Is a Postdoc Worth it? 233
Jim_Austin writes "In a very funny column, Adam Ruben reviews the disadvantages and, well, the disadvantages of doing a postdoc, noting that 'The term "postdoc" refers both to the position and to the person who occupies it. (In this sense, it's much like the term "bar mitzvah.") So you can be a postdoc, but you can also do a postdoc.'"
Postdoc Required Everywhere (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, for my field, a postdoc is required for just about everything outside of industry. Even teaching position at community colleges want postdoc. And since there is a flood of people with them already, they can be picky and get them.
To me, the increasing use of them is a sign of oversupply of interested people and not enough 'real' jobs for them. We are beginning to see very long postdoc times (during which the postdoc isn't actually rolling in money...)
Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:5, Informative)
No.
(Brought to you by a postdoc.)
Re:Postdoc Required Everywhere (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Horse already left the barn (Score:5, Informative)
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Have a concrete plan to feed yourself. Or save the schooling for retirement, after you've saved up enough to live on. Digging yourself a hundred thousand dollar hole isn't a great idea right out of the gate.
...
They're talking about science and engineering postdocs in the article, not humanities. Science and engineering postdocs are paid, just not very well, and science and engineering graduate students are also paid as well as having their tuition covered, so the point about debt is moot. Grad school and such in these disciplines is mostly about opportunity cost (years in your 20s potentially squandered) and potentially limiting your future career opportunities depending on your field and/or continued desire to remain in the academy.
Uncertainty is the killer (Score:5, Informative)
I'm doing a postdoc right now, and while I don't mind the 60 hour weeks, the uncertainty is what gets at me. After a long education one basically becomes a vagabond, drifting from university to university, never knowing where one will be working in 3 years' time. And the last year of each postdoc is spent writing applications for other places. In my home country, there are 1-2 available permanent positions every decade or so in my field, each of which typically has more than 100 applicants from all over the world. Getting one of those is pretty unlikely, to put it mildly. So I'll have to choose between permanently moving far away from friends and family, or leave my field of research. Unless I'm better than all the 100+ other applicants.
The postdoc situation is a symptom of there beeing too little resources invested in science compared to the number of people who want to do science. Instead, society is investing resources in things like moving imagniary money around really fast (yes, high frequency trading and other finance is a big employer of drop-outs from my field - they can emply more people, and pay much higher salaries, despite their detrimental effect on society). Yes, I am a bit bitter.
Re:Horse already left the barn (Score:5, Informative)
Science and engineering postdocs are paid, just not very well
Do a search on STEM postdoc job ads - $50k is considered very generous. No, you won't starve, some people get by on less (though usually in low cost-of-living places rather than the high CoL areas where the better universities typically are). $50k/yr is about $24/hr assuming 40 hr weeks, but that's a ridiculous assumption. A goof-off postdoc probably does at least 60 hrs/wk, so that's $16/hr if you were paid on straight time. Hourly workers are supposed to get time and a half for OT, so an hourly worker doing 60 hrs/wk would pull in $50k if they worked 60 hrs/wk and had a base rate of $13.74/hr. How long after high school to get a Ph.D.? It varies quite a bit, but say 8-9 years on average. No big deal. Personally I don't understand why, however lazy and unmotivated Americans are, there aren't more of them clamoring for postdocs, when for a little education they can rake in big bucks like that.
Re:Postdoc Required Everywhere (Score:3, Informative)
Looking around recent appointments at my own institution and at the career progression of a good number of friends who did PhDs at the same time as me, across most of the physical and biological sciences, you don't get academic positions without 4 to 7 years of postdoctoral research experience. (There are exceptions to this at both ends of the scale but they are either brilliant/lucky or unlucky/slow at taking the hint.) Since a post-doc appointment is usually 1 or 2 years, this is either a continual process of relocating you and your loved ones from one side of the world to the other, or a wonderful opportunity to live in new places and experience new cultures. Such short term appointments also mean that you practically start applying for your next job shortly after you've started the previous one -- that's not good for the productivity or for the stress levels.
[full disclosure: it was 5 years to my first (non-tenured) academic position after my PhD; 9 years to a tenured position]
No student loan debt from grad school (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Horse already left the barn (Score:5, Informative)
From the "You should only care about money dept."
Umm, no -- from the be realistic about your life dept.
If you're independently wealthy and just want a Ph.D. in English lit. or art history, by all means, go for it and pay the $150k or whatever! If you're retired or have money to burn or whatever, I applaud your effort to become more educated. Seriously, I really do. I wish more people who had the means did such things with their money.
But as someone who actually has degrees in fields that are NOT considered "lucrative," because I deliberately decided to do something I enjoy, rather than earn the most money I could... I think I have plenty of experience to give advice here.
And being realistic is not the same as "only caring about money." If there were a higher demand for Ph.D.'s in the field you love, there would be more opportunities for "full rides" for graduate school in your field. If you aren't talented enough to get one of those, the chances that you will subsequently land a nice tenure-track job somewhere are very low.
I know people with Ivy League Ph.D.'s in the humanities who graduated half a decade ago, have a number of publications in top journals, have teaching experience, and they STILL can't find a decent tenure-track job. If you're paying $100k to get your crappy graduate degree from Upper Bucksnort University, you really think you have a chance?!?
I'm not trying to quash anyone's dreams, but you need to ask yourself what you're getting for that $100k+ investment, other than a boatload of debt.
By all means, keep the dream: go out and get a job, save up some cash, and then if when you're 35 or 40 or whatever, go back and get that Ph.D. with the money you saved -- if you still really want to. I admire people like that a great deal.
But shelling out for graduate school when it won't help you be able to do what you want to do anyway, and it could actually HURT your future by having crippling debt and branding you as "overcredentialed" as you try to find a realistic job.
P.S. Yes, I have a job in what I wanted to do, and no, I do not have any debt from graduate school. But I know a few people who do have ridiculous debt from graduate school, have no job or some crappy job that isn't anything that they ever wanted to do, and are struggling to get out of debt... there's no chance that they will ever get a decent academic job.
Re:Horse already left the barn (Score:4, Informative)
Do that many people pay for their PhDs? I'm not paying for mine; I wouldn't do it if I had to (racked up enough debt from law school).
Well, not that many pay FULL-PRICE. According to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study [ed.gov] (NPSAS), about 86% of doctoral students received some form of financial aid, grant, assistantship, stipend, etc. in 2007-08. If we restrict this to Ph.D. students only (and exclude the field of education), that number rises to 91%.
I'm sure buried in all the statistics on that website, you might be able to find numbers that tell what percentage of tuition, etc. students actually ended up paying. But at least 9% of Ph.D. students in the U.S. apparently are paying for their degrees without ANY financial assistance whatsoever.
I don't know how many students have to pay at least some tuition, or don't get adequate stipends or pay from assistanceships to live on. I imagine it must be at least double that figure, and maybe a lot more.
So, it's not the majority of Ph.D. students, but there is a not insignificant number of such people out there. And among other graduate students (especially master's degrees), the numbers are much higher.
Re:Horse already left the barn (Score:5, Informative)
Ergo, at $50k, US postdocs are on par with the best paying countries in Europe.