Thursday, September 09, 2010

Science Ph.D.s are Hurting Too . . . Big Time

On the Fence Recommends:
Check out this great new blog hosted by The Guardian, "Punctuated Equilibrium," written by a science Ph.D. searching for work in the U.K.:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2010/aug/31/1

Here's a taste:
"Like most people, I always wanted to be a success; I was born wanting to accomplish something worthwhile that would justify my existence on this planet. So even though I worked long and hard to make myself into a success, I've only managed to succeed at failure.

Even though I managed to work my way through to the PhD and I also managed to win a postdoctoral fellowship, my efforts to progress beyond that stage were stymied. Frustrated with my inability to find a job – any job – I fell back on the one thing I've always done since I first could pick up a crayon: I wrote about it. Except this time, instead of hiding my words under my mattress, I wanted to make my frustrations public. Because I knew thousands of other young scientists also shared my sense of betrayal, I wished to remain anonymous, to give voice to their outrage as well as my own. So I started a blog. . ."


*Turns out it's not only humanities Ph.D.s who are hurting right now . . . but blogging clearly helps! (Amen to that.)

2 comments:

WorstProfEver said...

Yup, I knew some really cool Physics PhDs in grad school, and one of them ended up falling back on his Latin to get a job as a high school teacher -- you know it's bad when that happens!

E.W. said...

Oh, jesus, that is serioualy depressing, WorstProfEver. Not too often do you about someone "falling back on Latin" for a job. That is a bad sign indeed . . .