the university in exchange for a library card and a broom closet that I can store my stuff. Part of the point of being in finance is that you meet people with insane amounts of money, and if you know how to sell an idea, that can come in useful, and one thing that's useful in my education, is that I'm better at selling an idea than I was five years ago, and ten years from now, I'll be even better at it.

"Just showing up" is insufficient, and nobody is going to include you as an author unless you have something to add to the discussion.

Which is why I'm keeping my personal research network active. Give me a decade, and I will find something useful to contribute. It could be computer skills, grunt labor, a fresh perspective, or funding. I've got about a decade so I'll find something.

The reason I think this is viable is that I know people that have done this.

 

[twofish-quant]

How good of a programmer can one become just from the required numerical calculations for a physics PhD?

It really depends on the type of field, but if you are talking about CFD or MHD code, you are talking about a huge amount of algorithmic calculation skill.

I would think that for a physics PhD, the programming would consist primarily of writing very optimized and small computational (say, <20,000 lines of C) programs with simple I/O. And then working with very large scientific libraries. Is that accurate?

No. For any sort of astrophysical simulation you are talking about >100,000 lines of Fortran and C++ code. There are very few libraries used since usually the libraries can't handle the calculation. There are some open source platforms for hydrodynamical calculations, but these invariably require massive reprogramming to do what you want.

Astrophysical code tends to be run in batch mode, but there is starting to be a trend toward parallel computing in which you have to worry about the IO between different compute nodes. Also the paradigm that most computer programming uses involves splitting the problem into distinct models. This is really tough to do in astrophysical problems because you have many different types of physics all tightly coupled with each other.

 

[Rika]

But going to med school seems like a bad idea if you hate the idea of being a doctor. Hence the ill-defined ``dream job''.

I am talking about people who want to be a doctor.

Your statement is utterly unsupported by my experience and twofish-quant's experience. I know of no people with PhDs in physics who are unemployed, however, if you have some evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it.

Are you saying that all of your PhDs friends do research in science?

Because the economics don't work out. The way that academia is structured, one professor produces five or so Ph.D.'s. If these all become academics who then produce Ph.D.'s, then you end up with a classic Malthusian process, you just run out of funding. You can only sustain this sort of system by exponentially increasing the amount of funding.

It's not a coincidence that you have a one to five chance of becoming tenured faculty, because if you assuming that the number of jobs is stable, then the odds of getting a job is closely tied to the number of Ph.D.'s that a professor produces.

I don't think that law or med schools would produce more people than market can handle. I guess medical association wouldn't allow that.

I still don't understand what's wrong with associate degree technician-level positions. Technicians are everywhere. What's wrong with technicians in academia? Why can't they do all that grunt work that grad students do? There are technicians in med or engineering and they are completely fine.

Because there aren't that many jobs outside the US and Europe. The job market in Europe is as saturated as the US. If you go into the developing world, you run into the problem that science is expensive, and most places don't have the funding to pay for research scientists. There are some situations in which a government will decide to pour money into science, but they are looking for big-name US/European scientists with track records and prestige.

China is putting lots of money in science, but they are looking for people in the US/Europe that are already big name stars to go back and then manage research institutes to develop local talent. It's not clear where newly minted Ph.D.'s that can't find a job in the US fit in this scheme.

Every physics PhD that I know was able to find some research position somewhere but I don't know if it was permanent.

You really can't. If the salary isn't that great, then the facilities are likely to be substandard.

I guess all facilities in my country are like that I still can't understand why universities can't work with Wall Street. They (WS) need PhDs and they are willing to pay for them.

Having a viable research program means that some agency (government, foundation, industry(*)) is willing to pay your salary and pay for (in experimental work) the supplies and *not get anything in return*. That won't happen unless you have an original idea that makes sense to people who have been thinking about the exact same question for a lot longer than you.

Why sth like that is impossible in case of WS? Why can't they pay universities or rather Theoretical Physics PhDs for new computional methods that they invent during astrophysics research? You could also do pure quantitive finance research and do astrophysics in the same time. For universities it means $$$ and WS can't live without quants so it really means $$$. Why universities let go of people who can bring $$$?

