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: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 23:53:56 GMT


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.  (And by the way,
congrats on getting a job in this market--you must be very good, and
if you have any hints you'd care to share . . . :-) )  When I started
grad studies in C.S., I was told that the job market for C.S. profs
would only get better in the future.  This view was partly based on
a brain-damaged report commissioned (I believe) by the NSF, and which
contained a fallacy so gaping that I could've seen it instantly when
I was sixteen years old.  (I can't believe the person who did that
report was a respected researcher, but c'est la vie.)  It was also
partly based on folk wisdom, which in my mind, is a serious sin for
people supposedly trained in the scientific method.  I don't want to
sound whiny, but let's face it; someone just out of a B.Sc. doesn't
usually know anything worth speaking about when it comes to the
academic world, and has to rely on the advice who should (and who
certainly present themselves in this light) know better.

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.  For quite a while
after the situation started getting bad, the faculty, when pressured,
would still maintain that academic job prospects in C.S. were excellent.
Later it slipped to, "much better than other fields."  Lately, some
have become uncomfortable with that statement, and now simply say
nothing at all, and simply try to maintain the a Ph.D. in C.S. is
"a good thing to have."  This last approach is still nastily misleading
in its own way, because the last thing they were saying was that
academic C.S. has a bright future, and they have given no hint that
they have changed their opinion since.

This is not fancy on my part.  Since I became aware of the situation,
I've made it a point to talk to as many new incoming graduate students
as possible, and am shocked at the extremely naive optimism they have
about the possibility of landing a good academic job.  The faculty
knows this, and knows the reality (they are the ones dealing with
200 applications for two positions--and heck,we're not even much of
a university), and by saying nothing, char the incoming students on
a course which will waste years of their life.  (Out of the Ph.D.
graduates I know from this university--not a lot, I admit--I do not
know of a single one who believes their Ph.D. was worthwhile.  All
who have expressed an opinion have said that, given the option, they
would NOT do their Ph.D. again.)

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.)

So, to (attempt to) sum up my rambling contribution to this thread; there
is nothing wrong with paying grad students student type wages, so long
as the terms of the resulting contract, both written and unwritten,
are clearly spelled out, and are as accurate as the participating parties
can reasonably make them.  Part of these unwritten terms include the
likely benefit of the degree to the student after completion, and
if (as is the case in my field, at least in my department), the
department provides false or misleading information which on topics
which it can be reasonably expected to be aware of, the contract
is morally abhorrent, and deserves all the anger the affected students
will likely feel.

'Nuff said.  (No kidding, eh!)

Ken McDonald
mcdonald@cs.sfu.ca
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers,soc.culture.british,soc.culture.canada