My own experience from academia tells me that a big part of the problem is the fact that everyone is competing for a small pool of faculty positions and those positions are filled based on individual performance. This means you can never win as a team, only as an individual, and everyone needs to get their share. Only a professor can build a team, but even those teams are temporary.
Add to this the fact that only new things count as science, which means that good work can easily turn out worthless if the desired results are not achieved. For this reason, science then is naturally elitist, and has big differences in the status of participants (tenured vs not), and heavy competition. Might it be that this environment breeds nasty behavior such as misogyny and bullying?
If a professor treats a student badly (I don't mean harassment, I mean overwork and bad guidance) then that is rarely punished in any way, it is probably beneficial for his career.
I think it's easier to have such an exploitative regime in sciences that depend on "big lab" research: a higher body of graduate-student subordinates trying to get PhDs makes it easier to treat them as interchangeable components; the success of the lab depends on maximisation of (competent) labour hours put in; the lab equipment is seriously expensive and a high return on the costs must be shown to justify the next round of research applications; the graduate students are rather more dependent on the PI's goodwill to get the research done for their PhD.
In agree, the idea that science is a meritocracy is flawed. Working in a bioinformatics lab, I saw two PHD students, one motivated, smart and very hard working. The other, well I guess he was reasonably smart.
The second one chose a relatively easy subject, and got his PHD after 7 years, without really trying. The first one was in the lab late most nights for 6 years, but kept on being beaten to publish his results by other groups.
So after 5 years, one would have a few papers to his name, while the other wouldn't have. Which one would have made the better researcher, the one willing to put in the extra hours and dedication or the one who wasn't? Based on papers published (which is largely what science does), then the less dedicated one would have been chosen.
Wow. This stuck out so much:
"My mother, who'd earned degrees in physics and electrical engineering in the 70's, cried when I told her that I was leaving and why but she never blamed me. She'd hoped that my generation’s experiences would be better than hers."
A great point you brought up. I know someone whose mother, by all intents, was cleared to get accepted to a PhD program in the sciences...but unfortunately, they didn't allow women into the program at the time. It was "simply not done." And this was a decade after the Civil Rights Movement!
It's interesting that the author describes an alienation from work that sounds exceedingly Marxist and appears to be the result of failed bargaining power. This isn't an article about the pressures of academia, but about how those pressures mount when universities wield disproportionate power over graduate students' unions, which reflects the overall defeat of unions in the US. It will be interesting to see how long and how inhumanely elite, highly qualified professionals will allow themselves to be treated before there is a collective response.
The lack of bargaining power in academia exists in part because of the protracted period required to demonstrate productivity. A grad student or postdoc might have invested 3 years in getting a project working only to find that the PI has changed their minds about authorship (for example), or maybe the original idea was simply wrong. This person will now find it difficult to get a different position, and so stays on for a few more years in the hopes of demonstrating productivity, still at the whim of the PI. A Y-combinator funded startup might have gained it's first millionth customer in a third the time and be getting ready to cash-out with an IPO.
In the vein of your comment about Marxism, maybe PIs should be asked these famous questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?”
Graduate student unionization has had a troubled past (in the US, the article's author doesn't reference her institution). From my research and what I know at institutions I have worked in, organization has been stymied mostly by a ruling of the National Labor Board that disallows any person receiving "training" who is labeled as a "student" from organizing, hinging on the fact that they are not working a wage job but instead a "fellowship." This distinction can be groan-inducing for academics, but alas.
I don't think this necessarily reflects the "overall defeat of unions in the US", but your philosophical argument does give some food for thought.
This is a bizarre comment given that the problem with science is that the funding model is coming from the government (NIH, NSF) and non-profits (ie, 501c3s).
It's getting harder and harder for me to rationalize staying in STEM.
I'm currently ABD, hoping to graduate next spring. My boyfriend of two years has an amazing job, and I have trouble finding it fair to force him to move around with me should I bounce from postdoc to postdoc for the next three to five years, especially when we currently live close to both of our families.
When I started my Ph.D., I was out to my peers because I figured anyone who was this high up in academia wouldn't care. I chose my adviser carefully, and we have a good working relationship, but I still haven't come out to him, or my coauthors. It just seems like too big of a risk when the rest of my career is on the line.
At the same time I have no idea what I'd do if I left. It's not like my programming knowledge is solid enough to pass a technical interview. Blerg.
> It's not like my programming knowledge is solid enough to pass a technical interview.
Don't convince yourself of that. A ton of companies are looking for smart people with good number and data skills who are able to expand their programming skills as needed. Being able to learn new skills IMO is a lot more valuable than being a 10 year expert in a particular language.
The past few years' trend of "data science" positions make for an awesome landing ground for people who are trained in science but don't want to do science anymore. The programming/statistics/analysis/visualization skill set is broad enough that nobody starts as a star in everything, and the value is in being able to create value with the skills you bring, and get better elsewhere.
This is horrible. It's also far from the first time I've heard of things like this happening.
My dad is a professor. I'm intimately familiar with the politics, backstabbing, and petty bickering that permeates academia. My dad survives by being positive, supportive, and staying out of the fray as much as possible.
I made a conscious choice to not enter academia. My degree is a B.A. in History; the only obvious career choice for that degree is to go through the hell that is history academia. I opted to fall back on my web development interests rather than use my degree or the network I'd built up.
Academia is abusive. The current state of things, as evidenced by the linked article and my own experiences, is holding back the real purpose of academia: a quest for knowledge.
I will reiterate: academia is abusive.
The problem is so systemic that I don't think there's any way to fix it. We need a new model, a new community.
Margaret Thatcher studied chemistry at Oxford and became a proper scientist working for a proper company before starting her political career. This was during a time when equal opportunities for women was a controversial idea rather than a right.
One of Thatcher's more notorious beliefs was that there is no such thing as society and everyone had to be out for themselves. After reading this article I can see that she might have got this belief from academia where the culture is competition rather than collaboration.
"And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."
Was it always the case that there was so much competition in Science? I graduated in 1996, and in those days it was only a few of the better people that went on to do PhD's, and there were not so many available. These days it seems relatively easy to get on to a PHD program (after doing a Masters) and the people I meet doing them do not appear to be the best and brightest.
This comment is a bit off topic, but one of the ways to keep underrepresented minorities and women engaged with computing at the undergraduate level is through constant encouragement. Research [0] from some computing professors suggests that:
"Without encouragement even high ability women and under-represented minorities were unlikely to persist in computing."
And this really sucks because one of the professors from this referenced research has said that CS access in High School is limited to affluent students (who are mostly white and asian) and the only place in the education pipeline where the playing field is even is in college, but without encouragement a lot of women and members of the minority community lean out.
The second issue is the fact that these fields are dominated by men and you can't control everyone's behaviour. Sure we can figure out clever ways to encourage and engage when this group is most at risk of leaning out, but once they are already in the field, I'm not sure what can be done on a larger scale?
I'm shocked by the sexism evidence in this article, and I respect the author for removing herself from such a place. I often wonder how this hostility compares to other institutions, and other labs in the same institution (forgive the scientist in me). I think it speaks volumes about the unevenness of higher education across universities, and where each PI can rule his fiefdom with whatever mercy he chooses to provide.
I believe the pyramid-like structure of academic research combined with the winner-take-all nature of publishing results is a toxic mix for exploitation, and sexism would make it all the more unberable. For women in the biosciences, I strongly suggest tapping into a network of support from other successful women such as Women in Bio (http://womeninbio.org/) and AWIS (http://www.awis.org/).
>and whom I heard joke about “finishing up some chromatography” (chromatography is a purification technique that usually involves flushing a quantity of liquid through a long, narrow column) when we paused our consulting session for a bathroom break.
Is it offensive to make a chemistry joke about taking a piss?
I assume it's more of a "straw that broke the camel's back" in a constant barrage of problems. Dick jokes in a toxic environment only make the environment more toxic.
Is it just me who doesn't see the sexism? This is the typical experience of every student regardless of gender, it is messed up but working harder doesn't defeat the system it validates it you should never let yourself be manipulated into working more than you wish or can without endangering your health or passion for the field.
Even if you choose to leave you don't have to give up on your passions.
I for one would never give up chemistry if i really loved it, sure it would be a lot harder without getting a PHD but who the hell cares I'm doing it for myself and will do whatever it takes to get what i want without endangering my health or love for the field.
If it takes me building my own lab and my own company to support my financial needs then so be it.
One is blatant - i.e. sexual harassment, prejudice, and discrimination.
The second is latent - i.e. the "typical experience of every student," as you put it, impacts people differently depending on a number of things including their gender. By not taking those individual differences into consideration, the culture of STEM forces women to work harder to fit in and balance their gender-specific circumstances.
OK this is a shame... but a quick look at the authors CV (on her webpage) shows that she graduated in 2007 and has two scientific publications, neither first author... which is OK for someone who appears to be 2 years into a PhD.
But reading her story I got the impression that she had been ground down or had been unfairly stepped over for years and was leaving in despair. I got the impression she chose to do an MS and PhD because she was being unfairly ignored despite a shining academic record ... but she started them in 2010 just 3 years after graduation.
So it reads like she has made a possibly sensible choice that academia is not for her. But it also seems graceless given here lack of experience to smear everyone around her.
I think it's interesting to hear from people like her with both experience in academia, and industry experience (especially from people who went back into academia, not the ones who got industry jobs then never wanted to go back).
If you ask someone who spent 30 years in the Catholic church whether the priesthood is a good move, you'd expect them to say that the good outweighs the bad. The same is true of people who spend 30 years in the education sector.
I think it's great of her to detail her experience, which must be a difficult process.
She has made the choice that academia is not for her, yes, but that was not for any academic reason: if we have any interest in improving academia, we should look at those reasons and see if we can't be more supportive to human beings in academia.
>OK this is a shame... but a quick look at the authors CV (on her webpage) shows that she graduated in 2007 and has two scientific publications, neither first author... which is OK for someone who appears to be 2 years into a PhD.
"It's shit like this that ruins academia", or: notice how otherwise trained and educated scientists immediately fall into the Fundamental Attribution Error when evaluating publication records. Ceteris paribus, a scientist with more publications is probably better. However, it is quite rare for all else to be equal, and especially when someone can raise specific arguments regarding an atypically toxic work environment, we should expect that the toxic environment may have "artificially" hurt their publication record.
I see how being one of the first, who succeeds leading the others is to hard to do for most people.
What i do not get is, why she does not use her flexibility as a weapon against the unfair system. She obviously planned to change it, why not attack from another angle? Why not consider switching to another university or even take the chance and visit another country. There must be a competent professor in organic chemistry with more divers graduates somewhere in the world, where she could have an unfair advantage.
Get a Phd there, gain superpowers, come back and defeat the evil villains.
Academia for the most part sounds horrible, when I found out what string theorists get paid I was astounded, it was only slightly better than a tech support job I had 12 years ago.
The story in software companies is utterly different. The software industry is a healthy market where if your boss is an asshole, you can say "bugger you, your loss," and go get a job someplace where the standards are better. Academia is a deformed industry where funding is inadequate, too many people are encouraged to try to crowd into the field, and the setup puts all the bargaining power into the hands of employers at the expense of employees, so if your boss is an asshole, there's very little you can do about it.
Not to me; I parsed it as "she shouldn't leave so that she sets a good example for other women" or "by leaving, she's not doing enough to support the cause".
I agree, there are a lot of options in industry with a BS in ChE, but not so much in Chemistry. You're pretty much expected to get at least a Masters...
She complains a bit about supervisors /PI's /consultants not graduating female students, without actually specifying how many females had the potential to graduate with the supervisor. To me this just comes off as some feminist whining, until you have actually shown that there is some sort of bias. If no females ever applied to work there, how could he / she graduate any females? I am guessing that (like CS) chemistry is a fairly male dominated subject.
