I think your post brings up a few different ideas in my head.
1. Independent of the # of graduate students, I do think we should be pushing for more efforts of increased independence of graduate students. I do wonder if there are policy ways to do this (eg, funding stays with student over PI).
2. If a PhD is intended as a professional degree, it’s certainly not structured as one. Are there ways to make it shorter? One of the jarring things in tech & industry is how much responsibility is given to young talent so quickly. They tend to respond well to this, and I often see this learning is stunted when coming out of academia.
3. I also worry though; there is something really special about a PhD when it works. A seriousness about going into the wilderness, focused on a problem, and learning to find a way out. You usually don’t get the time/space to do that outside academia.
Anyways, no system is perfect, and the current plans to severely curtail academia is ridiculously short sighted. That said, it does bring up questions on how we can better structure/incentivize what we want as a society from these degrees.
I think independence of graduate students is very much field dependent. In molecular biology graduate students frequently are very much just employees of the PI, doing jobs that maybe a tech could also do. In math or statistics, on the other hand, they are very much doing their own independent work. In ecology and evolution, I've seen things operate more similar to math than to molecular biology. I do think it's linked to funding to some extent, as the fields with more student independence also tend to rely more on TAs as support for graduate students.
Independence is a double-edged sword, though, as I've seen students doodle around for years and not get anything useful done. I'm not sure what the right approach here is. In the end, in any system some people succeed and some fail, and some are treated well and given opportunities and others are left floundering.
"signals of overproduction would be either a lack of qualified candidates, where we have more slots for PhD students than we can fill without lowering our standards, or a serious lack of job opportunities for our graduates. As of now, I don’t see either."
At the end of 2021, I transitioned from my postdoc in bioinformatics to an industry position relatively seamlessly. However, having had to face the industry job market again over the last several months, I faced an brutal dichotomy of either "you are too qualified for this position" or "you don't have the experience necessary to do this job." Although some blame could be put on myself for not marketing myself correctly, especially in the beginning, I think something has changed fundamentally in industry, especially around the perception of what a PhD prepares for you for (exactly as you outline in your article about AI-level PhDs).
The job market is terrible right now. It's likely driven by a confluence of several different factors, but an important one is for sure hangover from excess hiring during COVID, combined with expectations of a coming economic down-turn. People without PhDs are just as affected, or even more so. I'd be wary of equating a temporary downturn with a structural shift. We may very well find ourselves severely lacking highly educated people in a decade. (Or I could be wrong. We'll see. It's just that I heard the exact same arguments thirty years ago when I did my PhD.)
BS ChemEngrg, MS MechEngrg, PhD in Chemical Engineering, MD, residency in Internal Medicine, fellowship in Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine. 11 years industrial experience, 25+ years clinical experience.
There must be too many MD's because the move now is to replace MD's with Physician Assistants, who only train for 2 years. Cheaper, maybe, but the thought processing and experience is not there. Medical care with third party payors, looking only to reduce cost, will be the end of innovative and quality medical care. We're on the decline, I fear, whether MD or PhD. Shortsightedness is a dead end...
I recently read that about 90% of critical care physicians are over 55 years of age. No one will replace us. We will simply fade away.
I think your post brings up a few different ideas in my head.
1. Independent of the # of graduate students, I do think we should be pushing for more efforts of increased independence of graduate students. I do wonder if there are policy ways to do this (eg, funding stays with student over PI).
2. If a PhD is intended as a professional degree, it’s certainly not structured as one. Are there ways to make it shorter? One of the jarring things in tech & industry is how much responsibility is given to young talent so quickly. They tend to respond well to this, and I often see this learning is stunted when coming out of academia.
3. I also worry though; there is something really special about a PhD when it works. A seriousness about going into the wilderness, focused on a problem, and learning to find a way out. You usually don’t get the time/space to do that outside academia.
Anyways, no system is perfect, and the current plans to severely curtail academia is ridiculously short sighted. That said, it does bring up questions on how we can better structure/incentivize what we want as a society from these degrees.
I think independence of graduate students is very much field dependent. In molecular biology graduate students frequently are very much just employees of the PI, doing jobs that maybe a tech could also do. In math or statistics, on the other hand, they are very much doing their own independent work. In ecology and evolution, I've seen things operate more similar to math than to molecular biology. I do think it's linked to funding to some extent, as the fields with more student independence also tend to rely more on TAs as support for graduate students.
Independence is a double-edged sword, though, as I've seen students doodle around for years and not get anything useful done. I'm not sure what the right approach here is. In the end, in any system some people succeed and some fail, and some are treated well and given opportunities and others are left floundering.
"signals of overproduction would be either a lack of qualified candidates, where we have more slots for PhD students than we can fill without lowering our standards, or a serious lack of job opportunities for our graduates. As of now, I don’t see either."
At the end of 2021, I transitioned from my postdoc in bioinformatics to an industry position relatively seamlessly. However, having had to face the industry job market again over the last several months, I faced an brutal dichotomy of either "you are too qualified for this position" or "you don't have the experience necessary to do this job." Although some blame could be put on myself for not marketing myself correctly, especially in the beginning, I think something has changed fundamentally in industry, especially around the perception of what a PhD prepares for you for (exactly as you outline in your article about AI-level PhDs).
The job market is terrible right now. It's likely driven by a confluence of several different factors, but an important one is for sure hangover from excess hiring during COVID, combined with expectations of a coming economic down-turn. People without PhDs are just as affected, or even more so. I'd be wary of equating a temporary downturn with a structural shift. We may very well find ourselves severely lacking highly educated people in a decade. (Or I could be wrong. We'll see. It's just that I heard the exact same arguments thirty years ago when I did my PhD.)
That makes sense. It's both reassuring and not to hear that it's been like this before. Thanks for your response!
BS ChemEngrg, MS MechEngrg, PhD in Chemical Engineering, MD, residency in Internal Medicine, fellowship in Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine. 11 years industrial experience, 25+ years clinical experience.
There must be too many MD's because the move now is to replace MD's with Physician Assistants, who only train for 2 years. Cheaper, maybe, but the thought processing and experience is not there. Medical care with third party payors, looking only to reduce cost, will be the end of innovative and quality medical care. We're on the decline, I fear, whether MD or PhD. Shortsightedness is a dead end...
I recently read that about 90% of critical care physicians are over 55 years of age. No one will replace us. We will simply fade away.
Captivating for me, an underemployed PhD…thanks!
Sorry to hear you're underemployed! PhD in which discipline?