The usual understanding of why people get fired is that they either don't do their work or that something like a government contract is lost or a company "downsizes" in the name of some ideology (real or imaginary). This posting is about the lessor known political firing. Maybe Josslyn Elders mouthed off a little too much ... ... so ... poof ... she goes into history. Get the idea?
You guys going for your PhD know you have a final exam, which in most cases is more formality than a serious danger. After that, your serious problems are usually funding and getting journal papers. But when you've been on a tenure-track slot for 5-6 years, and come up for tenure, it can be terrifying.
The important thing here is the real and finite risk of being denied tenure. This is devastating to science careers in the tight job market which exists today. This can happen if the review committee votes against you. Or, if the tenure committee votes for you, then it can happen if the chairman votes against you. Conversely, if the committee votes against you, the chairman can usually save you by overriding the committee vote. Lastly, the dean can accept or reject a chairperson's recommendation. I am now aware, first hand, of examples of all three possibilities.
A saving grace may be whether there is an procedure to appeal a decision to deny tenure. I know about one case where tenure was granted on appeal and one where it was not.
Unfair tenure review basically boils down to: i) you made enemies, or ii) people with power decide that they don't like you. If you have been at a place for your 5 years and didn't get at least one major grant (you have to get those journal papers too) by then, then they have a good reason to dump you. It may still be unfair considering that its getting very hard to get grants now. It is quite unfortunate that in an atmosphere where truth and wisdom and the quest for more of each, there is often a resort to barbaric, brutal, and intolerant feudalism. Competence and accomplishment can mean nothing. Personality, connections, politics, and power can mean everything.
-JENNY HARRISON References: "Does the Harrison Case Reveal Sexism in Math?" Science, vol 252, p. 1781-1783, [1991]. "Harrison Case: No Calm After the Storm" Science, vol 262, p. 324- 327, [1993]. "Harrison Case Nears Settlement" Science, vol 257, p. 151 [1992]. "The possibility of tenure" Science, vol 257, p. 1188 [1992]. "Mathematician Settles Berkeley Suit" Science, vol 259, p. 1683 [1993] Summary: Denied tenure in 1986, after six years of litigation and $50,000 in legal bills, a settlement and process showing Dr. Harrison's work to be essentially equivalent in quality and quantity to that of other tenured (male) faculty in her department led to Dr. Harrison finally getting tenure at U Cal, Berkeley. -CHARLES NOBLE References: "MIT Tenure Case Heads for Trial" Science, vol 247, p. 1536 [1990]. "A Noble Settlement" Science, vol 251, p. 1301 [1991]. "An Outspoken Critic...." Chronicle of Higher Education, July 17, 1991 Summary (somewhat simplified): Dr. Noble was openly critical of MIT's links to industry but when he came up for tenure, found his enemies placed on his tenure review committee. After a bitter five year legal battle, MIT settled a suit against it. Dr. Noble dropped his demand for reinstatement and $1.5 million in damages in exchange for MIT releasing documents showing "...he was denied tenure on political grounds." and reexamining its tenure procedures (evidently MIT would have to establish a tenure appeal process). Dr. Noble evidently managed to have a tenured position with Drexel during much of this battle, but as of the last article was at York University in Canada.
"Tenure, Discrimination, and the Courts" by Terry L. Leap (ILR Press, Cornell University, Ithaca).
"Mentor in a Manual" (with an appendix "What to do if I don't make tenure") by A.Clay Schoenfeld and Robert Magnan
Sometimes full scale litigation (eg. the Harrison case, above) can lead to justice through, for example, compensatory damages and/or an acceptable redress of grievances, but otherwise are very expensive, emotionally draining, and often lead to being blacklisted and cause ones physical health to suffer. Useful information can be found in Faculty Handbooks, and written institutional policies. The journal ACADEME, published by the American Association of University Professors, provides extensive reports on dishonorable and dishonest political activities of college and university administrations. Even more useful information can be obtained by finding a knowledgeable person on your Faculty Senate who is willing to tell you how things really work.
It is my understanding that people in untenured positions can be given as little as minutes of notice of termination. In the worst of cases I have known or heard about, faculty have been visited by one or two campus police and told to immediately vacate the building and not come back or face arrest and prosecution. No hearings or appeals, etc., were granted.