Even if you can't get permanent position is that really bad? So many people live as freelance. If becoming adjunct is easy then what's wrong with being adjunct and getting decent salary from research grant? I don't know about US but from my experience you don't have to be superstar (you can be even a grad student) to get some money. Yeah - you need to worry about $$ after 4 years and go after next grant but is that really different from industry where people change their job every few years?

 

[BenTheMan]

Are you saying that all of your PhDs friends do research in science?

Some do, some don't. I have a friend who got a job for the FBI. Another friend works for Facebook doing data mining. Another friend of mine works as a science policy analyst in Washington, D.C. Other people I know have gone on to work in government labs, some went to Wall Street (loosely defined). In all cases, I don't think that they'd have been able to find these jobs without their backgrounds, and I none of them (that I know) would trade their PhDs for anything.

I don't think that law or med schools would produce more people than market can handle. I guess medical association wouldn't allow that.

Really? That's not the case in the U.S. for lawyers, at least. Look at how many ``personal injury'' lawyers there are. Anyone can go to law school, typically, if you have the money. The problem is that all law schools are not created equally.

 

[Andy Resnick]

What you really need is computers and social networks and time.

Funders always get something in return, and part of the trick of fundraising is to figure out what they are getting. It could be prestige, national security, or something else, but if you are spending someone else's money there is always a string attached.

Now I'll agree- the #1 requirement to perform useful research is *time*. Now, consider what that means, given 10+ years of training (grad school, postdoc or two...) in which your time is considered valueless. It's an incredible mental barrier to overcome, and is one of the reasons some people can't progress forward- they don't understand that their time is actually precious.

Now- NIH, NSF, NASA, DOE, HHMI, and all the other agencies and organizations that fund *basic* science, do not ever get a material return on their investment. You are correct, they get 'prestige'- an acknowledgment at the end of a paper, things to write about when they need to justify their budgets, etc, but that's it. Academic attempts to commercialize the research ('tech transfer') are laughable and a sham.

SBIR grants, and grants aimed at industry-academia joint projects, are different (hence the (*))- those are definitely geared towards generating a marketable product and bringing it to market.

The 'string' that gets attached to my grants is "annual reports"- that's really it.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Why sth like that is impossible in case of WS? Why can't they pay universities or rather Theoretical Physics PhDs for new computional methods that they invent during astrophysics research? You could also do pure quantitive finance research and do astrophysics in the same time. For universities it means $$$ and WS can't live without quants so it really means $$$. Why universities let go of people who can bring $$$?

Even if you can't get permanent position is that really bad? So many people live as freelance. If becoming adjunct is easy then what's wrong with being adjunct and getting decent salary from research grant? I don't know about US but from my experience you don't have to be superstar (you can be even a grad student) to get some money. Yeah - you need to worry about $$ after 4 years and go after next grant but is that really different from industry where people change their job every few years?

I'm not sure what you are getting at. Why would a profitable firm, in a highly competitive industry, want to deal with universities? Universities are about the slowest-moving beasts on the planet, government included.

Now, I'm sure there are faculty members out there who *consult* for wall street firms, on the side, for their own benefit. Consulting is one of the secret perks of academia- it's easy to do, and can be very lucrative.

As far as an adjunct faculty getting a 'real' research grant- not going to happen. There's lots of reasons why, some good, some not. Your other comments reflect a very poor understanding of the realities of research universities, especially since the 'success rate' of proposals is around 10% for NIH, and not much better for NSF (20% in 2005). Think about that.

 

[twofish-quant]

It's an incredible mental barrier to overcome, and is one of the reasons some people can't progress forward- they don't understand that their time is actually precious.

Which is curiously my problem. I don't have money problems. I have time problems. If my employer were willing to let me off for six months and pay me half salary for the year, I'd have more than enough money and time to do astrophysics research. The problem is that this just doesn't work out right now, although I think I may be able to change things so that it will.

One thing that the internet does do is to reduce start-up time. The problem with academic papers is to write a decent paper, you have to spend at least three months, and a lot of that involves just getting the formatting and structure write. The big thing that wikipedia does is that you can spend ten minutes and do something useful.

You are correct, they get 'prestige'- an acknowledgment at the end of a paper, things to write about when they need to justify their budgets, etc, but that's it. Academic attempts to commercialize the research ('tech transfer') are laughable and a sham.

