This a topic near and dear to me, having persisted for twenty years in a career in the chemical industry. I would like to add my perspective to the mix, for what it is worth.

I am glad I got my PhD. It is one of my most cherished possessions. Like many of you, I went into graduate school with very idealistic motivations about higher learning. I was not disappointed. When I talk about a cherished possession, I am not speaking of my diploma, but of how the process changed me. I have also studied martial arts for many years, and that experience provides an apt analogy to graduate school. In the martial art tradition, the master guides the student to a higher level of understanding. With all the discussion of inept faculty, my statement is that many of the professors I met had dedicated their lives to their work and were true masters of their dicipline. And, while they were sometimes very hard on me (at times to the point of humiliation), in the end, they were all willing to teach me if I remained a sincere student. I did a post-doc with a person whom I admire and considered a caring mentor. I am proud of them and I am proud of my own accomplishments, even if they were not as brilliant as others that worked around me. In the end, I was able to accomplish something that would not have been possible without the guidance of these teachers (as eccentric as they may have been at times).

Praveen posts that a PhD should be an elite undertaking. I feel that my experience was just that. Furthermore, if 20 years of working in industry with people with a broad spectrum of backgrounds has taught me anything, it is that I am part of an elite group. It is not possible to make generalizations which hold for all cases. There are always exceptions to every rule or statement. But, I have rarely met someone without this higher level of training, who can perform as well as myself in such a broad range of endeavors. Those rare individuals have been present at every company I have worked at, but they are definitely the exception. Some things can only be gained by “climbing into the rabbit hole” as Sad Dr. says, above. A PhD program forces you to do this (at least mine did). Some people will do it on their own, but most won’t.

I have enjoyed the edge that my training gives me, and I believe I enjoy my work more because of it too. I firmly believe that I have a greater capacity to experience a “lust for learning” that Praveen mentions, and I refuse to accept that it is misguided, irregardless of the financial consequences of paths chosen.

That is my 2cents. Thanks for listening.

Take care, all.

I have a support position (technical expertise but no creative input) I acquired after 12 year of postdoc-ing that included 2 post-docs, a temporary lectureship and a research fellowship. And it’s got exactly nowhere despite raising grants (I’m a co-applicant don’t you know!!) and publishing over 40 papers. High impact as well – All the boxes ticked! I earn about the same as a deputy headteacher in a school, which in UK is well above your average salary but considerably less than law or medical peers.

I must admit I’m slightly baffled as to why I bothered perserving for 15 years and just wish I’d gone teaching in a school straight after my undergraduate degree. I’d have been earning 3 years earlier, been in a permanent job, earned about the same and had 13 weeks a year off for my trouble.

I sound bitter, but I’m not. I’m just embaressed that my naturally optimistic nature clouded my judgement to such a degree of stupidity. Experience. You can’t buy it.

I find, as a finishing PhD student (who is too disgruntled to look for a postdoc, and is having difficulties finding a job in this ‘economy’) that most research is NOT research in my field. Again, as has been pointed out, it is one big ponzi scheme to get more and more funding at minimal cost. There are no ethics in this world, only publications, and intellectual dishonesty. Of course, things could have been different, but I think this is a fairly typical scenario. Incompetent faculty, and run of the mill paper pushing.

Honestly, I think there is too much funding being doled out. We need to be more selective about funding programs. A PhD has to be an elitist undertaking, and should only be funded if the research is truly top notch. As a result of the contrary, the quality of the faculty is quite dilute now (as compared with, say, twenty years ago). This could also be the reason why so many ‘researchers’ can’t find jobs. Also, there is an abusive use of computing. It has been the motto of great computing scientists that one ought not to compute unless one has to. If research in engineering does not achieve anything tangible, it should be scrapped.

In summary, this is the most natural state of affairs; a question of demand and supply, it is in the nature of things to see the PhD career path being decadent and moribund, and there will come upon us a day (like the great economic collapse of 2007) when the funding bubble bursts and we see more normal levels of production.

Salaries for US graduate students should be tripled.

Meanwhile, don’t start graduate school in the US unless you are funded by a grant that you wrote yourself.

The relative low pay of post-docs indicates that there are too many doctorates applying for post-doctoral positions, and by implication, that too many people are acquiring Ph.Ds. Fundamentally, it’s a productivity problem. The number of people, in any given field, capable of making fundamental advances in human knowledge is vanishingly small. Everyone else merely tinkers with their ideas, and very little demand exists for tinkerers. Paradoxically then, you would achieve higher average post-doc salaries by reducing the inflated demand for tinkerers, i.e. funding, and forcing them to relocate to sectors of the economy with greater overall demand for their unique skills.