Sabine wrote:
> Nearly everyone refers to post-docs as a "period of training,"
> which I find somewhat confusing. Aren't you supposed to have sort
> of finished your education after approximately 10 years in College
and On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, Bart Janssen wrote:
>> 1) A post-doc should not be and is not a training period. If a
It sounds like both of you entered graduate school in the last decade
or so, when the position of postdoc had undergone a major change.
For most of this century, that is exactly what a post-doc was,
a fellowship that allowed PhD's an extra year or two of training
in an area somewhat different from that of the doctoral work.
During the early part of the century, Americans were likely to
get their postdoctoral training in the more advanced labs in Europe.
After his PhD in chemistry, Linus Pauling went to Germany for two years
to work in quantum mechanics. James Watson went to England for two
years to learn crystallography. By the 60's, the direction of postdoc
flow had changed, and the US was more likely to attract postdocs wanting
to learn the latest techniques.
The postdocs I knew in grad school all had come to get training in
something different from their doctoral work: working with a different
species, a different technique, a different level of organization
(organismal/cellular/molecular).
When I left grad school for my first postdoc in 1981, one former professor
advised me to "Make sure you're not like N----. She's in her 5th year as
a postdoc; I don't know why she doesn't want to get a job. Whatever
you do, don't stay more than two years in a postdoc, 3 years maximum."
In 1986, Richard Moore wrote (Winning the PhD Game):
"As a post-doctoral fellow...in the sciences you will probably spend most
of your time in the lab working on a grant brought in by a member of the
regular faculty....These positions provide a chance to follow up on your
dissertation research, publish, and look for a permanent position.
Universities have no strict rule about how long you can remain as a
post-doctoral scholar. Because of the tight job market, postdocs are
stretching long beyond the two- to three-year periods that used to be
considered normal."
And look how it's changed in the last 10 years: Faculty members want
you to write your own grant proposal and 2-3 year postdocs are a distant
memory.
But what I find particularly sad is that you young 'uns see a postdoc as a
low-paid, entry-level job, rather than as an opportunity to train in a new
area. Egad! I feel like an ol' geezer here!
