From: landman@hal.physics.wayne.edu (Joseph Landman)
Subject: The Great Lie told to Physics students (was Re: US academic job market improving?)
Organization: Department of Physics and Astronomy
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 15:36:00 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.192248.4287@cs.sfu.ca> mcdonald@cs.sfu.ca (Ken Mcdonald) writes:
>From: mcdonald@cs.sfu.ca (Ken Mcdonald)
>Subject: Re: US academic job market improving?
>Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 19:22:48 GMT


>From a previous article:
>>>>
>If the book claims that employment for Ph.Ds is tightening up overall,
>I probably agree heartily.  But to single out the sciences as being
>hit harder.....................that just raises a logic alert!
><<<

>Actually, it makes a lot of sense.  The problem in the sciences is
>on the supply side; all those people who believed that science held
>a bright future, and so went into the scientific career track, and
>are now flooding the market.  The humanties have attracted fewer
>people, ergo less oversupply, at least in academia.  ('Course,
>with a Ph.D. in Physics, you at least have a vague chance of
>getting hired in industry--but then, the book was only interested
>in talking about prospects for faculty, so I don't think this is
>a fair point.)

>Ken McDonald
>mcdonald@cs.sfu.ca

Well, when I was an undergraduate at SUNY Stony Brook 9 to 5 years ago, the
physicists told all of us " Hey, you want a job? go into physics, get a phd, 
and there will be many jobs when you graduate!  After all, the average age 
of physicists is mid 50's, so most of us will retire soon"

   Well, I liked physics, and I thought it would be fun to work in an area I 
found interesting.  So I went to graduate school.  Here I am, about 1.5 
years away from completing the PhD, and the average number of applicants/
tenure track opening in physics is on the order of 300 ( I have heard as 
high as 800 at one school, I have not heard a number lower than 200 in a 
while).  Ok.  Ill do a post doc.  Boost my publication record.  Sweat for 2 
more years  (possibly move far away from my wife :-( )  What prospects will 
exist for a tenure track position at a school where I can teach and do 
research?  (I like teaching, I like research).  This number is low, someone 
in this group compared it to the probability of winning the lottery, and 
found it to be within an order of magnitude of that (tongue firmly planted 
in cheek).

  How about industrial research (sigh).  What openings exist for a 
computational condensed matter theorist?  Very few...  Ok engineering... I 
could model things on a computer  (gee, thats what I do now......) .  Jobs? 
very few...

  The point of my rambling is this.  I have accepted that many people lied 
to me (and several thousand other physics students) about job prospects, all 
they wanted was cheap (grad student) labor for them and their friends. [
sarcasm and a bit of hopelessness turned on] I have accepted that my PhD 
degree in physics will be good material for toilette paper when my wife and 
I run out (we cant eat the paper after all)(my masters in physics would make 
a lovely coaster...).

  There is a BIG oversupply of physicists out there.  With defense 
industries laying people off, and the eastern block countries brain drain 
to the US, we have an extremely bad situation going on here.  {well now, 
just because you have a PhD doesnt guarantee you a job when you graduate...}
The physicists who said those outrageous statements (that I believed back 
then) lied to us.  There has been one substantial change in the market 
for PhDs since the early 80's.  Communisms demise has doubled the number of 
applicants/position.  Given the magnitude of the numbers of applicants/
position, that doubling has no effect on the number of employed physicists.

  So, I am going to modify my lifes goals a bit.  I wanted to be a 
professor, doing applied/pure research in interesting areas.  I am most 
likely going to wind up as a programmer/engineer somewhere, or a high school 
teacher (gee, with a PhD in physics, you would think I would be able to 
teach physics or math in a high school, and not have to go back for an MA 
in teaching....)   I will be happy that I spent 10+ years in college, badly 
in debt for most of it, barely earning a living, just for the fun of doing 
science.  Maybe I will continue to collaberate with people on my own time, 
and continue doing what I love to do.  Or, maybe not.
  My hope is (though not to reopen a can of worms and draw protest/fire/
flames/etc) that my wife, also in the PhD program in physics will have an 
easier time of it finding a job (though many people disagree, we have 
personally seen compelling evidence that a minority and female phd in 
physics has good job prospects).  This has been her dream as well, and I 
want her to realise it.

[rambling and hopelessness off]

Joe

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