Dr Petra EichelsdoerferFebruary 17, 2014 at 11:17 AM
My university lacked the funds to support me while applying for my first grant after my post-doc. So I was unable to re-write it after its first rejection. Although it was heartbreaking to walk away, I had a family to support. This was nearly four years ago. How many others have had to make the same decision I have? What will be the long-term consequences?
我们大学也是资金紧张，所以我直到博士后出站才拿到资金的第一笔科研基金。大约四年前把，当我第一次被基金会拒绝后，我实在难以鼓起勇气再次申请基金。尽管我必须去申请，因为我还得养家糊口。会有多少人曾与我经历过同样的处境呢，又有多少人与我一样做了同样的选择呢？
Lenny TeytelmanFebruary 17, 2014 at 5:30 PM
(By a professor at a research university, in response to my post.)
I wish I had more positive news on the funding front. I am now up to 18 grants. All rejections still very positive. But, I'm waiting to hear back from 2 of them in the beginning of March, keep your fingers crossed for me. Luckily, the University has given me some money to allow me to keep my postdoc and keep my lab running. Right now I'm okay for the next 9 months. the university has done a lot of things to make it obvious that they want to keep me, so I feel lucky about that...I'm just not sure how many more things they can do beyond this.
One thing that is positive is that I've become better at separating the inability to getting funding from me being a failure. Things in the lab are finally starting to come together with some exciting stories that are getting close to publication. And, I can finally appreciate that our work is good and we deserve funding. In the past, I thought of the rejections as saying that we just weren't good enough to deserve funding. I know it sounds weird, but this was an important transition for me.
I try to avoid giving advice to postdocs thinking about continuing in academia because I still really don't know if it is worth all of the sacrifice, but I haven't figured it out yet. I used to think that academia would be the only thing that would make me happy, but now I know that isn't true. I think there are a lot of things that we (highly trained scientists) can all do using our skills that we would be good at and would be fulfilling. I hope that you find (or have found) that thing.
我来给这次基金战役带来一些正能量吧，到目前为止我已经斩获了18个基金项目。那些被拒绝的项目也并非毫无希望，我还在等待他们中间的两个项目的消息，到三月初应该就可以看到结果了吧。幸运的是，我们学校也给予了我更多的钱来支持我博士后的工作，保证我的实验小组正常运行。至少在接下来的九个月之内，我的财务状况还是蛮好的。学校也尽他所能的做了能做的事情来挽留我，我也觉得非常幸运，我只是不能确定，他们这样又能持续多久呢？
另外一件正能量的事情是，在资金申请方面，我已经可以做得很好了，不再是一个失败者了。同时，实验室也出现很多好消息，我们有一些文章即将要发表了。而且，我对我们实验室的工作非常满意，我也坚信我们应该获得项目资金。在过去，如果我的基金申请被拒绝，我一般都会认为是我的工作做得还不够好。我知道这听起来有点奇怪，但那的确是我当初的心理状态。
我一向避免给那些正在做博士后的科学家对关于是否留在学术圈这样的问题给什么建议，因为我不确定所有的牺牲对他自己来说，是否值得，而我本身也没有完全看透这一点。我一直认为学术圈的活动是唯一能使我开心的事情，但是我现在不这么认为了。我认为这世上还好很多更美好，更有意义的事情值得像你我这样的受过高级技能训练的科学家可以做的，我们可以完全应用我们所擅长的，也可以做得更得心应手。我也希望你能找到同样的事情。
DorukArtFebruary 18, 2014 at 10:26 PM
Hi Lenny. Another one for your collection. I was, until recently, a postdoc at Stanford. The lab I worked in closed down, at least partially because the professor didn't want to deal with grants anymore. Unfortunately, I have been well-received in a number of other labs I applied for, yet none of them had funding to pay a new postdoc. Consequently, I may be leaving academia soon for good as well.
你好，Lenny，我也共享一下我的故事吧。我曾经是斯坦福大学的一名博士后，就在不久前还是。我所在的实验室几乎快倒闭了，至少看起来像是，因为实验室的教授不再想去搞那些资金项目的事情了。不幸的是，即使我被其它几个我所申请的实验室录取了，但是他们没有一个能负担得起一个新的博士后。因此，我可能马上也要离开学术圈了吧。
Jason MastaitisFebruary 19, 2014 at 5:05 PM
Nice piece, Lenny - very well said. About three years ago I was a postdoc at Yale who greatly enjoyed my position and research, but could see the writing on the wall as far as grant funding goes. Then I fortunately received a call from a biopharma company who was looking for a scientist in my field. Got an interview, then a job offer, jumped ship and never looked back. Best career decision I ever made. Still doing essentially the same research, but just in an industry setting and now I make a living wage to boot. Can't imagine what I'd be doing now if I hadn't received that call. Thank my lucky stars every day, as does my wife.
干得好，Lenny，写得非常棒。三年前，我也是耶鲁大学的一名博士后，那时我非常享受我的研究学习工作，但是也看到了资金危机来临的不祥之兆。然后，我幸运的接到了一个生物制药公司的咨询电话，他们正在寻找我所从事的这个领域的科学家。经过简单的面试，我拿到了他们的offer，从此跳出了学术圈，而且永不回头啦。这是我职业生涯所做的最棒的决定。我现在仍然做的是类似的研究，只不过工作环境换成了工业界，我的报酬也足够我谋生计了。我实在无法想象要是当初我没有接那个电话，我现在的生活将会何去何从呢。感谢我可爱的小女儿，同时也感谢我的妻子~
doctorpmsFebruary 27, 2014 at 5:25 PM
Thank you for posting this. There is so much resemblance to what I'm currently thinking! I'm still in the point of realizing how hard is the science funding situation and if I really want get myself into it. Reading your post adds food to my thoughts and brings a different perspective. Good luck in your new life!
谢谢你分享这些！你所提到的这些事情与我现在的经历实在是太像了。对于科学研究基金的的糟糕状况，我还在迷茫中，我也在纠结是否应该跳入这个火坑。读了你的文章，我有了一些新的想法，同时让我有机会从另一些视角来看待这个问题。祝愿你有一个精彩的新生活。
HenryFebruary 28, 2014 at 3:43 AM
Ahh, academia. A place where they think they know it all, but are so busy doing politics and fighting each other for funding like it's House of Cards that they have lost sight of the goal. I believe this very old article sums up how funding is meted out better than any other - entrenched power wins every single time, whether correct or not. And much science is filled with fraudulent activities: http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/92prom.html ("Scientific fraud and the power structure of science").
Who am I? PhD Chicao, post-doc Chicago MIT. Tenured faculty. Left it all to go to law school and become a lawyer at a firm and then at a company and have never looked back. Starting this career so late means early retirement will be a bit stretched but better than it would have been if I had stayed in academia where my ideas were not "safe" and did not follow on "next step" science that is all that gets funded.
Leave academia, get a life, the water is fine.
哈哈，学术界！那个地方都是一堆白痴，以为自己什么都懂，却浪费大把时间在勾心斗角及对研究基金的你争我抢上面。就像纸牌屋里面那些迷失了人生目标的那群人一样。（我没看过纸牌屋，不知道这句话该怎么样翻译）我确信，收集自研究基金方面的文章，妄想改革基金分配制度已经是老生常谈的故事了。赢家通吃这个理论不管正确与否，它就是现实。
我是芝加哥大学的博士，曾经在芝加哥和MIT联合实验室做博士后。也拿到了终身教职。但是我放弃了在法学院的一切荣耀，成为了法庭上的一个普普通通的律师，然后又去了一个律师事务所，我从来没有后悔过。我的社会事业开启的太晚了，意味着我早点退休的想法将变得不切实际，但总比我还赖在学术界，惶惶不可终日，所有的科学进展都依赖于下一步能得到什么样的资金资助而活着要好很多。
Diane BouisFebruary 28, 2014 at 3:14 PM
Dear Lenny,
Congratulations! More power to you! And thank you for sparking the conversation!
What's missing is a clear exit strategy for PostDocs... deciding that academia is not for you, is still a silent, lonely process because most scientists hardly know anyone outside academia and the stereotype of "the smart and hard-working ones get tenure" lives.... But in this funding climate even the smart and hard working ones have to close their labs, so we need to get beyond the stigma.
You chose to be an entrepreneur and I wish you great success! But not all scientists were cut out to be entrepreneurs, so how do we empower PostDocs to leave towards equally (or more) fulfilling careers? Can (national and university) PostDoc associations to help with that transition? Can University Career Centers learn to not just cater to undergrads and fresh PhDs? Am I missing organizations?
In my free time, I give talks and privately mentor academics ready to exit and am thrilled anytime one of them gets a job, but that's by far not enough... I'd love to hear from you and others how we can prevent a "lost generation of scientists" and allow them the most successful exit possible, by providing a more structured -and thereby socially obvious and acceptable- exit.
恭喜你呀！你会变得更强大的，同时也谢谢你的分享。
我们刚才没有讨论的是博士后这个策略本身的问题，博士后本意是为了让你有充足的时间来思考学术生活是否适合你，但这是一个毫无生气，而且孤独的过程，因为大多数科学家对学术圈外面的世界了解甚少，而且他们固执的认为，只有最聪明最勤奋的那批人才能拿到终身教职。但是在现今的资金资助环境下，即使是最勤奋最聪明的那批人的实验室也不得不面临关门大吉的窘境，所以，我们应该勇于改变。
既然你选择了成为一个企业家，那我当然要祝你成功啦。但并不是所有的博士后都有这么好的机会能走入工业界，我们应该如何帮助他们走入一个差不多或者更精彩的人生呢？你觉得博士后委员会是不是应该做点什么帮助他们做一个好的转变呢？
我业余时间我喜欢做一些演讲，有点类似于学术界的精神导师那样，每次我听说有人找到了工作我都非常激动，但这样始终不够。我想听听你或者其他人对关于我们如何阻止这一代科学家的迷失的建议，如何帮助他们走入更成功更精彩的人生。
Nicole NeumanFebruary 28, 2014 at 3:55 PM
I can definitely relate. Throughout my scientific career I watched my fantasy of becoming the tenured academic who balances a family, an exciting research career, and fulfilling teaching duties get chipped away piece by piece. Nowhere to be found was the academic philosopher of olden days, who could afford to sit around and discuss scientific ideas and principles for hours on end with their colleagues. They had too much work to do writing grants to engage in leisurely discourse. At a certain point I looked around and realized the actuality of current academic life was not something I wanted. So I asked myself: in an ideal world, how would I like to spend my day? And looked for jobs that allowed me to do as much of the stuff I liked as possible, and a little as possible of the stuff I didn't like.
After some digging and testing out a few things, I landed on scientific editing and I couldn't be happier. I'm so incredibly thankful that I got my PhD, because I could not have gotten this job without it, but I do not regret leaving the beaten path. These days becoming an academic is not the norm. Of course it is a shame that we are losing so many great minds because of the structural problems supporting their academic careers, but I think that it is time to openly acknowledge in our training programs that a trainee is not a failure if they leave academia. A PhD isn't just a means to create professors; it teaches people a crucial skill that is useful in many different careers and ventures--how to think scientifically. That is a valuable thing, even outside of the domain knowledge you will learn.