Academia is very much a prestige economy. It's a lot like Hollywood.

That's because that anything that is easily commercializable is already done by the for-profits. The thing that I'm most interested in is "reverse tech transfer." Getting technology from for-profits back to academia.

 

[twofish-quant]

I don't think that law or med schools would produce more people than market can handle. I guess medical association wouldn't allow that.

Not quite true. Also one of the ways that medical and law schools work is that they set up a very strong tier system.

I still don't understand what's wrong with associate degree technician-level positions. Technicians are everywhere. What's wrong with technicians in academia? Why can't they do all that grunt work that grad students do? There are technicians in med or engineering and they are completely fine.

Because it would wreck havoc with the social structure of academia. The important thing about grad students is that they are gone after five years, and junior faculty are "up or out" positions. If you had people doing grunt work staying around forever, they would demand more money and power.

I still can't understand why universities can't work with Wall Street. They (WS) need PhDs and they are willing to pay for them.

They do. However universities tend to be very loosely structured, so you usually don't work with the university, you work with Professor so-and-so. Universities are unusual in that they encourage moonlighting, whereas most corporations frown on it.

Why sth like that is impossible in case of WS? Why can't they pay universities or rather Theoretical Physics PhDs for new computional methods that they invent during astrophysics research?

Because it's easier to just hire the Ph.D. Any time you put money into the university, you are looking at about 50% overhead, and the university is designed so that the administration doesn't have any control over faculty. It's easier to just pay the Ph.D. or faculty person directly and bypass the middleman.

You could also do pure quantitive finance research and do astrophysics in the same time.

Time is a factor.

For universities it means $$$ and WS can't live without quants so it really means $$$. Why universities let go of people who can bring $$$?

Because one the university stamps Ph.D., there is no reason for the Ph.D. to say around. If you want the Ph.D. to develop new stuff, then just hire them.

If becoming adjunct is easy then what's wrong with being adjunct and getting decent salary from research grant?

Because adjuncts in the US can't get research grants. The universities just will not let an adjunct be a principal investigator, and as an adjunct you are unlikely to have the reputation and publication history to be competitive for grants.

I don't know about US but from my experience you don't have to be superstar (you can be even a grad student) to get some money.

US is very different. Writing a grant proposal is a major effort that can easily take a year. Usually it's an multiple person institutional effort, with the "superstar" leading the proposal.

Yeah - you need to worry about $$ after 4 years and go after next grant but is that really different from industry where people change their job every few years?

Yes it is. One problem with the grant system is that it's up or out. If you lose out on a grant, it puts you into a downward spiral that puts you out of other grants.

 

[Andy Resnick]

The problem with academic papers is to write a decent paper, you have to spend at least three months, and a lot of that involves just getting the formatting and structure write.

My experience (which may not be normal) is that I need 6 months - 1 year to take the data, 6 months-1 year writing the paper (which may require going back into the lab to take more data), and then 6 months-1 year in the peer-review process.

For experimental physics, a reasonable rule of thumb is 1 paper/year.

 

[Rika]

I'm not sure what you are getting at. Why would a profitable firm, in a highly competitive industry, want to deal with universities? Universities are about the slowest-moving beasts on the planet, government included.

If Bayer wants to deal with process engineers in academia then why WS wouldn't want to deal with theoretical physicists? As far as I know Bayer pays technical universities for doing research.

As far as an adjunct faculty getting a 'real' research grant- not going to happen. There's lots of reasons why, some good, some not. Your other comments reflect a very poor understanding of the realities of research universities, especially since the 'success rate' of proposals is around 10% for NIH, and not much better for NSF (20% in 2005). Think about that.

I know very little about academia and that's why I'm asking. I know extremely little about Academia in US because I have never been there that's why I'm asking. I live in completely different country - with free education, free healthcare, no big, competetive science, no great $$$ for science, no mobile, initiative society. Despite that fact or maybe because of it if you are initiative and active you can get scolarships and grants. I know many grad students and postdocs who manage to get research grant from government or EU and from what I heard it's not that hard. I can imagine that getting big money from big name institution is hard. But in US do you only have big name institutions and research grants for superstars? No scholarships and grants for young scientists? No commercial grants from government or firms? No small institutions small grants for small science?

Because it would wreck havoc with the social structure of academia. The important thing about grad students is that they are gone after five years, and junior faculty are "up or out" positions. If you had people doing grunt work staying around forever, they would demand more money and power.

Can you apply this to the med or eng technicians? Do Med technicians or nurses demand more money and power? And if that's case then who are the people who stay in academia? Someone needs to stay because PhDs from 70' won't live forever.

 

[Andy Resnick]

If Bayer wants to deal with process engineers in academia then why WS wouldn't want to deal with theoretical physicists? As far as I know Bayer pays technical universities for doing research.

But in US do you only have big name institutions and research grants for superstars? No scholarships and grants for young scientists? No commercial grants from government or firms? No small institutions small grants for small science?

Bayer does indeed partner with academia, and so do most of the multinational corporations. Proctor&Gamble, L'Oreal and Shlumberger are others that I personally know of. But, you are not asking the important question, which is "Why?" What are they funding? How do they benefit? When you can answer that, you will understand why investment firms don't partner with academia.

And research funding is not "big superstars" or nothing- there is the total spectrum, from local governments and local industry up to large corporation (ACS's petroleum research fund), national governments, etc. Grants range in size from $1,500 (and less) through $multimillion. But that's not the relevant point.

 

[Count Iblis]

Papers on theoretical subject can be written up much faster. I've once done it in less than two weeks. I had an interesting idea, thought for it for two days, I then decided to write an article about it and ten days later I was done.

 

[BenTheMan]

Papers on theoretical subject can be written up much faster. I've once done it in less than two weeks. I had an interesting idea, thought for it for two days, I then decided to write an article about it and ten days later I was done.

I'm pretty sure twofish knows the procedure :)

 

[epicurean]

The point is I'm in my 2nd year of college as a physics major and am wondering if I should end at a B.S. in Physics and apply to medical school.

Or switch over to computer science. You've already got all the math you need for comp sci from your physics major, and your physics knowledge could be useful for say, computational chemistry (my area of interest). Or your skills could be useful in things like game design (physics engines for new computer games). Or switch over to some sort of engineering?

 

[twofish-quant]

If Bayer wants to deal with process engineers in academia then why WS wouldn't want to deal with theoretical physicists?

Because Wall Street has enough money to hire theoretical physicists directly and to run their internal in house research divisions. Your typical investment bank has about 100 or so physics Ph.D.'s on staff, and afford to pay them salaries that no academic institution can dream of matching. There's no reason for a formal partnership with universities, although there are a lot of informal conversations between individuals.

But in US do you only have big name institutions and research grants for superstars? No scholarships and grants for young scientists? No commercial grants from government or firms? No small institutions small grants for small science?

You do have those things, but even those are highly competitive meaning that if you try to make a living by writing grants, you'll spend most of your time writing grants and very little of your time actually doing science. Much of the reason universities exist is that dealing with grants is a very labor intensive activity.

Can you apply this to the med or eng technicians? Do Med technicians or nurses demand more money and power?

Nurses and medical technicians make very good incomes in comparison to graduate students. Also, I don't think you can run a physics department with the same sort of institutional hierarchy that you find in hospitals. Part of it is that it's part of the medical culture that doctors know more than nurses and can order them around, whereas physics departments are based on the idea that graduate students should be taught to challenge their teachers, and you aren't going to get the Ph.D. unless you can prove that you know more on a given topic than your teachers.

One other issue is that physics Ph.D.'s tend to be extremely ambitious people. It takes a huge amount of arrogance to think that you can understand the beginning of the universe, and people with this sort of intellectual arrogance aren't likely to be satisfied with being a second-class technician for their entire life.

And if that's case then who are the people who stay in academia? Someone needs to stay because PhDs from 70' won't live forever.

Since one professor produces about five Ph.D.'s, you just need one in five to stay in the system for the system to be stable.

Also something that is very interesting is how the dynamics are very different for different Ph.D.'s. Finance Ph.D.'s for example, are pretty much guaranteed a high paying faculty position on graduation, but the limiting factor is the number of people that are accepted into the top finance programs.

 

[twofish-quant]

Papers on theoretical subject can be written up much faster. I've once done it in less than two weeks. I had an interesting idea, thought for it for two days, I then decided to write an article about it and ten days later I was done.

