问题：Don't Become a Scientist!老外的看法，有点意思，呵呵。
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时间：2005-05-26 11:07:38 编辑加入/取消收藏订制/取消短消息举报该贴

Don't Become a Scientist!

Jonathan I. Katz

Professor of Physics

Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.

[my last name]@wuphys.wustl.edu

Are you thinking of becoming a scientist? Do you want to uncover the mys
teries of nature, perform experiments or carry out calculations to learn
how the world works? Forget it!

Science is fun and exciting. The thrill of discovery is unique. If you a
re smart, ambitious and hard working you should major in science as an u
ndergraduate. But that is as far as you should take it. After graduation
, you will have to dealwith the real world. That means that you should n
ot even consider going to graduate school in science. Do something else
instead: medical school, law school, computers or engineering, or someth
ing else which appeals to you.

Why am I (a tenured professor of physics) trying to discourage you from
following a career path which was successful for me? Because times have
changed (I received my Ph.D. in 1973, and tenure in 1976). American scie
nce no longer offers a reasonable career path. If you go to graduate sch
ool in science it is in the expectation of spending your working life do
ing scientific research, using your ingenuity and curiosity to solve imp
ortant and interesting problems. You will almost certainly be disappoint
ed, probably when it is too late to choose another career.

American universities train roughly twice as many Ph.D.s as there are jo
bs for them. When something, or someone, is a glut on the market, the pr
ice drops. In the case of Ph.D. scientists, the reduction in price takes
the form of many yearsspent in ``holding pattern'' postdoctoral jobs. P
ermanent jobs don't pay much less than they used to, but instead of obta
ining a real job two years after the Ph.D. (as was typical 25 years ago)
most young scientists spend five, ten, or more years as postdocs. They
have no prospect of permanent employment and often must obtain a new pos
tdoctoral position and move every two years. For many more details consu
lt the Young Scientists' Network or read the account in the May, 2001 is
sue of the Washington Monthly.

As examples, consider two of the leading candidates for a recent Assista
nt Professorship in my department. One was 37, ten years out of graduate
school (he didn't get the job). The leading candidate, whom everyone th
inks is brilliant, was 35, seven years out of graduate school. Only then
was he offered his first permanent job (that's not tenure, just the pos
sibility of it six years later, and a step off the treadmill of looking
for a new job every two years). The latest example is a 39 year old cand
idate for another Assistant Professorship; he has published 35 papers. I
n contrast, a doctor typically enters private practice at 29, alawyer at
25 and makes partner at 31, and a computer scientist with a Ph.D. hasa
very good job at 27 (computer science and engineering are the few fields
in which industrial demand makes it sensible to get a Ph.D.). Anyone wi
th the intelligence, ambition and willingness to work hard to succeed in
science can also succeed in any of these other professions.

Typical postdoctoral salaries begin at ,000 annually in the biological s
ciencesand about ,000 in the physical sciences (graduate student stipend
s are less than half these figures). Can you support a family on that in
come? It suffices for a young couple in a small apartment, though I know
of one physicist whose wife left him because she was tired of repeatedl
y moving with little prospect of settling down. When you are in your thi
rties you will need more: a house in a good school district and all the
other necessities of ordinary middle class life. Science is a profession
, not a religious vocation, and does not justify an oath of poverty or c
elibacy.

Of course, you don't go into science to get rich. So you choose not to g
o to medical or law school, even though a doctor or lawyer typically ear
ns two to threetimes as much as a scientist (one lucky enough to have a
good senior-level job). I made that choice too. I became a scientist in
order to have the freedom to work on problems which interest me. But you
probably won't get that freedom. As apostdoc you will work on someone e
lse's ideas, and may be treated as a technician rather than as an indepe
ndent collaborator. Eventually, you will probably be squeezed out of sci
ence entirely. You can get a fine job as a computer programmer, but why
not do this at 22, rather than putting up with a decade of misery in the
scientific job market first? The longer you spend in science the harder
you will find it to leave, and the less attractive you will be to prosp
ective employers in other fields.