Anyway, I will get off my soapbox now :-). Best of luck, Lenny, you've created something really interesting with ZappyLab and I look forward to seeing where it goes.
我就是楼主所描述的典型例子。纵观我的科学生涯，也曾幻想过拿到终身教职，既能从事那令人激动的研究工作，也能完成教学义务，还能养家糊口。但现在我所幻想的那些人已经是过去时了，他们以前的确可以坐起来一起聊聊科学思想，与同事一起参与合作研究，他们有着非常多非常重要的事情要做，写基金申请书只是闲暇时光的随意之举。不知道什么时候开始，我发现我发现现在的学术圈生活早就已经不是我以前想象中的那样了。所以我经常问自己，我这一生该如何度过呢？应该是去找一个工作，让我可以做更多感兴趣的事情，尽可能少的去参与那些我所讨厌的事情吧。
我实在是非常感谢我拿到了PHD学位，如果不是这样，我压根就无法得到我现在的工作机会，但是我不后悔我的人生走的这么曲折。现如今，想在学术圈混并不是一件容易的事情。当然，我们应该为学术圈感到羞耻，为我们失去了如此多的人才，就因为体制的原因，无法支持科学家的学术梦想。但同时，我们也应该开放我们的思想了，并不是说我们培训好的PHD最后离开了学术圈就是我们教育的失败。博士并非意味着一定要成为教授。博士教育也同时提供了非常多的其它技能能辅助他们在其它领域工作能如鱼得水，帮助他们如何科学的思考。这也是很有价值的事情，即使他们不再从事他们的研究领域。
Jochen WeberFebruary 28, 2014 at 4:19 PM
Hey Lenny,
While I am neither holding or pursuing a degree, I can very much relate to the pain you describe. My own career path led me, luckily, on a parallel and related, but also different track: after dropping out of an educations masters program in Germany, I received a professional certificate in CS/IT from a German chamber of commerce, and have worked as a programmer since--now at Columbia University in NYC.
I cannot even begin to offer a solution to the problem you describe *within the system*. For quite a while now, I have come to think of the current model of economic activity as a (very long-term) transition phase. Initially, people traded more or less directly goods and services, which has been essentially replaced by goods-and-services for currency--a virtual "good" that is being controlled in most markets by a small group of people with a specific set of goals. I am not a proponent of some conspiracy theory of any kind! I don't think that this is a grand master plan of sorts, but I do think that we have come to think of this paradigm as so "inevitable" that we are blinded by all the negative consequences it has. Equally as it probably took a lot of people a long time to consider a solar-centric planetary system--and that had very little consequence on the practical aspects of life--I believe it will take us a long time before we even *consider* alternatives for a centrally organized currency as means of exchanging (goods and) services.
As long as we think of human labor as a "marketable" good, work that carries greater intrinsic value (being enjoyable for what it's worth) will, if enough people can "afford" it both mentally and financially, always be less valuable from a market point of view. In simpler terms: I believe that it would be a much "smarter" allocation of resources if all unemployed people added their brain power to solve some real problems instead of just being unemployed. But the market does not lend itself to such a solution, because solving general problems is not something that anyone would pay money for--regardless of whether it is good for the "common good".
For those individuals who love science but also need to make ends meet, it is a tough choice to find a position that combines those aspects. I am glad I found mine (for now, although--as my "niche" is equally depending on funding--I may at some point have to move on to greener pastures as well). In principle, I am certainly *FOR* an even faster pace of science as well as any effort that will decouple science from the economic view on "problem solving", as it will, in the long term, only accelerate the necessary insight that scarce resources should be traded by a market, but when the scarce resource becomes abundant (in a generally desirable kind of way, such as more scientists, a.k.a. the people who solve problems), maybe it is time to think about ways to allocate resources in a "non-market" way?
Cheers!
Desiree H. FloydMarch 1, 2014 at 7:27 PM
Thanks Lenny. I've been postdocing for 8 years now. I'm happy doing the research I'm doing. One of the above posts could have been written by my PI/mentor--9 months of funding left, great projects close to publication, don't couple your success meter in life to the funding situation. He's brilliant. I'm brilliant. We're all brilliant, and we're so close to making some diseases go away, or understanding some basic things at completely new levels, and in the case of cancer research for invariably fatal brain tumors (my field) we are on the cusp of getting 5-year survivors. I thought about leaving academia to run for Congress against Eric Cantor (my rep) but decided not to because I want to see this out. If the lab closes, it closes. If it stays open, I'm here. I don't really care about the money. I love my job. I'm fortunate in other ways--I didn't pony up to move more than once, because I stopped believing in that particular side of "what you have to do to succeed." We moved where we wanted to, we live near family and on a farm. If the lab doesn't work out, I'll write, I'll get involved in politics and journalism and programming or web design, and I'll continue to "do science" by breeding livestock and growing crops. I'll figure out a way to teach or start a small company. I guess you could say that I didn't know what I was signing up for at the beginning of all this. I just wanted to play with all the toys. At this point I still get to do that. We'll see . . . all I can say is, good luck to you, best wishes, and I hope the protocol thing works out.