Astrophysics is cool because it's particularly open to publication. All you really need to do to publish is upload a paper onto the Los Alamos Preprints Server. Part of the culture of astrophysics is that the peer reviewers have a "publish and let the reader sort things out" philosophy. I recall the editor of Ap.J. mentioning that it has something like a 70% acceptance rate, which of course means that some nutty stuff gets into Ap.J.

One thing about astrophysics is that on some "hot topics", it's almost like an online chat in which someone uploads a preprint and then a week later, someone uploads a response. Astrophysics is also useful since all of the important papers are online and publicly available. One good thing about astrophysics is that all of the major journals are controlled by the professional societies which avoids a lot of the silliness you see in biology.

A lot of papers are "I pointed the telescope at this object and saw this." This can be very interesting in situations where you have something like a new supernova, when there is a race to publish results first.

 

[arunma]

I am talking about people who want to be a doctor.

Heh, it's funny you guys are talking about the medical career. As everyone can tell by now, I'm fairly paranoid about having a stable job and not being laid off. Call me irrational, but I know way too many people who got laid off from engineering jobs and ended up behind a proverbial fast food counter. Medicine seems to be the only job that offers the sort of security I'm looking for. Strangely enough I was premed for most of my undergrad (though still a physics major), and only got lured into the grad school thing my junior year. At the time I wasn't aware that most physics PhDs don't make it to the tenure track. I've actually thought about finishing up my premed prereqs after grad school and taking another shot at this, though I don't know if that's a crazy idea or not. I'm not sure that anyone goes to med school (or any school) after gettng a PhD...

 

[Ryker]

I think you have to think really hard about whether it's actually worth going through all the trouble of med school "just" for job security. From what I hear, doctors in the US work all the damn time, and yeah, sure, you get paid a lot and you don't have to worry about being laid off, but if your heart's not in it I bet you'd be pretty miserable. Though, as you said, you won't necessarily get a dream job in physics, either, but I was always of the opinion that if you're working hours as long as doctors' ones, unless you really love the profession you're just wasting your life away.

 

[Rika]

Since one professor produces about five Ph.D.'s, you just need one in five to stay in the system for the system to be stable.

So it's all about luck and connections?

Also something that is very interesting is how the dynamics are very different for different Ph.D.'s. Finance Ph.D.'s for example, are pretty much guaranteed a high paying faculty position on graduation, but the limiting factor is the number of people that are accepted into the top finance programs.

Why is that? No grunt work in finance?

 

[twofish-quant]

As everyone can tell by now, I'm fairly paranoid about having a stable job and not being laid off. Call me irrational, but I know way too many people who got laid off from engineering jobs and ended up behind a proverbial fast food counter.

Do you know of any physics Ph.D.'s that have lost their jobs and are working behind the fast food counter? I don't. I've been laid off twice, and each time, I've ended up with a better job, so I'm actively looking forward to the next set of lay offs.

Medicine seems to be the only job that offers the sort of security I'm looking for.

Then again maybe not. You really need to talk to some doctors in another forum to see what's going on. However, one thing that I do know is that with Finance Ph.D.'s there *is* a very strong effort to limit the number of Ph.D.'s, which means that someone with a Finance Ph.D. is assured of getting a tenure track position, but it's very hard to get admitted to the program.

 

[arunma]

I think you have to think really hard about whether it's actually worth going through all the trouble of med school "just" for job security. From what I hear, doctors in the US work all the damn time, and yeah, sure, you get paid a lot and you don't have to worry about being laid off, but if your heart's not in it I bet you'd be pretty miserable. Though, as you said, you won't necessarily get a dream job in physics, either, but I was always of the opinion that if you're working hours as long as doctors' ones, unless you really love the profession you're just wasting your life away.

Yeah, I've also heard that you really need to love what you're doing to be a doctor. But I work pretty long hours as a grad student, and these days I'm starting to think that physics is pretty lame. But to be honest, grad school isn't that bad. And it's not as though I'm not interested in medicine either. I've always liked biological sciences (keep in mind I did the premed thing for half of my undergrad). Strange as it sounds, I also like blood and guts. I've actually done a fair bit of research into the medical profession, and I'm pretty sure that I'd enjoy it. But I will admit that job security is by far my primary motivation.

