Monday, June 20, 2016

Is anyone doing well, these days? An Early Thirsty From Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno

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Physicians are unhappy these days, with 9 out of 10 telling young people "Don't go into medicine." Even in the best of times, the medical profession is notorious for lack of work/life balance.

Lawyers are overpopulated. Just last week, the New York Times ran an editorial that wondered whether low-tier law schools should close.

Journalism is in crisis, having greatly contracted with the decline of newspapers. Even in the best of times, it never paid well, and could also be quite dangerous.

The arts have long been notoriously difficult ways to make a living. They're much like getting a degree in my field, astronomy: relatives want to know, "What are you going to do with THAT?"

The military comes with the risk of grievous bodily and mental harm for someone else's economic interest. Even in peacetime—Remember that?—all the moving is hard on families.

Engineering, accounting, business, and finance are all noted or their dullness. The older ones gets, the more obvious it becomes that life is more than a pile of pay stubs. As far as economics goes, there's a reason it's called the dismal science.

K-12 teaching comes with poor pay, little respect, and should come with hazardous duty pay, these days. Just not going to college and living as a working-class person pays even worse than it used to. And no, it's not so easy to go back to making a living at farming.

Pay and working conditions for scientists have steadily declined since September of 1969, and all the while over a chorus of politicians and university administrators that "America faces an imminent shortage of scientists." Anytime I am treated to this, I don't hesitate to scream back, "Then WHY is it so difficult to get a job as a scientist?! Why do we have to traipse around the world as postdocs, moving every other year for 6-10 years, which is real hard on families, with all the moving of the military and NONE of the security? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT A POSTDOC IS?!?!"

And of course, pay and working conditions in academia aren't what they used to be. If you have any doubts, see this blog, not to mention "100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School."

It may be an oversimplification to tell a young person, "Do what you love." Better advice may be, "Do something valuable."

Q: What fields today CAN I recommend for a young person? Aside from making money the old-fashioned way and inheriting a billion, of course.

30 comments:

  1. "Engineering, accounting, business, and finance are all noted or their dullness." Yep, that's one reason that they pay well.

    Opportunities in science is hit or miss, depending on the field. The more useful the skills are in industry (think chemistry, not astronomy [1]), the better the job prospects. I don't know about biology, though faculty tell me that their students all want to take care of Flipper and his buddies at Sea World but the jobs are in working with bacteria[2].

    [1] Frod may know more about this than I.
    [2] Actual bacteria, not administrators.

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    1. Kids, kids! I am NOT "an Unknown Sender"! My thanks to Fab for posting this, but I worry that the meds are getting the better of him, since I am indeed "Froderick Frankenstien from Fresno," the one and the same.

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    2. There was no name in the text of the post. The submissions go directly in the queue and are not received or seen ad emails, hence the instructions. I assumed we had dozens of astronomers on the page.

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    3. I was pretty sure this was Frod (but yes, I believe there are other astronomers out there, if not, perhaps, on this blog).

      I think a good many of our biology majors want to be forensic something-or-others, a la CSI. Whether they actually want to work with bodily fluids and dead bodies and bugs and such, I'm not so sure.

      A good many of the rest want to go to medical school. I've sometimes wondered how many of them will achieve that dream, and what the others will do. I don't know either answer (nor do I know whether the ones who get there are happy in the long run).

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    4. @Ben: I am "pulling a Carl Sagan," or in other words, arguing on both sides of the issue, in the hope of getting a discussion going, of course. Actually, engineering can be lots of fun, if one is the kind of person who can think abstractly, is good at mathematics and can put it to good use, and above all likes to build things, and has an aptitude for it. Business can also be lots of fun, if it's played as a jolly game. I have a lot of respect for business, since they need what I'm selling in my general-ed class: the ability to read carefully and well, the ability to write clearly, and ability to put mathematics to good use.

      Some science fields do have much better job prospects than others. My department’s medical physics group (specializing in medical imaging, including MRI, ultrasound, and X-rays) and radiation oncology, are doing great. Still, I hesitate to steer students who can’t make it in an abstruse and hypercompetitive field like astronomy into medical physics: these are people’s lives they deal with, after all.

      And bacteria are much easier to work with than administrators! They’re more likeable, intelligent, ethical, and smell better, too.

      @Cassandra: The traditional figure is that 1 out of 3 students who apply to medical school are accepted. I don’t know if that’s still the case now, but that’s what it was from the mid-‘70s to about 2000. I’d say that about half of freshpersons who want to become doctors never apply to medical school, but about ¾ of them do go into other helping professions, including therapy and counseling.

      Here at Fresno State we also have thriving programs in forensic science and criminology. I thought that was due to Fresno’s being the car-theft and meth-manufacture capital of the U.S.A.: I may be wrong.

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    5. Good heavens, I forgot to include nursing. They're going great guns here. One might think that petroleum geology is doing well with the fracking boom, but they may be facing a slump, a victim of their own success. (One needn't hire lots of people to find oil and gas if other people recently found a whole bunch of it that is accessible with a new technique.) Aerospace engineering is another field notorious for its ups and downs, or in other words, being volatile, but I've recently placed students there.

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    6. I'm not sure whether this is still the case, but at least as of a year or two ago, I was hearing from my nursing majors that, while there's plenty of work for them, what hospitals would really like is someone who's fully trained as an R.N., but is willing to work as (and at the wages of) a L.P.N. or some other lower-paying certified job. That, sadly, sounds rather familiar to those of us with Ph.D.s

      There's also a lot of pressure for R.N.s with two-year degrees to get their Bachelor's. That yields some students who are generally easy to work with (smart, hardworking, and not overly panicky about grades, since they already have jobs), but may be inflating both the ranks of nursing students and the employment statistics (these people are trying to keep jobs at hospitals that increasingly need to report percentages of employees with particular degrees to accrediting agencies, not trying to get new jobs).

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    7. Health sciences adjunct/clinician here. Not an MD, but work closely and do research with many. I would give a big fat N O to medical school. Many of my MD colleagues are unhappy for a variety of reasons, including debt and overall changes in healthcare. Physician assistants have the best of it all - working in healthcare, getting in the workforce right after PA school (only 2 years), good work-life balance, excellent ROI. Many are leaving my own specialty within healthcare to go to PA school. It's an interesting trend.

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  2. Unknown Sender mentions K-12 teachers. In my district, the kindergarten teachers earn between $50k-$68k. That's better than most proffie jobs. And the kindergarten teachers actually get the summer off. Yes, they might have to change a few diapers, but I've been doing that as a caregiver to my mother and as a father before that--no big deal. Gosh, playing with little kids all day for 180 days per year for $60,000 sounds really interesting. No committee meetings with assholes? Five-year-old children can be so much more pleasant than fucktard faculty "colleagues" and idiot administrators. I am thinking of switching to the K-12 faculty job.

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    1. Hahaha"playing with children". I taught in elementary schools for about a decade. Yes, we did have committee meetings with assholes. Lunchtimes, evenings, and even summers, are times to plan, learn, and decorate classrooms. And kindergartners don't get to play anymore. You'd be responsible for teaching writing, reading, and math, on top of social skills. Even if the kids are pleasant, their parents might not be and there's no invoking ferpa. It's a great job if it's your passion but not necessarily easy!

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    2. Oh, ghwawd, dealing with NCLB bullshit and helicopter parents and Dunning-Kruger school boards would give me an aneurysm.

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    3. Bubba, you are sooooo off the mark. I recently spent a day volunteering for a day-long school trip for my 9-year old. Those teachers don't get paid enough. When it was over and we got home I lay down on the couch and took a long nap in order to try and recuperate and squelch the massive headache I'd developed by lunchtime. And I've previously taken substantial time off during a parental leave to take care of 3 kids (a baby, a toddler and a kindergartner), so I'm no amateur at dealing with children. It was hell. I never want to volunteer again.

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    4. As I understand it, the problem with teaching kindergarten these days (in addition to and underlying everything else mentioned above) is that the expectations are no longer age-appropriate. So you basically get to spend the day with a bunch of unhappy, stressed-out, little kids, who are exhibiting that stress in all the ways that people without much practice in handling their emotions are likely to exhibit it (actually, that probably goes for grades 1-12, perhaps especially c. 6-10, as well).

      Add the growing lack of respect and autonomy, and I no longer consider high school teaching a viable option.

      I suspect the pendulum will eventually swing back a bit, as the teacher shortage gets critical (as was the case, somewhat, for nursing a while back, though somehow the shortage never quite translated into quite the degree of ease in getting decently-paid jobs that you would think). So maybe encouraging a 10-year-old to think about teaching might not be such a bad idea.

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    5. My brain stuff was discombobulated by the "Unknown Sender"-Frod fiasco (and the bourbon).
      K-12 is clearly hell.

      :-)

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    6. Strong is the want to see greener pastures, somewhere.

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    7. starting salary for a teacher with a BA and no experience in my county is $47,000. Sounds like a lot, but...the median home price here is $496,000.

      Back in the rust belt 'burb where I grew up the median home price is $89,000. The starting teacher salary with a B.S. is $35,000.

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    8. Yes, I've thought of escape to K-12 too. I contemplated trying to get into a high school position, as I thought to myself "if I teach the upper grades, then all of those students in the class are keen about science and want to be there, as they've already got the 2 science credits they need for their high school diploma, right?"
      Nope. I volunteered several times to give a seminar about my research to high school seniors. Nothing I saw about the students' behaviour gave me confidence that things would be any better, but rather that I'd be substituting one set of workplace annoyances for another set. One example: science teacher "Johnny, why are you eating that sub? You know there's no food allowed in the classroom, and it's the middle of the class, it's not your lunch break." Senior Grade Johnny "Yes sir, I know, but I was hungry right now, soooo ....(trails off into silence)"
      Me: Well, my hopes and dreams for that route of escape just took a major hit.

