the author needs to chime in a few years later when he fully understands how big science actually works:<p>- most work is done by untrained and inexperienced graduate students, good luck understanding/reproducing the process<p>- most faculty are little more than grant submitting machines trying to land a grant at all costs regardless of what actually interests them<p>- most research reviews processes are incredibly biased with countless people doing terrible jobs (the reviled "reviewer number 3") a single negative can sink a grant/paper acceptance<p>- most institutions are grossly monolithic and the rules and regulations are such that incompetent individuals can never be removed from any given position.<p>- most institutions are run as medieval lordships, with many smaller decision makers like deans, head of departments that have incredible influence on someone's career. It is great when the dictator is benevolent and unbearable if not.<p>Note how instead of paying a good salary the University choses to give out handouts (lower childcare fees, lower rentals) - because those in turn are paid via taxpayer grants. It hides the fact that they pay so little the people would qualify for foodstamps.
This blog post is a year old. The writer is now an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego.<p><a href="http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/research/faculty/447/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/research/faculty/447/</a>
Love of science and research does not pay the bills, nor does an academic level salary.<p>The "choice" that the author made wouldn't really crop up unless he had help paying the bills.
I like Tanya Khovanova’s perspective:<p>"I started my life wanting to be a mathematician. At some point I had to quit academia in order to feed my children. And so I went to work in industry for ten years. Now that my children have grown, I am trying to get back to academia. So I am the right person to compare the experience of working in the two sectors."<p><a href="http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/?p=476" rel="nofollow">http://blog.tanyakhovanova.com/?p=476</a>
"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper<p>The numbers make the problem clear. <i>In 2007</i>, the year before CERN first powered up the LHC, <i>the lab produced 142 master's and Ph.D. theses</i>, according to the lab's document server. <i>Last year it produced 327</i>. (Fermilab chipped in 54.) That abundance seems unlikely to vanish anytime soon, as <i>last year ATLAS had 1000 grad students and CMS had 900</i>.<p><i>In contrast</i>, the INSPIRE Web site, a database for particle physics, <i>currently lists 124 postdocs worldwide</i> in experimental high-energy physics, the sort of work LHC grads have trained for.<p>Let's not confuse students and fellows with missing staff. [...] Potential missing staff in some areas is a separate issue, and educational programmes are not designed to make up for it. On-the-job learning and training are not separated but dynamically linked together, benefiting to both parties. <i>In my three years of operation, I have unfortunately witnessed cases where CERN duties and educational training became contradictory and even conflicting.</i><p><a href="http://ombuds.web.cern.ch/blog/2013/06/lets-not-confuse-students-and-fellows-missing-staff" rel="nofollow">http://ombuds.web.cern.ch/blog/2013/06/lets-not-confuse-stud...</a><p>An unsatisfactory contract policy<p>This will be difficult for LD staff to cope with. <i>Indeed, even while giving complete satisfaction, they have no forward vision about the possibility of pursuing a career</i><p><a href="http://staff-association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-contract-policy" rel="nofollow">http://staff-association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-...</a><p>Pensions which will be applicable to new recruits as of 1 January 2012; the Management and CERN Council adopted without any concertation and decided in June 2011 to adopt very unfavourable mesures for new recruits.<p><a href="http://www.gac-epa.org/History/Bulletins/42-2012-04/Bulletin42-en.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.gac-epa.org/History/Bulletins/42-2012-04/Bulletin...</a><p><i>And a warning to non-western members</i>:<p>"The cost [...] has been evaluated, taking into account realistic <i>labor prices in different countries</i>. The total cost is X (with a <i>western equivalent</i> value of Y) [where Y>X]<p>source: LHCb calorimeters : Technical Design Report<p>ISBN: 9290831693 cdsweb.cern.ch/record/494264
"Why I Chose Academia"<p>I make enough money to pay my bills, I have as much free time as I want, I get to learn new things all the time and teach them to others.<p>However, it can be a little depressing to be a lousy researcher, I feel useless at times.