The centre at the edge
April 2, 2016 8:48 AM Subscribe
Is There Value in Training Scientific Generalists For Positions at the Edge of Academia? Gopal Sarma says Yes
This is some Brave New World style Alpha, Beta, Gamma shit right here.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:18 AM on April 2, 2016
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:18 AM on April 2, 2016
But this isn't talking about basic scientific literacy:
2. Students should be able to read cutting edge scientific literature across a number of different subjects and ask strategic questions.
4. Students should be part of a research laboratory during their PhD and have conducted research of sufficient depth to write a masters-level thesis.
5. Students should have conducted a significant in-depth analysis of a scientific issue of historical or policy significance and write a masters-level thesis on the topic.
9. Students should have the means to forge their own path, find non-traditional niches, play key leadership roles and manage interdisciplinary teams.
In terms of immediately employable skills, a core part of the program, including pre-requisites for admittance, would be sufficiently developed computer science and statistics knowledge to be hired as software engineers or data-scientists.
In a breadth x depth calculation, this sounds like far more than is asked of a traditional PhD.
posted by sapere aude at 9:23 AM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
2. Students should be able to read cutting edge scientific literature across a number of different subjects and ask strategic questions.
4. Students should be part of a research laboratory during their PhD and have conducted research of sufficient depth to write a masters-level thesis.
5. Students should have conducted a significant in-depth analysis of a scientific issue of historical or policy significance and write a masters-level thesis on the topic.
9. Students should have the means to forge their own path, find non-traditional niches, play key leadership roles and manage interdisciplinary teams.
In terms of immediately employable skills, a core part of the program, including pre-requisites for admittance, would be sufficiently developed computer science and statistics knowledge to be hired as software engineers or data-scientists.
In a breadth x depth calculation, this sounds like far more than is asked of a traditional PhD.
posted by sapere aude at 9:23 AM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
When we're facing multiple global pandemic diseases, you're damn right we'll want a generalist! They get five actions instead of four!
posted by gurple at 9:25 AM on April 2, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by gurple at 9:25 AM on April 2, 2016 [9 favorites]
This guy has some strange ideas:
His current proposal is two Master's Theses plus a qualifying exam (plus you have to know how to program). There are interdisciplinary PhD programs all over the place, so I'm not sure what this proposal adds. Even if you don't get an interdisciplinary PhD, you can still get a PhD and learn how to program.
posted by demiurge at 9:30 AM on April 2, 2016 [6 favorites]
In a previous article (Sarma 2016), I examined the issue of training generalists by proposing the creation of a new set of graduate programs that would augment the structure of a normal PhD. Inspired by the structure of an MD/PhD, the proposal I made there was to add an additional component to a traditional PhD wherein a student prepares for and passes graduate level qualifying examinations in multiple subjects. Somewhat arbitrarily, but with an attempt to create a program roughly on par with an 8-9 year MD/PhD, I suggested 5 total qualifying examinations, 1 in the home department of the PhD, and 4 in additional subjects.Five qualifying exams! What happens if you pass four out of five? You only get a Super PhD instead of an Ultra PhD?
His current proposal is two Master's Theses plus a qualifying exam (plus you have to know how to program). There are interdisciplinary PhD programs all over the place, so I'm not sure what this proposal adds. Even if you don't get an interdisciplinary PhD, you can still get a PhD and learn how to program.
posted by demiurge at 9:30 AM on April 2, 2016 [6 favorites]
The specific proposal for an uber-program outlined in the article seems a bit ridiculous, but I think there's a legitimate demand for people with some of the characteristics the author identifies.
Long story short: 6 years in an interdisciplinary Ph.D program; dropped out with a masters after much soul-searching. Several years later, I hold a support role in a research lab at a different university. I was always a tool-maker, more than a researcher, and being here lets me contribute to research without the soul-death that tenure track professordom looked like to me. My broad background in research across several fields, plus practical experience building things, has translated to some unique opportunities and I would argue has provided value to my employer. Sure, I could make more money as a programmer in industry, but right now I get more satisfaction in terms of contributing to a team I really believe in.
I'm a bit curious if leadership from my former academic program would see me as a success or a failure. I didn't end up leading a lab in an R1 institution, but I use my applied and theoretical skills to support research that has been broadly disseminated and had impact. I don't think I would have been a good research professor, so in some ways I'm probably contributing more to human knowledge than I would have if I'd followed the 'traditional' path, anyhow.
If there's a way to set up programs for people like me that are a more positive experience than the one I had in grad school, but still provide the broad skill-base, I'm all for it. I think that may look like "a slightly different person than me in a slightly different interdisciplinary ph.d program" more than "an entirely different uber-masters-ph.d" but I think we fill a niche, and having more of us (and the demand for more of us) is not a bad thing.
posted by Alterscape at 10:03 AM on April 2, 2016 [7 favorites]
Long story short: 6 years in an interdisciplinary Ph.D program; dropped out with a masters after much soul-searching. Several years later, I hold a support role in a research lab at a different university. I was always a tool-maker, more than a researcher, and being here lets me contribute to research without the soul-death that tenure track professordom looked like to me. My broad background in research across several fields, plus practical experience building things, has translated to some unique opportunities and I would argue has provided value to my employer. Sure, I could make more money as a programmer in industry, but right now I get more satisfaction in terms of contributing to a team I really believe in.
I'm a bit curious if leadership from my former academic program would see me as a success or a failure. I didn't end up leading a lab in an R1 institution, but I use my applied and theoretical skills to support research that has been broadly disseminated and had impact. I don't think I would have been a good research professor, so in some ways I'm probably contributing more to human knowledge than I would have if I'd followed the 'traditional' path, anyhow.
If there's a way to set up programs for people like me that are a more positive experience than the one I had in grad school, but still provide the broad skill-base, I'm all for it. I think that may look like "a slightly different person than me in a slightly different interdisciplinary ph.d program" more than "an entirely different uber-masters-ph.d" but I think we fill a niche, and having more of us (and the demand for more of us) is not a bad thing.
posted by Alterscape at 10:03 AM on April 2, 2016 [7 favorites]
I don't see the point of training people for jobs that don't yet exist, and conversely, if the jobs exist people will figure out how to qualify them.
It's telling that his main example is MD/PhDs, most of whom are people who really want to do research, and basically pay for it by treating patients. Most scientific fields are not directly applicable in that way to making money.
posted by miyabo at 10:07 AM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's telling that his main example is MD/PhDs, most of whom are people who really want to do research, and basically pay for it by treating patients. Most scientific fields are not directly applicable in that way to making money.
posted by miyabo at 10:07 AM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
This sounds like a skill set intended to target every imaginable buzzword today. Data scientists and programmers? Peer reviews citable as stand-alone publications? Journal editors who are haven't conducted high level research in their journal's field?
Maybe there are some fields of study where this kind of thing is possible. I don't think it's possible in mine.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 10:15 AM on April 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
Maybe there are some fields of study where this kind of thing is possible. I don't think it's possible in mine.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 10:15 AM on April 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
On further reflection: I'm sort of a slightly-broader-and-deeper-than-usual-MA, whereas the article is proposing a super-Ph.D. I suspect there's more demand for super-MSs and super-MAs than super-Ph.Ds, or even ordinary Ph.Ds (and the going wage probably fits the level of training a bit better). Also more immediate job opportunities, but I'm probably biased because I'm in that kind of support role and that's the set of needs and solutions I'm exposed to. I'd certainly never claim I'm properly experienced/credentialed to edit a journal, though I've performed peer review in my field, for example. I suspect I'm drawing connections from his proposal to my experience, rather than supporting this proposal directly.
posted by Alterscape at 10:17 AM on April 2, 2016
posted by Alterscape at 10:17 AM on April 2, 2016
This is an interesting idea to consider. It may be true that over-specialization in graduate training can be a problem. It's certainly true that opening up graduate programs to better prepare students who change fields, creating more non-PI permanent jobs in academia, and fostering deep interdisciplinary interactions and general scientific competency among practitioners all seem like good things. Encouraging reproducibility as a publishing goal is also a good thing, though the connection to this proposal seems pretty tenuous.
But, at least coming from a physical science background, I have a hard time believing a program like this would actually serve the students' interests unless we also radically change the incentives that drive both academic and industry hiring. (And once we've done that, this change won't really add much.) Science PhDs tend to be pretty flexible and able to learn new things, and taking qualifying exams five times over seems unlikely to be the most efficient way to acquire breadth and practical skill. There's a reason nobody suggests getting four different masters degrees in order to qualify for jobs. Why would anyone choose this track compared to exiting an ordinary PhD program as quickly as possible and taking some extra classes or adding an internship?
If the student decides to try to return to a research track in their principle field, having completed a "a single, substantial research project. . . perhaps comparable to a masters-level thesis" would qualify them for no actual jobs that they couldn't have gotten with a bachelor's degree. (Except community-college instructor - for whom this program would be awesome, but hugely expensive in both time and money.) If instead they go into industry, they're still going to need a discipline-specific skill set, and they're probably not going to directly benefit at all from at least two or three of the five subjects they've minored in. And they're starting out at least three or four years later than their peers.
Building a program that creates graduates who aren't competitive today in either academia or industry and demanding that only the most exceptional students be allowed to take it doesn't seem like a winning combination, even if there was a way to fund it. (Good luck getting grant-funded individual labs to support what are essentially masters students who are guaranteed not to continue to a PhD program.)
If encouraging people to devote six years to training that only qualifies them for an academic job is a bad idea, encouraging them to devote nine years to training that only qualifies them to be agency program officers, high school and community college instructors, and editors of unusually broad scientific journals seems far, far worse.
The radically descoped version of this - where a PhD minor is introduced, or students are offered a two-department lab rotation in their first years, or where several core classes are replaced by interdisciplinary electives and a more general qualifying exam - all seem like great ideas.
posted by eotvos at 10:25 AM on April 2, 2016 [8 favorites]
But, at least coming from a physical science background, I have a hard time believing a program like this would actually serve the students' interests unless we also radically change the incentives that drive both academic and industry hiring. (And once we've done that, this change won't really add much.) Science PhDs tend to be pretty flexible and able to learn new things, and taking qualifying exams five times over seems unlikely to be the most efficient way to acquire breadth and practical skill. There's a reason nobody suggests getting four different masters degrees in order to qualify for jobs. Why would anyone choose this track compared to exiting an ordinary PhD program as quickly as possible and taking some extra classes or adding an internship?
If the student decides to try to return to a research track in their principle field, having completed a "a single, substantial research project. . . perhaps comparable to a masters-level thesis" would qualify them for no actual jobs that they couldn't have gotten with a bachelor's degree. (Except community-college instructor - for whom this program would be awesome, but hugely expensive in both time and money.) If instead they go into industry, they're still going to need a discipline-specific skill set, and they're probably not going to directly benefit at all from at least two or three of the five subjects they've minored in. And they're starting out at least three or four years later than their peers.
Building a program that creates graduates who aren't competitive today in either academia or industry and demanding that only the most exceptional students be allowed to take it doesn't seem like a winning combination, even if there was a way to fund it. (Good luck getting grant-funded individual labs to support what are essentially masters students who are guaranteed not to continue to a PhD program.)
If encouraging people to devote six years to training that only qualifies them for an academic job is a bad idea, encouraging them to devote nine years to training that only qualifies them to be agency program officers, high school and community college instructors, and editors of unusually broad scientific journals seems far, far worse.
The radically descoped version of this - where a PhD minor is introduced, or students are offered a two-department lab rotation in their first years, or where several core classes are replaced by interdisciplinary electives and a more general qualifying exam - all seem like great ideas.
posted by eotvos at 10:25 AM on April 2, 2016 [8 favorites]
Another option is additional training for people who decide to leave academia.
Programs to do just that already exist.
posted by nat at 10:58 AM on April 2, 2016 [3 favorites]
Programs to do just that already exist.
posted by nat at 10:58 AM on April 2, 2016 [3 favorites]
After a bit of reflection - I should point out that my comment about student funding above is entirely based on a US, physical sciences perspective. In the world I inhabit, working with a masters student means taking many tens of thousands of dollars that could have been spent on other things and using it to pay someone who spends two years accomplishing as much research as a senior PhD student would in three or four months.
This is, of course, entirely understandable. They're taking lots of classes, and they're brand new to the field. They typically get far more done than I did in my first two years of grad school. It's not at all their fault that most of their lab experience falls into the education bin rather than the research bin. But, when putting together a budget, spending money on masters students counts either as charity (doing something that's good for the student but bad for the lab), or gambling (hoping the investment leads them to continue doing great research in the field.) Both charity and gambling on the long term success of my field are things I like to do. But, it doesn't come for free. If I had to choose between spending money on a masters bridge program for underrepresented students or funding the future program officers this proposal supports, there's no way I'd go for the later.
In countries that actually fund graduate education, and in fields where schools pay money to research groups rather than the other way around, this could be a lot more feasible. To be clear, I'm all in favor of the US becoming one of those countries. (I'm less certain about schools funding my field. Universities do a pretty good job of funding things that are valuable but not practical. And being in one of the practical fields that pays more overhead than salary doesn't seem like a bad deal when it comes to keeping the parts of the world I care about ticking along. But, it does mean I feel justified when I decide not to hire a masters student, or a super-PhD student.)
posted by eotvos at 11:00 AM on April 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
This is, of course, entirely understandable. They're taking lots of classes, and they're brand new to the field. They typically get far more done than I did in my first two years of grad school. It's not at all their fault that most of their lab experience falls into the education bin rather than the research bin. But, when putting together a budget, spending money on masters students counts either as charity (doing something that's good for the student but bad for the lab), or gambling (hoping the investment leads them to continue doing great research in the field.) Both charity and gambling on the long term success of my field are things I like to do. But, it doesn't come for free. If I had to choose between spending money on a masters bridge program for underrepresented students or funding the future program officers this proposal supports, there's no way I'd go for the later.
In countries that actually fund graduate education, and in fields where schools pay money to research groups rather than the other way around, this could be a lot more feasible. To be clear, I'm all in favor of the US becoming one of those countries. (I'm less certain about schools funding my field. Universities do a pretty good job of funding things that are valuable but not practical. And being in one of the practical fields that pays more overhead than salary doesn't seem like a bad deal when it comes to keeping the parts of the world I care about ticking along. But, it does mean I feel justified when I decide not to hire a masters student, or a super-PhD student.)
posted by eotvos at 11:00 AM on April 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
So the evil part of me was a paragraph in and thought That's just the sort of harebrained scheme I'd expect from someone who specialized in medicine. Finished the article and my reaction was Huh, evil me wasn't that far off on his quick take.
Still, if the first comments are a fair survey of MeFi's take I like it better than most. My first job was analytical chemist, where PhD's were routinely hired as managers with no expectation to do actual research, which is certainly a waste of PhD training*. And it can be mind-boggling to see the exact same mistakes repeatedly get past peer review because a subfield of (for example) biology is too insular to pay much attention to comments from the wider community**. WIthout even getting into Andy Grove deciding he could run biotech research better than biochemists. There are real challenges in communicating what is actually happening in a field, even or especially to other scientists. So I mostly like the problem-identification portions† and it did make me think a bit more about it.
The solution though--academic training and lots of tests and certifications? That really does strike me as the idea of someone who went to med school. If the goal is to get people out of group-think mindsets seems to me the worst thing is to standardize a curriculum (even a flexible one) and then tell the grads that they are specially positioned to understand the "big picture" better than the people doing actual research. It's like an MBA--in theory you can to learn to respect all the other expertise in a company but as often as not you end up with everyone pitching same fad solution with the same power point slides.
*As well as a way to get some memorably bad managers. Fun times.‡
**My ignorance has boggled the mind of colleagues in different specializations on occasion too, but I don't really want to get into it.
† Although the reproducibility issue is not related to this I think, and if anything more influential generalists could make it worse.
‡If any of my old managers are reading this, I'm honestly not thinking of you. You know who I mean, though.
posted by mark k at 11:06 AM on April 2, 2016 [3 favorites]
Still, if the first comments are a fair survey of MeFi's take I like it better than most. My first job was analytical chemist, where PhD's were routinely hired as managers with no expectation to do actual research, which is certainly a waste of PhD training*. And it can be mind-boggling to see the exact same mistakes repeatedly get past peer review because a subfield of (for example) biology is too insular to pay much attention to comments from the wider community**. WIthout even getting into Andy Grove deciding he could run biotech research better than biochemists. There are real challenges in communicating what is actually happening in a field, even or especially to other scientists. So I mostly like the problem-identification portions† and it did make me think a bit more about it.
The solution though--academic training and lots of tests and certifications? That really does strike me as the idea of someone who went to med school. If the goal is to get people out of group-think mindsets seems to me the worst thing is to standardize a curriculum (even a flexible one) and then tell the grads that they are specially positioned to understand the "big picture" better than the people doing actual research. It's like an MBA--in theory you can to learn to respect all the other expertise in a company but as often as not you end up with everyone pitching same fad solution with the same power point slides.
*As well as a way to get some memorably bad managers. Fun times.‡
**My ignorance has boggled the mind of colleagues in different specializations on occasion too, but I don't really want to get into it.
† Although the reproducibility issue is not related to this I think, and if anything more influential generalists could make it worse.
‡If any of my old managers are reading this, I'm honestly not thinking of you. You know who I mean, though.
posted by mark k at 11:06 AM on April 2, 2016 [3 favorites]
This is sort of interesting, although stands as evidence that that author should really have included "trained to write with a lucid brevity" in their list of desirables.
It's also interesting in that, believe it or not, if you downscale the aspiration by one traditional degree level (i.e. replace doctorate with masters etc. throughout) you get a reasonably accurate description of a 4-year geography degree, which would have the added benefit of some actual epistemology and sociology.
posted by cromagnon at 11:39 AM on April 2, 2016
It's also interesting in that, believe it or not, if you downscale the aspiration by one traditional degree level (i.e. replace doctorate with masters etc. throughout) you get a reasonably accurate description of a 4-year geography degree, which would have the added benefit of some actual epistemology and sociology.
posted by cromagnon at 11:39 AM on April 2, 2016
I have a hard time believing a program like this would actually serve the students' interests unless we also radically change the incentives that drive both academic and industry hiring.
There's already a great need for this sort of generalist for risk assessment, evaluations and regulatory compliance and (from the government side) promotion of best practices. Health and environmental sciences need good, well trained generalists badly. So does the patent office. Right now we have BSc level "environmental science" and biologists and heaven help me economists doing this work, and they are frequently not scientifically literate enough to make good decisions without a lot of help. Researchers can help, but they do not understand the issues that an industry compliance person or a government risk assessor needs to decide.
There are a lot of reasonable ideas here that would massively benefit the sort of "what do we do with this science/engineering knowledge" policy jobs. In my field, in Canada alone there are thousands of these jobs, in government but more in industry and yet more as freelancers and consultants. Upskilling these jobs, in my view, would make for much better science-based decisions. Right now, I spend an enormous amount of time educating these folks, generally at a first-year grad level. Many BSc level entrants, for example, have no idea how to do a proper literature search, a basic skill, but one only really exercised at the grad school level, I feel.
These aren't phantom or theoretical jobs. There are probably more than all of the research jobs combined, perhaps by an order of magnitude. But right now they're not thought of as something a research PhD should take up. Masters is probably the right degree level here, right now.
posted by bonehead at 11:45 AM on April 2, 2016 [7 favorites]
There's already a great need for this sort of generalist for risk assessment, evaluations and regulatory compliance and (from the government side) promotion of best practices. Health and environmental sciences need good, well trained generalists badly. So does the patent office. Right now we have BSc level "environmental science" and biologists and heaven help me economists doing this work, and they are frequently not scientifically literate enough to make good decisions without a lot of help. Researchers can help, but they do not understand the issues that an industry compliance person or a government risk assessor needs to decide.
There are a lot of reasonable ideas here that would massively benefit the sort of "what do we do with this science/engineering knowledge" policy jobs. In my field, in Canada alone there are thousands of these jobs, in government but more in industry and yet more as freelancers and consultants. Upskilling these jobs, in my view, would make for much better science-based decisions. Right now, I spend an enormous amount of time educating these folks, generally at a first-year grad level. Many BSc level entrants, for example, have no idea how to do a proper literature search, a basic skill, but one only really exercised at the grad school level, I feel.
These aren't phantom or theoretical jobs. There are probably more than all of the research jobs combined, perhaps by an order of magnitude. But right now they're not thought of as something a research PhD should take up. Masters is probably the right degree level here, right now.
posted by bonehead at 11:45 AM on April 2, 2016 [7 favorites]
(And lest we just think this is a sciences problem, it ain't. There's a whole range of human social studies fields from history and anthropology through education through social policy that face the similar issues).
posted by bonehead at 12:03 PM on April 2, 2016
posted by bonehead at 12:03 PM on April 2, 2016
How are we going to balance this with the fact that science education is so OMG! uncreative?
On the other hand, if Citizen Scientists are just waiting to step into these roles, why create another credential stream? [/sarc]
posted by sneebler at 12:09 PM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, if Citizen Scientists are just waiting to step into these roles, why create another credential stream? [/sarc]
posted by sneebler at 12:09 PM on April 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
sneebler, the fix is exactly what original research grad school (as opposed to a non-research MBA coursework degree) does, trains the research process into a newly primed undergrad. It's a solved problem in my view.
posted by bonehead at 12:23 PM on April 2, 2016
posted by bonehead at 12:23 PM on April 2, 2016
If there's a way to set up programs for people like me that are a more positive experience than the one I had in grad school, but still provide the broad skill-base, I'm all for it.
At least some in academia could start by removing their heads from their posteriors on this. A couple of years ago, I was listening to one of the governing board members of the social sciences granting council at a cocktail party casually explaining (to a PhD researcher at an NGO) how PhDs who didn't get academic jobs were "failures" and could be dismissed as having no worthy opinions.
Universities vastly overproduce doctorates if the only possible employment is university professors. However, we acknowledge that most of these students will be doing valuable work out in the world, that university faculty attitude need to change. This isn't "universities need to train job skills", it's universities need to realize that the universe is bigger than them and that their students can have intellectually-challenging, but applied options outside of the "pure" university settings.
posted by bonehead at 12:31 PM on April 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
At least some in academia could start by removing their heads from their posteriors on this. A couple of years ago, I was listening to one of the governing board members of the social sciences granting council at a cocktail party casually explaining (to a PhD researcher at an NGO) how PhDs who didn't get academic jobs were "failures" and could be dismissed as having no worthy opinions.
Universities vastly overproduce doctorates if the only possible employment is university professors. However, we acknowledge that most of these students will be doing valuable work out in the world, that university faculty attitude need to change. This isn't "universities need to train job skills", it's universities need to realize that the universe is bigger than them and that their students can have intellectually-challenging, but applied options outside of the "pure" university settings.
posted by bonehead at 12:31 PM on April 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
For those of you who are curious as to the "angle" of this proposal, it's basically this:
In the 21st century, we have a skills gap. Not only are our workers not skilled enough for future jobs, but our highly trained skilled professionals are also not skilled enough. Yes, you may have a PhD in molecular biology, but what do you know about programming apps? Our company is making an app that targets advertising directly to people with certain DNA expressions. How can you contribute to that if you are *just* a lowly PhD?
This is the ultimate end result of those job advertisements that you've seen -- that we've all seen -- that advertise something like "New position for Data/Physics Ninja at high-tech startup. Requirements: 2 Masters degrees (in Materials Science and Accounting, respectively), plus at least ABD in Quantum Physics PhD. Familiarity with Drupal/Hadoop mandatory -- must provide github portfolio. Must be fluent (native-level or close) in Mandarin and Turkish. Additional JD and familiarity with Brazilian maritime law strongly encouraged. Salary: ~$55,000."
This is a part of that. Capitalism is demanding that elite people -- the best of the best, the smartest of the smartest -- literally spend their entire lives to prepare for about 10 years of productive work before being discarded. It goes without saying that everyone else will be discarded, or indeed is already discarded.
This is the equivalent of bosses telling poor working-class people that they need to "get educated if you want to survive in the New Economy". Except now it's not poor working class people being told this -- it's educated elites.