谢谢你，Lenny。我已经做了8年的博士后了，我本身是非常乐于从事我现在的研究工作的。我的导师跟你的遭遇非常像，他的资金也只能撑九个月了，他也有一个很伟大的文章要发表了。但这些成功都不能离开资金资助。他很聪明，我也很聪明，我们都很聪明，我们就快把一些疾病从此从人类身边赶走了，或者至少能从一些新的角度来诠释那些疾病机理，比如说癌症研究领域，我们关注的是致命性很高的脑肿瘤，我们已经提高了该癌症的五年存活率。我也曾想过离开学术界，去从政，但是最终还是没能下定决心，因为我放不下我的研究成果。如果实验室关闭了，研究就终止了，如果实验室还能继续运转，我就不会走。我并不怎么在乎那些报酬，我热爱我的工作。我也很幸运，不是像小马过河一样，因为我不再相信，你的人生追求只是成功这样的观点。我可以去任何我想去的地方，我一直与家人生活在一起，就在农场里面。如果实验室被关闭了，我就会去写文章报导这样的事情，我会从政，或者当记者，或者编程，网页设计。而且我会继续做科学研究，通过在农场里面摆弄庄家。我希望可以找到开一个小公司的途径，我想你可能会觉得我太理想化了，把一切都想得那么简单。
Blanca Carbajal-GonzalezMarch 1, 2014 at 7:43 PM
Thank you for sharing your experience. I can't say I got that far. I entered a PhD program in Molecular and Cell Biology very excited to be doing something I loved. However, after nearly 4 years of listening to the post-docs talk about how horrible their career prospects were ( as well as having a horrible mentor/PI), I decided to leave. Since I had only had experience in academia (although I already had publications), I could not get a job outside of academia. I returned to academia as a lab manager. While my boss is a huge improvement over the last and I love research, I worry I will not be able to pay off my school loans with the terrible salary I have. You would think that a MS in science would be worth something more....guess not. It doesn't seem like our dedication is valued much.
Also, the pressure to be a PI and only a PI is horrible. Academics can be so cruel if you have other career aspirations. Try telling your PI that you want to do some volunteer work or take extra classes to prepare yourself for another job. The PhD needs to be diversified. There aren't enough faculty positions for all those graduating with PhDs....
谢谢你分享你的经历。我不能说我的经历跟你完全类似。我在分子细胞生物学领域拿到了博士学位，而且我也很兴奋我可以从事我所喜欢的工作。然而，经过了四年的各种博士后分享他们的职业生涯是多么恐怖之后，我决定离开了。因为我只有在学术圈的经验，包括发表了一些文章，我很难在学术圈外面找到一份工作。我又回到了实验室做一名实验管理员，近年来我的老板进步也很大，我也很喜欢我的研究工作，但是我担心我微博的薪水很难负担得起我的学业贷款。你可能觉得一个科学性的硕士应该拿到更多的报酬，也许拿不到，但是对我们的定价这视乎不是由我们本身能决定的。
而且，成为一个PI的压力也是非常可怕的，学术圈是如此的残酷。试着去告诉拿到导师，你可以做一些义务工作或者参加一些额外的课程，做一些能帮助你走出学术圈拿到社会上的工作的事情吧。博士也必须多元化，毕竟，现实社会中没有那么多的教职能满足现在所有的在读博士。
labratMarch 1, 2014 at 10:58 PM
I was you... completely. I started doing science when I was 14 and working in a university lab by the time I was 17 and a Goldwater Fellow at 19. I loved science until I went to graduate school and saw it for what it was becoming. You don't even talk about in your article the things that I found truly demoralizing- the lying, cheating, stealing projects, fabricating data etc to get publications and funding. The amount of retractions that seem to be going up every year because of the need to publish. I don't trust the people in my graduate lab and I don't trust my adviser- he considers stealing and using untested reagents (because testing requires time) to be "ambitious". It is really sad and was heartbreaking for someone that loved science in its pure form so much. I met Jasper once and really was charmed by him. I think he is completely right- the people that are left in our generation of sciencists (I graduated in 2002) are the people that learned how to claw their way to the top by any means necessary and generally are more enamored with the idea of being a professor than of doing good science.
我跟你所经历的简直一模一样！我从14岁开始就从事科学研究了，到17岁的时候进入了一所大学的实验室，19岁的时候就拿到了教职。我热爱科学，直到我进入研究生学习阶段后，看到了一些现实。对于学术圈的肮脏，你还有很多东西没有提到，包括那些欺骗，谎言，偷窃学术成果，伪造经历来骗取研究基金资助。迫于发论文的压力，如此的事件发生的越来越频繁了。我不敢相信我研究生实验室里面的任何同事，甚至我的导师，他一直想使用那些未经批准的试剂（因为试剂要想得到批准必须要经过很多耗费时间的测试）。这些现实的问题对一个一直纯洁的热爱科学研究的人造成了很大的伤害。我以前见过你的导师Jasper一次，非常的仰慕他。我觉得他说的非常对，我们这一代人还留在科学界的都是学会了那些必须的申请基金的技巧，他们更擅长去做一个教授，而不是做科学研究工作。
MargitMarch 2, 2014 at 7:15 AM
Thanks for posting - there are many similar voices. As a tenured prof at a good University that still respects tenure, my position is not so fragile, but I am likely going to do a similar move but later - I am going to retire early to do something different. Also, my daughter, who has taught all through high school and college and was sure to go to academia, now that she is a grad student at MIT, had to switch mentor because hers didn't get tenure, has decided to likely do something else. It is sad that the best young people like you are quitting! But as a permanent member of the study section, I see and feel the pain as well on the other side. I have a different take on the funding crisis, some supported by data from Sally Rock. It is not so much the government cutting money (personally, I can't tell the government to get further into debt to fund science). I have reviewed grants for the EU, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Israel,... you name it. Except for young starting positions, nowhere else is the salary of a Professor depending on the grant. The crisis is caused by Universities hiring too many Professors with an explicit reliance on someone else paying - in the past 20 years, most of these were hired without tenure so they can get fired easily. It is this idea that you can hire someone and he is supposed to bring in their own salary on grants that kills the system. It also completely eliminates academic freedom, as I can only work on what I get funded to do. Another problem is that we have a lot of old folks in the system: The rate of NIH grants funded to PIs that are over 65 increased more than 6 fold in the past 20 years, from 1% to now nearly 7%. This isn't the majority, but such people usually have tenure and a higher salary, so they disproportionately take the small amount of funding Universities do have. I don't think asking NIH for more funding is the solution. We need to tell NIH that PI salaries should be limited, slowly from the current 95% to 50% (Francis Collins and Bruce Alberts have called for this before), and hopefully no salary for PIs except for transition positions like K99-00 which seemed to be a good idea. The Universities have to re-take responsibility for their faculty and support them. Which unfortunately also will mean even fewer jobs for the young like you, but at least some predictability. The current system is broke.
谢谢你的分享。我也想分享一个差不多的故事。作为一个还算比较不错的大学的有着终身教职的教授，我还是比较尊重那些能拿到终身教职的人。我现在的职位还算比较稳固的， 但我也会像你一样离开学术圈，在不久的将来。我打算提前退休，去做一些与众不同的事情。我的女儿，曾经在高中和大学任教过，就一直很确定要进入学术圈了，现在她是MIT的一名研究生。但是她现在必须要更换导师了，因为她以前的导师没能拿到终身教职，必须收拾东西走人了。像你这样如此优秀的年轻人离开学术圈，的确是一件让人很伤心的事情。但是作为一名学生委员会的永久理事，我也能理解你们的痛苦。关于这次的基金危机，我有一些不同的观点，主要是基于Sally Rock提供的数据。并不完全是政府部分削减了科学研究的资金投入。我查阅了很多国家的科研基金投入，包括英国，德国，加拿大，新加坡，伊朗，等等。除了那些刚开始做教授的那些人之外，其余的教授的资金状况都比较好。这次危机主要是因为在过去的二十年间，很多大学雇佣了过多的教授，而没有能增加对他们的资金投入，他们大多是被雇佣的时候并没有得到终身教职，所以很快就会被解聘。正是这种想法，我们可以雇佣更多的教授，而这些教授可以自己申请基金来平衡他们的开支，造成这次危机。也使得我们的学术研究失去了自由，只有在我得到基金资助的时候我才能做研究。另一个问题是，在我们的科研系统里面有着太多的老家伙，NIH所资助的那些PI中高于65岁的PI人数已经增加了6倍，从以前的1%增长到了现在的7%，他们的人数不多，但是这些人拿着终身教职，而且通常薪水很高。是他们让基金的分配比例失衡了。我不认为向NIH申请更多的基金额度是解决问题的办法。我们应该向NIH建议，限制部分PI的薪水。大学也应该重新考虑他们的教职工，并且给他们更好的支持。当然，于此同时有些不幸的事情也会发生，比如，很多像你这样的年轻人将压根就无法得到类似的工作了，更别提申请基金了。但是完全可以预测的是，现在的基金分配系统的确出了问题。
以下太多了，懒得翻译了
It's 8pm on a Sunday evening and I am still at my computer in my office...no, I am not working long hours but I am now living in Saudi Arabia, where I work as a Research Scientist. I did my postdoc in Houston at Rice University and after a couple of rejection, a wonderful offer from a good friend fell on my lap. He accepted a professor position here in KAUST and he decided to hire me and my wife to work in his lab. Unlike the situation in the US, we don't have any financial constraints (yet?) but of course there's a massive sacrifice in terms of living in the middle of a desert in a gated compound. I guess my point is that, if the US or any other first world nation does not take this deep dissatisfaction seriously, they will lose their talents to other countries that are willing to pay. Of course, not everyone will attempt this move but those really wanting to do science might bite the bullet. All the best for your startup and I wish I had the guts to do what you did and leave academia...the main problem for those of us in academia is that we are told from very early on that we are just not good enough to leave and this insecurity tends to inhibit our growth.
Patricia CabezasMarch 2, 2014 at 3:45 PM
Hi Lenny,
Thanks for the post. Being in academia has always been like a roller coaster for me. Some days I love it and I feel that I could be doing this forever, and other days it makes me feel so miserable. I moved from Europe 3 years ago for a first postdoc in the US and unfortunately the experience was traumatic... no project, non-existent advisor, non very friendly labmates... After my first year I was so lost and depressed that I decided to quit for a few months. All I wanted to do was quitting academia but my visa didnt allow me to find a regular job, so I decided to apply for another postdoc in Washington DC and I got it. This is a position for another 2 years with a good advisor in a really outstanding institute.... however dealing with uncertainty of "what's the next" is killing me. I feel lucky cause my couple has accepted to move with me to the east coast but of course taking the decision was a painful, tearful and stressful process. I love science but I cant handle all the sacrifices associated with it. I think I want to quit after this postdoc but the idea of sitting down in the computer and reformat my CV for the private setting is so discouraging... no idea about how to do it or even how to start. I am scared that if I try to quit I will not be able to find a job outside of academia. And... thats my story. Just wanted to say thanks for the post. Wish you the best and good luck with this new challenge!!
I think the motto "I am afraid I won't find any job out of academia because I don't have any other skills" is very common. That is my fear too, and one of the reason I haven't quit yet.
Kevin MooreMarch 3, 2014 at 8:54 PM
Lenny: Congratulations on a difficult but I think very wise decision. Whatever path you choose, I think you will do well.
The post-WWII model of academic labs training and spawning new professors who start their own labs and train more students who start...became unsustainable by the 1970s when the academic science community could no longer remain on its indefinite (geometric!) expansion binge. Those times won't come back, at least not in our lifetimes. Therefore, on average, each faculty member need train only ONE new professor during their entire career. The rest of their Ph.D. students will need to find their professional callings and creative outlets in other ways...of which there are plenty. It's an exciting world out there and there has never been a better or more stimulating time to work in the biological sciences. This will be the "Biology Century."
I've just retired from a 30+ year career in pharmaceutical biotechnology R&D (mostly R). This trend was already clear to me 35 years ago during my postdoc and I have never for an instant regretted the choice I made NOT to go into academic research. Fortunately both my Ph.D. and postdoctoral advisors encouraged me and others to pursue non-academic careers, I read here that many of you are not so fortunate in that regard.
I still am surprised and a little saddened by the number of grad students and postdocs who to this day drink the Kool-Aid served by their faculty advisors for so long before making other plans.
Edoardo VacchiMarch 4, 2014 at 3:16 AM
I don't think this Open Letter (not by me) has been posted before here http://crypto.junod.info/2013/09/09/an-aspiring-scientists-frustration-with-modern-day-academia-a-resignation/ I think it is enlightening in this regard.
I am an Italian PhD Student in CS at my last year and I made the decision not to pursue an academic career, once I'm done with this last year.
I've been wondering whether I'm making the right decision. I already know where I'll probably go to work; I'm already in touch with them, and I enjoy the place. Still, I sometimes still feel this is a defeat, rather than a successe, as I believed that a job in academia would have made me happier. I enjoy sharing knowledge, teaching people the things I love; but what I really see these days is too much politics, and very little science. I'm not really enjoying working in this field anymore. Besides, the road to reach a reasonably "secure" job position in this field is too steep, and I want certainties at this point in my life.
Again, I kind of like feel this is a defeat for me; but reading that so many people are sharing my very same concerns, is making me more convinced that I'm making the right choice.
Lenny TeytelmanMarch 4, 2014 at 11:19 AM
[By Chris Edwards]
You mention your love of teaching. When I was an undergrad, I was
pretty shocked by how put off my professors were by being forced to
teach. Seemed they couldn't get back to their research agenda fast
enough. That was interesting to me because I entertained the idea of
an academic career just so I could become a teaching professor. But
the world did a lot of changing and one day I had a realization - you
do not need a PhD to be a professor. If you truly love teaching, there
is only one excuse today to not do it and that is being terrible at
it. Sure, you can't strut in front of a class of undergrads who are
forced to pay the rent seeking guardians of "approved" knowledge, but
that model is collapsing fast. You can give lectures, write papers and
text books, help people who really want to learn, etc. all without any
humiliation from university politics, journal publishers, and funding
agencies. It's called the Internet. If you've got something valuable
to share, don't lament that the rotten university is keeping you from
sharing it; just do it. Putting education on the internet is really
showing a commitment to teaching and sharing. The precedent for this
is free software. Though its enormous contribution to civilization has
yet to be fully appreciated outside of the weird people involved, it
demonstrates another area that the old gatekeepers are still taxing
the gates while the walls fall away. As a bonus, this approach allows
crackpots to give it a shot (oh noes! say the horrified academics).
And with the crackpots will be the truly brilliant people with really
revolutionary ideas that would never have had a shot at academic life
by today's rules.
As an aside, my job (paying about 1/3 to 1/2 of industry) is providing
tech support to a pharmacology lab. Grovelling for funding and playing
games for "impact" is pretty much 90% of the mission.
Good luck to you!
Joshua NicholsonMarch 4, 2014 at 11:52 AM
This is a great post and so many great comments following it! Thanks for sparking a discussion. I am currently a 5th year PhD student at Virginia Tech in Cell Bio. I am scheduled to finish sometime in the late summer/early fall (+/- 5 years jk!)) so figuring out what I'll do next has been on my mind a lot.
My PI expects me to go on to do a postdoc, however as Michael Eisen so eloquently put it "it is a terrible time to be a scientist" and I realize this and simply don't think it is the life for me. Accepting this I have put on applications to different programs what my other aspirations are and instead of encouraging different paths my PI "corrected" MY "future goals" to doing a postdoc! Of course, I accepted the change and just moved on even though I disagreed. So it is not easy to openly express the desire to do something else.
Indeed, I consider myself quite successful having won numerous awards during grad school and having 10+ pubs but in the end think playing the lottery with my life in academia is just not worth it! Like you, I have started to pursue something independent yet very much related.
I successfully raised enough capital to start The Winnower (thewinnower.com), a science journal that hopes to fix many of the problems with peer review and access. It launches in a few weeks and I could not be more excited. I am rewarded by academic scientists for presenting the "best poster" or talk for 15 minutes but raising enough money to start an entire business that aims to HELP science is left completely without praise.
Anyways goodluck to you and ZappyLab and goodluck to the rest of our bunch!
HaroldMarch 4, 2014 at 6:51 PM
Hey Lenny,
This post definitely struck a chord for me. I went in to a PhD a few years ago hell bent on doing research that would, with luck, leave the world a better place, without much concern about financial compensation and, to be honest, without doing much, if any actual research into the realities or even possibilities of a career in academia.
As time went by though it became increasinly clear. or perhaps more accurately, dificult to avoid the reality of what lay before me. One of my Asociate Supervisor asked me how long I planned to stay in the research game - noting that it really wasnt much of a career and that in his case he was mostly supported by his wifes career choices. This was quite a shock to me at thee time because the only answer i had at the time was "forever". Another Supervisor left right at the end of my thesis to pursue something in the private sector, giving me a good rundown on everything he felt was broken about the current system. By this time i had seen enough dysfunction in my own rather pitiful attempts at adding to the sum total of human knowledge and most of the idealism I had was burned away.
Anwyay at any rate by the end of that PhD I found myself at a crossroad - whether to plunge forward with what looked like an increasingly not so great option that i had plowed years of my life into pursuing or to try and break out into something else where my qualifications might be more than a little rusty. Both seemed scary. I made the choice to try and switch back to my undergrad love of software development though. While it took longer than i woud have hoped to tun myself into an employable 2014 model developer i can say now that it was absolutely the right choice and for the most part i'm really happy in what i do.
At the same time i've seen a friend who stayed in acaedmia, who seemed best positioned of all of us to have a good career get treated abominably by her University, former Supervisor and colleagues in Research. A crazy smart person who bore the brunt of others gross incomeptence (the portion of the research grant that efectively compromised her salary was farcically spent on completely useless equipment), and was treated with all the professsional respect typically afforded to a 15 year old kid working at McDonalds.
Anwyay, long story short - life can be better out there. Its sad because i thikn the kind of basic, nuts and bolts research that can only really be done at Universtities is vital to society but theres no reason to put yourself through this kind of thing. Life is short and theres a lot of personally and socially rewarding things you can achieve in another arena.
All the best.
UnknownMarch 5, 2014 at 12:11 PM
Hi Lenny,
Thanks for your post and for being so open and honest about your experiences. I made the decision to leave bench research after my Ph.D., when I was offered a great job opportunity by my graduate advisor. I won't go into all the reasons behind this decision but many are similar to what others have already expressed in the comments. This decision was also made despite having excellent publications from graduate school, so I do not view this decision as a second choice or because I didn't "think I could make it". However, I do know that others view my decision this way, which is a frustrating perception, but just highlights how attitudes about other career options have got to change.
I wanted to bring everyone's attention to a live Q&A with Keith Yamamoto that is happening tomorrow on Google Hangouts on Air. He'll be answering questions from the audience about ways to change graduate education to give trainees more opportunities to explore other career options than academia. This might be a good forum to bring up some of the points about changing faculty perceptions and creating opportunities within institutions about non-academic-bench-research careers.
The Q&A can be joined here: https://plus.google.com/events/cn3j3lsgl6os7e7e0ch5n3sjvjc
khismetMarch 5, 2014 at 12:27 PM
I always knew I could be happy doing many different things, but got on the academia train, fell in love, and thought I'd follow it all the way...at least through a PhD. But I had such a horrible experience getting my M.S. that considering doing it all again for 3x as long was inconceivable. I tried to stick with it and interviewed and was accepted to my DREAM PhD (well-funded, multidisciplinary, cutting-edge, prestigious), but the spark and desire was just gone and I couldn't commit to 6ish years and a cross-country move to do something I wasn't sure about. I had fallen out of love. My M.S. story is all too common among grad students at both master's and doctoral levels: My adviser was essentially absent, funding I had been promised by my adviser was withdrawn, obtaining external funding was near impossible, I worked two jobs (TA and lab manager) in addition to my classes and research and was paid paltry sums, I was hard-pressed to find support from anyone especially my adviser. Now I have a lot of anger toward my adviser, but I also recognize it is as much the system at fault as it is him. He's expected to work ten or so jobs (prof, author, grant-writer, adviser, scientist, co-adviser, academic fellow, etc., etc.........father, husband) for paltry sums and with little support (or even training in the case of teaching). It was the realization that it was not parts of or people in the system that were broken but the system itself that led me to seek ex-academic opportunities. If the whole system is so broken that it commonly fosters the kinds of miserable experiences that friends, those here, and I experienced, it is not a system I want to be a part of for life.
As many young people do, I didn't place much value on pay, job security, place of residency, etc. because I thought if I really loved the job none of that would matter. The truth is ignoring the necessity of these aspects of a job is simply ignoring reality, results in exploitation, and sets people up to fail.
Here is my perspective as a tenured prof at an Ivy with 2 NIH grants funded, and my own lab for 20 years:
So many other people I’ve met along the way were smarter, harder workers, and had better hands than I. I don’t think that I have any more talent than the average scientist who provided comments here, and I don’t think I could land the job I have now in today’s competitive climate. The competition is very tough at every level, and I still worry about the next grant cycle. I’ve been very lucky.
My choice of career path was a deeply personal one, and I’m grateful and amazed that things worked out for me. Along the way, there were lots of times when projects went nowhere, frustrations swelled and I considered directions that would have taken me away from science. While I was a post doc, I volunteered tutoring remedial math to test the waters as a high school teacher; then my project began to work.
Some of my students and post docs became professors, but I never judged those who made the choice to leave academia or science. I would no sooner criticize their decisions about who to date or marry – the choices are equally personal. My job as a mentor is to be as supportive as I can to help trainees be successful on the path they choose, where ever it leads.
