Shortage of qualified workers vs. not paying enough to attract workers

[regentrude]

So is the huge oversupply is more in biology and chemistry then?

 

yes, I believe that is correct.

But if you look at the student numbers, there are vastly more people going into bio and chem than into physics.

[kiana]

 No, I wasn't familiar. Thanks for the explanation. I can understand wanting to avoid "inbreeding."

 

So is the huge oversupply is more in biology and chemistry then?

 

There are also a lot of people who want to be professors but are simply less qualified.

 

There are multiple reasons why this might be so -- here's a couple:

1) Because of the way our high schools run, students who are not lucky enough to go to a really excellent high school are entering university a year or two behind students from other countries.

2) Because of the emphasis on general education in our universities, a student may complete a major having taken roughly 50-60 credits in their major (the minimum is more like 40, but a student who completes only a minimum major is not a competitive candidate for graduate school). In contrast, in other countries with more focused undergraduate degrees, a student might have more like 90+ credits in their major. This puts them another year ahead. For a specific example, I had 80 credits of undergrad math and the Chinese students were STILL ahead of me.

3) This frequently results in a student taking longer to finish graduate school and publishing less while there. It is much more difficult to get publications in graduate school if you need to spend 2-3 years taking coursework before you can even start thinking about a research problem.

4) This then makes these students less competitive for postdocs, in which they can churn out ever-more papers to make themselves competitive for faculty positions.

 

Many of the foreign students come over at the graduate school or postdoc stage, having completed high school and undergrad in their own countries.

 

It is in the university's interest to hire the best person they can for the position regardless of origin. I don't think, though, that it's the university's social responsibility to hire less qualified Americans and hope they can perform, rather than foreigners with a proven track record.

[LostSurprise]

I read an article "Summer school? Teens trade classes for factory jobs" a few days before on WSJ. Wonder whether this kind of program is possible nationwide

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/summer-school-teens-trade-classes-for-factory-jobs-1407435440?mobile=y

 

Are there internship or co-op programs in the community college your hubby's friends work in? Interns do tend to land a job.

 

It's not about internships. Candidates can go straight from Community College to these "shortage of skilled labor" jobs. The problem is that once they get this job the pay is low and there is no job growth (there's no hope of better pay/higher job in the future). 

 

We have a close friend who's been chasing these skilled labor jobs over the last few years. He's a very intelligent man with a BA in philosophy...and a family. He's willing and able to re-train for a career, but he's disappointed with the ghost jobs most community colleges are peddling. 

 

 

I find Regentrude's posts interesting. I've known a few (2-3) American/Canadian grad students in Physics. Not all of them stayed. From what I've picked up from them (very little, I assure you, I bend to Regentrude's knowledge), Physics sounds like a long, hard road. With diminishing posts and university funds, I'm not surprised to hear that it's hard to find uber-specific research candidates. 

 

I'm curious, what countries do most of these candidates come from? Do they have state supported (or semi-state supported) education? 

[Arcadia]

The problem is that once they get this job the pay is low and there is no job growth (there's no hope of better pay/higher job in the future).

....

I'm curious, what countries do most of these candidates come from? Do they have state supported (or semi-state supported) education?

The pay for a lab tech with an AA in engineering is not low and hubby's company has sponsored many employees young and old with AA in engineering for a Bachelors in engineering. I do not know anything about an AA in philosophy so I can't comment on that.

 

The two most populous countries in Asia has plenty of post docs residing in my area.

[Mrs Mungo]

I don't think expense of education is a factor - students spend the money to major in all kinds of subjects (even ones with dismal employment prospects). Many consider physics too hard.

Continuing the education in grad school would be free; all physics grad students are supported by their departments, either through TA or RA that cover tuition and a stipend for living expenses.

But, only a small percentage of Americans manage to achieve a BA due to the expense, never mind achieving a BA in hard sciences. Many Americans in college work full time to try and pay for it. They take longer to finish school. They drop out more often than they finish. They don't have the time or money or mental energy to commit to it considering the types of salaries earned by college professors. There are easier ways to be successful in the US. That is the problem. If you can earn more by getting a business degree and working in middle management, why wouldn't you? It seems like a highly complex issue.

 

ETA: the anti-science atmosphere in this country certainly does not help matters.

I am sure that does contribute.

[Slartibartfast]

Of course. Faculty positions are advertised both online and in the journals read by  the community. This is required. Everybody looking for a job knows where to look. The 60-100 people who apply for each position obviously found out. Only a small minority of the applicants are Americans. Btw, a grad student would not be looking for a faculty position at a research university; to be qualified would require at least 2-4 years of postdoctoral research experience.

The first criterion is the number of publications in well respected journals. Your research interests and expertise must fit the field for which the position is intended (in other words, if it's a job as a condensed matter experimentalist, an atomic theorist will not be considered - no matter how well published). Where you received your graduate degree matters a little, and at what institution you are currently working matters as well.

Each of the top 5-6 candidates is invited for a two day interview during which they give two presentations and talk to a dozen people.

