Monday, July 16, 2007

And now the future...

There is an interesting comment string on the Scientist online today. Does tenure need to change? The overwhelming majority of those writing in seems to be against the tenure process as it is today. Too much emphasis on publications and grant money, and not enough emphasis on innovation and student support. It looks like a lot of bitter postdocs are waiting in line for jobs. Ah, I should get out now while I still have my sanity.

Tuesday update: The link above should work now!

2 comments:

Brian said...

Yes, you should. Academic science is broken...the funding crisis is a symptom, not the underlying cause. The people that succeed in this are unimaginably brilliant and/or sociopaths. And I don't think that I am either.

It doesn't help that there is such a dramatic generation gap between the boomer scientists that came up when everything was growing exponentially (i.e., pretty much all of our mentors) and those of us that came later. They have no idea what it is like to be a junior scientist today. Getting career guidance from these people is like asking Alexander Graham Bell how to text message.

(I'm not bitter, I swear.)

Figuring out "what then" after 6 years of grad school and 3 years of postdocing is a bit tricky though.
Let me know if you think of something.

Caroline said...

We need to design video games. It's the only way kids will learn about science or anything else soon. And with the excellent collaborative skills we have obtained, we will find the programmers to do it. Now all we need is some capital. That, after 9 years of not making money, is the real problem.