Although I have not pursued all the possibilities, details, and policies, the usual reason for a termination is funding. But, "programmatic" reasons, which can be anything, are not excluded.
In private industry, staff may be let go with little or no warning, terminated at the pleasure of management, for relevant (financial realities) or irrelevant reasons (eg. politics, personality), and with relatively little recourse (except litigation). In some states case law recognizes "wrongful discharge" if it occurs for a poor reason. Terminations that can be shown in court (regardless of reality) on any kind of recognized discrimination, can be litigated. But, a termination based on a superior who, ostensibly, just dislikes a subordinate, his personality, or his program is really legal. In cases where a termination is initiated by management with reluctance, it may be possible for you to negotiate a "severance package" or "severance agreement" where you get a little more severance pay, or other benefits.
The only job security you can have is in what used to be called "permanent" positions which have strong "personnel policies and procedures" and prior practices for termination (eg. the old permanent government jobs) or you have a contractual arrangement with strong provisions. In contrast, most jobs today, even for PhDs, are temporary. Often the pay is low, there are no fringe benefits (including unemployment compensation, medical, or pension), and people can be terminated with little or no notice. This practice has now spread extensively into even the government. Things like "work performance reviews" are not legally a contract and can have little or no value in the court system, especially in states where the case law is against you. Work performance reviews are generally set up to put pressure on employees, but even if you perform up to "fully satisfactory" in all categories, they can terminate you (this happened to me) by bringing in factors (after the fact) not in the original "performance standards" which are supposed to be agreed upon by "negotiations" at the beginning of the performance review period. Employers spend large amounts of money hiring lawyers to write procedures and details into their employee manuals which benefit the organization and omit or circumvent procedures and details which benefit the individual. Sometimes, highly placed officers in corporations have perks in their contracts such as golden parachutes with extremely generous (i.e. obscene) severance packages.
Short notice terminations can be administrative. If you discover you are a target for a termination which is unfair (regardless of whether it is or not) you have to maintain your cool because they can give you, for example a two week notice, but then put you immediately on administrative leave (meaning they can have a police officer or guard posted or on alert to prevent you from entering a building) until that period is up. I have a written signed document, in which I am not a party, dealing with someone where this actually happened. And I know that person was not "crazy" or otherwise a danger to anyone. In fact that person is working in science, today, but in an administrative capacity.
As much as I sympathize with presenting rational arguments for more funding to our leaders, I doubt if this will work. The most vulnerable populations are among the graduate students and postdocs. Look in the back pages of eg. the journal Science and the postdoc positions outnumber the tenure track jobs by about 2-3 to 1. I disregard the primarily industrial jobs since the drug and biotech industry is not doing so well either and a future for those jobs may not be foreseeable beyond 3-5 years. The tenure track jobs, at least nominally, are potentially permanent and are probably the only real career jobs in science. I am leaving out a lot of peripheral considerations here to help limit the space of this part.
The present problem, "uncollegial behavior", covers the dirt that most people would prefer not to discuss. There has been in the last few years extensive arguing about scientific misconduct and how it is defined. The more rigorous and broad definitions of misconduct in the scientific community do appear to take into consideration the possibilities of certain institutionalized abuses of power by administrators (chairs and deans) when dealing with faculty and some of the most vocal opposition to these broad definitions come from those who may want to retain "control" and "privilege" (otherwise known as political power). I invite the reader to search for the literature, reports, and related documents.
Serious and very serious disputes are usually very embarrassing to the individual who is in the weaker position and the person in the stronger position usually does not want to see any small problems turn into larger problems. And if litigation is involved, everyone is usually advised by their lawyers to not talk to anyone about anything. This effectively hides these disputes from broader scrutiny.
I have not discussed at all a group of problems created by individuals that fall under the category of scientific misconduct or moral turpitude or pure crime (in the traditional sense). Walter Stewart and Ned Feder, controversial characters in the minds of many, have devoted much of their life to scientific misconduct and there is a very large literature on this.
As far as what can happen to you, as an individual, then imagine if a brick falls out of the sky and lands on someone's head, you might feel sympathetic and remorseful. However, if the brick falls on your head, your feelings might be substantially stronger. If you find that the brick was dropped on your head deliberately, you might find yourself in a completely different universe of feelings. The purpose of discussing these situations is to bring awareness to scenarios which may be largely beyond anyone's control. These situations lead, in many cases in my opinion, to unjustified frustration, anger, and despair. Figuring out how to cope with these situations and how to deflect their effects should one ever be on a collision course with disaster is the goal of this discussion. While my scrapbook is full of newspaper and journal articles, I will try to cite a few useful examples (a short annotated bibliography is Part 5B of the series).
In academia (and in lots of other places in the world, and maybe to a worse degree) many things happen that should not happen. A denial of tenure on flimsy grounds is an unjustifiable action. However, other unfortunate, possibly less serious, but equally unjustifiable actions take place at higher rates of occurrence. Lies are not common, but not uncommon either. Suppose you are offered a job and they tell you that you will get X staff, Y dollars, and Z space. After you come, you get X/2 staff, Y/2 dollars, and Z/2 space. Is this for a good reason? Or did they tell you that to get you to come and they knew ahead of time they had no intention of giving you what they promised. Yes, I would be upset. What do you do? Think twice about filing a grievance. That makes trouble for people above. A common result is that you could get fired.
Did they tell you that your job would be safe as long as you had a grant (this is what they said at my previous job in open and distributed memoranda sent around at various times all along)? Then, one day you get a private confidential memo, or other communication, that contains an absolutely contrived rationale which evades the original conditions and situation and brings in new rules, standards, or criteria to justify terminating you and your program. This is not so common, but its not rare either, and you need to be thinking about it in case it happens to you.
Another example, discussed in a recent issue of The Scientist (April [1995]), involves a young faculty member (probably without tenure) who set up a facility in connection with his scholarly responsibilities, operated the facility, and began to attract significant attention. For reasons not needing mention here (but mentioned in cursory detail in the article), older and more established (probably with tenure) facultymembers became upset with the way that facility was operated and led to an administrative action that took the facility away from the young faculty member. From the article, it would appear that the younger faculty member was also being pushed out (i.e. fired?). I read this as a dispute solved by power rather than by merit. Of course, this event also involved many significant and difficult to resolve issues. Also, there may be additional relevant facts that were not discussed. Still, the scenario is recognizable.
I have heard directly and indirectly of the occurrence of the application of continuous or intermittent terror. This includes finding the locks changed overnight on ones office and lab door (I have one documented case in writing with signatures), being notified that one has to move their office and or lab from one floor to another every year or so, having space or financial support taken away and given to someone else (another not common but not rare story).
While there should be more discussion on a lot of well publicized cases, this is beyond the scope of this part. As an alternative, I have prepared short summaries and a reference list including self explanatory titles and citations and anyone wishing to look up the original material can get that out of Part 5b of my postings. This is not all inclusive, but one should be aware of as many tricks, and how they play out, as possible.
On page 16 of the October 2, 1995 issue of The Scientist is an article that talks about department chairmen. The author describes chairmen as coming in four basic types: altruist, parasite, egoist, and survivor. I read the article. The author didn't lie.
For a range of discussions on various kinds of strife in the whole range of academic situations, I would recommend regular reading the Chronicle of Higher Education. All you have to have is the capability to imagine yourself caught up in a bad situation. For the lowdown on dirt in the industrial-commercial sector of society (this involves unethical and illegal activities; guys don't just lose their labs or jobs, they go to jail!) just read relevant articles in, for example, the Wall Street Journal for a year. A recent article (WSJ, March 1, 1995) explains document shredding by a drug company to thwart FDA investigation. Folks, I don't at all think the whole world is rotten, but I do think that what we read in the newspapers is the tip of the iceberg.
Summary: Hiring preferences are at entry level (i.e. asst prof) Letters to editor, Science vol. 195, p.440+ (4 Feb 1977) Summary: 80 professors will go to renewable contracts. Faculty governing body was disbanded. Four faculty resigned over policy changes. "Abolition of Tenure Rattles Faculty at College of Ozarks" CHE Jan 26, 1994, p. A18. Summary: A good article on how things have changed over the last 20 years. Major shift in employer-employee paradigm. "Employment perspectives in the laboratory: changed relationships over twenty years" American Laboratory Feb 1989. p. 128+ Summary: Major upheavals. "Dismissals 'for cause'- Removing a tenured professor can be a lengthy, expensive, and bitter process" CHE Dec 7, 1994. p. A17.
"Kinsey Institute Director Sues Indiana University" Science, vol. 256, 17 April 1992, p. 304 "Conflict Between Dean and Faculty Members Flares Anew at Columbia U.'s Social-Work School" CHE Aug 17, 1994, p. A16 "Professors Quite Tuskegee Veterinary School, Reportedly in Anger Over Dean's Direction" CHE Aug 17. 1994, p. A16. "The Needless Agony and Expense of Conflict Among Scientists" CHE Feb 23, 1994, p. B1. "MIT, Professor Reach Settlement in Lawsuit" CHE, March 1993. "Prominent Scientist [Carlo Croce] Switches Labs, Sparking Administrative Fireworks" The Scientist, June 24, 1991, p.1. "The Race for the Cystic Fibrosis Gene" Science vol 240, p. 141-143. (this is a quote "This is not your average ego-driven science. This is nasty").
"If the Numbers Don't Look Good, Dump the Dean" CHE Nov 2, 1994, p. A72. "Shock Trauma doctors win injunction on firing" The Baltimore Sun, Aug 1, 1992, page 1.
"Howard University Lays Off 400 in Effort to Reduce Its $6.9- Million Deficit" CHE Nov 16, 1994, p. A28.
Summary: The PI wanted the postdoc to work 60 hours per week, he worked more than 50 but less than 60 and was fired after one month. A dispute with many legal issues. As of the appearance of the article the university president was to set up a committee to study the general problem and the dispute was unresolved and the postdoc was without a job. "U. of Idaho Looks Into Researcher's Complaint About Schedule" CHE Nov 16, 1994, p. A26. ON FRANCIS CONLEY VS. GERALD SILVERBERG (at Stanford): A very interesting story about how faculty deal with each other: insults, put downs, innuendo, claims and counter claims (sounds like real life). in "The Brain Surgeon Who Hit a Nerve" Washington Post, Nov. 6, 1991. p. B1-B2. SLAVE LABOR ON CAMPUS: THE UNPAID POSTDOC Yes, that is the title. You can find it on pages 714-715, Science vol 216: 14 May 1982. And, I knew of at least one a few years ago, so it is still happening. This is REAL slave labor. THE HEIDI WEISSMANN CASE: Summary: settlement for a colleague stealing her written work and presenting it as his own. Legal bills totaled $1.5 million, one settlement was for $900,000 including $325,000 for legal fees. HW (age 43 in '94) was evidently out of work from '87 until at least '94 and unable to find work anywhere. "After 5 Years, Heated Controversy Persists in Science Copyright Case" [this is the big article] The Scientist Sept. 14, 1992. p.1+ "Professor Accepts $900,000 Settlement to Drop 7-year Sex Bias Battle Against Yeshiva U." CHE March 23, '94. "Breaking the Glass Ceiling for $900,000" Science vol 263. 25 Mar 1994. p. 1688. "Weismann Honored" (by the Cavallo Foundation for acts of moral courage) The Scientist, June 13, 1994
If you can predict the future, you should be in the stock market. They say to me if your so smart why aren't you rich. I answer that I'm really not so smart and that I know I'm right because I'm not rich. Others say if I want to get rich I should buy a lottery ticket. I say, no, the better idea is to sell lottery tickets.
If you want to do the research-professor thing, there is the "conventional wisdom" that you should seek out the biggest, most prestigious group that you can find to do your post-doc in. I got this from many people. Its well meaning and it might help. Because of the world situation (poor job market for tenure track jobs, poor prospects for funding success, and an unknown up-or-out tenure decision), the choice of post-doc subject and lab can be the most critical decision you make. A good post-doc period, if you can get it, can make up for a PhD being from a non-luminary institution. The downside is: What if you get in with egos that are over your head? What if the pressure is more that you can take? What if you come up too low on the "pecking order." What if the postdoctoral sponsor gives you a problem that: i) you don't like, ii) is a terminal burnout problem (meaning you solve it or burnout), iii) leads to irreconcilable ideological conflict.
Doing a postdoc may not be so important if you decide to get into something else, like pure teaching at a teaching institution (eg. at small prestigious colleges, or even less prestigious ones).
The two main purposes of post-docs these days are: i) to get a "track record" of several papers in "good" and "reviewed" journals and ii) to get one or more good references (i.e. job-winning letters, and phone conversations in which your sponsor talks about you to your next prospective employer in superlatives). Book chapters are OK but the reviewed papers are the publications that really count. A secondary purpose is to change fields (i.e. get away from the dissertation subject/advisor because it/he made you sick, but not sick enough to get out of science). It is also conventional wisdom that changing fields and/or labs is good for your career. I agree most of the time, but there can be exceptions.
If you are near finishing a PhD, you should already be sending out CVs under cover letters to ANY prospective lab in which you might be interested. PIs cannot materialize funds to bring someone, in even if they want to, at the precise moment that the post-doc candidate presents himself/herself to the PI as being available for work. I don't see any problem with getting as many irons in the fire, as soon as possible. You should indicate approximately when you think you will be done. Be warned, however, that you will probably be asked to give a seminar on your topic. And, contrary to the conventional wisdom of changing labs/subjects, some postdoc sponsors may already want someone who already has experience in their topic. Ergo, you blow your chance to change subjects.
What goes into a cover letter might be important. Good cover letters should impress the reader. Its good to make a convincing case that (if you are changing fields) you are interested in subject "X" and since prof Z is in this field, you are applying to him/her as a possible postdoctoral student. Don't write a letter that starts out "I have been interested in your famous papers". It should be more tactful, reserved, and tentative. You should actually read some papers of prof Z and mention some part of some paper to really demonstrate that you read it. I've had a few letters come to me from guys that said they read my papers. As far as I am concerned they maybe read only the titles. If you have some substantive and credible message that you can put into your cover letter, then by all means put it in. If you don't know anything about the place you are applying to, then I would say don't try to fake it on them. You might actually hit on the wrong buttons and blow your own efforts up. There are a lot of places where they will look at the CV first, and then the letter. I think in most cases you will NOT get a job offer based on a dazzling cover letter and mediocre CV.
I don't think you should be afraid to talk about your own strengths and weaknesses. A number of people who answered my polls self-identified weaknesses that they knew they had, but they still got jobs. If at all possible, offer to go and visit, and if it can be arranged, give a seminar on your work (these guys need to see you in action, and learn about your problem and how you handled it). Then, sneak in a hint for some "travel assistance" if you have to go some distance. Its good to keep your doctoral or postdoc advisor informed about this process. That is, unless you are having personality conflict problems where he can shoot down your efforts or otherwise get you under his thumb. There are going to be cases where communication between the doctoral advisor and the student is not good. Sometimes its a poor student. Sometimes its a faculty member who is insensitive and out of touch with reason. I have known directly and indirectly examples of both situations. You have to proceed at your own risk, judgement, and creativity with the situation. Getting out of bad situations without permanent damage, let alone blisters and bruises, is much more difficult than getting into bad situations.
If you have a dissertation advisor or post doctoral sponsor that you don't (or can't) trust, then you have a real problem. This happens, too, and, from anecdotal stories, I would estimate it can be a situation in about 5-10% of all cases. This actually happened to me. Not just once, either. And, I was the major advisor for my own PhD student and had to work a deal with my former department's chairman, who was quite altruistic about it, to change my students committee when we discovered hostility towards the student.
2. Problem areas that are both new and expanding. Labs that are on the rising curve for citation rates may be good candidates (but other PhDs will have the same idea, and that may keep you from being offered a post-doc).
3. Is the problem close to being solved? Once that gene sequence is finished, or the disease entity mechanism worked out, its dead. They gave the nobel prize recently for work on G-proteins and one of the guys said NIH isn't funding this stuff any more. Watch out.
4. Beware of unsolvable problems. Some areas lose interest if the rate of progress is not high.
5. Molecular biology techniques and approaches are "in," or so it seems, and almost everything else is "out," at least for now.
6. Beware of areas which are unpopular and have few labs or few investigators all over the world or the investigators are all very senior.
Unfortunately you could spend months (maybe half a year), full time, just researching this out. And, this may not be what YOU should do.
Do you ask nasty questions (but not in a nasty way) of a potential post doctoral sponsor? Yes, you would like to know if he has tenure, or is coming up for it six months after you would join his lab. Or, if his grant funding is up for renewal the day after you burn all your bridges to other job opportunities. This requires communication with and commitment from your PhD sponsor, and good communication with your potential post-doctoral sponsor. When you go to scientific meetings, there is nothing wrong with walking up to somebody you think you might like to do a post doc with and introduce yourself and start the "look-each-other-over" process. You should do it with anybody, for practice. You actually might turn out liking the possibility and the sponsor better than you originally though. A lot of PIs are as much interested in recruiting a good postdoc as they are interested in getting a Nobel Prize.