After that, the offer goes to the one the search committee considered best. There is absolutely no incentive to specifically pick foreigners - they pick the best, because nothing else would be in the department's interest. The people who make the decision are the people who will be working with the new person for the next few decades.

(Btw, the search committee is actually required by HR to list for each applicant the reason he/she was not chosen.)

 

Or are you referring to graduate school admission? There, the most important feature is a good GRE score in the subject GRE, plus undergraduate research experience if possible, and then of course, grades.

 

I was referring to the adjunct professor issue.

 

http://college.usatoday.com/2014/07/17/underpaid-and-overworked-adjunct-professors-share-their-stories/

 

Where's the disconnect? It is unfortunate.

[Mrs Mungo]

Is the glut of bio/chem majors due to the belief that is is easier to get jobs in those fields? Commercial jobs?

 

Example:

We have a chemical engineer friend who went to school on an ROTC scholarship. He left the military after 6 years, then went to work for a plastics company. When looking at grad degrees, he decided on getting an MBA because it is hard to get into a senior engineer position. It is easier to get ahead (financially) on the management side of the house.

[Slartibartfast]

I can see how people might think they are more employable as bio/chem. 

[Arcadia]

I was referring to the adjunct professor issue.

 

http://college.usatoday.com/2014/07/17/underpaid-and-overworked-adjunct-professors-share-their-stories/

 

Where's the disconnect? It is unfortunate.

Looks like a serious oversupply problem for humanities.

From LATimes, Dec 2013

"Because they can. U.S. universities currently churn out more than twice as many PhDs, especially in the humanities, as there are tenure-track job openings."

 

From Chron

"Adjuncts who teach English, for example, reported earning an average of $2,727 per course. That compares with an average of $4,789 per course reported by adjuncts who teach engineering. "

 

ETA

This site is self reporting for adjunct pay. You can see a big range

http://adjunct.chronicle.com/

[Arcadia]

Is the glut of bio/chem majors due to the belief that is is easier to get jobs in those fields?

It was commonly thought that a bio/chem major is able to get a well paying job in big pharmaceutical MNCs. I have friends with PhD in Roche earning a good income.

I do agree that after a while, the management track pays better for an engineer than the technical track.

[regentrude]

 

I find Regentrude's posts interesting. I've known a few (2-3) American/Canadian grad students in Physics. Not all of them stayed. From what I've picked up from them (very little, I assure you, I bend to Regentrude's knowledge), Physics sounds like a long, hard road. With diminishing posts and university funds, I'm not surprised to hear that it's hard to find uber-specific research candidates. 

 

I'm curious, what countries do most of these candidates come from? Do they have state supported (or semi-state supported) education? 

 

Among the applicants are lots of Germans, Russians, Indians, Chinese.

Our last few hires were a Russian, a Ukrainian, a Chinese from Malaysia, a German. We just hired a person from Turkey and another German.

 

I do not think that state funded undergraduate education is the decisive factor. Students go into all kinds of undergrad majors. Students even go to grad school in disciplines where they have to pay for it - physics grad school is free.

 

Physics is hard, no doubt. Physics requires a lot of math, and with the pathetic math instruction in schools, many kids are turned completely off math before they even get to algebra (which is when math just begins to get interesting). I marvel any math inclined kid manages to survive 3 years spinning his wheels in grades 5-7 doing the same stuff over and over and over again because educational philosophy in this country deems them too immature for algebra...  the kids elsewhere in the world graduate high school several years ahead in math.

I also think a contributor is a society that values academic achievement less than other accomplishments... it is not cool to be the math competition winner, you gotta play ball.

[regentrude]

I was referring to the adjunct professor issue.

 

http://college.usatoday.com/2014/07/17/underpaid-and-overworked-adjunct-professors-share-their-stories/

 

Where's the disconnect? It is unfortunate.

 

I am aware of the issue, but am under the impression that this is mainly a problem in humanities where there is a large oversupply of people.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe outsourcing to adjuncts is a big factor in the hard sciences or in engineering, and it is also probably less of an issue at research universities than at teaching colleges.

 

[JumpyTheFrog]

I read recently that the oversupply of undergrad chem and bio majors is at least 40 years old. Maybe the graduate degree oversupply is a result of people hoping an extra degree will get them a science job? 

[Mrs Mungo]

I do not think that state funded undergraduate education is the decisive factor. Students go into all kinds of undergrad majors. Students even go to grad school in disciplines where they have to pay for it - physics grad school is free.

 

Physics is hard, no doubt.

I think the question was more along the lines of: do more people manage to graduate with difficult degrees from state funded schools? Is the US model hampering those who might consider that path?

 

I also think a contributor is a society that values academic achievement less than other accomplishments... it is not cool to be the math competition winner, you gotta play ball.

I agree, this is surely a factor.

[Slartibartfast]

I read recently that the oversupply of undergrad chem and bio majors is at least 40 years old. Maybe the graduate degree oversupply is a result of people hoping an extra degree will get them a science job? 

 

My uncle had a masters in mechanical engineering and math right about the time the oil bust occurred. He couldn't get a job even with his qualifications, he went back to school and got a law degree. Now he is a patent lawyer.

 

Sometimes it is just a matter of bad timing. 

[kiana]

I was referring to the adjunct professor issue.

 

http://college.usatoday.com/2014/07/17/underpaid-and-overworked-adjunct-professors-share-their-stories/

 

Where's the disconnect? It is unfortunate.

 

As Arcadia said, most of the worst stories are in the humanities. A few of them are in STEM but they are generally people who are geographically limited (if you cannot move more than an hour away from your husband/wife/ailing parents/whatever, your chances of landing a permanent position are minute), delusional (i.e. expecting to get a research position based on a dissertation without publications), or simply unwilling to change.

 

The employability for a PhD in STEM outside of academia is sufficiently high that there's no need for permanent adjuncting unless you really can't move.

 

By constrast, there are far fewer non-academic job openings for a PhD in English, History, or something similar, and the ones that there are are far less obvious.

 

There is a fair amount of outsourcing to adjuncts in STEM (everywhere I've been) but many of the ones I have seen are people like retired high school teachers who teach an algebra class or two because it's enjoyable and for the extra money, not people trying to cobble together a living wage solely out of adjunct positions.

[regentrude]

But, only a small percentage of Americans manage to achieve a BA due to the expense, never mind achieving a BA in hard sciences. Many Americans in college work full time to try and pay for it. They take longer to finish school. They drop out more often than they finish.

 

I do not think the absolute percentage is the issue.

It is very difficult to compare educational systems (college in the US and university in Germany for example are not comparable).

I found the following numbers: 30% of US adults have bachelor degrees. 26% of a birth year cohort in Germany finishes a university degree. So we are not seeing vastly different orders of magnitude.

 

Drop out rates in hard sciences are big elsewhere, too.

 

They don't have the time or money or mental energy to commit to it considering the types of salaries earned by college professors. There are easier ways to be successful in the US. That is the problem. If you can earn more by getting a business degree and working in middle management, why wouldn't you?

 

Well, I would not :-). I would argue that a person who asks this question is not a candidate for a career in academia.

The scientists I know are doing their research because they live for it, because that is what they are passionate about.

Nobody chooses to go for an academic career as a physicist for the money. That's not different in other countries. It takes a long time: undergrad, grad school, at least two postdocs; if you are in Europe, it is pretty much expected that you spend at least part of your education in the US or at least in another European country. You move around a lot; people are in their mid-thirties when they get a position. That's the same everywhere.

 

I see plenty of students, and the majority are young single people fresh out of high school. They manage to finish other degrees.

 

 

 

It seems like a highly complex issue.

 

I agree. And I don't pretend to have the answer. I can only speculate.

[Mrs Mungo]

I do not think the absolute percentage is the issue.

It is very difficult to compare educational systems (college in the US and university in Germany for example are not comparable).

I found the following numbers: 30% of US adults have bachelor degrees. 26% of a birth year cohort in Germany finishes a university degree. So we are not seeing vastly different orders of magnitude.

I agree that the systems are different. But what are the percentages in hard sciences? I guess what I am wondering is-what percentage of American have BAs from for-profit colleges? Or have degrees in things like philosophy, but can't go on to a grad degree or law school because they can't afford it or they worked two jobs to get the first degree, so their grades may not be as good as if they had more time to study, write papers, go to the language lab, etc? I am wondering how these things impact the bigger picture.

 

 

Well, I would not :-). I would argue that a person who asks this question is not a candidate for a career in academia.

I can see your point. But, it is something that someone taking on tens of thousands of dollars in student loans would have to ask themselves, don't you think?

 

The scientists I know are doing their research because they live for it, because that is what they are passionate about.

But, would more have the ability to make that choice in a different environment? That is the question I am asking. Do you think our model is hurting our citizenry in this regard?

[JumpyTheFrog]

they worked two jobs to get the first degree, so their grades may not be as good as if they had more time to study, write papers, go to the language lab, etc?

I've seen and forgotten numbers about the percent of working students who graduate vs those who work ten hours or less per week. While I don't remember the stats, I remember thinking that the advice so many people give their kids to work their way through college is a fairly reliable path to dropping out before finishing. PT college doesn't give good financial aid and FT college that requires working many hours means lower grades and often quitting.

[Arcadia]

If more high school graduates stay home and commute to college on a monthly bus/transport stamp, would that lower the cost of getting that first degree and so lower the student loan debt?

[Χά�ων]

If more high school graduates stay home and commute to college on a monthly bus/transport stamp, would that lower the cost of getting that first degree and so lower the student loan debt?

It did not help me at all. I still had to work full time. 

[kiana]

If more high school graduates stay home and commute to college on a monthly bus/transport stamp, would that lower the cost of getting that first degree and so lower the student loan debt?

 

Not possible in many areas.

[Plateau Mama]

This is not our experience, although I do not know what your definitions of "IT professional," "work as hard as needed," or "entitlement" are.

 

IT Professional for my scenario = programmer, software tester, program manager etc. for a Fortune 500 software developer.

 

Work as hard as needed = work at least 9-5, 5 days a week and not spend a majority of that time on Facebook or other social media outlets. DH has had to tell more than one employee that they cannot be on FB during the workday. He is pretty easy going and only talks to them if he consistently sees them on the internet throughout the day on nonwork items.

 

Entitled = expecting, as an intern or new hire, to be able to take every Friday off so you can fly home to see your boyfriend. Coming in at 10/11 and expecting to be able to leave at 5 for happy hour.

 

This is DH's favorite way to explain Millennials.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz0o9clVQu8

[LostSurprise]

The pay for a lab tech with an AA in engineering is not low and hubby's company has sponsored many employees young and old with AA in engineering for a Bachelors in engineering. I do not know anything about an AA in philosophy so I can't comment on that.

 

The two most populous countries in Asia has plenty of post docs residing in my area.

 

I think we're misunderstanding each other. I'm speaking to a specific situation at the community college in my area. It does not have an AA in engineering. In fact, unless it has a certain number of students for any course it can not give that course. Therefore, a lot of the tech program becomes kind of a 'teaching to a certain job/company' because students will take...and pay for...a course which will train them for a waiting job. Unfortunately, those jobs are low wage and do not have job growth. They are dead ends. 

 

Granted, I come from a rural area. 

 

Among the applicants are lots of Germans, Russians, Indians, Chinese.

Our last few hires were a Russian, a Ukrainian, a Chinese from Malaysia, a German. We just hired a person from Turkey and another German.

 

I do not think that state funded undergraduate education is the decisive factor. Students go into all kinds of undergrad majors. Students even go to grad school in disciplines where they have to pay for it - physics grad school is free.

 

Physics is hard, no doubt. Physics requires a lot of math, and with the pathetic math instruction in schools, many kids are turned completely off math before they even get to algebra (which is when math just begins to get interesting).

 

I agree that the systems are different. But what are the percentages in hard sciences? I guess what I am wondering is-what percentage of American have BAs from for-profit colleges? Or have degrees in things like philosophy, but can't go on to a grad degree or law school because they can't afford it or they worked two jobs to get the first degree, so their grades may not be as good as if they had more time to study, write papers, go to the language lab, etc? I am wondering how these things impact the bigger picture.

 

 

I can see your point. But, it is something that someone taking on tens of thousands of dollars in student loans would have to ask themselves, don't you think?

 

But, would more have the ability to make that choice in a different environment? That is the question I am asking. Do you think our model is hurting our citizenry in this regard?

 

I agree with Mrs. Mungo. 

 

Not everyone who pays for their own undergrad degree can afford to take a rigorous course. I was a scholarship kid and started as a Biology major. I also had to work full time. When I got into the higher mathematics I had to shift into an easier course (education). I couldn't keep my scholarship, work full time, and do work that rigorous. I still regret it. 

 

I had a German roommate at school. While in school most of her financial needs were covered. The Russian chemist dh's friend married? At home once she tested into the program she could concentrate on her work. That's not always so here. If you can't work your way through a rigorous course or afford to pay for it afterward, how can you do it? 

[LostSurprise]

IT Professional for my scenario = programmer, software tester, program manager etc. for a Fortune 500 software developer.

 

Work as hard as needed = work at least 9-5, 5 days a week and not spend a majority of that time on Facebook or other social media outlets. DH has had to tell more than one employee that they cannot be on FB during the workday. He is pretty easy going and only talks to them if he consistently sees them on the internet throughout the day on nonwork items.

 

Entitled = expecting, as an intern or new hire, to be able to take every Friday off so you can fly home to see your boyfriend. Coming in at 10/11 and expecting to be able to leave at 5 for happy hour.

 

This is DH's favorite way to explain Millennials.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz0o9clVQu8

 

That is hilarious. I guess the interns have never had a job before. 

[Mommyof4ks]

We live in a small town with the headquarters of a large company in our backyard. It pays very well for both truck drivers and computer programmers, but it is hard to get people who want to move to our town and then actually work. They expect the flexibility of a min wage job with the benefits of the CEO. Then of course there is the lack of drive and motivation to learn the on the job skills needed to complete the work without the need of someone holding their hand. :) We are not worried about the influx of skilled programmers, many people dh works with are from India, and they are still looking for programmers right now. Microsoft people want to stay in big cities, so they are not coming here even with the LCOL and close proximity to big cities for entertainment.

The employability for a PhD in STEM outside of academia is sufficiently high that there's no need for permanent adjuncting unless you really can't move.

 

 

I suspect the big difference is that hard-science people can pretty easily find well paying, gainful employment in industry, even after a BS or MS.  So, there's a constant siphoning off of talent in the sciences before they even get to the PhD program.  Perhaps their jobs aren't in the field they studied, but if you can understand math well enough to either work on Wall Street, or to study for a PhD in math, and the wall street job today pays better than what you'd make after you finish the PhD, well, who is to begrudge those decisions?

[Plateau Mama]

That is hilarious. I guess the interns have never had a job before.

 

What makes it even funnier is when DH can put names to the video.

