From: atkinson@symcom.math.uiuc.edu (David Atkinson)
Subject: Re: Bleak news from the academic job market
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 16:13:23 GMT

mcdonald@cs.sfu.ca (Ken Mcdonald) writes:


>From a previous post:
>>>>
>It could be argued that Cornell was exploiting me by paying me
>"slave wages", but in return I got a Ph.D so I considered it a good bargain.
>Noone forced me to work there, in fact there were lots of people who applied
>who were not admitted.  I was told before I accepted what my duties would be
>and how much I would be paid, also how many years I would be supported.  I
>could have refused if I didn't like the conditions.
><<<

>I think things are a little different in C.S., and I'd just like to
>draw attention to the differences.  Presumably you (i.e. Vicki Powers,
>the post of the bit just above) knew what the job market was like for
>academic mathematicians (lousy, which is approximately what it's been
>for a very long time), and accepted this risk.  

Speaking from the math world, that's not quite true.  I always knew
that the math outlook was not as rosy as the C.S. outlook was supposed
to be, but up until about 3 years ago, this was supposed to be a *great*
time to be getting into math.

>What has really angered me in C.S., though, is what I consider the
>purposeful deceit that has gone on for the last two years or so, as
>it has become obvious that a plethora of jobs has become a long-
>lost dream of C.S., and that shortly C.S. will have the same academic
>job situation as math or physics.  (i.e., awful.)  In my department
>at least, there is an amazing unwillingness to admit to the fact
>that there are simply too many Ph.D.s in comp. sci.  

[stuff deleted]

>To my mind, this situation is largely a result of faculty accountability
>and incentives, and in this, I disagree with a previous poster, who
>maintained that government was taking students on a ride, by getting
>them for cheap research for several years.  This might be true if
>the research had some net value to the government, but quite frankly,
>I think publish or perish has pushed research to a point where 90% of
>it is identifiable garbage.  Maybe things are better at the well-
>respected universities.  In any case, it seems to me that universities
>(departments and individual faculty members) are taking both government
>and students for a ride, by using taxpayer money and student sweat to
>build mini-empires on a false justification of future shortfalls in
>scientist, and the resulting increased promiscuity, Elvis worship,
>and ultimate societal chaos this will bring.  (Well, maybe they don't
>go quite that far.)

It certainly does seem true that the schools have no interest or
incentive in giving an honest assessment to future students of the
likely value of their degrees.  To some extent, the schools can't
be expected to know this.  On the other hand, I think *someone*
should be making sure that prospective grad students at least know
exactly what the job market in their field is like at the time they
are deciding to begin.  Qualify it with the obvious fact that things
can and do change, but at least let them know what they *may* be
letting themselves in for.  I suspect, as a previous poster noted,
that most beginning students are so enthusiastic, self-confident,
naive, etc., that having the information would not change a lot of
minds.  At least grad students would not be entering based on a 
false impression from the school and its professors.

I'm not sure schools will ever do this voluntarily.  It is not in
their immediate interest to risk a shrinking grad program.
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers