Huge demand - all systems go!
Plus bridge for sale at bargain price in NY.

NEWSFLASH- Colleges just want your money!

I graduated with a BA in math/physics from a well known liberal arts college, looked for a meaningful job for couple of years, finally decided forget it, joined the Army. Strange to say I enjoyed the military life-style and finally retired as a Lt Col 22 years later. During that time I went to graduate school part-time, received 2 MS degrees (applied math, financial mgt).

For the first couple of years after retirement I was an adjunct at a large university, then was offered a position as a lecturer (non-tenure, few benefits, at about what WalMart pays I suspect). And thats where I've been for the past 6 years although I've looked for something else constantly.

It seems to me that age and/or multiple degrees is a kiss of death as far as getting a job in the corporate world is concerned.

"I envy the plumbers, electricians, computer programmers, etc. my age who can work in any city they feel like, are making as much as many 35+ year old professors start with, and are able to settle down and buy a house, get married, and start families."

I was about to say something like that. Getting an education didn't ruin my life but it did make it more complicated than it needed to be. I've worked for 3 different pharmaceutical companies and three different Universities and have had to move 13 times in the last 20 years because of constant job turmoil. Currently, I work in academia making less than I made 22 years ago. I'll still be able to retire at a decent age but I won't be the typical retired guy who travels the world and buys a new car every few years. I'll be poor and just able to survive, but only because of some family property that I've inherited. Otherwise, I'd be screwed.

I remember my Counselor in high school telling me I should go to a trade school to become an electrician, plumber, etc. instead of going to College. I thought he was being a wise ass but he was right. If I had to do it all over again that is exactly what I'd do because I'd be retired right now, just like some of friends who shunned College to be blue collar union grunts. I'd of saved a lot money wasted on tuition too.

College is overrated. If I had a kid that was College age, I'd encourage him/her to explore other options before deciding what to do.

I thought I was the only one. I have a masters in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a masters in optics from another university. I have never been able to convert either degree into meaningful work. Ten months after graduating with my second masters I finally found a job as a technician (which only requires a two year degree). I was working my way up to an engineer position at that company when less than a year into the the job our plant was shutdown and we got dumped into the job market during the 2008 financial meltdown. I went another 14 months unable to find any relevant work. Finally found an engineering position that offered no benefits whatsoever (including no health insurance), lots of unpaid overtime, working holidays, no vacation and taking home about one third to one half of what I was making as a technician before. This would have been acceptable to me if I was able to gain relevant optical engineering experience and use the job as a stepping stone to an optical engineering position at a better company but instead I was continually assigned meaningless work that gave me no optical engineering experience and that I didn't need any college education to do whatsoever. Five years after graduating I am faced with the decision if I should try to save my optical engineering career by pursuing a PhD or offering to work for free in an optical lab or just abandon my career and go through vocational rehab to try to get retrained in a field I have a better chance of making a living in. I had better prospects after earning my BSEE than I ever did after going to grad school. I regret ever pursuing a graduate degree now. I now believe it is much better to get work experience than an advanced degree.

I have a MSc in condensed Matter Physics and it took me year to get a job. The job I took was in geophysics, not related to my education. Finally/currently ended up in IT and I am hating it. When I started my education everyone in the industry said if you were a physicist then you were trained for all tech jobs. When I graduated the story changed. You had to be specifically trained as a "Fiber Optic Engineer" or you didn't get the job. No one wants a generalized specialist anymore.

Siemens just added to the number of unemployed Master's and PhD degree holders out there. They might have been able to go back to school to become a high school teacher, but high schools are laying people off.

I have a Masters of Physics and I ruined my life. After my undergrad, I was offered a good-paying full-time job at a company I did my internship with. Following the "get an education" mantra I turned it down thinking I could get better career opportunities doing what I want with a graduate physics degree or pursue a rewarding life in academia. Boy was I wrong!

Six months after graduation I find myself working minimum wage dead-end jobs, no better than out of high-school. The company that originally wanted to hire me went bust before I graduated. There are no jobs in the field of research I studied. And I hate academia so I refused to go for a PhD and jump onto the post-doc treadmill (not that a PhD in my field would have improved my employment situation anyways). Worst of all, no one wants to hire a physicist for a programming job when they get applications from real CS majors.

Long story short, I screwed myself over by digging a hole in a field that exists due to charity, and I didn't bother to get the degree credentials needed to work a Plan B career like a minor in computer science.