[Arcadia]

. Therefore, a lot of the tech program becomes kind of a 'teaching to a certain job/company' because students will take...and pay for...a course which will train them for a waiting job. Unfortunately, those jobs are low wage and do not have job growth. They are dead ends.

.....

If you can't work your way through a rigorous course or afford to pay for it afterward, how can you do it?

I understand what you mean now. It would have been classified as vocational training where I come from.

 

I think the other difference from back home is that we have full academic scholarship based on grades. Everything is paid for and you get a scholarship allowance for undergrad. Only hostel/dorm is not paid for by the scholarship because the universities are within commuter distance so people could stay home. Hubby end up graduating with zero debt and a nice amount in savings. His phd was on scholarship too so we could live on his scholarship allowance without me working.

 

Different worlds altogether :(

[Serenade]

I'm hoping that at some point more of the companies that have outsourced work to India will be fed up with low quality work and/or communication barriers. DH is a programmer and the people providing his current project used to use one guy from China and one from Russia or Ukraine. Their work was garbage. Sure, they only charged about $10 per hour, but DH had to redo most of their work, so they just wasted their money.

This was my husband's experience, too, with one of his best consulting jobs (engineering) -- he got it because the company originally outsourced to India with unsatisfactory results. So they had to bring the job back to the US and hire consultants to fix it.

[Mrs Mungo]

If more high school graduates stay home and commute to college on a monthly bus/transport stamp, would that lower the cost of getting that first degree and so lower the student loan debt?

I commuted to and from college every day. I still had to work more than 40 hours per week (I often held more than one job) to pay for school, fees, books, etc. I was debt free at the end. But, I don't even think it would be possible today. The minimum wage was $4.25/hour most of the time I was in college. A semester of in state tuition was under $1,000 at the time. The minimum wage is now $7.25/hour (not even double) and a semester of in state tuition for 15 credit hours at the same university (no dorm or anything) is nearly $4,000 (4 times as much) and that's only tuition plus mandatory fees, no books or language lab fees or any of that.

 

In fact, looking at my school's tuition page, there are tons of other fees that would be tacked on to that now. The engineering college (for example) has an extra $50/credit hour fee, the journalism school is more, business school is less. If you take an online course, that is an extra $40/credit hour. So, in reality with all of the extra fees (that are in addition to the university's mandatory fees), then I think it would be closer to $6,000/semester. Someone making minimum wage would make around $1100/month *before* taxes. Working from August to December, you would only earn around $5,800, and (again) that is before taxes and such.

 

It was *extremely* hard for me to juggle work and school back then. I *barely* managed to pay for everything plus gas and other expenses over the course of each semester. That's why I don't think it would even be possible now.

[Ann.without.an.e]

My BIL and FIL are truckers.  They pay is not good when you look at hour for hour.  My BIL lives on the road.  He is home 1 weekend a month and his job is his life.  He is a top rated driver with awards, etc.  He makes about $45,000 a year.  I guess a few years ago they reduced regulations to allow Mexican truckers to haul here.  It has cut the pay even more.

 

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/obama-signs-deal-allow-mexican-truckers-us-highways

 

 

[kiwik]

The degree I did required most students to be on campus or available to be between 8 and 6 and was about 80 hours plus a week. No one managed to work part time and finish let alone full time.

 

I am not in the US but the science company I work for consistently employs non native people and generally women. As far as I can tell this is because they get a better qualified employee for a lower rate who is happy to have a job so they can apply for residency. These are base level science jobs that could be done by unqualified people but with the overseas people they get qualifications for an unqualified rate. Women can afford to work there better than men because they are a second income.

 

This is not a bad employer and the staff they employ are nice, honest, good workers but the it still seems a bit unfair especially when it is used as evidence we don't have enough science graduates. Really we don't have enough jobs with career prospects and people are required to be overqualified for their jobs and therefore require income to pay off student loans.

[FaithManor]

As to working part time, I was a music major. We had a minimum 17 credits per semester, plus four hours per day in the practice room (7 days per week and it was monitored to make sure we got in our 28), and performances to attend. There is not an employer in the world who would have hired me. Last minute demands were common. Don't comply, lose you scholarship and be booted out of the major. The good music schools are still like that.

 

About IT. Plateaumamma, I don't know where your husband works that IT is 9-5, 5 days a week. My dh has worked in IT since he graduated college in 1987 and his current firm is the only one that has allowed him to wok less than 75 and not required him to work three weekends a month and while on family vacations! The year he was consistently working 90's, the CEO took a 48 million dollar jbonus while cutting everyone else's wages. That was the big thank you. "You work yourself into health and marital problems while we promise comp time you will NEVER get because we will never hire enough humans to handle the workload, and let's cut your wages while we are at it too." The place was like Lord of the Flies! He's worked for three major software firms and is now on his 4th big company. This one is bliss. But it is because it is not an IT house, but a huge corporation that decided it was cheaper and more efficient to hire it's own IT workforce in house due to the sheer amount of work it needed to be done, than to pay someone else's profit margins to do it for them.