The contagion is spreading.
posted by Tyrant King Porn Dragon at 1:39 PM on April 2, 2016 [19 favorites]
In the 21st century, we have a skills gap. Not only are our workers not skilled enough for future jobs, but our highly trained skilled professionals are also not skilled enough. Yes, you may have a PhD in molecular biology, but what do you know about programming apps? Our company is making an app that targets advertising directly to people with certain DNA expressions. How can you contribute to that if you are *just* a lowly PhD?
This is the ultimate end result of those job advertisements that you've seen -- that we've all seen -- that advertise something like "New position for Data/Physics Ninja at high-tech startup. Requirements: 2 Masters degrees (in Materials Science and Accounting, respectively), plus at least ABD in Quantum Physics PhD. Familiarity with Drupal/Hadoop mandatory -- must provide github portfolio. Must be fluent (native-level or close) in Mandarin and Turkish. Additional JD and familiarity with Brazilian maritime law strongly encouraged. Salary: ~$55,000."
This is a part of that. Capitalism is demanding that elite people -- the best of the best, the smartest of the smartest -- literally spend their entire lives to prepare for about 10 years of productive work before being discarded. It goes without saying that everyone else will be discarded, or indeed is already discarded.
This is the equivalent of bosses telling poor working-class people that they need to "get educated if you want to survive in the New Economy". Except now it's not poor working class people being told this -- it's educated elites.
The contagion is spreading.
posted by Tyrant King Porn Dragon at 1:39 PM on April 2, 2016 [19 favorites]
This is the equivalent of bosses telling poor working-class people that they need to "get educated if you want to survive in the New Economy". Except now it's not poor working class people being told this -- it's educated elites.
Bingo. (Though I'd tack on: it's other elites telling the educators about a particular field that they're doing it wrong.)
Remember back when people got trained on the job for just about anything? When a company had to expect you to pick up skills as you went, rather than start out knowing everything you have to do? That's gone, apparently. Having a Ph.D. in one field isn't enough. Hell, having a Ph.D. in a field and postdoc experience in a different but related field isn't enough. Now you have to be educated in many fields of science, be able to comprehend (but apparently not perform) cutting-edge research, be able to arrange your own teams and network your own groups -- all in the span of time it usually takes a Ph.D. student to get their legs under them and achieve competency and a network in a single field.
It's worth noting what this doesn't include. It doesn't require you to perform high-end, cutting edge research. Hell, it doesn't even include the time to acquire that kind of skill set. (I can only speak for my own field -- chemistry -- but someone in their fifth year of research will typically accomplish more in six months than they will in the entire span of time it takes them to qualify for a masters (c.a. 2 yrs, most of that classwork).) Because of the structure of the program, it requires you to have your project handed to you on a platter and for you to only work on it part-time -- something closer to a skilled undergrad rather than a Ph.D. candidate. You are supposed to network, but you aren't supposed to put in the kinds of effort that it takes to make you a person worth networking with. You are, in essence, leaching off of the efforts of other researchers while simultaneously making yourself more qualified for the 'fall-back', almost out-of-field positions (full time journal editor, scientific journalist, NGO worker -- hell, data scientist or programmer) that are currently reserved for individuals with Ph.Ds or master's degrees who decide they'd rather do something slightly different with their lives while still leveraging their degrees.
If you want a multidisciplinary Ph.D., then go obtain one: when you start your program, when you find an advisor, tell them what you want to do and who else you think you could work with. Or, if your project isn't a linear one, answer one question and then find another question that's best answered by collaborating with another group. But don't invent a new subject where you're not contributing to your field of study and then insist that you, too, deserve a Ph.D.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 2:13 PM on April 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
Bingo. (Though I'd tack on: it's other elites telling the educators about a particular field that they're doing it wrong.)
Remember back when people got trained on the job for just about anything? When a company had to expect you to pick up skills as you went, rather than start out knowing everything you have to do? That's gone, apparently. Having a Ph.D. in one field isn't enough. Hell, having a Ph.D. in a field and postdoc experience in a different but related field isn't enough. Now you have to be educated in many fields of science, be able to comprehend (but apparently not perform) cutting-edge research, be able to arrange your own teams and network your own groups -- all in the span of time it usually takes a Ph.D. student to get their legs under them and achieve competency and a network in a single field.