I envy the plumbers, electricians, computer programmers, etc. my age who can work in any city they feel like, are making as much as many 35+ year old professors start with, and are able to settle down and buy a house, get married, and start families.

Many Of my PhD customers have hard time washing and some of my Asian PhD customers teeth are falling off. I say go for that muay Thai crap now before it's all the rage.

You got to be kidding me. You from Harvard and no job..you just need to step up and be more aggressive in your findings.

LOTS of Anger and self-loathing is apparent in many of the responses; young people fresh to the field are supposed to have Idealism and vigor the rest of us can exploit!

How much do you think the "Muay Thai" poster gets paid for each "advertisement"? Looks like a good way to get a fast brain disorder to me...

You can follow the age-old advice of "follow your bliss". Perhaps no one captured this motto better than Steve Jobs:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-full-text-of-steve-jobs-stanford-comm...

"Someone please tell me a success story that started with a degree in Chem" -- go to law school and pass the patent bar. In the US starting salaries for 1st yr patent attorneys in chem are >$150K and shoot upwards from there. I don't know a single unemployed patent attorney -- and if there are any, that means they aren't very good.

Go into patent law or medicine.

blah blah blah

"I consider my "worthless" education in chemistry, to be the most valuable thing I've ever owned. Not only did it make me a lot of money, but it's now going to fuel a business that will make me even more money."

Getting into the synthetic marijuana game are you?

I have a PhD from Harvard + 10 years industry experience and I can not find a job for the life of me in North America. I have had several offers to work in China

What about the job situation of PhD in Economics and Business Administration in Canada.

Oh yeah, didn't get scholarships either, had to eat at the food bank to get through university

"Therefore, I am stuck with a B.Sc.Chem degree- the most useless accreditation that one can imagine"

I ended up making 90K with my BSc chem and got to live in places like San Diego, made a lot of PhD's look stupid over the years too. Education is just the start, in the end it's up to you what you do with it.

I consider my "worthless" education in chemistry, to be the most valuable thing I've ever owned. Not only did it make me a lot of money, but it's now going to fuel a business that will make me even more money.

PhD's make more money - if they have a job. They also go through long stretches of job hunting. I've been a non-PhD scientist in Dx for over 35 years and in all that time have been unemployed for about 2 weeks. Our paychecks may not be as big but over a lifetime, we bring home a lot more of them.

I can not recommend a PhD education to anyone who wants to use it to find a job. But calm down, the boat is sinking simply because there are too many of us "technical-scientist types". Ten thousand PhDs come to the USA every year from overseas. Twice as many graduates with B.S. degrees in chemistry, physics or whatever are turned out annually by American universities. Since you are not licensed professionals like physicians or plumbers,.. anybody off the street can do your job with some on-the-job training and if they can't; corporations will hire some guru for $250/hr and then dump him/her after they get what they need. We scientists have lost our control over the profession by narrow-minded arrogance, and intellectual bickering between scientists.
The era of scientific-prestige is long-gone and there's no "shortage" of scientists and engineers as your government likes to suggest. They're selling you a banana, and you, me and every other brainiac stuck on experimental investigation will spend most of our careers wasting time and money in the research/scientific bureacractic system. Nuclear physics; recombinant DNA technology, and now nanoscience and technology...its all a racket. If you are lucky enough to catch-a-wave; ride it for awhile; make some money and start your own company; find something to sell to dummies or seniors on a fixed income and call it a day.

I hold a degree in Chemistry from the University of British Columbia (Yes, Canada). I worked my a$$ off for four years, receiving numerous scholarships along the way for my academic achievements, and graduated in the top 10% of my faculty. I originally chose Science as a means to Medicine, but decided three years in that I may not possess the passion for it that I had originally anticipated. Therefore, I am stuck with a B.Sc.Chem degree- the most useless accreditation that one can imagine.

I have applied to countless companies seeking "bench top" scientists, and have yet to hear a single reply. I am becoming desperate, and thinking that my years of hard study have been in vain.

I am 28 years old, and am considering going back to school for anything applied- something that will get me a job when I complete it. I am even considering studying for the MCAT and trying to get into Med School.

Someone please tell me a success story that started with a degree in Chem...

I'll second that. While getting your degree, you reproduce the experiments of the greats in your field and, if you're getting a MS, creating some original science. You hit the job market thinking of all the interesting science you'll be doing in a lab that looks straight out of CSI. You get that first job and you're disillusioned to find yourself in some low budget company making buffers, running routine assays, and doing other scut work. If you don't have management potential, after several years it will sink in that's all you'll be doing for the rest of your working life.Depressing. Believe me, I know.