 

My son in law worked 70 a week for his college internship in IT! But, then he was hired into Lockheed Martin when they decided to bring their IT internal. LM has been very good to him. He usually works 45 at most 50, and if a project gets heady and requires more, they really do allow him comp time off when the project ends. Until this year, year 27 of his career which has spanned three HUGE and well known It firms and one little unknown, dh worked massive, mandatory overtime and management did.not.care., did.not.hire, and used the constant threat of "Work it or have your job eliminated to offshoring" to make sure the serfs complied with the ridiculous demands of the lords!

 

It is an extraordinary blessing that he found his current position. Every single one of his coworkers in IT has worked these hours. Everyone. Most of them have health problems to show for it and the number of marriages that survived it is low. HP is literally killing my brother...heart arrithymias directly attibutable to stress, high blood pressure, adrenal failure, insomnia ( hard to sleep when the offshore team is allowed to call all night long for months at a time and you are still required to work 7 am to 7 pm despite the lack of sleep).

 

This is a primary reason when our oldest boy, 17 and Java certified, was seriously considering a comp sci/software engineering major, dh discouraged it. He was afraid ds would be hired into one of the many IT indentured servant mills instead of his current employer.

[MBM]

Here is a 2010 article from Scientific American that discusses science faculty jobs.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-us-produce-too-m/

 

Also, are American physicists applying for federal high-security jobs that foreigners can't get?

Do they prefer to work at places like Fermilab?

 

I just searched for a high school classmate from Montana who now has a PhD in physics (quantum optics) and he is a research fellow working for the Inst. of Photonic Svcs. in Spain. So there is one American who appears to be working in research.

 

I don't know much about physics PhDs and employment, but we have been researching math fields with our youngest. Ds just had an interview with the director of undergrad studies in math at a certain university and discussed among other things, how students from that university went on to become professors, what their jobs typically entail and even what sort of salaries they were making. They also discussed students with PhDs who went into quant jobs and what those entail and pay. Many math PhDs choose to work in those fields because the pay is better and they enjoy the work.

 

 

[regentrude]

Here is a 2010 article from Scientific American that discusses science faculty jobs.

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-the-us-produce-too-m/

 

I found this quote from the article very interesting:

 

In fact, however, only about 25 percent of those earning American science PhDs will ever land a faculty job that enables them to apply for the competitive grants that support academic research. And even fewer—15 percent by some estimates—will get a post at the kind of research university where the nation’s significant scientific work takes place.

 

15% seems high to me. Earning a PhD in physics is by no means a guarantee that the person is capable of the kind of work needed to be a professor at a research university.  Quality of grad students varies widely, and the majority are not of the necessary caliber.  The PhD alone is no qualification.

 

Also, are American physicists applying for federal high-security jobs that foreigners can't get?

Do they prefer to work at places like Fermilab?

 

The permanent jobs at national labs are as sought after and as hard to get as faculty positions (temporary positions are easier).

 

 

Gerbi, Stephan and others believe that the U.S. needs to establish “non-replicating†research organizations with many fewer temporary student and trainee lab workers and many more permanent career staff scientists. Such prominent institutions as the Max Planck Institute in Germany, where Gerbi worked, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institution’s new Janelia Farms Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, follow versions of this model.

 

This is nonsense. The (very prestigious) Max-Planck institutes in Germany employ very few permanent researchers and are primarily staffed by graduate students, postdocs, and temporary foreign visitors. You don't get a permanent job at a MPI any easier than an appointment as professor. There are no permanent jobs for less senior researchers.

In fact, comparing the US labor market in academia with Germany makes the US come out way ahead - due to the diversity of the college system in this country, it is much easier to get a faculty position, since there are many more institution that employ professors. The situation for young scientists in Germany is abysmal.

 

 

Doctoral-level researchers must receive the “trainee†wages paid to postdocs—generally about $40,000 a year for 60 to 80 hours a week with no job security or promotion opportunities. But paying postdocs a true professional wage would mean many fewer highly skilled hands, fewer publications and less chance of winning a grant renewal.

 

Fist of all, postdoc salaries have to be seen in relation to faculty salaries. Why should a Postdoc get more than 40k when a newly appointed professor gets 60k? (Btw, this is the same as the average starting salary of the students we graduate.)

Postdoc is seen as part of the education. Just like doctors have to be interns after finishing med school.

 

More grants would be nice, but the money has to come from somewhere. As long as Americans are not willing to fund higher education and scientific research through taxes, the money is not there. Public universities have declining public funding and can barely educate the undergrads; National Science foundation funding has not kept up with inflation.

 

I am sure I'd have more thoughts upon rereading the article, but I have to run now.

[FaithManor]

MBM, that is something to consider. I know two PH.D physicists who work in DoD related industries. They love the work and would never consider university research/academia positions though they exceed the requirements laid out by Regentrude. I have to wonder if industry woos away the American applicants.

