<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>This is sort of the point I was going to make. Having worked at a NASA/DOE lab for the past two summers I've come to learn that, while the pay is very high(they pay me three times as much as I was paid to be a research assistant at my university with only a bachelor's degree and no prior experience), the turnover rate is very high. Out of the people I worked with last year, only about 4 of them have lasted until this year. This is because the majority of people working here are foreign nationals, and by lab policy usually only work here for a few years, unless they apply for citizenship. Without the ability to get security clearance, your job at a government lab will be pretty temporary. The problem isn't so much the salary...if you can get a staff position(not very difficult if you're American), you will be making a very nice salary, sometimes twice what you would make as say an assistant professor. The problem is that either America isn't producing enough talented scientists to work in the labs, or the fact that many people who pursue Ph.D.s tend to stay in academia. I believe this is at least partially due to the fact, which I am beginning to experience personally, that many professors view government research in a very negative light, and remind you of this very often. So basically people are presented with two options: good salary with the biggest names in science, or job security. The former can be just as secure as a tenureship, as long as your interests are aligned with the lab's main vision. For example, my work right now is with the nuclear non-proliferation division, which is likely to never stop being funded. I think when people hear of the stories of people coming to a government lab and losing their job because funding fell out or their instrument died, they become discouraged and go with the safer option. This leads people to either join education or switch fields entirely, often switching to the engineering side of things. Also, going overseas for research is becoming more of a viable option for some. One person who left the lab last year went to work for France's equivalent of NASA due to higher job security and longer vacations. Many others go to England or Australia for work. So essentially my opinion on the issue is that the reason science is no longer as appealing is because government agencies are pushing talented Americans away with their bureaucracy in favor of foreign nationals. The idea that, in the end, after you get your PhD you will only end up as another professor has been spreading more and more, especially with budget cuts to the science budget in favor of manned space missions. And when it comes down to it, the prospect of being a professor is much less appealing to most students than working for NASA. <br />Posted by UFmbutler</DIV></p><p>If you are looking at only the research and academically oriented jobs, you will soon come to a somewhat discouraging conclusion. First, there are not very many pure research jobs out there. There are far fewer academic jobs than there are new PhDs to fill them. That means that most new PhDs spend a long time in post doc positions and those post doc positions pay very poorly. There are also limited government jobs in pure research and those jobs do not have nearly the freedom to pursue your personal research interests that come with academic jobs. They do pay a bit better, but perhaps not as well as you think. they attract people because of interest in the work, and not because of the pay.</p><p>I can assure you that your perspective on what constitutes high pay will change as you get older and gain experience. When I was a graduate student, I was receiving less than $400/month (a new brand new BS in industry at that time would have made $1000/mo to start and gone up fairly quickly from there) but I often had uncashed checks. That didn't happen once I started to have a real job. Secondly, assistant professor pay is still not particularly high, but you do have a lot of freedom and the excitement of research tends to make up for the low pay -- for a while at least.</p><p>Industry jobs for PhDs actually don't pay any better than jobs for BS people, except for the starting salaries. But they do tend to pay better than does academia. However, the difference in starting pay is less than what would be expected from the time spent in getting the advanced degree. So don't get a PhD for the money, get it because of extreme interest in your subject.</p><p>I think the bigger issue is that people are simply not interested in technical fields and those that are do not pursue advanced degrees like they used to. The graduate schools are largely filled with foreign students, and that is happening with faculty positions as well. And I am afraid that the reason is that the available jobs are simply not sufficiently attractive. Your personal perspective needs to be taken in the light that you are extraordinarily interested in your speciality -- if you weren't you would not be pursuing a PhD. That extreme perspective (extreme here is really a good thing) does not apply to the vast majority of engineers, and engineering is the subject studied by the vast majority of majors in technical fields. Engineering is where the real problems lie from the perspective of global competitiveness and economics. Pure science is as much a calling as a profession, and I think the most talented and interested people in the fields of pure research will continue to self-select themselves and go into those fields. But the need for skilled technical people outside of research is an area in which there does seem to be an issue.<br /></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
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