As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for change in academia

Re:As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for cha... by kmmlng on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @08:30AM (#31751984)

A PhD can mean a lot of different things. Personally, I'm employed as a research associate while doing a PhD, which in theory means I should do the PhD as part of my job. In practice, I do not get to do any actual research during the job and the PhD is relegated to weekends.

What I find curious: I get paid to do lots of things which are clearly complete nonsense, but the funding comes with the requirement that these specific nonsensical things must be done. I could do lots of useful things, but I do not get paid for those.

I'm far enough into the process that I've decided to just collect the stupid credential before I move on. Which is funny because I did not get into this for the credentials, but dropping out at this point would just look weird on my CV.

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Re:As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for cha... by EEBio on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @09:11AM (#31752367)

What are the nonsensical activities you get paid to do?

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Re:As professors struggle to recruit postdocs, calls for cha... by kmmlng on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @10:39AM (#31753572)

For example solving specific problems in a data-driven way when there is no data and there never will be any data.

Developing all sorts of platforms that will theoretically benefit the public / researchers / whoever, but in actuality will never be used by anyone and in fact will be shut down as soon as the corresponding project ends.

Those are the two generic examples I can think of, for everything else I'd have to give too much context.

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