They can always make meth.

dang what a deal ....

I read the headline in this guy's voice:

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Pfft. Idiots should have gotten science degrees instead of... wait...

BUT THEY TOLD US STEM DEGREES WOULD NEVER BE OVERSATURATED ON THE MARKET? How? How with our big science and math brains did we not know this was coming?

Someone find me an English major! I need to compose a strongly-worded letter!

are they going to work higgs bosom finding into big bang theory storyline?

omnibus_necanda_sunt: Oh, and apparently nerve gas isn't that hard to make.

tl:dr

/throws chemicals together haphazardly...

Too many chemists or too many jobs?

ButterMule: Too many chemists or too many jobs?

Headline written by a chemist.

There are too many of every profession, because there are just too many people. It doesn't matter if it's English oriented or business oriented or science oriented. No job is "easy" to get any more. There are just. Too. Many. People.

Dow Jones and the Temple of Doom: Pfft. Idiots should have gotten science degrees instead of... wait...

reminds me of a thread we had not to long ago about MBA's not being able to find work and people rushing to say it was their own fault for choosing such stupid degrees, basically lumping them in with liberal arts and the like.

Maybe we've moved the bar a little too far on the current generation when we're chiding them for getting science/business degrees. I'm not sure what's left besides engineering and medicine.

If you're smart and determined enough to get a PhD, you should be smart enough to start your own company or finding some other way of making your education pay for itself besides teaching, living on grant money, or relying on someone else to give you a job.

It's inconceivable to me that anyone with an ounce of common sense would spend years of their life life writing a dissertation that WASN'T translatable into a business plan.

It's getting better. I graduated in 08, and was fighting with people with doctorates for entry level lab work. Took a year and a half to finally get into a job.

The fancy, high-tech R&D jobs are still very thin, but if you're willing to work QC, plenty of places hiring. The QC group at my company has doubled since I got there, and has a few people working on a separate shift to help keep up with the work coming in.

/why yes, it is soul sucking work
//better than living in the basement

I'm not sure Sheldon Cooper is supposed to have a permanent research job. It's not clear what his position is, but I don't think it's tenured faculty. Could be some kind of quasi-permanent research staff. Or a postdoc? I think the rest of the guys are postdocs.

Television characters ARE NOT real people.

clyph: If you're smart and determined enough to get a PhD, you should be smart enough to start your own company or finding some other way of making your education pay for itself besides teaching, living on grant money, or relying on someone else to give you a job.

It's inconceivable to me that anyone with an ounce of common sense would spend years of their life life writing a dissertation that WASN'T translatable into a business plan.

I know quite a few PhDs. Being smart is not a prereq to getting one.

omnibus_necanda_sunt: Oh, and apparently nerve gas isn't that hard to make.

Frighteningly easy, actually.

/almost done with PhD in Chemistry
//not looking forward to finding a job

And neither of those mentioned is a chemist nor biologist.

clyph: If you're smart and determined enough to get a PhD, you should be smart enough to start your own company or finding some other way of making your education pay for itself besides teaching, living on grant money, or relying on someone else to give you a job.

People who get science PhDs want to do science. The vast majority of science isn't going to be done in some entrepreneurial company. There isn't a market for it.

Quantum Apostrophe: Degree oversupply. As long as the universities can rake in the money, who cares, right?

This.

I think we are headed to a point where focusing on one area (Chemistry, Accounting, Law) doesn't cut it anymore. I think people need to be cross disciplined. Chemists need business degrees, or biologists need law degrees. The bachelors does not matter anymore. You need a Masters and/or PhD.

Those are fine majors, but they're not typically careers. Of course, neither is Englishist. You go to college to get an education and invited to keggers. It's not vocational training. If you think you're going to walk out of graduation and into a job in that field you're likely to be disappointed.

omnibus_necanda_sunt: Pissing off people who can make bombs out of paint thinner, OxyClean, and drain cleaner...

This will not end well.

Yeah, but once they move on past kid stuff like that and start trying to make stink bombs, there's a group dedicated to countering threats like that.

Seems like the obvious solution is for the biologists to go to medical school and the chemists to switch focus to physics.

thelordofcheese: And neither of those mentioned is a chemist nor biologist.

The article says that physicists and doctors are doing well, as opposed to the chemists/biologists. Hence the gloating.

Don't worry, when Congress eliminates the H1B cap, it'll create jobs for all of these people.

Seriously though, it is possible for a nation as a whole to have a shortage of a particular industry while at the same time having lots of people qualified in that field. We can churn out all the chemists we want but if we don't spend money on research and development, then all of that education goes to waste. It's not only the US that has this type of problem. You hear lots of calls for people to move to east Africa to spend a few years teaching. But east Africa has plenty of qualified teachers, they just don't have the money to hire them and put them to work. When a westerner joins a NGO, often it's not the skills that they possess that's important, it's the money to feed, house, and pay them that's important.