Do you know of any physics Ph.D.'s that have lost their jobs and are working behind the fast food counter? I don't. I've been laid off twice, and each time, I've ended up with a better job, so I'm actively looking forward to the next set of lay offs.

Right, you mentioned this earlier in the thread. Your experience in finance is pretty encouraging, and I'm certainly going to take a second look at this field.

Then again maybe not. You really need to talk to some doctors in another forum to see what's going on. However, one thing that I do know is that with Finance Ph.D.'s there *is* a very strong effort to limit the number of Ph.D.'s, which means that someone with a Finance Ph.D. is assured of getting a tenure track position, but it's very hard to get admitted to the program.

Heh, I've spent more time in medical forums than I ought to. From what I've heard, pretty much the only way to fail in medicine is to start your own practice and be consumed by malpractice insurance. And since I don't care so much about high salaries, I'd be perfectly happy working for a hospital and making a low but consistent salary. But as with finance, admission to medical programs is exceedingly difficult. That's why I'm trying to consider as many options as I reasonably can.

 

[twofish-quant]

So it's all about luck and connections?

It's not all about luck and connections, but as the number of jobs decreases luck and connections become more important. If the top 50% of people got academic jobs, then you can be less than perfect and still get a job. Since the hire rate is 15%, you have to not only walk on water, but be able to walk on water and be able to tap dance. If there is anything non-optimal about your CV, you don't get the job.

Basically, if you have a room full of ten hypergeniuses and you just have to pick one, what possible criterion can you use other than luck and connections?

One amusing thought that may be true is that the only real chance that I ever had of being a big name astrophysics professor was to have married a high-power biology professor.

Why is that? No grunt work in finance?

Finance is very different because most of the grunt work happens in industry, and people with finance Ph.D.'s tend to look down on people that stay in academia. Different world.

 

[ferm]

Hi twofish,

Personally, it's very hard for me to imagine a field of physics that doesn't have major industry application if you do a few things while you are getting the Ph.D. The fact that people aren't taught some skills that increases the marketability of their Ph.D. enormously is a problem with academic advising.

So, could you please list some of these skills one should get? (and what to do to get them).

 

[Rika]

If there is anything non-optimal about your CV, you don't get the job.

What can you call "non-optimal"?


It's all funny because:

1. Whole world still sees US as science paradise.
2. People can work effecitvely only at "healthy" stress level. This stress level is too high and sometimes "non-optimal" people can be more creative than perfect hypergeniuses. I don't think that current system is good for science.
3. It seems that science is more competetive than showbiz or sports.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Hi twofish,
So, could you please list some of these skills one should get? (and what to do to get them).

You should develop "useful" skills. What skills are useful depends (of course) on what career/job you are trying to get.

It's tough to make general statements, but a useful skill is the ability implement something new: a new measurement technique, a new data analysis technique a new analytical method. But I mean doing something *new*- being an early adopter, not 'tweaking' someone else's canned program that is 10 years old.

Another useful skill- the ability to give a good presentation to an audience of non-experts.

Another skill- to not have to be told what to do. If you are given an ill-defined problem and can come up with 5 possible solutions, 2 of which work and 1 works well, you are in good shape.

 

[Dr Transport]

Dr Transport,
what were skills that those students were missing?

Programming and a basic ability to look at a problem/issue and tell whether or not the answer was physical in nature.

So...are you currently working in academia?

No, I am not, Industry all the way...

My experience (which may not be normal) is that I need 6 months - 1 year to take the data, 6 months-1 year writing the paper (which may require going back into the lab to take more data), and then 6 months-1 year in the peer-review process.

For experimental physics, a reasonable rule of thumb is 1 paper/year.

Theory papers also...

 

[twofish-quant]

So, could you please list some of these skills one should get? (and what to do to get them).

Resume writing. Working in a team. Taking orders from someone. Time management. Project management. General selling. Reading and writing corporate memos. Reading and writing balance sheets. Getting some skill when there is no class for it. :-) :-)

Probably the best way to get those skills is to put yourself in some situation where you have to sell something, or where you are watching someone sell something. There are a lot of books on Amazon about resume writing and selling, some of those books are good, some are bad, and you can't tell which is is which until you actually try out some things.