At the graduate student level, one of the best criteria for selecting a major advisor is not on subject matter but whether the guy has already been graduating PhDs regularly, in good numbers, and without unreasonably long periods of study. 4-5 years is reasonable. I have actually heard of faculty holding graduate students for 10-11 years before they get their PhD degree. I don't believe in this.
Then comes the skulduggery. Is the postdoctoral experience going to be good? Probably the best way to judge this is to go around and try to find people who have already been in that lab, or have gone on to tenure-track positions, themselves. If you can't find those guys that post-docked a few years before, you should be asking what happened to them. Try to find them (in person, at meetings) and ask "how was that guy to work for?". See what they tell you. Then get into the Citation Index. Try to be "upfront" with everyone (its not always possible or advisable) but as a general rule you will make more long term solid relationships if you can disclose the whole spectrum of your concerns, possibilities, and intentions.
On business ethics. All parties should understand that a guy who says he's going to post-doc in some lab may change his mind at any time, after or even before moving into that lab. You are getting your PhD and, ideally, should have at least three real offers. The post doctoral sponsor should know that even if you say you are coming, you may chose to go with someone else. Sure that will make him mad, but that goes on all the time. Its his worry to figure out how to staff his lab, so he may have to make a tentative offer that he could withdraw at any time. In fact, he may have also made three offers with the knowledge that he can only fund one. Job offers, even if in writing, don't mean a contractual promise. After you are physically present AND on the payroll, then you can say you are in a job. I've heard about a lot of job offer letters and then all of a sudden there's a telephone call and ... "Gee, sorry, we had a budget problem...." I've also heard of the telephone calls, where, "Gee, sorry, I decided to go someplace else." There is a lot of opportunity for mistrust, double- crossing, exploitation, etc. in these areas. I have even seen many examples of the head of one lab robbing another lab of its people. Many years ago there was more ethics about this sort of thing, but not today. The injured party will remember this, so understand the consequences (eg. bad letters of recommendation). I've told a few people who worked for me that even after they make a verbal, or even written, promise to one guy and then a better second offer comes through a day before they go, they should follow the selfish interest. Tell the one guy you changed your mind. After all, you have to live with your bad decision otherwise for the rest of your life. The one guy is going to be mad for a few days or weeks, but is probably in a better position to survive, adapt, or otherwise get past it than you. Personnel offices commonly tell employers to absolutely say nothing about the recruiting progress to any candidates other than the prime candidate, even until that person is actually on board. Anybody who is squeamish about this should understand that in the real business world (i.e. everything else in the world outside of academia) this is all mickey mouse. Just read the newspapers for some of the real "hard ball" action (eg. real, big, massive, serious corporate lawsuits [think Microsoft, think tobacco, think asbestos]). There's a lot in academia, but its usually swept under the rug. Overall, academia is a piece of cake compared to some of the things that go on in the private sector.
Other ethics. There are people who would recommend books like "how to intimidate, influence, manipulate, win, etc" to achieve your goal, and I'm generally against that. When I talk with people I am "turned off" by bullshit artists. Also, some people like to play "games" in their lives. As far as I am concerned, I'm very sensitive to game playing and it may work with other people, but not with me. Eric Berne wrote a book "Games People Play" but these are part of broader problems in society and are not germane to what I have covered in this document. Sometimes you have to "play the system" and structure your interactions in a focused manner for purpose, but at some point it becomes using someone else as a stepping stone and I won't do it. Of course one should try to be polite, civilized, fair, and generally "positive" in collegial interactions. You need all the friends you can get and try to avoid making enemies. You know the old saying "Friends come and go, but enemies just multiply."
Above all - I don't think its possible to find the perfect post-doc lab. But, do the best you can.
