| > Why are Phds so cheap to hire if their skills are so valuable? Is a hamster wheel. Your skills are valuable only while you are running. If you stop, your huge time and money investment loses their value gradually, and if you stop for too much time (getting pregnant, suffering an accident or having small kids) you are out of the game. Thus, for many researchers cheap work is better than none. And there are the stupid artificial constrains, a damocles sword in the shape of a clock. Scientist work is related with Universities schedule. They can expect to be hired mainly at the beginning of the year or in summer, hired for the next year. If you miss the train you will need to wait for another year. Scientists are expected also by society to produce X discoveries at the interval of age Y and have a limited time for that. This is really idiot. Would be like expecting Leonardo painting the Monna lisa in three years maximum (and exactly between 27 and 29 yo), or stop painting. And there is also a huge vanity factor. To be associated with an university or big brand even if you just make the coffee there, is good for the ego and help constructing your identity and selling you better later. None of those have any relationship with what science really is, a method to solve problems, of course |