[pmiller2]

Academia, as a career path, is a non-starter for the huge majority of people who even want to go down that path.

Universities are not growing at the same rates that they were in the 60's and 70's. If you're a graduate student, not only are your classmates your competition, but every professor who supervises more than 1 PhD thesis is actually contributing to the overpopulation of PhDs. These two things in combination are why we have so many adjuncts on campus doing most of the teaching of undergrads.

Even if the above weren't true, the path to a tenured position is not something I'd wish on a mortal enemy. Start off with several years in grad school making poverty-level wages. Add on 1-3 postdocs at a minimum, making probably 3/4 or less of what an assistant professor would. Then, there's the 6 year job interview (i.e. the tenure process). And, then, factor in that you don't get to choose where you live during all this. You have to go where the jobs are, and there might only be a handful of jobs in your subfield any given year.

That all amounts to about 6-10 years of post-baccalaureate slog before you can even start a career and begin living like an adult.

If you come out the other end without a job, then your next search becomes even harder. If you get the job, then, yes, congratulations, it's now very hard to fire you, but good luck finding another tenured position if you decide you want to move. Oh, and the people you work with, you're going to see most of them every day for the next 10, 20, or 30 years.

In spite of all that, I might have actually ridden the train to the end, had I not realized that I was preparing to enter a field where I'd literally have to wait for someone to die before I got a job. Nobody told me any of this until I was already in grad school for a couple of years, and even then I ended up figuring most of it out on my own.

[argonaut]

I will say that fortunately things are better in computer science academia. (Note I'm assuming you go to a top school for your PhD). The extreme competition is still there (even at a top 4 school), but:

1) it is common to skip a postdoc or only do 1 postdoc

2) the "backup" option is going to work for an industry research lab or a tech company for 200k+ per year. And if your field is one applicable to industry, like systems (databases, networking, distributed systems, OS) or AI/ML, you've also gained skills that actually do command a salary premium (although the premium does not come close to the opportunity cost of a PhD) and some job security.

[pmiller2]

Yeah, I didn't mention that. Things are much better in a handful of technical fields, CS foremost among them. Math, engineering, physics, and economics all have some possibilities outside academia. Most other fields, you might as well cross off those years on your CV if you're looking to industry.

Also, if you spend more than 1 year "out of the game," forget about ever getting back on the academic track.

[argonaut]

Yeah. My impression is that spending a few years in industry research (and publishing) still leaves the door open for the academic track, although this is all hearsay.

[skosuri]

I've spent a couple of years out of the game and was fine. It is on the rare side though.

[indubitably]

Are you in HR?

[forgotpwtomain]

> Universities are not growing at the same rates that they were in the 60's and 70's. If you're a graduate student, not only are your classmates your competition, but every professor who supervises more than 1 PhD thesis is actually contributing to the overpopulation of PhDs.

I must say, I quite disagree with what seems to be a generally negative tone on HN towards academia. Basic research is fundamentally important, more than that there are extremely talented people who should be doing it - rather than allow themselves to have their time wasted by some corporation that does absolutely nothing beneficial for civilization.

Obviously it's a problem if these people are disenfranchised, not sufficiently funded or otherwise aren't able to do what they wanted to do and for those reasons are turned away from Academia (btw tenure track is not the sole option for doing fundamental research).

But on here it seems the entire critical conversation is centered, on job options, salary, competition, and all the other things are really evidence of someone too deeply emersed in the corporate culture. If you are doing good research - competition doesn't matter, if you care significantly about the research salary doesn't matter all that much. There are surely negative aspects but statements like these:

> That all amounts to about 6-10 years of post-baccalaureate slog before you can even start a career and begin living like an adult.

Sound almost like corporate salesmanship for getting talented people out of Academia, into useless soul-destroying jobs.

[morgante]

This attitude is part of the problem.

People shouldn't have to make a decision between quality of life (good salary, recognition, benefits, etc.) and doing fulfilling/meaningful work.

Wanting to be compensated fairly for your work is not corporate thinking. It's basic fairness and rationality. The fact that academia treats it as a character flaw is part of the problem.

[yomly]

Wholeheartedly agree on this, the college I went to harboured and nurtured a disdain for profit seeking and expected you to adopt a self-sacrificing altruistic approach to pursuing research.

No thanks.

I'm sorry that research wasn't enough to convince me to turn my back on living moderately well. Seems like most the people in my cohort felt the same, which is a shame because in the top 20 from my college, only 3 stayed on to do research. Which means profit-seeking companies are siphoning most the talent from research.

[jebediah]

Being paid less for a more fulfilling/meaningful job IS fair.

[morgante]

Fair point. The market is working properly.

The problem is mostly academics selling lies about that market to impressionable young students. They're supposed to be mentors looking out for their students' best interests, but are actually just pushing up the labor supply and pushing down prices.

forgotpwtomain's comment is highly indicative of the way academics do that. "Ignore the reality of terrible job options in academia. Industry is dirty and being a penniless researcher is the only noble path through life."