The Young Scientist Network (YSN) was formed as an internet entity a good number of years ago and was made up of primarily PhD-level physicists who were having a lot of difficulty getting decent jobs (eg. tenure-track). Many were in never ending postdoc positions. There is also a wealth of information at that site (the Young Scientist Network) at different links and levels and anyone wishing to look at the job situation in science would do well to spend some time at that internet site. The YSN was set up many years ago to discuss the difficult job situation (primarily in the physical sciences). The WWW site is now:
and you will need to hunt around. Some of the original YSN material is at an FTP site:
ftp://snorri.chem.washington.edu/pub/ysn/
and I was able to navigate around faster in that hierarchy with any decent FTP client than at the WWW site with a web browser. I recall a note left at the FTP site that it may not be in existence in the future.
This part was initially developed in response to a private e-mail to me from someone who was reading my CPSJ essays and after finishing his PhD decided that a conventional career (i.e. staying in academia) is NOT what he would like to do for the rest of his life. Most of his reason for this decision centered around the phrase "...disillusionment with the [academic] culture."
Another reason for developing this posting is that I know many colleagues who, in this day and age of grant non-renewals, are rather openly considering leaving academia for other lines of endeavor and gainful employment. I even know graduate students and postdocs who, in the face of seeing their peers have difficulty finding work, are asking themselves if they have made the right decision and if they will ever succeed if they continue in the direction they are now going. This posting is meant to address this question and explore alternatives.
I have received email from a tenured faculty member who resigned his position over the senselessness of institutions continuing to graduate ever more PhDs who cannot find jobs and otherwise conduct themselves in manners inconsistent with traditional academic inquiry. He is leaving science and academia.
I have actually heard of many cases of people at various stages in their lives waking up one day and deciding to make a change. Some are in "ordinary" jobs and suddenly decide to go into some "high profile" work. Some are in certain high-pressure businesses as financial markets, law, sales, investment banking where it is expected that you put in 50-60 hours per week for the rest of your life and they get sick of it and decide to pursue less materialistic but more satisfying and lower stress pursuits (again showing that money and prestige are not everything).
One case I knew about involved a medical student who, at the end of his first year decided that "this is not for me" and quit, went into graduate school in Botany and, as far as I knew last time I checked (many years ago) made tenure at an institution where tenure probably means something. Way back, I heard that once he found what he was looking for, he was really happy. However, I would not recommend this choice today based on the job market for PhD botanists being infinitely worse that the job market for biomedical-based PhDs which is just microscopically less bad.
One person told me he was a truck driver for years and was kind-of lazy for years and then decided to go back to graduate school. Now he is a department chairman (However, he is not young and I would not count on this happening in today's culture).
Anther guy had a PhD in history and is now happily running a country inn. He told me he was unhappy with academia even though he was in it for a number of years.
Still another PhD I once talked with said that he "didn't fit in" with his colleagues; and, as of the last time I talked to him, he was an arbitrageur on the stock market (rich, making money in the morning, and chasing women the rest of the day).
I have been saving newspaper clippings for a number of years that describe all kinds of people who wake up one day and decide to change their lives to do something that "fits them" better. Sometimes these changes are bizarre. eg. the wealthy banker who gives up all of his money and possessions to become a priest in a monastery. Well, who cares as long as the guy is happy.
I remember once a woman who was in a convent for many years and was there as a result of an earlier decision to devote her whole life to that end. But later, she decided, with the help of outsiders, that life on the outside would be better for her and was transitioning back into mainstream society.
Probably the biggest question I would ask is whether such changes can end in fairly permanent success. I knew personally another case where a guy was a prison psychologist but all his life wanted to run a restaurant. Finally he saved enough money, quit his job, and started a restaurant. Two years later the restaurant went bust and he went back to his old job (he was lucky they took him back). Basically this seems like a sad ending.
So, one of the first things to consider is, as I brought up in the CPSJ series, the success rate. We almost never read about the personal failures in the newspapers (except if it involves a media star). We only hear about the successes such as the movie star or sports figure that came out of, for example, the ghetto or poverty.
Is it possible to be pursuing a career path now and then consider something that might be more suitable, more rewarding, less anxiety-generating?
There is much conventional wisdom to be found. What came across from one guy who posted on this newsgroup is that: i) all it takes is work, and ii) while you are at it, quit complaining (about anything).
The tight job market for PhDs has been around for at least two decades (but not in the late 50s and 60s when there was a lot of expansion in both institution numbers and sizes and the NIH budgets were expanding at 15-20% per year). In the last few years, the NIH budgets have not kept up with inflation and institutional practices of shifting indirect costs into direct costs and making, in many cases, even more tenure track faculty get substantial fractions of their salary from grants (thus keeping up the total collection of indirect costs for the institution), which in turn puts more and more pressure on the backs of the individual. And, I have gone into some detail on this in parts of my CPSJ essays.
Hence, the problem is that you spend a lot of your life specializing for something that you can only find in a few places in the country and if you lose your funding base, you are out in the cold. If you have a house (and family), you will probably at least have to move to another state (unless you can find something in another department or another institution in your city) and maybe even across the country.
Institutions fight the probability that a lone PI can lose his funding and get kicked out by encouraging large groups where all the PhDs work on a part of the problem and multiple grants feed the large project. This is OK, but the problems for the individual are two fold: First, you become lost on the author list as it becomes longer and longer (this has been happening in physics for a long time, and in biology much more so in recent years). Second, you still can run into power battles, ideological struggles, and personality conflicts. Its OK if you can come out on top, but if you don't, then you become the candidate for "out-placement" next time there is a downward fluctuation in the grant funding stream. I think the flat funding future should really be an omen to PhDs in the grad-student to post-doc pipeline to be looking for other things to do.
So, if you want to look at alternate things to do with your life, then spend time noticing what other people (outside academia) are doing. There are probably books in the library. Look for craft fair announcements in the newspapers. Have the courage to just walk up to some guys there and ask them "how did you get into this stuff". Most will be too busy or for other reasons will not talk to you, but some will. At least listening to THEIR story should be inspiring. The advice that you should go from a 50-60 hour per week effort to a 70-80 hour per week effort, or go from a 5 year post-doc period to a 10 year period, so that you can become more competitive, will put you in the nuthouse for sure.
I have noticed in recent years that support group strategies for victims of violence, rape, alcoholism, cancer, etc. almost always involve talking to others as a coping and healing mechanism. I think anyone who has to bear up with the kinds of uncertainty in todays world needs some thing to boost morale.
The "grass is greener in the other back yard" syndrome is something you can get trapped into. You may have your eye on something else, but once you get into it, it might be a bigger problem than you could ever have imagined before you got into it. Sometimes its better to stay where you are. Perhaps you need to make sure you don't burn bridges that you might want to use to get back to and pick up where you left off!
One book title which I found in the "new books" section (its an interesting place to notice monographs that may be worth looking up someday) in the journal Science was:
Holding on or Letting Go: Men and Career Change at Midlife
the author is: Samuel D. Osherson
The Free Press (Div. of Macmillan)
copyright: 1980
In our library, the call number is:
HF/5381/.089/1980
You might be able to find it in your library and have a look at it.
Although the book was less useful than I originally hoped for, it was worth looking at and I present the following "book review" or perhaps I should call it a "book reaction." Its actually out of a sub discipline of Psychology called Social Psychology. The point of mentioning this book is that many people chose, voluntarily, different careers and somehow manage to adjust to this. Also, a lot of people undergo career changes involuntarily when there are downsizings, loss of grant or contract support, or other nasty things happen (see above). The good news is that a large fraction of people DO manage to make adjustments, find new work, and salvage their lives and self esteem. Some even end up happier. Unfortunately, some are worse off and never recover.
There is another fraction of the population who views people who are having extraordinary difficulty in finding work as having a bad attitude. I don't agree with this view. I think there are many people who are having difficulty just because the PhD/Job ratio is unusually high. In fact in the broader job market, there are a lot of people out of work simply because their company downsized and not because there is anything wrong with them or their work.
However, having a positive attitude about the future will be more helpful than having a negative attitude.
A major problem with non-academic jobs is that they almost always demand experience. If you don't have that experience, then you don't get the job.
Back to the books, however, I have always wished for something more specific. Recently I ran across "The Whole Work Catalog" This is a catalog of books almost exclusively dealing with jobs and job related subjects. The catalog is 32 pages long and there are about 8-10 books listed on each page. A lot of these are jobs you can start yourself and generally without very large sums of money. You may want to write to them (The New Careers Center, Inc., 1515-23rd Street, P.O. Box 339-CT, Boulder, CO 80306) and see if you can get your own copy of the catalog. To save you money you might use the catalog to chose titles of interest to you, and then look them up in your local library first. And, by the way, I am in no way connected with these people.