Re:Why You Don't “Fucking Love Science”
by beambot on Thursday September 19, 2013 @05:05PM
(#6414308)
To each their own. I experienced the PhD-postdoc path. IMO...
-- Science is the quest to understand how and why things work, and how to make 'em better (for engineering). Sure, some of it is "process", but not "process and people" (to me, though the people are good too).
-- Academic science definitely has a profit motive: get money to do more science.
-- Academic "workhorses" get paid $40k because they're either in training (grad student) or in a holding pattern (postdocs) and looking for the "right" long-term gig.
-- Biological sciences have perverse career trajectories compared to others in STEM. I still can't believe that you need multiple 5-year postdocs to be (truly) eligible for faculty jobs. Probably some supply-demand things going on there.
-- My gut tells me... People in science who bitch about others' motivations are just projecting their own unhappiness. You can love science and its beauty without committing your life to it.
-- Science is the quest to understand how and why things work, and how to make 'em better (for engineering). Sure, some of it is "process", but not "process and people" (to me, though the people are good too).
-- Academic science definitely has a profit motive: get money to do more science.
-- Academic "workhorses" get paid $40k because they're either in training (grad student) or in a holding pattern (postdocs) and looking for the "right" long-term gig.
-- Biological sciences have perverse career trajectories compared to others in STEM. I still can't believe that you need multiple 5-year postdocs to be (truly) eligible for faculty jobs. Probably some supply-demand things going on there.
-- My gut tells me... People in science who bitch about others' motivations are just projecting their own unhappiness. You can love science and its beauty without committing your life to it.