"Don't become a scientist"??

http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

KN (and others), what do you think? Is the guy blowing smoke or are there really too many scientific phDs out there?

Originally posted by sh76
http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

KN (and others), what do you think? Is the guy blowing smoke or are there really too many scientific phDs out there?

Here's an interesting article from The Economist

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HI2EP1AF

Originally posted by sh76
http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

KN (and others), what do you think? Is the guy blowing smoke or are there really too many scientific phDs out there?

We should all be scientists, and then we should have human labour go the way of the horse and plough. YEAH!

Originally posted by FMF
Here's an interesting article from The Economist

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HI2EP1AF

Interesting piece; thanks.

Seems like that correspondent agrees with Mr. Katz.

Originally posted by sh76
Interesting piece; thanks.

Seems like that correspondent agrees with Mr. Katz.

http://fmfredhotpawn.blogspot.com/2011/05/doctoral-degrees.html

Originally posted by sh76
http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

KN (and others), what do you think? Is the guy blowing smoke or are there really too many scientific phDs out there?

Maybe he's right about the US - I can only judge the situation around here. Of the people who graduate with a Master's degree at my alma mater 99% finds a job within a year, of which about a third or so chooses to do a PhD. There's no problem in going to the private sector after getting a PhD either (since there are many large technological corporations there are also plenty of places for PhD's at Philips, Shell, ASML etc.).

As for the "postdoc treadmill", I don't really know. I think most (associate) professors I have met did one or two postdocs and got a permanent position afterwards. But yeah, if you don't like traveling and moving around, science's not for you.

Originally posted by sh76
http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html

KN (and others), what do you think? Is the guy blowing smoke or are there really too many scientific phDs out there?

Funny, I ran across that article maybe about 5 years ago. And I largely agree with it.