Think Twice Before Becoming a Scientist: PhDs Are Regretting Their Choice

has science and research just turned into a place of extreme career stagnation and financial struggle we're going to look at this article from 1999 compare it to the realities of today in 2024 it's going to be interesting and I'm amazed that a load of these things really haven't got addressed at all let's have a look the one thing I love about this article is that there's no formatting whatsoever that's how you know there's some hardcore truths in here and this was written by Jonathan Katz and I had to know what this person looked like so I went to the department website no picture just some blur then I had to delve a little bit deeper well I Googled and I found this this is him this is him right here this is the man the Maverick that really put out this article it really sort of like surprised me because there's so many truths in here that could damage his career because universities are so protective over what people say about them but here it is exists today still online and uh ultimately it starts this you know science is fun and exciting it's uh full of discovery which is great but it says here even if you want to consider going to graduate school in science do something else instead Medical School law school computers or engineering or something else that appeals to you why the first thing that this article talks about is the glat of phds that are being kicked out the other end of universities when they graduate here it says American universities train roughly twice as many phds as there are jobs for them and today that is even worse this is the important bit when something or someone is a glut on the market the price drops in the case of PhD students the reduction in price takes the form of many years spent in a holding pattern in post-doctoral jobs and that is still true today we kick out all of these PhD students most of them thinking that they'll get into Academia when in fact most of them will end up in postdoctoral positions just this holding pattern and this postto treadmill that I've talked about a lot um and it is a horrible place to be in because other people sort of leave Academia and you're just there waiting Treading Water getting money from other people and that is still very very true today most young scientists spend 5 10 or even more years as posts that is absolutely true I have seen people spend 10 years in posts only then to say you know what I've had enough I'm going to go get a job outside they should have made that decision so much earlier they have no Prospect of permanent employment and must often uh obtain a new post-doctoral position and move every 2 years that's absolutely true for the majority of postto positions I see today they are on short-term contracts which means they have no Financial long-term stability and they don't know where they're going to be working next it could be this country it could be that lab it could be that City wherever it is they need to go where the jobs are at first it can be quite exciting I know I was quite excited by moving to this incredibly uh tropical and strange location known as Adelaide but once you're here and you realize that you have to move again to a different city or a different country the novelty really wears off quickly especially when you're sort of like getting into those adult years and you're like hang on everyone around me has got like adult things and I'm just stuck still at University not knowing where I'm going to get my money from to be able to afford my adult life posts are kind of like stuck in limbo but that doesn't need to be the case are clever people and here we can see that Catz talks about you know a 39-year-old candidate for another assistant professorship has published 35 papers great so he's 39 and that was certainly true in the people that I saw get in permanent positions some of them were waiting waiting to have children waiting for all of these things until they got a permanent position at a much later age than other sort of careers for example here they says in contrast a doctor typically enters private practice at 29 lawyer at 25 and makes partner at 31 and a computer scientist with a PhD has a very good job at 27 now here's the thing is that unless you absolutely love your research you absolutely love Academia there's no reason why you can't use the skills you've gained in your PhD in the outside world the thing is is that you know we think that we want this because we want the prestige we want people to think that we're kind of you know this uh cool academic and that um you know we live our life like just thinking and coming up with new things but that's not the reality of an academic position and we'll talk about that a little bit later you know people don't go into science to get rich obviously so it says here you know you don't go in sence to get rich that's just what I said uh so you choose not to go to medical school blah blah blah the problem is is you think you'll be working on these awesome ideas that you have but in posto limbo that is not my experience because you need your own independent funding to actually explore your own ideas here it says as a postto you'll work on someone else's ideas and maybe treated as a tech techan rather than the independent collaborator absolutely I've seen that happen so many times even today where as a post it's just like about ticking off uh the the steps of a certain project rather than having your own sort of like ideas and following them through some academics allow you to do that more than others others just want you there as a technician and unfortunately that means you're just stuck even more in limbo because you're not seen as someone capable of going off to do their own thing their own independent research and the longer you spend insights the harder you'll find it to leave and the less attractive you'll be to prospective employeers in the field absolutely leaving Academia can be really really tough and the longer you're in there not only do you convince yourself that you can't do anything else but also people outside start to sort of like find it hard to find the connection between your skills and what they need someone to do and so by building those bridges early on in your PhD is going to be so important in making sure you get a successful career outside of Academia when you are in inevitably forced to leave either because there's no funding left in your postop or because um you just have enough and you're like you know I can't do this anymore which happens to so many scientists it's uh almost a little bit too uh stereotypical at the moment but we just don't talk about it enough let's say that you are one of the lucky ones that you managed to get through your PhD and find a permanent position it is not all roses on the other side in fact is far from it so it says here now the struggle for a job once you've got one is replaced for a struggle for Grant support and then again there's a glut of scientists you now spend your time writing proposals rather than doing research or worse because you're proposed are judged by your competitors you cannot follow your curiosity imagine that imagine the fact you have to sort of convince your competitors that you need to be given the money for this you know the same money that they're going after that's peer review that's the peerreview grant process for you but you must spend your effort and TS on anticipating and deflecting criticism rather than on solving the important scientific problems that's crazy they're not the same thing you cannot put your past successes in a proposal because they are all finished work and you have your new ideas however original and clever ideas are still unproven and the original ideas are the kiss of death of The Proposal because they've not yet been proved to work after all that's what you're proposing to do and uh will be rated poorly having achieved this Promised Land you find that it's not what you wanted after all so so many people find themselves in this situation where they've gotten exactly what they've wanted and then it's turned out to be this horrible situation I think we're more aware than ever since this uh article that this is the reality but unfortunately so many new graduates people going into a PhD don't understand this reality until it's far too late to um move on in a sort of like seamless and uh really sort of uh easy way into a new career for example now all of these still ring so true for today's academic Marketplace but I'm not here just to say it's all bad I feel like a PhD if you ask anyone that's done a PhD and I've asked loads of people would they do it again and they all say yes because the skills the connections the experience is fantastic the problem is is we end up in this situation far too often where we only sort of like look at Academia as a career option because we feel like we owe it to ourselves we now need to start convincing universities that they need to prepare people more for the outside world because arguably most people are not going to get a career in Academia and I know it's dependent on the different fields and um you know the topics and stuff and your supervisor and The Prestige of your uh University you know people from Oxford Cambridge MIT are more likely to get academic positions than others and I talk about this in my actual course so I've got a course um saying the ultimate academic PhD Kickstart go check it out here knowing these things going into your PhD will help you understand what is possible at the end end of your PhD this is becoming the reality for more people than ever before that they get stuck in postdoc limbo and uh we need to make sure that people understand that to leave um a PhD feeling empowered means building those connections and skills outside of your PhD so that you can jump into a new career super easily into a career that is just as fulfilling cats is a little bit more direct what can be done the first thing for any young person which means anyone who has not have a permanent job in science is to pursue another career this will save you the misery of disappointed expectations oh that is a heavy heavy sentence now I don't think we need to be as sort of like forceful about making people leave Academia but we need to make sure they go into this with their eyes wide open and that's what my mission on this channel is all about making sure that you know the bad bits so if you choose to go into it you can work your way around the bad bits to make sure that your PhD and Academia works for you so if that sounds great remember to subscribe hit that Bell notification all those sort of like normal things that YouTubers say because that is how I'm going to help you uh navigate a career in Academia and also give you all the tips and tricks and AI tools that you need if you want to know more about the realities of Academia go check out this video next where I talk about how academic Elites manipulate success and how your career may be at risk if you're not um aware of these things it's a great watch go check it out