 

It isn't easy being a grad school faculty, university researcher. My cousin is at U of Minn and is entirely funded by Minnesota Sea Grant. She works 60-75 hrs per week, makes 47,000 a year, and can only afford to pay her grad students 20 hrs. per week at $11.00 an hr. It is a miracle they accomplish what they do with such piddly funds, but honestly the backbone of it is her husband. She could not afford the COL on her own. It is his full time lab job and part time masseuse work that allows her to continue in research.

 

She is profoundly talented, published galore, you name it. But, her husband is15 years older than she so if his health starts to wane and he needs to reitre, she will have to leave her much beloved position and head to the private sector because income will be an issue.

 

In terms of STEM jobs, my understanding from the DoD head of science research, is that Aerospace is going to be hurting in the next 6-10 years due to a huge wave of retirement and low graduation numbers. Many, if not most, of these jobs are related to NASA and DoD so applicants must be US citizens. One of the reasons Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, NASA, and AIA fund the Team America Rocketry Challenge, Rockets in Schools, Satellites for Schools, and Student Launch Initiative is to attract teens to the industry. However, because it is heavily math and science, it is still a very tiny percentage of students who will go into it and those will hail mostly from the top 200 high schools in the nation. With 22,000 plus high schools, that's the top 1% putting out the qualified graduates and of those students only a teeny number will choose aerospace engineering. Our youngest plans on majoring in robotics engineering and physics. (He is a glutton for academic punishment, LOL...if he thought he could manage it, he would have a third science major!) If what U of MI, MTU, U of Al, and Virginia Tech have told me is correct, it is rare to see a homeschooler come in mathematically and scientifically prepared ( he will be ready for calc 3 as a college freshman and have significant robotics engineering and programming experience as well as TARC and some stout rocketry engineering too), and equally as rare to see students from high schools other than those top 200.

 

It does happen though, my itty bitty sad rural county that has pathetic educational standards, has a teacher in one of our dstricts, an AP physics teacher, who works very hard with the math department to make a way for kids willing to try. He uses TARC in conjunction with Student Launch Initiative to create an "introduction to aerospace engineering" class for credit. His TARC team members, chosen in 9th grade, come through the department ready for AP physics and calculus by senior year, take the aerospace class as well, and accomplish some amazing things! Of the five students on his 2012/13 TARC team, one is at Kettering for automotive engineering, one is at U of MI for aerospace engineering on full ride, one is at MTU for robotics - full ride, and the other is at MSU almost full ride for pre-vet. We really admire the faculty at this school, a fairly bottom ranked institution as rural highschools go, for making such a huge effort. The poor physics teacher only makes about $55,000 a year and during TARC season works an extra 120 hrs or more. SLI challenge eats up another 200-300 hrs. His wife says the students practically live at their house! He is slowly burning out so it is hard to say what the future of the program holds.

 

The single biggest nightmare he faces? Years of spinning wheels mathematically in elementary and middle school coupled with abjectly poor math instruction while getting nowhere. I see that all the time, and it is a primary deterrent to American high school gradates choosing science.

[shawthorne44]

I agree with the person that said a lot of it is timing.  I was working on my Physics Masters Thesis when my lab hired a PostDoc.  I was dismayed at the many hundreds of extremely qualified applicants.  There was so many that the final decision was based on whose previous research most precisely matched ours.  And then after that, it was a bit of a coin-throw.  It wasn't a tippy-top school.  Although, my professor was and is tippy-top in that specialty.  Shortly after that the funding for my project was cancelled so I needed to get a job.  And the nearby huge goverment project hiring many Physics PhD's was cancelled.  So the market was funded with Physics people. 

 

[FaithManor]

And let me just say this! In all areas, we would be better served with a track system for 7-12 grade with flexibility that assists the student who wants to change tracks. Solid elementary education K-6, and then start letting kids flourish as their natural talents emerge. Kids are not properly reprepared for trades, or retail, or college, or.... the one size fitsall mentality is not working.

 

Truly, if our political powers and communities truly cared about kids, we would have this. My parents had a tracked highschool. Dad gradated in 1962 having come through the science track. He had lots of physics and chemistry, math through calc 1, technical writing instead of regular English comp, practical drafting 1 and 2, metal working, electronics, and geology then tookhis Air Force exam and aced it! He skipped college and went directly into their missile engineer program, and afte his medical discharge due to injuries, designed super stock racing engines before opening his HVAC business. My mom took the Home Ec track and was offered a position as pattern designer with Butterick company when she was only18. Many of their classmates did just as well and in a huge variety of careers. I sincerely believe it was because of the huge variety of options available predicated on that excellent K-6 foundation.

 

Now whether the US corporate mentality would want to pay for these highly qualified graduates is a completely different discussion since paying decent wages hurts run away profits and the gargantuan accumulation of wealth by major stock holders. It's faster to become a billionaire on the backs of serfs. But I know a lot of small business owners who would be thrilled to have them and would pay them the best they could. I know trades school instructors and college profs who would be tickled pink to teach classrooms full of qualified, enthusiastic 18 year olds!

[Arcadia]

More grants would be nice, but the money has to come from somewhere. As long as Americans are not willing to fund higher education and scientific research through taxes, the money is not there.

