Although the situation for the biological sciences is pretty bad, it could
be much worse. Consider physics. With the cold war over, there is a huge
oversupply of highly trained physicists chasing very few jobs. I have a
friend from grad school who has been a postdoc for almost 7 years, first
with Ohio State, now at Stanford. My grad school roommate, also a PhD
physicist, and several of her peers bailed out of physics and are now in
business. Jennifer worked on Wall St for a few years, and is now back in
Seattle at a software co. All of the bailers are using the computer
skills that they acquired in physics for other purposes--and making decent
salaries.
I did a postdoc at a med school for 3.5 y. I have published a lot from
that experience, but I made a conscious decision to get away from the
pressure cooker environment. I was mentally burnt to a crisp. I applied
at several universities that aren't household names, but have solid
programs. I'm now in a dept with a graduate program and a high teaching
load (which is becoming typical for state universities everywhere). There
are days when I need the outlet that teaching gives me from research, and
vice versa. I'm also fortunate to work with a bunch of colleagues who are
not one-dimensional nerds, and who (for the most part) have lives outside
our building.
Amongst my group of friends and colleagues in nutrition, the consensus is
that our postdoc experiences may have made us marketable for academic
positions, but at what cost? First we put our lives on hold for our PhD,
then during our postdoc, now until we get tenure. There may not be much
life left to put on hold.
Sorry about the long rant.
Cindy
--
C.J. Fuller
<mailto:cjfuller at erickson.uncg.edu>
<mailto:cjfuller at mindspring.com>