Want more scientists and engineers? Create positions for them and stop trying to save 0.004% on some spreadsheet by doing stupid things like making them buy their own safety goggles or decreasing wages just because you can get away with it this year. Making having a career in science or engineering stable and well paying. If not, kids going into college are going to hear from their relatives in those fields and wonder why they should go through all the trouble just to be treated poorly. Why not get an MBA or a finance degree where you can be the one playing spreadsheet games and getting bonuses for destroying the long term viability of the company in favor of a small gain in the next quarter? In too much of the Western world, it's much more profitable to destroy than it is to create.

Lane83: BUT THEY TOLD US STEM DEGREES WOULD NEVER BE OVERSATURATED ON THE MARKET? How? How with our big science and math brains did we not know this was coming?

The problem is that many PhDs over-specialize and are too proud/stubborn/inflexible to try and apply that knowledge to anything except their tiny area of specialization. You either have to be flexible enough to morph yourself into what the job marketplace demands, be political enough to play the tenure game, or have a plan on how to translate your specialty into a startup.

Ambitwistor: clyph: If you're smart and determined enough to get a PhD, you should be smart enough to start your own company or finding some other way of making your education pay for itself besides teaching, living on grant money, or relying on someone else to give you a job.

People who get science PhDs want to do science. The vast majority of science isn't going to be done in some entrepreneurial company. There isn't a market for it.

That's exactly it. If you run a company don't plan on doing anything other than "business" stuff. Networking, lining up new work, advertising, management "stuff", taxes and accounting, etc. Generally not much science getting done at that level.

Klivian: I know quite a few PhDs. Being smart is not a prereq to getting one.

I do as well. I'd say being SMART is a requirement; having COMMON SENSE is not.

What do you expect? Cats are taking all the best jobs.

Heh. Mr. Felixecho just finished his BS. Once again, we show impeccable timing!

Wayne 985:

I think he's studying cations.

Ambitwistor: Wayne 985:

I think he's studying cations.

What's that on the legal pad? I'd imagine it's some sort of a list..

Got my B.S. in Biology back in 99'. Tried to breakthrough into the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, only to find out that there was a constant and chronic battle cry from the industry that they could not find enough 'qualified' peoples...

And by 'qualified' they meant people with degrees+ willing to work for $15 an hour and live in high rent/pricey areas like Bay Area/S.F. etc. The job I did get paid me a whole $16 an hour and for that I got to pay $1600 a month (with a roomate) for a ghetto East Oakland apartment and nickel and dimed through cost of living.

Half the company I worked for had these Phillipino and Indian H1-B visa holders sponsored by the company (and yes, not a figure of speech...literally HALF the 'techs' working there) who seemed just fine with the whole $12 an hour they were making (and they did have company sponsored apartments that were even more ghetto than mine...part of the fine print in the company sponsoring them so I was told...)

Moral of the story. Science and research sector is as infiltrated with cheap labor as construction or manafacturing. And the corporations go on teary eyed they just can't find enough American educated and born workers to fill the positions so they have no choice but to sponsor and hire H1-B workers. NO CHOICE. And all the while the fast food and Starbucks across America are glutted with degree holding Americans who bought into the American Dream rhetoric of rigorous study and degrees in the hard sciences would yield living wage careers+...

Ambitwistor: People who get science PhDs want to do science.

My point exactly -- that's what I meant about chasing grant money and/or tenure. There's a finite amount of grant money for pure science, and the competition for it is fierce.

There's a lot more venture capital than grant money; while it isn't available for "pure" science, it IS available for science that translates into a commercial product or service.

Even if you are doing research or on the tenure track, a significant amount of your time is still spent playing politics, networking, and doing all other sorts of non-scientific things.

It's all part of a giant plan to force every young American into the military because there is no other option.

Old news is old.

It's worse for chemistry, biology, and medicine than it is for physics and math, but it's still quite bad for physics and math. I know many unemployed physicists and mathematicians with Master's degrees and PhDs. Smart folks, too, who went to good schools, published, etc. They still can't find jobs.

\one of our friends is officially a "house-husband"
\\he has a PhD in physics but can't find permanent employment
\\\his wife is the "leading career spouse"

Look where the market is.
Look where the market is.
Look where the market is.

Use in tangent with...location, location, location.
Find where there are many options...because you'll never know when the politics BS will affect you & your job.


This is why I went into computers and databases, instead of Physics.
I like a nice paycheck...so does my wife.
D.C. - Baltimore region provides many options for tech.

I do my science on my own...there's also enough academia around to refer to...or get access, if necessary.