I am not saying that the sexism doesn't exist, but please demonstrate it exists properly before complaining about it.
[+] [-] jorleif|12 years ago|reply
If a professor treats a student badly (I don't mean harassment, I mean overwork and bad guidance) then that is rarely punished in any way, it is probably beneficial for his career.
[+] [-] Fede_V|12 years ago|reply
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/29/magazine/lethal-chemistry-...
Still there, still incredibly famous, still untouched.
Oh, and speaking specifically of chemistry, who can forget this brilliant gem?
http://www.chemistry-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/a40...
That's real by the way.
[+] [-] chalst|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] collyw|12 years ago|reply
The second one chose a relatively easy subject, and got his PHD after 7 years, without really trying. The first one was in the lab late most nights for 6 years, but kept on being beaten to publish his results by other groups.
So after 5 years, one would have a few papers to his name, while the other wouldn't have. Which one would have made the better researcher, the one willing to put in the extra hours and dedication or the one who wasn't? Based on papers published (which is largely what science does), then the less dedicated one would have been chosen.
[+] [-] Geekette|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DaveWalk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanccox|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcrh|12 years ago|reply
In the vein of your comment about Marxism, maybe PIs should be asked these famous questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?”
[+] [-] DaveWalk|12 years ago|reply
I don't think this necessarily reflects the "overall defeat of unions in the US", but your philosophical argument does give some food for thought.
For more information, Wikipedia has a summary history of graduate student organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduate_student_unionization
[+] [-] 001sky|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thebooktocome|12 years ago|reply
I'm currently ABD, hoping to graduate next spring. My boyfriend of two years has an amazing job, and I have trouble finding it fair to force him to move around with me should I bounce from postdoc to postdoc for the next three to five years, especially when we currently live close to both of our families.
When I started my Ph.D., I was out to my peers because I figured anyone who was this high up in academia wouldn't care. I chose my adviser carefully, and we have a good working relationship, but I still haven't come out to him, or my coauthors. It just seems like too big of a risk when the rest of my career is on the line.
At the same time I have no idea what I'd do if I left. It's not like my programming knowledge is solid enough to pass a technical interview. Blerg.
[+] [-] bpodgursky|12 years ago|reply
Don't convince yourself of that. A ton of companies are looking for smart people with good number and data skills who are able to expand their programming skills as needed. Being able to learn new skills IMO is a lot more valuable than being a 10 year expert in a particular language.
[+] [-] jowiar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bovermyer|12 years ago|reply
My dad is a professor. I'm intimately familiar with the politics, backstabbing, and petty bickering that permeates academia. My dad survives by being positive, supportive, and staying out of the fray as much as possible.
I made a conscious choice to not enter academia. My degree is a B.A. in History; the only obvious career choice for that degree is to go through the hell that is history academia. I opted to fall back on my web development interests rather than use my degree or the network I'd built up.
Academia is abusive. The current state of things, as evidenced by the linked article and my own experiences, is holding back the real purpose of academia: a quest for knowledge.
I will reiterate: academia is abusive.
The problem is so systemic that I don't think there's any way to fix it. We need a new model, a new community.
[+] [-] Theodores|12 years ago|reply
One of Thatcher's more notorious beliefs was that there is no such thing as society and everyone had to be out for themselves. After reading this article I can see that she might have got this belief from academia where the culture is competition rather than collaboration.
[+] [-] iMark|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hardlianotion|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] collyw|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] al2o3cr|12 years ago|reply
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previou...
[+] [-] 1stop|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] not_paul_graham|12 years ago|reply
"Without encouragement even high ability women and under-represented minorities were unlikely to persist in computing."
And this really sucks because one of the professors from this referenced research has said that CS access in High School is limited to affluent students (who are mostly white and asian) and the only place in the education pipeline where the playing field is even is in college, but without encouragement a lot of women and members of the minority community lean out.
The second issue is the fact that these fields are dominated by men and you can't control everyone's behaviour. Sure we can figure out clever ways to encourage and engage when this group is most at risk of leaning out, but once they are already in the field, I'm not sure what can be done on a larger scale?