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  3. If they're good with people (and smart enough to pass the necessary STEM classes), then at least some health sciences careers are probably pretty good bets. Nursing is tough in a variety of ways (including scheduling). I'm not sure about being a Physician's Assistant, which may involve a slightly better cost/benefit balance than becoming a doctor. I'm pretty sure there's still demand for Physical Therapists (but that's physically demanding work, so they may need to have a second career in mind). In addition, I've had several students who are pharmacist's assistants (which apparently requires an associates degree and a certificate of some sort, maybe passing a test); some plan to become pharmacists, and some plan other careers. Apparently that's pretty good money for the educational investment and there's plenty of demand; that may, however, translate into difficult/long hours.

    I assume there's also still demand for people who can do various things associated with using computers, from writing code to keeping networks running (and clueless users informed/out of trouble). But that's probably a kind of engineering (at least it is at my school).

    Plumbing? Electrical work? HVAC? Auto repair? There's a lot to be said for work that's necessary, useful, and can't be outsourced. And, though all of the above require training (and skill), they don't require a 4-year degree.

    Finally, at the risk of reigniting the science/humanities wars, I'll point out that, while the career paths may not be as direct, there are plenty of jobs that require the sort of writing and thinking skills that one can acquire in various humanities disciplines (or, for that matter, by taking a good selection of core courses, and perhaps a few extra writing/communications ones, in addition to a science degree pursued as much out of love of the subject as out of a specific career ambition. People who can write clearly about scientific/technical subjects are definitely employable).

    I'm inclined to think that the problems aren't so much in the work itself, as in structures of compensation that increasingly try to wring the most work possible at the lowest pay possible out of the great majority of workers, while paying a very small managerial class most of the money, and in the growing tendency for that managerial class, in the course of wringing, to usurp more and more of the autonomy that once belonged to workers. That's certainly the case for teachers at all levels (K-16+), and for many doctors (who increasingly work for larger organizations rather than smaller practices in which they have a partner's stake), and I suspect possibly for lawyers as well. Add in all the other people (e.g. journalists) who have forced into freelance or consulting status, and the fact that there are few solid, reliable "day jobs" for the artists, and you've got the key to some serious unhappiness.

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    1. People always gonna get sick and break stuff.
      People always gonna be ignorant.
      People always wanna pay less to fix the latter than the former, assuming they want to fix it at all.

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    2. a good buddy of mine majored in Japanese. That got some odd looks. He makes a good living translating technical documents. (He also met his wife, a very sweet lady, in Japan where they worked together. Any job where you meet the love of your life is a good one.)

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  4. "And bacteria are much easier to work with than administrators! They’re more likeable, intelligent, ethical, and smell better, too."

    Many bacteria are actually quite useful to their hosts.

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  5. I would not recommend Library Science unless you have a major/minor in a STEM field (i.e. computer science) and you have a strong interest in information technology as well as the dogma of the profession. Too many wannabe librarians and too many Master of Library Science (MLIS) degrees out there.

    I work in retail now and my company has practically been begging for people with STEM degrees. Our systems are antiquated and need major makeovers, not to mention our internal/external websites. The pay and benefits would be great, but it's not Silicon Valley company like Apple. The HQ and tech offices are also in a fairly remote area of the U.S. at least compared to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle. If you're a STEM major wanting a job anywhere and just want to get a career started, there's quite a few places that want you.

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  6. just borrow $1,000,000 from your parents and start your own company! (sarcasm)

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    1. Yeah, some of my students could use a brain sharpener.

      Or a dick sharpener, but that's what heavy-duty STAPLE GUNS are for.

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  7. I'm not sure there's EVER been a good answer to that question; there's certainly never been a one-size-fits-all answer. I would tell students to study 1) something they are good at; and 2) something they care about deeply enough to WANT to do more than the minimum. Anecdotally, I'd say that students who are both good and passionate -- the ones who seek out internships and show up at academic events and light up with excitement when they tell you about their honors research -- nearly always land on their feet, even if they end up working in a field far outside of their area of study.

    The ones who struggle more are the ones who don't have that passion, the ones who drift into a major because they've heard it's where the jobs are, or the ones who have totally unrealistic ideas about which fields are a good match for their abilities (the hordes of "pre-nursing" majors who can't actually manage to pass any science course with a grade higher than a C).

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  8. An up-and-coming field that combines computer savviness and health care is Health Information Technology. Students with a strong background in either and a willingness to learn the other can do well.
    It's a lesser-known career field that has been around a while but is starting to grow exponentially due to some of the "buried" regulations in ObamaCare. Thanks, Obama!

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  9. Tell them to drop out and learn a trade. As a plumber or an electrician they have the opportunity to become licensed and then self-employed. It can be hard to find work sometimes, although you can wind up with a pretty sweet gig in a union or for a major company. In NY, the MTA is one of the best places for an electrician to work. The work is hard, but once you are licensed the pay can be quite good. Plus there is the whole self-employed aspect. One of the great lies of our society is that EVERYONE should go to college. As if working a trade is undignified. The happiest, most well-off people I know right now are tradesmen.

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    1. I sure wish high schools were better funded for what used to be called vocational ed. They still push it in Germany, and look how much better off they are. The problem is that in our eagerness to create an educational system that is fair to everyone, we have created one that serves no one particularly well. Not everyone should go to college because not everyone likes what we do in college.

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