MS = BS to most recruiters and organizations. Its stupid; but they would rather have PhDs doing anything taht requires thought.

ANY other industry would love an MS, but Biotech devalues it :(

your ego..?

Education and money are two different concepts now a days...each one at a time.......becoz there is more educated labour then anyone else now a days ..Suppose if i wish to construct a house and i advertise for labour......more managers and supervisors apply then layman to actually work by taking brinks up.i am from india.......BA psychology,then MBA marketing .still unemployed in india by choice

actually truth always lie between the line..not here or that side....yeah today is bad time in western countries but still they have good life as compared to other poverty stricken life...if not so then why don they immigrate to these countries

A degree assure that one is qualified to perform in a specific function. A degree does not assure you that a place will be waiting for you. More and more people are getting degrees these days, to the point that it will not mean anything soon. If you have the opportunity to educate yourself, go for it, but do not jeopardize everything you have for it. It is not worth it you can never enjoy what you worked for.

This thread has become worthless--only a few high school grads now posting and giving advice about obtaining PhD's.

twisted by tricks:
Only had you actually wished me luck...

Good luck with those windmills, Dr. Quixote. Come back with a report after 15 years and let me know how successful your noble, full frontal charge went. I'm sure it will come out MUCH differently than the thousands of times in-your-face idealism has been tried before in Pharma.

integrity is dense. feeling happy and light?

"I do truths and willing to pay the price for it."

I guess you have to do something with all that density.

"The real trick is to make everyone think you are pursuing their economic or philospohical interests while you pursue basic truths."

I don't do tricks, I do truths and willing to pay the price for it.
As to your recommendation not to do a PhD; sorry I already did it, I am poor and do not regret it. The situation with tricks has gotten out of hand and whoever walks this slippery path makes life more difficult for people who don't. If people like you just refused to do tricks, if all scientists put their foot down, we would not be in this situation. I seek and profess truth, being a scientist was just a consequence.

"If you have a Ph.D., hide your head in shame, then head right out and find yourself a job in Pharma R&D. You'll fit right in with the rest of the ignorant and arrogant pukes who run the show right now."

You will never run a show with the exception of a circus, but then again with your attitude, you may even be disqualified from that. There is absolutely no shame in becoming successful and having a PhD that is indicative of being a good scientist. It is the MBA-types that have ultimately run pharma and have ruined the science for everyone. This is generally not the case with smaller biotechs and that is why they are more innovative and will eventually surpass the outdated pharmas that are spending themselves into extinction.

"You are lucky that u can run ur lab that way."

ANYONE can run their lab that way, in Pharma OR in Academia. It's just matter of will and cleverness.

The key is to subtly subvert the system in order to save it. I'll agree that it is probably more difficult to acquire funding to pursue interesting and important basic science, at least out in the open. The real trick is to make everyone think you are pursuing their economic or philospohical interests while you pursue basic truths. Today their interests would include the practical, applied science demanded by both industry and political zealots from both sides of the spectrum.

This sleight of hand is a centuries-old tactic for paying the bills in science. If you're not clever and determined enough, or can't obfuscate well enough to get the funding you need while pursuing your passion, I recommend you don't pursue a Ph.D.

"we will linger in the cold and we will fight. Do it!"

please, don't discourage this fellow to such a hard life. If he or she wants to walk your path of sorrow by getting a phd and suffer for it, let it come without such (admirable) but propaganda nevertheless.

I think you have enough input from this page. The picture is that it is pretty risky but it is for a good cause. It is really up to you, no need to be hero. The romantic age has passed by more than a century now. There are no marches and parades for "warriors" or scientists. Just look at them, they come back maimed and broken and the wealthy get wealthier and whine about, go forbid, their tax cuts getting expired. No one cares about your heroism and there are people who do, the world is big. Do what makes you happy.

stifle not sniffle I meant sorry :)
The question is not if you will have work or not, the question is if "do you have the constitution to go as far as" is needed to contribute. Why grad school? Because just like Matrix that's where we meet, you and I inside the matrix. There we begin our fight. You will not find people like me in any high concentration anywhere else you go. You will find us in one place in grad school. We meet and become friends. So do a PhD, not for jobs, do it to find the other members of resistance. The sellouts will get the good jobs and go back to their feeding tubes and become hot shots, we will linger in the cold and we will fight. Do it!