[forgotpwtomain]

I don't know about you but I'm quite grateful that people like Donald Knuth stayed in the apparently terrible place that academia is rather then becoming senior managers at IBM for 500k+ a year.

I don't think that not having a huge salary == lower quality of life, I think having a non-rewarding job does though.

> Industry is dirty and being a penniless researcher is the only noble path through life."

I never advocated this, while for some people in fact being penniless doesn't significantly impact quality of life; for a lot of talented people that want to have families it does in fact matter and it's a large loss for science if Academia cannot retain these people.

[morgante]

So am I. In fact, I wish more people were able to work on research. Treating a desire for a comfortable living as the problem rather than an objective to be fulfilled is what keeps us from getting more and better researchers.

Also keep in mind that his generation's options were much better. The academic job market was a lot friendlier back then.

[TheOtherHobbes]

If that were true, the most meaningless and soul destroying jobs would be paid the most.

They aren't.

[jebediah]

it is a factor, but not the only factor. Besides, the world isn't completely fair, you know.

[lukasLansky]

The fact that the notion of salary leads you to "corporate culture" suggests true relationship between work conditions in corporate and academia. There is nothing inherently corporate about good reward for work.

Fundamental research is important and should attract top talent - but saying that individuals should correct errors of society leads to ugly, ugly effects like resentment and elitism.

There is no alternative to correcting incentives. As soon as people start to connect "good salary" with "academic culture", everything will be OK.

[scott_s]

I have a PhD in computer science, and an industry research job which involves a lot of development. I know a decent number of people with PhDs. I know one person with a tenure track professor position.

My friends left the academic treadmill not because of a lack of love for the work, but for the lack of opportunities. The qualities you dismiss as corporate culture - decent pay, hours, security, location - most people think of as quality of life issues. Academia is a tournament, and not everyone can end up on top. I also think you are discounting the enormous amount of luck involved.

[foldr]

Most basic research is not beneficial to civilizaton. We fund it knowing that a small fraction of it will prove to be immensely useful. (And of course, without being able to know which fraction that is in advance.)

[pm90]

I think what you're trying to say, in that most basic research has no inherent economic value to civilization. I agree with that premise; but there is more to it. The benefits of research is not just its output, but its effects: fostering communities of people dedicated to investigating curiosities which we non-academics cannot (or do not) want to dedicate significant time and/or effort to doing.

[foldr]

No, I meant what I said. Most basic research is useless in essentially all respects (not just in terms of the economic effects of its output). That does not necessarily mean that it's bad research, intellectually speaking, just that society is no better off for it.

[pmiller2]

I'm not 100% down on academia itself. I would have gladly endured years of poverty wages, multiple postdocs, and the stress of the tenure process if I thought the light at the end of the tunnel weren't a freight train. In fact, some of the happiest years of my life were when I was making around $12k a year as a graduate student. Like I said, I started down the path, and would have continued had there been a reasonable probability of getting a job I could live on at the end.

But, that's a large part of the problem. Most people with PhDs are either not using them, or are low-paid adjuncts making barely minimum wage cobbling together 5 courses a semester at 3 different schools. Guess how much research those people get to do? In many fields (those where you need a lab, basically), the answer is "none," and that further contributes to keeping them second-class citizens. They are disenfranchised for all practical purposes.

> btw tenure track is not the sole option for doing fundamental research

Yes, there are industry and government research labs where you can do research and publish. But, for many fields, the tenure track is it, full stop. And, even in fields like CS or physics, where these other options exist, relative to the number of degrees granted, the number of jobs is pretty pitiful.

Sure, I can sit in a cafe and do fundamental math research, but not many fields are like that. A ton of math and CS papers are online in one way or another, but not all fields have it that easy. Most of the time, you need a lab, or a university-equivalent library (which you must physically go to to access the resources).

> Sound almost like corporate salesmanship for getting talented people out of Academia, into useless soul-destroying jobs.

That's the point. My post is 100% reality. I've lived it. Why should the best and brightest go to grad school and get PhDs when their prospects are so bleak? I'm really glad some do, but unless that's all they can ever see themselves doing, it's just not economically rational.

[analog31]

In my experience as a gradual student, the academic job situation for PhDs was widely known, at least in my field -- physics. That was in the early 90s.

I know that a lot of people entered grad school with the stated goal of pursuing an academic career, but I wonder if that is more of a rationalization than a definite objective. My guess is that people are motivated simply by an interest in the subject matter, and in getting more education.

In my own case, my dad, and my grandfather, both had PhDs, and almost all of my close relatives have advanced degrees of some sort. There was a strong family "culture" that valued education for its own sake, along with a sense of education being the thing that "they can't take away from you," developed through the experiences of the Great Depression and the world wars. Those are the kinds of motivations that aren't really influenced by job market statistics.