Perhaps you are so talented that you can beat the postdoc trap; some uni
versity(there are hardly any industrial jobs in the physical sciences) w
ill be so impressed with you that you will be hired into a tenure track
position two years outof graduate school. Maybe. But the general cheapen
ing of scientific labor meansthat even the most talented stay on the pos
tdoctoral treadmill for a very long time; consider the job candidates de
scribed above. And many who appear to be very talented, with grades and
recommendations to match, later find that the competition of research is
more difficult, or at least different, and that they must struggle with
the rest.

Suppose you do eventually obtain a permanent job, perhaps a tenured prof
essorship. The struggle for a job is now replaced by a struggle for gran
t support, and again there is a glut of scientists. Now you spend your t
ime writing proposals rather than doing research. Worse, because your pr
oposals are judged by your competitors you cannot follow your curiosity,
but must spend your effort and talentson anticipating and deflecting cr
iticism rather than on solving the important scientific problems. They'r
e not the same thing: you cannot put your past successes in a proposal,
because they are finished work, and your new ideas, however original and
clever, are still unproven. It is proverbial that original ideas are th
e kiss of death for a proposal; because they have not yet been proved to
work (after all, that is what you are proposing to do) they can be, and
will be, rated poorly. Having achieved the promised land, you find that
it is not what you wanted after all.

What cath you that you will be hired into a tenure track position two ye
ars outof graduate school. Maybe. But the general cheapening of scientif
ic labor meansthat even the most talented stay on the postdoctoral tread
mill for a very long time; consider the job candidates described above.
And many who appear to be very talented, with grades and recommendations
to match, later find that the competition of research is more difficult
, or at least different, and that they must struggle with the rest.

Suppose you do eventually obtain a permanent job, perhaps a tenured prof
essorship. The struggle for a job is now replaced by a struggle for gran
t support, and again there is a glut of scientists. Now you spend your t
ime writing proposals rather than doing research. Worse, because your pr
oposals are judged by your competitors you cannot follow your curiosity,
but must spend your effort and talentson anticipating and deflecting cr
iticism rather than on solving the important scientific problems. They'r
e not the same thing: you cannot put your past successes in a proposal,
because they are finished work, and your new ideas, however original and
clever, are still unproven. It is proverbial that original ideas are th
e kiss of death for a proposal; because they have not yet been proved to
work (after all, that is what you are proposing to do) they can be, and
will be, rated poorly. Having achieved the promised land, you find that
it is not what you wanted after all.

What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyo
ne who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue anot
her career. This will spare you the misery of disappointed expectations.
Young Americans have generally woken up to the bad prospects and absenc
e of a reasonable middle class career path in science and are deserting
it. If you haven't yet, then join them.Leave graduate school to people f
rom India and China, for whom the prospects athome are even worse. I hav
e known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in p
hysics than by drugs.

If you are in a position of leadership in science then you should try to
persuade the funding agencies to train fewer Ph.D.s. The glut of scient
ists is entirely the consequence of funding policies (almost all graduat
e education is paid forby federal grants). The funding agencies are bemo
aning the scarcity of young people interested in science when they thems
elves caused this scarcity by destroying science as a career. They could
reverse this situation by matching the numbertrained to the demand, but
they refuse to do so, or even to discuss the problemseriously (for many
years the NSF propagated a dishonest prediction of a comingshortage of
scientists, and most funding agencies still act as if this were true). T
he result is that the best young people, who should go into science, sen
sibly refuse to do so, and the graduate schools are filled with weak Ame
rican students and with foreigners lured by the American student visa.

回复人：xiupeiyang,▲▲▲▲ (一个化学爱好者，希望通过交流来提高自己!!!) 时间：2005-05-26 12:31:17 编辑	1楼
是有意思，^_^

回复人：就想歇会儿,▲ () 时间：2005-06-04 09:59:51 编辑	2楼
有意思]

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