[0] http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2361276.2361304&coll=DL&dl...
[+] [-] DaveWalk|12 years ago|reply
I believe the pyramid-like structure of academic research combined with the winner-take-all nature of publishing results is a toxic mix for exploitation, and sexism would make it all the more unberable. For women in the biosciences, I strongly suggest tapping into a network of support from other successful women such as Women in Bio (http://womeninbio.org/) and AWIS (http://www.awis.org/).
[+] [-] jpeg_hero|12 years ago|reply
Is it offensive to make a chemistry joke about taking a piss?
[+] [-] Pxtl|12 years ago|reply
Which is sad, because it was a funny line.
[+] [-] jforman|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fuxy|12 years ago|reply
Even if you choose to leave you don't have to give up on your passions.
I for one would never give up chemistry if i really loved it, sure it would be a lot harder without getting a PHD but who the hell cares I'm doing it for myself and will do whatever it takes to get what i want without endangering my health or love for the field.
If it takes me building my own lab and my own company to support my financial needs then so be it.
[+] [-] hpriebe|12 years ago|reply
One is blatant - i.e. sexual harassment, prejudice, and discrimination.
The second is latent - i.e. the "typical experience of every student," as you put it, impacts people differently depending on a number of things including their gender. By not taking those individual differences into consideration, the culture of STEM forces women to work harder to fit in and balance their gender-specific circumstances.
[+] [-] Malarkey73|12 years ago|reply
But reading her story I got the impression that she had been ground down or had been unfairly stepped over for years and was leaving in despair. I got the impression she chose to do an MS and PhD because she was being unfairly ignored despite a shining academic record ... but she started them in 2010 just 3 years after graduation.
So it reads like she has made a possibly sensible choice that academia is not for her. But it also seems graceless given here lack of experience to smear everyone around her.
[+] [-] wisty|12 years ago|reply
If you ask someone who spent 30 years in the Catholic church whether the priesthood is a good move, you'd expect them to say that the good outweighs the bad. The same is true of people who spend 30 years in the education sector.
[+] [-] insuffi|12 years ago|reply
Her lack of experience does not mean she cannot have an opinion, and cannot point out that she's being abused.
If such a line of reasoning is common place in academia, then I'm extremely happy I didn't pursue further study.
[+] [-] vlasev|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ronaldx|12 years ago|reply
She has made the choice that academia is not for her, yes, but that was not for any academic reason: if we have any interest in improving academia, we should look at those reasons and see if we can't be more supportive to human beings in academia.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|12 years ago|reply
"It's shit like this that ruins academia", or: notice how otherwise trained and educated scientists immediately fall into the Fundamental Attribution Error when evaluating publication records. Ceteris paribus, a scientist with more publications is probably better. However, it is quite rare for all else to be equal, and especially when someone can raise specific arguments regarding an atypically toxic work environment, we should expect that the toxic environment may have "artificially" hurt their publication record.
[+] [-] allendoerfer|12 years ago|reply
What i do not get is, why she does not use her flexibility as a weapon against the unfair system. She obviously planned to change it, why not attack from another angle? Why not consider switching to another university or even take the chance and visit another country. There must be a competent professor in organic chemistry with more divers graduates somewhere in the world, where she could have an unfair advantage.
Get a Phd there, gain superpowers, come back and defeat the evil villains.
[+] [-] wisty|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fleitz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jorleif|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duochrome|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rwallace|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] humanrebar|12 years ago|reply
We need to have a broader discussion about closing the labor law loopholes that have been carved out over the years by special interests.
[+] [-] watwut|12 years ago|reply
That sounds ridiculous.
[+] [-] jey|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdl|12 years ago|reply
(Chem Eng and industrial chemistry seem fine with an SB, and maybe an employer-provided SM, but that's not research.)
[+] [-] doctorcroc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] untilHellbanned|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] collyw|12 years ago|reply
I am not saying that the sexism doesn't exist, but please demonstrate it exists properly before complaining about it.
[+] [-] EC1|12 years ago|reply