Jump to content

PhD_RPs

Members
  • Posts

    14
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by PhD_RPs

  1. i mentioned wanting to try my best to become one, but knowing the reality of it, and knowing that it will really depend on everything falling into place properly and luck. they did not have a problem with it at all for me either, at least they are showing us other career tracks i guess. also I think even at the best institutions it is far less than 50% becoming PIs. All I'm focused on now is building up the best network I can for a good Post-doc, becoming a PI will be the next step out and is at least 10 years away for me realistically.
  2. Cool, thank you for answering. I regret coming off as such a big jerk, but do you tell your students to not say in interviews that they want to be researchers? Kind of like how its a no-no in a med school interview to say you want to be a surgeon? do you think it is arrogant and you should outright say I'll most likely (statistically) end up outside of research?
  3. No I agree with you, but if you want to work as a consultant for investing companies: a PhD is not an easy gateway to that, if you are 30 years old with a PhD in Immunology you will be competing against a 26 year old with an MBA for the same job... I certainly think the skills learned in graduate school would make you excellent at anything that you do and I agree that you have to have a certain level of aptitude for any of those things. But just because you have a PhD you aren't going to be a shoe-in for any of those jobs and if it is outside of science they will question your background. What I am frustrated with is how schools show you a presentation and one of the slides is always "career tracks", more often than not you don't see Academia on those slides that's how tough it is, and they rub in all the other side paths. Then people are afraid to say they want to be academics as their end goal out of fear of sounding Arrogant?? Really, seriously, I know I've been blunt, and I know how difficult it is, but I shouldn't be humiliated or ashamed to say that that's waht I want to do. I promise you it is purely because I love people and that is the only way I feel like I can have a beneficial impact on humanity. I don't want to be in industry profiteering off of people's sicknesses.
  4. Yeah I know, those careers are my backup plans as well. But why would they be advertising those, accepting large numbers of students, etc from the get-go? It baffles me. I did not mean to sound so arrogant, I know chances of becoming a researcher both in Academia and Industry are slim.... I was just annoyed about how it's sold.
  5. Go to the front page of Reddit, I did yesterday and there were a couple things that were top posts from sciencealert.com about DNA being used to store information blah blah, it sounded like it was written by a child. The comments were way off topic, I doubt a PhD writes stuff for that horrid website but that's what ends up on the front. A masters student who was trained in journalism could write better stuff than that, the public is only interested in science is if it's sensationalized or made interested, you need a journalism degree to do that.
  6. I meant to say "Hey Industry is great too" not academia. I certainly think R&D/ biochemist/chemist for a company etc are being a scientist. However, I do not think you need a PhD for science journalism. A Masters degree would certainly suffice for that in my opinion.
  7. Are you training graduate students? Just wondering
  8. Hey Academia is great too, as long as your doing research. But why would you spend 5 years learning techniques to give it all up and become a consultant? or to give it up for journalism? Those five years could be allocated in a much more efficient way. Going to grad school is a huge undertaking and a massive risk when you want to become a researcher, but then I think, well if half the kids around me are already not aiming for what I am aiming for then I have quite an advantage. IF they come into grad school from day one with the intent of not becoming a scientist, then my competition is much fewer than the entire class that is entering. I'm not putting all of my eggs into the basket of becoming an academic, I would also go into industry if academia fails. Okay so yeah, let's talk about salary. Going to graduate school is a massive opportunity cost salary wise, if you are getting your PhD for salary purposes you are in for a nasty surprise, the chances of you making good money are actually higher if you don't go into school for your PhD. Let's say you get an average job at 50k a year starting, by the time five year passes if you are a smart person (smart enough to get into grad school) your salary should be much bigger than 50k. I'm not in science for the money at all. I'm in it for the love of asking and answering questions. For results, I am crossing my fingers that I will get LUCKY...
  9. It's common for US students, if you are international and heard back from half, you are a lucky minority. Good luck in your apps! I hope you make it in.
  10. OP your username is annoying AF, your posts always make me cringe. Does GRE matter when you consider yourself a "FailedScientist" good luck in your future, I'd suggest choosing a different career path if you've fucked up on interviews so many times. Peace dawg
  11. Nashville is way better culture wise than Durham. Durham does have a revival going on, but so does every small town in the USA and it's just a phase IMO. Nashville is a world class city, I'd go there in a heartbeat over Durham. The schools are probably different though, Duke may have a better reputation research wise, they are both amazing schools... I would choose based off of the research not the schools if I were you.
  12. Does it bother anyone else that schools like to start out the career path options presentations without mentioning going for a career in academia? Why the heck would you go to grad school for your PhD if that is not your goal. I'm sick and tired of that shit, you don't need a PhD for consulting, you don't need a PhD to become a science writer, you don't need a PhD for an industry job.. Schools are letting in too many people, at every interview I've been to, I've met tons of smart people, alternatively, I've also met people that make me think "Why are you here?". I hear stuff like: "I'll be picking a mentor and doing rotations with people whose personalities mesh with mine" are you kidding me? -- I'll be doing rotations with people who are going to challenge me and push me to the edge - I'll be going with my gut feelings on who I choose to work with and it will purely be based off of their science. There are TOO many PhD's awarded, have you seen the statistics on PhDs on welfare (not just Biology PhDs to be fair but all in the USA) something like 30 percent on welfare. 50 years ago there were about 600,000 Bio researchers, now there are 6-7 million, it's not sustainable. Schools need to clean up their acts, Masters degrees need to be funded not paid for by students - that can solve two problems: replicability as MS degrees can be focused on reproducing data and not novel data generation; it can also give an avenue for all the people who want to do what I would call "soft" stuff with their degrees. PhDs should only be given and encouraged for those who have raw talent and can become peers with professors not every person who applies. If science does not keep you awake a night and doesn't wake you up in the morning... good luck. When I'm a PI one day, I will not even let a student who does not want to become a SCIENTIST anywhere near my lab, not even for a rotation. Some of the people on this website and IRL just make me cringe, somebody needs to scientifically slap them with the truth. What are your thoughts? Are you getting your PhD without the intent of at least trying to become a PI or Lecturer? Why?
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. See our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use