I left academia almost 3 years ago, after 5 years of Ph.D. work and 6 years as a post-doc at Berkeley. As many have stated above, the system is broken, but how do we fix it? I ended up in a very tangentially related field -- working for an engineering and biomechanics legal consulting firm -- something I was never aware of as a possible career. My boss had the courage and foresight to hire me despite my cell and developmental biology background. I wish we could convince more companies to do the same - that Ph.D.'s may appear to be highly specialized, but they are also extremely bright, trainable, analytical, and hard-working people who have a lot to contribute.
As for my back story - I see it's already listed on your Google doc, but here it is again: http://willblog4food.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/once-a-scientist-always-a-scientist/
Good luck with your startup!
Mike BarnettMarch 7, 2014 at 3:07 PM
Best of luck. I left astrophysics a while ago but not a professor of science education and having a wonderful time where I get to teach and engage kids in learning science skills.
I do wonder about two things, since I spend a lot of my time in policy now. First, there was a massive boost in NIH funding from the late 90s to the early 2000s, till about 2003 the NIH budget was way above the expected rate of increase. This lead to a massive increase in the number of faculty positions and graduate students. It was something like a 150% increase in the number of graduate students. This was just unsustainable and it feels like the housing bubble... it will just keep going...
Now we are on a downward trend... seems like there was a bubble as many of those students and faculty are looking for funding and jobs... so now we have this bust in funding after a massive boost... Now we have more people going after funding and with decreases in funding (though not as much as the increases during that 8 year window).
I rarely see discussions of this on most blogs like this. I would love to hear some thoughts
Brad GulkoMarch 7, 2014 at 5:36 PM
As I understand it, a key issue is not so much the modest decline in funding, from sources like the NIH but researcher demography. As senior researchers opt not to retire, and instead extend their careers into (and past) their 80's, they retain the bulk of the funding as most experienced (thus judged most qualified according to grant scoring criteria).
A recent speaker from the NIH showed statistics on PI age and funding rates indicating that the number of absolute dollars has only declined modestly since 2008. However, due to the indicated increase in older PI’s, the pool of funds practically available to researchers just past their "young investigator" phase would have to drop dramatically.
This effect should diminish over the next 20 years or so as mortality ultimately removes older researchers from the pool of applicants, but may also cost us generation of young investigators that are likely seek employment elsewhere. I provide this without any sense of malice or injustice; it’s just how the numbers work out.
William RayMarch 8, 2014 at 6:59 PM
In almost all ways, I'm in complete agreement with your synopsis of the current situation and its alarming portents. It's been crystal clear to everyone, except seemingly the funding agencies and the institutions that expect the NIH and NSF to be bottomless cash cows, that we were heading for a serious crisis for at least the last 10 years.
The only significant insight I'd offer, that I don't think I've seen mentioned in other posts, is that the current world is even more terrifying for those of use who made it into junior faculty positions just as the magnitude of the crisis became fully apparent. For a postdoc to leave academia is sad, but, while there might be a bit of a social stigma attached by the still-in-academia peer group, leaving academia after doing a stint as a postdoc, isn't "failure", it's a decision. A junior faculty member who fails to get tenure for lack of funding - even if they're scoring far better on their unfunded grant proposals than the tenured faculty who are voting them out ever did on their funded ones - has just failed their final exam. Leaving isn't a decision, it's a dismissal, and it's a far larger black mark in terms of future employability in the field.
So - if you're a postdoc, be smart. Look at today's funding and tenure climate, and run like hell.
Or, if you're the stubborn type, take the faculty position, find out whether you're as good as you think you are, and even if you don't get tenure, force the people who are responsible for this mess to look you in the eye and accept their culpability as they show you out the door. I can't for a moment fault you for running while you can, but, the institutional establishment is never going to accept responsibility and change the culture, if we all let them off the hook by leaving of our own volition.
Me, they're going to have to drag out the door kicking and screaming.
GarciApril 24, 2014 at 12:46 AM
I am 43 now and just took your same decision last year...It has been rewarding, even having been one year on my own "sabbatical" terms (no salary, plenty of new stimulating inputs in science and culture..as a European I moved to yet another new country). I have recently started to work on an International Organization. Higher salary, not so new exciting research, but on the other hand I feel my work finally has a purpose that people recognise...and the level of stress is way reduced (even if my colleagues think they are very stressed...but then again..they haven't spent their previous 15 years trying to build a path towards academia!)
So welcome to NON-Academia..Í think you won't regret it!
ScottApril 28, 2014 at 7:12 AM
I agree that academia has its flaws. The funding situation is dire, tenure is tenuous, and 70-80 hours per week at work can put a stress on personal wants and desires. Even the hiring process is incredibly slanted and difficult to predict. That said, it reads to me like Lenny wasn't 100% sold on the academic life. He laments about moving to new cities to pursue his profession. He had started a side business, presumably during his post doc. I also chuckled at the thought that... "work should be something one desires to come back to after a weekend." That is assuming one was able to get one's head outside of work in the first place. Finding a work / life balance is important, but different quotients are required for different paths. Those people who are on the 'academic track' or who are already in faculty positions know this, and make the sacrifices to make it work.
Joanna BlueberryJanuary 9, 2015 at 1:33 AM
It is sad. I love science, enjoyed my M.Sc., my Ph.D. and first fellow but now I struggle to find a job in academia. I've published and evolved but still it seems that if I don't have connections there is no way of getting a postdoc. I don't want to use connections, I want to be judge by my own achievements. I've always believed in science being 'the pure field' of work, where the fairness and accomplishments are rewarded. The truth is that if you are not one of the sharks then most probably you will forever be just another cheap tool in their hands. If you are a woman, that's even worse. Unless you like being called the B word by everyone around. I still love science and can't think of anything else I could do instead. Becoming a monk maybe.