Why aren't research by postgrad students funded by private industry here for those that can be funded? Or rather why isn't there more collaboration so that funds are shared? For example my undergrad dissertation project receives funds from a govt. body because the findings are useful to them. If the bulk of research can be privately funded then the cash flow won't be so tight.

 

I guess I don't understand how research is funded here at state universities if it is only by money from taxes allocated to education.

[Matryoshka]

Yeah, unless all the doctoral candidates at Regentrude's university are foreign, I'd think they'd have a few Americans each year that would love to be groomed to be future professors there.

 

Don't know where Regentrude teaches, but have to say in my 20's I lived in Cambridge and ended up hanging out with a large circle of Harvard and MIT PhD candidates and post-docs, virtually all of them in science.  I think one was born and educated in the US prior to college, and she was first-generation Singaporean-American.  She now teaches at a university in Canada.

 

But maybe I fell into a somewhat self-selecting group?  She was actually the only one of Asian descent, and I know MIT especially has lots of Asians.  The rest in that group were European.

 

And I'll second what the others said - your post-doc is supposed to be somewhere other than where you got your PhD.

 

[MBM]

MBM, that is something to consider. I know two PH.D physicists who work in DoD related industries. They love the work and would never consider university research/academia positions though they exceed the requirements laid out by Regentrude. I have to wonder if industry woos away the American applicants.

 

Do you mean something for my son to consider? At this point he is leaning more towards combining economics, math and maybe comp sci. He loves pure math but doesn't like certain aspects of it.

 

My husband worked for Raytheon years ago, btw, and almost went to work for them in Germany but opted for grad school instead. It's a good place to work.

 

Anyway, here are some statistics from the Congressional Research Institute that might interest some of you:

 

Foreign Science and Engineering Presence in U.S. Institutions and the Labor Force

http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-746.pdf

[meena]

...

[regentrude]

Why aren't research by postgrad students funded by private industry here for those that can be funded? Or rather why isn't there more collaboration so that funds are shared? For example my undergrad dissertation project receives funds from a govt. body because the findings are useful to them. If the bulk of research can be privately funded then the cash flow won't be so tight.

 

I guess I don't understand how research is funded here at state universities if it is only by money from taxes allocated to education.

 

There are some grants from industry, but industry is interested in applications. So, if you do very applied research, there is industry funding. And of course, companies fund applied research by having their own R&D departments and hiring scientists directly to work for the company.

Basic research is usually not funded by industry (or to a very limited degree), because the results are not likely to contribute to short term economic advantages for the company. Basic research has always been funded by society as a whole, because it has been consensus that there is benefit in understanding nature, even if there are no immediately visible short term applications.

 

For basic research, the main sponsor would be the National Science Foundation. The Department of Energy and the Department of Defense also sponsor some research. All these entities are tax funded.

 

Why aren't research by postgrad students funded by private industry here for those that can be funded?

 

 

While there is some private funding of public research, Federal dollars fund the overwhelming majority of all public scholarship in this country.  Private industry has little interest in funding basic research which may not pay off for years, and even if it does pay off, might not pay off for them.  And if this research were potentially valuable in the short term, why should they fund the effort and make the results public?  They'd be better off hiring the scientists and keeping the work for themselves.  And this is just in the sciences.  I think you'd be hard pressed to find much industrial sponsorship of, say, Art History graduate students, excepting perhaps some small token corporate charity.

[KungFuPanda]

As long as people with aptitude in math can make 6 figures working for the government with mere masters degrees, academia will have trouble winning these people over. It will continue to be a problem as long as teaching is neither lucrative nor prestigious in this country. I'm not saying it should make you wealthy, but it would help if you could support a family on it.

[SKL]

As long as people with aptitude in math can make 6 figures working for the government with mere masters degrees, academia will have trouble winning these people over.

 

I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing.

 

[Arcadia]

And if this research were potentially valuable in the short term, why should they fund the effort and make the results public? They'd be better off hiring the scientists and keeping the work for themselves.

What I have seen are MOUs where there is collaborations between the universities and companies such as Siemens, Motorola to have some research done at the university and the "secretive" portion done in-house. What is make public is vetted by both parties and the patent work is in-house.

The companies get fresh pairs of eyes and sometimes end up hiring the postdoc. Using postgrads is also more convenient then hiring project based scientist from the HR point of view. For example hubby's phd work has commercial value but does not justify hiring a scientist just for that dedicated purpose.

[Arcadia]

For basic research, the main sponsor would be the National Science Foundation. The Department of Energy and the Department of Defense also sponsor some research. All these entities are tax funded.

 

I misunderstood. I was thinking of state funding for colleges and all the local bond measures for community colleges.

 

Who funds the non-science research if you happen to know?

[MBM]

As long as people with aptitude in math can make 6 figures working for the government with mere masters degrees, academia will have trouble winning these people over. It will continue to be a problem as long as teaching is neither lucrative nor prestigious in this country. I'm not saying it should make you wealthy, but it would help if you could support a family on it.

 

 

That reminds me of a joke: What is the difference between a pizza and a PhD in theoretical math? A pizza can feed a family of four.