"Studying arcane processes like "how does brain dream" is the ONLY way we're going to generate new therapeutic approaches. Until you learn that, stay the hell away from my lab."

You are right but increasingly the bureaucratic review process for grants requires specific research goals and methods to achieve it. It is absurd for discovery to be discovered ahead of time. You are lucky that u can run ur lab that way.

Great enterprises fall under the weight of bureaucracies. First they burn you alive, then they join you but transliterate their dogmatic beliefs to processes. They take over the process and kill your soul. That is the research educational complex. Science will end up again with independently wealthy, the cold hungry resistance. That is precisely what has happened, the ones that don't get with the program will be poor for a long time but persist and few will finally make a blow for the first. Science is once again a heroic effort. Should you do it? Would you go to war if your country needed you? Make no mistake, you do science, you are going to war. A slow motion destruction of your body and livelihood.
But you could choose to live and get a job and family and house and be happy. As for me, I am working with a friend on a new formulation of quantum mechanics and QED, one that will change our understanding of the world. We get by somehow. We will not allow the high priests of the church of granting agencies (in physics they call them "String theorists" more like they hang you with it) to sniffle our spirit. We are heir to Plato, we profess the truth and we seek to discover. So there is a red pill and a blue pill, you take the blue pill or you go with us to the battlefields of reality, there you might die but you will join Socrates.

"We know enough about biological systems for basics so most of the average scientists like me will be paid only if they work towards finding cure NOT How does brain dream."

If you're thinking of getting a Ph.D., stop. If you have a Ph.D., hide your head in shame, then head right out and find yourself a job in Pharma R&D. You'll fit right in with the rest of the ignorant and arrogant pukes who run the show right now. See, you and they think we are all very, very smart, and that we can somehow plan our way into innovation. You are all morons, and are exceeded in your idiocy only by the shareholders of big Pharma, who also think you can engineer breakthroughs if you just spend your money more wisely..

Studying arcane processes like "how does brain dream" is the ONLY way we're going to generate new therapeutic approaches. Until you learn that, stay the hell away from my lab.

"For those who oppose getting a PhD, what is the alternative you propose? "

Learn to drive a truck. It's faster, cheaper, and good drivers are always in demand.

"In the united states, science and engineering is no loner a good career choice for people who are smart enough and determined enough to get a PhD.

WTF.....This makes no sense, loner?"

It makes no sense? It makes sense to the declining number Americans choosing not to do it, to the point that DARPA is worried. You are obviously not a PhD; we might be poor but we learn to make arguments not profanities followed by personal insults.

I am starting as a principal scientist with one of the well known big pharma? (just ended 6 years of postdoc)

I am turning 40 this year ?

Am i in for a tragic path of career ?

Seeing a lot of resumes from PhDs for entry level - BS + 0-2 years positions. They go straight into the garbage. Even if we decide we want one of them, they'll turn the offer down on salary. They may be unemployed, but they still think they're worth more.

In the united states, science and engineering is no loner a good career choice for people who are smart enough and determined enough to get a PhD.

WTF.....This makes no sense, loner?

Don't do it! You will regret it with high probability. Life is more important than science or degrees and PhD is not good for your health and life unless you are independently wealthy or clearly a genius.

I was searching craigs list today and stumbled on a listing for lab associate...standard lab opportunity,but the funny thing was a post script at the end "No Phds please, you are over qualified" too funny.

In the united states, science and engineering is no loner a good career choice for people who are smart enough and determined enough to get a PhD. That is the key. A medical doctor, an IP lawyer, MBA combined with a technical degree....these are better choices.
For those who think we oppose the PhD for no reason; the evidence is there already in the declining number of American Phds. That has happened in part because of labor arbitrage but also changes in R&D structure and the education industry's cost cutting (temporary positions etc.)
Still if you work with an influential professor from top 5 schools who helps her students to find jobs, as I said before, PhD is not a bad choice. If you are passionate about it and has that kind of advisor, do it. Otherwise, it is foolish. No one without a PhD want to hire someone who by default is superior to him and if he has PhD and is not your close friend, he has a pipeline to his own and will not hire you. Few jobs, and connection trumps talent. besides the academic and friendship, there is now a growing ethnic network as well. Chinese hire Chinese etc.
Finally my advice: Open your eyes ans see the world for what it is, then and only do a PhD and know the huge risk. I really do not mean to scare you but it really is risky.