tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2068615175426357203.post6466909680258808053..comments2024-03-19T00:11:46.679-07:00Comments on The Prodigal Academic: Overproduction of PhDs, revisited and with some dataprodigal academichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00433167641213112052noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2068615175426357203.post-26750768925564648942017-06-02T06:57:56.277-07:002017-06-02T06:57:56.277-07:00Yeah, I am a but dubious about the "involunta...Yeah, I am a but dubious about the "involuntarily left field" rate myself. I actually don't think the data is all that great in these surveys, but I don't know of anything else better. As I said above, I did do my doctorate in the US, and yet neither myself nor anyone I was close to in my program had ever heard of this survey that supposedly reaches all US doctoral recipients. And we went to a large and highly ranked R1 university.<br /><br />As with everything, the reality is probably between this overly optimistic survey and the wild hand-wringing about overproduction. That said, the reality for my group (and the students I know well in other groups at ProdigalU) matches the data in the SDR better than all those anecdotal articles (even the ones about my field) describing how impossible it is to find a job with a PhD.prodigal academichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00433167641213112052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2068615175426357203.post-68609115144281126682017-05-27T19:26:01.132-07:002017-05-27T19:26:01.132-07:00Curious about the "involuntarily left field&q...Curious about the "involuntarily left field" rate. Chemjobber had an old post on this, which defines: "the percentage of employed individuals who reported, for their principal job, working in an area not related to the first doctoral degree at least partially because a job in their doctoral degree field was not available."<br />http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2014/09/nsf-finds-chemist-involuntary-out-of.html<br /><br />Personally, if the rate were really <10%, I'd be gleefully happy about bringing in new PhDs! But based on chats with my classmates, "Unlikely to end up with research position in field" was a major factor in everyone's decision. My suspicion is this must be a pretty conservative parsing of voluntary, e.g. "Well, I could have done a third postdoc, but instead I took a real job in a different field..."Rheophilenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2068615175426357203.post-30114586808846682272017-05-26T13:36:53.115-07:002017-05-26T13:36:53.115-07:00My PhD university had a horrifying high attrition ...My PhD university had a horrifying high attrition rate. I'd say that fewer than half of the people I entered with left with PhDs. They definitely took way more than they could support to see who stuck. It was no picnic for the students. <br /><br />My department in ProdigalU does a much better job matching the number of students to the number of people we can support. There are occasional mismatches, since it is a bit of an art (a lot depends on how many students accept our offer), but we try to bring in as many students as we have spots for. We don't take anyone with no research experience, since the risk is too high, but even one semester is enough. We are more likely to take flyers on students who have lots of research experience but low GPA or have lots of work experience, but low GPA. The grad school has to approve all admission offers, and they mostly care about GPA, so we need to justify admitting low GPA students. <br /><br />I worry about people who want to decrease research funding overall, or to just decrease the amount that can be used to support grad students in an attempt to decrease the PhD "oversupply". Academia is not immune to the trends working in our society now towards more contract/temp work, forcing fewer employees to do the same amount of work when people leave, and attempting to do more with less. Its not that I think all is well in the world of academia, its that I don't think the problems of academia are unique to academia.prodigal academichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00433167641213112052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2068615175426357203.post-29685787601504949212017-05-25T21:30:45.325-07:002017-05-25T21:30:45.325-07:00"but I strongly feel that if we artificially ..."but I strongly feel that if we artificially limit the number of PhD seats, it will be the underrepresented and/or marginalized folks that will lose opportunity"<br /><br />There is somebody on the admissions committee in my dept who consistently says the same thing. They use it as justification for why we should admit an oversupply of students (more than can be supported by RA long-term) and then just let the ones who don't cut it leave when they get the hint. <br /><br />I personally dislike seeing students begging everyone in sight for RAs so am not totally comfortable with this. Generally I would prefer to just admit the safest best students and let the others find another program/job. But if everyone felt that way I'm not sure I would have gotten into the all the grad schools I did.<br /><br />So it's tough, I think I agree with you in theory, but in practice I have trouble stomaching the ugly side of it.Grumpyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06238708584935877026noreply@blogger.com