It's worth noting what this doesn't include. It doesn't require you to perform high-end, cutting edge research. Hell, it doesn't even include the time to acquire that kind of skill set. (I can only speak for my own field -- chemistry -- but someone in their fifth year of research will typically accomplish more in six months than they will in the entire span of time it takes them to qualify for a masters (c.a. 2 yrs, most of that classwork).) Because of the structure of the program, it requires you to have your project handed to you on a platter and for you to only work on it part-time -- something closer to a skilled undergrad rather than a Ph.D. candidate. You are supposed to network, but you aren't supposed to put in the kinds of effort that it takes to make you a person worth networking with. You are, in essence, leaching off of the efforts of other researchers while simultaneously making yourself more qualified for the 'fall-back', almost out-of-field positions (full time journal editor, scientific journalist, NGO worker -- hell, data scientist or programmer) that are currently reserved for individuals with Ph.Ds or master's degrees who decide they'd rather do something slightly different with their lives while still leveraging their degrees.
If you want a multidisciplinary Ph.D., then go obtain one: when you start your program, when you find an advisor, tell them what you want to do and who else you think you could work with. Or, if your project isn't a linear one, answer one question and then find another question that's best answered by collaborating with another group. But don't invent a new subject where you're not contributing to your field of study and then insist that you, too, deserve a Ph.D.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 2:13 PM on April 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
I suggested 5 total qualifying examinations, 1 in the home department of the PhD, and 4 in additional subjects.
I really do not want to be an examiner at five times as many examinations.
posted by grouse at 2:18 PM on April 2, 2016 [6 favorites]
I really do not want to be an examiner at five times as many examinations.
posted by grouse at 2:18 PM on April 2, 2016 [6 favorites]
My committee in my ecology doctoral program included an aquatic ecosystem ecologist, a terrestrial ecosystem ecologist, a terrestrial community ecologist (plants), a hydrologist, and a geomorphologist. In my doctoral exams, I had to answer questions on all of those subjects, plus stats. I took additional coursework in stats, modeling, and GIS. There was nothing unusual about my program compared to the dozens of other ecology programs in the world. We all know that the natural world is multi-disciplinary and requires broadly trained scientists. This person just needs to step out of the biomed box.
posted by hydropsyche at 2:24 PM on April 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 2:24 PM on April 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
There is a ton of need for people like this as noted above in regulatory and planning/ management fields. Ideally though you wouldn't do all this at once and MS level would be more appropriate but it's a good idea and needed in agency jobs for sure.
posted by fshgrl at 8:15 PM on April 2, 2016
posted by fshgrl at 8:15 PM on April 2, 2016
Can those jobs afford to compensate people for the additional training?
posted by miyabo at 11:29 PM on April 2, 2016
posted by miyabo at 11:29 PM on April 2, 2016
... and where would these unicorns of jobs be advertised?
posted by porpoise at 3:23 PM on April 4, 2016
posted by porpoise at 3:23 PM on April 4, 2016
On the environmental side, with everyone from the big development companies (oil, mining, but also construction), consulting firms (some of the biggest are Golder Associates and Stantec, but there is everything down to limited partnerships and sole proprietorships), and government. They have all sorts of names, including environmental affairs, regulatory compliance, risk assessment, chemist, biologist, geomorphologist, limnologist. Pay runs from poor (junior with a big company) to very upscale (run own well-regarded small consultancy). Healthcare is possibly bigger and better paid.
There are thousands of these jobs and those with graduate degrees, while they may start on the bottom like everyone else, tend to rise quicker and higher IME than their BA/BSc peers. But these are generally not or only partially research careers.
posted by bonehead at 9:55 AM on April 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
There are thousands of these jobs and those with graduate degrees, while they may start on the bottom like everyone else, tend to rise quicker and higher IME than their BA/BSc peers. But these are generally not or only partially research careers.
posted by bonehead at 9:55 AM on April 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
Yeah, they are information synthesisn jobs, not research. Permitting, compliance, planning etc.
posted by fshgrl at 10:37 PM on April 12, 2016
posted by fshgrl at 10:37 PM on April 12, 2016
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