From: mcdonald@cs.sfu.ca (Ken Mcdonald)
Subject: Re: Bleak news from the academic job market
Organization: CSS, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 03:28:48 GMT


From a previous post:
>>>The universities are NOT EXPLOITING GRADUATE STUDENTS. There is no shortage of
applicants to CS graduate programs. Thousands of students are simply BEGGING
to spend years working at slave wages BECAUSE THEY WANT A PHD.
<<<

Wrong-o!  Thousands of students are begging to spend years as a Ph.D.
student--because they can't get a good job with a B.Sc.!  Sure, some are
doing it because they are genuinely interested in their field (I've noticed
this interest does not usually survive the Ph.D. process :-) ), but even
when I entered graduate studies, people looking for three more letters
behind their name significantly outnumbered those who simply wanted to
learn about and work in an area, and this trend has intensified in the
last several years, as good B.Sc. jobs in C.S. have become scarcer.  (To
be more precise, my experience indicates that enrolment in graduate studies
in C.S. has been driven far more by the desire to get a good job than by
a love of knowledge.)

This gives the obvious corollary that if the Ph.D. is  indeed NOT the
route to a good, interesting job (it isn't), then IF students were aware
of this, there would be far less demand for the Ph.D. programs.  Hence
far less expenditure of taxpayer money, far less academic trash being
published, etc. etc.

(Actually, this may be somewhat optimistic.  It has to be admitted than
in addition to those seeking a Ph.D. to boost their emplyability in a field,
and those seeking because they love knowledge, there is a significant
component in the Ph.D. program because they don't have the confidence or
willingness to work to make a go of it in the "real world".  These people
would not likely be swayed by any appeal to reason about the actual value
of the Ph.D.)

From the same post:
>>>
The University has done those people a favor.  [In accepting them]
 It selected them for a job
that far more people want than can be provided for.
<<<

It is arguable that an institution which has wasted the prime creative
years of a person's life by educating them for a job which does not exist
is doing them a favour.  Certainly the recent graduates I know, INCLUDING
THE ONES WHO HAVE ATTAINED THEIR AMBITION, TENURE-TRACK EMPLOYMENT IN A
GOOD UNIVERSITY, are not of this persuasion--going through the process has
led them to conclude, correctly, that the university is not a bastion of
reasonable, forward-thinking philosophy, but simply another special interest
group which functioned reasonably well for a time, but is functioning less
well now.  The university is certainly not doing the taxpayer a favour;
it costs the Canadian government approximately $200,000, after B.Sc., Ph.D.,
and postdoc, to produce a physicist, and that is assuming said physicist
did not get scholarship money for their B.Sc. or Ph.D.  All this to produce
someone whose skills make them unemployable.  American universities also
recieve huge sums of money from their government, so while the U.S. figures
may not be identical, they will at least be comparable.

The fact that so many more people want into Ph.D. programs than can be
accepted should be a telling fact; when it occurs on a large scale, it is
almost a sure sign of governmental interference causing market distortions
in such a manner that something is being given away at less than its
price.  Everyone want in under such a circumstance, of course; who can
resist a freebie?  Eventually, though, such programs adversely effect
the market they are trying to promote, because the distortion is artificial
and does not admit standard feedback corrective mechanisms to operate
freely.  The result is a growing disillusionment with the program which is,
I think, exactly what is currently happening to the ideal of graduate
education.

Finally:
>>>
They are saying that it is
everybody's fault that they were misinformed EXCEPT THEIR OWN.
 
I wish people would stop whining and accept responsibility for themselves.
<<<

There is a certain amount of truth in this.  There are a great many
very disappointed people in academia currently, and such people often
turn bitter.  In my opinion, this phenomenon is heightened by the fact
that just being in the academic world takes a mindset with a good deal
of introversion inherent in it (I mean, what sane person would willingly
put in sixteen-hour days in the lab when they could be out sailing a
Laser II in a clean, crisp, evening breeze rolling in from the ocean,
partnered by an attractive member of the opposite sex, hey?), and when
such people are caught in a bad situation, there is a tendency to
think, "I don't deserve this, why is this happening to ME?"  One of the
drawbacks of having a self-centred worldview.


Still, there is a good deal of truth in what is being said; don't
let the bitterness distract from the validity of the statements.  The
university, which should be an arena and sanctuary for the idealistic and
able, has become simply another competitive playing field, like any
commercial area, excepting perhaps that academic competitiveness is
particularly vicious because of the egos involved, the high stakes,
and the continual supply of innocent young lambs who look to the
university as a way out of that sort of life.

I still think that if government funding to universities were simply
disallowed, the problems would sort themselves out in a decade or so . . .

Ken McDonald
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers