|
Want some serious, serious advice? Smack your boyfriend upside the head and tell him to get to the Netherlands pronto.
|
#
?
May 5, 2011 20:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 13:11 |
|
|
Sundae posted:Want some serious, serious advice? 
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2011 20:16
|
|
|
Somehow I assumed you were Dutch. My apologies on the faulty assumption.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2011 20:54
|
|
|
you're living in the netherlands and you want to move TO the US? You need your head examined  find a new boyfriend pronto.Also I didn't know you were European; I assumed you were American so consider my advice above null and void. I have nfi what grad school in europe is like. Edit: so wait, what country are you a citizen of...? I'm assuming not the US if you got four yrs of "cheap" university education... seacat fucked around with this message at 21:19 on May 5, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 5, 2011 21:17
|
|
|
seacat posted:you're living in the netherlands and you want to move TO the US? You need your head examined I appreciate the quality of life in the Netherlands, but I'm really tired of being "the foreigner" (I did my bachelor thesis project in Sweden), and swore to myself that I'd go to an English speaking country next time so I can finally have a normal social circle again. That being said, I'm a German citizen of Chinese descent, but feel comfortable with both German or English. Back on topic: Grad school in Europe (at least in the Netherlands, Germany, to some extent Sweden, and definitely Switzerland) is actually not so bad. Takes ~4 years, costs no tuition and usually you count as "research assistant" staff and get paid a salary (with benefits) or alternatively, a stipend (no benefits). I just checked a Lausanne/Zurich postgrad programme and they pay 50,500 CHF (58,052 USD) per year during your PhD.  drat...
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2011 21:59
|
|
|
Scientastic posted:What? Is that similar to industry's money-grabbing, profiteering culture? Or could it be that both are stupid stereotypes? Speaking of where you at, not all industry labs express the money-grabbing, profiteering culture (that is mostly big pharma). Many government labs, light manufacturers, small analytical labs, small synthetic labs, medical testing labs, don't conform to the BigPharma stereotype of horrible management/high salaries/insane layoffs. Nobody's been laid off from my company in many years (people have been fired for incompetence, but they deserved it). So I guess what I'm trying to say is both ivory tower academics and money-grubbing industrialists are stereotypes, but although stereotypes do exist for a reason, there are many exceptions so I'm sorry if I offended anybody. Maybe my department was particularly bad with unwashed neckbeard holier-than-though sarcasm-loving grad students and ancient professors who couldn't even communicate in English, much less in applied advanced calculus while plugging MY RESEARCH every lecture.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 03:29
|
|
|
My company went through a complicated split and acquisition and not a single person got laid off. I think I'm happier in industry, people are more willing to listen to colleagues without Ph.Ds and I like making more than 20$/hr.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 08:58
|
|
|
Bastard Tetris posted:My company went through a complicated split and acquisition and not a single person got laid off. I think I'm happier in industry, people are more willing to listen to colleagues without Ph.Ds and I like making more than 20$/hr. Postdoc salaries are even more laughable. All in all, I made $38K last year which is absolutely nothing to brag about, barely over the US median, but most of my workweeks were 40 hrs with an occasional 45-50 hr week with paid overtime at $28/hr. I don't make much by anyone's standard but it's enough to pay my bills (even my rear end raping student loans), and I have enough time to eat dinner with my wife and go to the gym and read books and watch TV and waste time on the internet and go out to the bar with my friends and do work on my car/house and visit with my family and volunteer at the hospital and do all the other things that make life worth living. One of my good friends that graduated with a PhD in 2009 is postdoc'n at UT-Austin for $32K/yr as a materials research scientist. He makes less than me with 6 years more education, and I only work 40 hours a week most weeks. I had to go through scheduling hell just to have lunch with him because he literally spends 60-80 hrs in the lab. (By the way, you can get the salaries of all the employees in your department via an Open Records Request). Here is a lovely website which compiled the data for UT-Austin for 2009 and 2010: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/databases/salaries/university-of-texas-at-austin Please note Mack Brown, football coach, is at the top of the list, although I hope his salary dropped recently due to our latest 5-7 season Oh yeah, adjunct professors. Those people are loving hosed up the rear end with no lube. Would you go through an extra 4-6 years of an education being someone's bitch, just to be someone's bitch part-time with no benefits, hoping that being such a bitch for long enough and teaching 5 different classes at 3 different colleges on a contract basis will let you claw into a permanent position someday? I don't want to burst anyone's bubble here, but many more PhDs end up on this track than end up with a reasonably paid ($60-80K) tenure-track job or a cash money bling bling industry job. To many universities, if you aren't hired right away, your research/thesis wasn't interesting enough you're washed up and will be adjunct'n for years in a market where most tenure track jobs are for fresh grads with interesting research. So, welcome to the adjunct track. Again, my pathetic $38K salary is more than what these people make, and I work 8 (maybe 9-10 sometimes) hours at the same place M-F and enjoy excellent health insurance, FSA and 401(k); not driving insanely to make my next Chem 101 class at three different community colleges before coming home to grade 10,000 papers (no, adjuncts aren't paid by the hour). I said it before, but once again: contract basis, not permanent employment, no health insurance, hosed up the rear end. BTW, almost every company goes through layoffs at some point, that's just a fact of life. This is particularly true in this recession. Lots of people lost their jobs in DFW. Some companies, like mine, are lucky (or their executives have enough business sense) to avoid layoffs entirely. But it seems BigPharma is the only segment of the industry that has been consistently laying off scientists by the thousands in the past few years (please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Is this any worse than the furlough days (forced unpaid vacation) imposed on state employees at UC because the state is too loving broke to pay their employees? (Yes, if you work for a university, you are a state employee). Is this any worse than the University of Texas explicitly freezing pay raises while useless dickhead President Bill Powers makes deep six figures/yr in salary alone? Just saying, private corporations, as much beef as I have with them, aren't the only ones with financial woes that get passed on to employees. Edit: just clarifying, I am NOT at all bragging about my situation or salary (I know fresh-out of college nurses and engineers that make at least 20K$ more than me and I am cool with that since I have no interest in being an engineer or nurse), nor am I at all gleeful about the crappy PhD earnings situation despite that I feel I dodged that particular bullet. These people SHOULD be making at least twice my salary for their investment vs mine (4 years vs 8-10 years) and enjoy job security and good health insurance, bonuses and retirement plans. Some do. But many don't. TL;DR: Think long and hard before going to grad school in science, unless you know you will be studying techniques that are not only useful now, but will still be useful in 5 years when you graduate. If you are OMGSCIENCE!!! and don't care about the cash, go ahead and go, I guess. The money sucks, and the chances of financial success are low. seacat fucked around with this message at 11:08 on May 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 10:53
|
|
|
The department is also footing the bill for your tuition as well - based on a quick look could range from $5,000- $25,000/year. You really should consider that into any salary discussion as well. You're still better off then if you were trying to get a PhD in history or something. I remember they were trying to unionize the grad students at my university and all the science and engineering students refused to help because they would have taken a pay cut and reduction of benefits. You can't just look at the income while getting the degree. Getting a PhD is necessary for certain long term career goals in industry and a requirement if you want to be a professor. I can't imagine anyone without a PhD becoming an associate director or higher in the R&D group at my company. I don't have a PhD, but 80% of my department does - it took me 8 years to work my way up to the level of an entry level PhD in my company, which puts me about 3 years behind them. Also, they start off with a higher base salary then my current salary by at least $10K, and after 3 years of working, would have been promoted at least once - in this case the promotions is a pretty big bump in benefits (doubling of targeted bonus and start of getting stock options). It's at least 3-5 years before I would get promoted to that level (and I'm now directly competing with them for promotions). I did get to make more money for the 5 years they were in school, but I have a good 35 working years ahead of me, so they will still net more money over their career, especially if they end up in management positions that I am blocked out of. Being a post doc isn't supposed to be a career either - it's to pad your resume so you're more marketable afterwards. Your trying to publish as many papers as possible or learn new techniques, not make a ton of money. Jobs wise - it sucks for everyone out there, PhD or not. gninjagnome fucked around with this message at 12:47 on May 7, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 12:42
|
|
|
I must, btw, note that I am only talking about SCIENCE (chemistry, biology, astronomy, physics PhDs ITT). Humanities have it much., much worse.gninjagnome posted:You can't just look at the income while getting the degree. Getting a PhD is necessary for certain long term career goals in industry and a requirement if you want to be a professor. I can't imagine anyone without a PhD becoming an associate director or higher in the R&D group at my company. I don't have a PhD, but 80% of my department does - it took me 8 years to work my way up to the level of an entry level PhD in my company, which puts me about 3 years behind them. Also, they start off with a higher base salary then my current salary by at least $10K, and after 3 years of working, would have been promoted at least once - in this case the promotions is a pretty big bump in benefits (doubling of targeted bonus and start of getting stock options). It's at least 3-5 years before I would get promoted to that level (and I'm now directly competing with them for promotions). I did get to make more money for the 5 years they were in school, but I have a good 35 working years ahead of me, so they will still net more money over their career, especially if they end up in management positions that I am blocked out of. But consider how many of these associate director of R&D, director of R&D, director of analysis, whatever openings are there in the country vs the number of grads pumped out every year? How many openings do you think early in the USA.. 500? 1000? When I walked with my BS in chem 2007, the ceremony was pretty much the whole College of Natural Sciences lumped together. I saw about 50 PhD's walk, about 10 of them with a PhD in some sort of chemistry, the rest seemed to be in biology or astronomy or nutrition (why was this in the CONS?!!?!?) or something. It doesn't sound like much, and is definitely a large number because huge state school, but weighted-multiply that by the amount of accredited colleges cranking out these degrees in the country. Also consider the huge amounts of scientists laid off in this recession - how can a fresh grad compete against an experienced scientist? How many positions like the ones you mention exist vs amt of fresh PhDs? I don't know, but I used to work with a lot of graduating PhDs, and according to LinkedIn, only about 1 out of 13 has a job like the one you described and none have tenure-track jobs. The rest are postdocs, adjuncts, or blank (presumably unemployed). It's a terrible gamble with 4-6 years of your life. quote:Being a post doc isn't supposed to be a career either - it's to pad your resume so you're more marketable afterwards. Your trying to publish as many papers as possible or learn new techniques, not make a ton of money. quote:Jobs wise - it sucks for everyone out there, PhD or not.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 21:45
|
|
|
gninjagnome posted:Jobs wise - it sucks for everyone out there, PhD or not. This may be true, but all I hear from the business world is how few highly trained people they have, and how we need more people in the math and sciences to graduate. Of course it's all a ruse to bring folks over who can then be implicitly threatened with deportation, but yeah. If they didn't have to worry about deportation, I wouldn't care but neither would business owners.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2011 23:18
|
|
|
Solkanar512 posted:This may be true, but all I hear from the business world is how few highly trained people they have, and how we need more people in the math and sciences to graduate. Of course the business jerks who own everything and have all of the country's wealth complain about not having highly trained people. It encourages more and more people to become highly trained thus driving down the salaries of these highly trained people. The universities are more than happy to accept your tuition dollars (undergraduate) or give you extremely low wages for the amount of work you do (graduate). After extreme amounts of PhDs are pumped out, the corporations then can offer you some ridiculously low salary because you are ridiculously replaceable. Ka-ching! Cheap labor.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2011 01:32
|
|
|
Hah, I ran into my company's old CEO at a party tonight- guy went back to get a Ph.D half time between two institutes in oceanography just because he could  Apparently the company's planning some collaboration with the UC system so this might work itself out. Which is sweet because there's no way I'm making it past senior manager without a doctorate unless I go the business route. I met our chief scientist last week which was pretty inspiring- she's got 30+ years of experience as a physicist and in under a year knows almost every technical aspect of our business and the greater context it falls into, I wish I could aim that high. Science parties are the best. Bastard Tetris fucked around with this message at 11:07 on May 8, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 8, 2011 10:34
|
|
|
plasmoduck posted:Back on topic: Grad school in Europe (at least in the Netherlands, Germany, to some extent Sweden, and definitely Switzerland) is actually not so bad. Takes ~4 years, costs no tuition and usually you count as "research assistant" staff and get paid a salary (with benefits) or alternatively, a stipend (no benefits). I just checked a Lausanne/Zurich postgrad programme and they pay 50,500 CHF (58,052 USD) per year during your PhD. 50k is not a really a lot in Switzerland, it's barely the equivalent minimum wage. You wouldn't starve, but you would probably be living out of town and not doing much. Not that there is much to do in Switzerland. You would also probably still be an ausländer, but most of the Swiss universities are full of foreigner students according to a friend doing a PhD at ETH, so it might not be all that bad.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2011 11:30
|
|
|
unixbeard posted:50k is not a really a lot in Switzerland, it's barely the equivalent minimum wage. You wouldn't starve, but you would probably be living out of town and not doing much. Not that there is much to do in Switzerland. You would also probably still be an ausländer, but most of the Swiss universities are full of foreigner students according to a friend doing a PhD at ETH, so it might not be all that bad. In the German parts I could at least understand the language! XD And some salary is better than none and having to pay tuition on top of that. I guess, two of my old classmates are doing their PhD in ETH Zürich and Lausanne, respectively, and they seem to be doing well. From the posts here I get the impression that the market sucks for everyone right now, no matter what I choose... so I guess I'll have to evaluate my priorities and find a good balance between (financial) comfort, intellectual reward and personal life. I talked to the boyfriend about jobs and stuff and he was actually open about maybe moving to Europe for a while, so we'll see.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2011 12:39
|
|
|
seacat posted:But consider how many of these associate director of R&D, director of R&D, director of analysis, whatever openings are there in the country vs the number of grads pumped out every year? How many openings do you think early in the USA.. 500? 1000? I agree, it definitely is a gamble but you don't get anywhere without taking some risks. 5 years isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. Despite the hours, most of the PhD's I know look back pretty fondly on grad school. Maybe it's because they could land jobs. I haven't talked to that many people that couldn't get one, so I can see that being extremely frustrating. Probably the best way to go is to have a company pay for your PhD. Then you know management likes you, and you have a job once your done. At my company getting 60% of your salary plus tuition covered while working on your degree is a pretty sweet deal. Having no tuition costs or stipend costs to the university makes applications way easier as well (universities love the idea of having access to our departments resources if needed as well). Plus you have a guaranteed job for three years (although you can't quit either). The PhD glut is going to be even worse in 5 years, once everyone that went on to a higher degree because they couldn't land a job graduates. gninjagnome fucked around with this message at 13:20 on May 8, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 8, 2011 13:18
|
|
|
gninjagnome posted:I agree, it definitely is a gamble but you don't get anywhere without taking some risks. 5 years isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. Despite the hours, most of the PhD's I know look back pretty fondly on grad school. Maybe it's because they could land jobs. I haven't talked to that many people that couldn't get one, so I can see that being extremely frustrating. Definitely agree with you on the risk thing. I just wish people understood the odds better. I know all too many people who have never worked a day in their life who think they will basically be handed a high-paying corporate/tenured academic job along with their PhD. quote:Probably the best way to go is to have a company pay for your PhD. Then you know management likes you, and you have a job once your done. At my company getting 60% of your salary plus tuition covered while working on your degree is a pretty sweet deal. Having no tuition costs or stipend costs to the university makes applications way easier as well (universities love the idea of having access to our departments resources if needed as well). Plus you have a guaranteed job for three years (although you can't quit either). quote:The PhD glut is going to be even worse in 5 years, once everyone that went on to a higher degree because they couldn't land a job graduates. Like I said before, university education is not a market system. It is not nearly as difficult to get into graduate school as most grad students/professors would have you think.EDIT: So, sorry about the gradschool/nogradschool derail. Here's some content: I was doing some paperwork at my desk and overheard my boss (who doesn't understand basic chemistry) try to train a new technician (a microbiologist who also doesn't understand basic chemistry) to do an acid value titration. This is like the simplest wet chemistry thing you can do, yet she: - Claimed the endpoint was a rich magenta color (with phenolphthalein, it's the first permanently pale pink color - any more and you are in pH 8+ territory) - Used a two-digit balance instead of an analytical balance to weigh out ~0.02 g of material. - Used the worst possible solvent for the material (a nonpolar ester of stearic acid). She used DI water. - Didn't even neutralize the water (our DI water is pH ~5.5). - Ignored the fact that the material didn't dissolve AT ALL. - Obviously it took only one drop of KOH to neutralize the water with undissolved material swirling in it. Her result? 0.034. The CoA said? 1.8. It's like the simplest thing we do and she hosed it up in about 8 different ways. I had to work hard to restrain myself from (a) correcting her (b) cracking up and laughing uncontrollably and (c)  . An unofficial part of my job is to keep her away from the expensive equipment. seacat fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 8, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 8, 2011 22:48
|
|
|
For curiosity's sake, what companies are you working for where they'll pay for your PhD / subsidize based on your salary? My ex-girlfriend and I were bitching to each other about our companies (Merck and PFE respectively - we're basically arch-rivals now) cutting the education benefits down to nothing. Hers requires so many layers of managerial approval to get through that she never gets approved, while mine sets an $8,000 per year retroactive reimbursement limit, as in I'd have to take out loans, be on the hook for any interest accrued, and then after completing the courses for the year they'd theoretically cut me a check for $8K max. (Completely not worth it, given there's a clause saying that getting laid off during it invalidates the agreement and leaves me on the hook for the entire amount.) I am looking forward to this week. I actually have some lab work to do, and only two asinine meetings to attend! (Or at least, that's all that's on the schedule as of Friday.) A productive week is a rare week indeed these days, and not for lack of effort on my part.
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2011 23:49
|
|
|
400 billion suns posted:I have wanted to be in the biotech/research industry for a long time now, but am having trouble getting so much as a rejection letter for an entry level job (I am in California- North Bay Area.) I am signed up with several scientific staffing agencies, but that has so far only yielded one temp stint at a winery lab (which was a great experience but not my career goal) and NO hookups with biotech companies. Quoting this post from a few pages back because I'm in the exact same boat. I'm graduating with a degree in microbiology in June and have ~ 2 years of mol bio lab experience. Somehow, I'm completely invisible to potential employers.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2011 00:40
|
|
|
stab stabby posted:Quoting this post from a few pages back because I'm in the exact same boat. I'm graduating with a degree in microbiology in June and have ~ 2 years of mol bio lab experience. Somehow, I'm completely invisible to potential employers. QC lab work for BS or even MS-level scientists is like fast food for teenagers/high school graduates. Nobody wants to do it and nobody is interested in it, it's just where everyone starts out cuz that's where the entry-level jobs are. If you really are invisible (having no luck), and nepotism has gotten you nowhere, and a new grad, your best bet is to go to a scientific staffing agency (I recommend Scientific Careers or the Lab Support division of On Assignment). They will call you in for an "interview" to talk with the recruiter about possible opportunities. They will give you a background check and drug screen to make sure you don't steal TVs or shoot skag. It's cool to tell them you are a new grad just looking for a place to start out. The recruiter will then try to find you an entry-level job, typically on a temp or temp-to-hire basis with a company in your area. You will be working for the temp agency technically until the company hires you or ges rid of you. For some lovely companies (I'm looking at you, Alcon, Pepsi, Coca-Cola) you will temp for up to 2 years with low pay, no health insurance, and no chance of actually getting hired. Sounds lovely? Well, it is, although not that bad in this economy. However, the pot of gold at the end of the poo poo rainbow is that even just a year of professional QC lab work will qualify you for the better, more interesting positions like the ones you imagined while your university fed you bullshit about what a special snowflake you are. QC work is tedious, repetitive, and can drive you insane depending on the company. Stick it out. If you can prove that you can stick it out for a couple of years your options will open since you are now an experienced scientist, not a worthless new grad.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2011 01:01
|
|
|
seacat posted:If you are completely invisible... My crystal ball tells me your first job will be doing micro in a QC lab for a food/cosmetics/drinks manufacturer. You might get into small/medium pharma if you're lucky (same poo poo, better pay). It also tells me you might even be a chemist in a QC lab because there are apparently too few chemistry majors and too many bio majors; if you get into this boat you will be doing absolutely nothing related to microbiology/molecular biology and you will probably hate your job. As someone who was in this position after finishing my BS, let me reiterate how valuable and important connections/"nepotism" can be to get your foot in the door of a non-QC lab. Network like crazy every opportunity you have.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2011 20:49
|
|
|
Adjuncting is perfect part time work if you are taking time off to have a kid or if you are in between jobs. But as a career, no it sucks. Its highly flexible and portable. Also postdocs earning 32k are doing it temporarily. Eventually almost all postdocs move on to vastly higher paying jobs in science or out of science.
|
|
#
?
May 9, 2011 20:50
|
|
|
Vladimir Putin posted:Adjuncting is perfect part time work if you are taking time off to have a kid or if you are in between jobs. But as a career, no it sucks. Its highly flexible and portable. Also postdocs earning 32k are doing it temporarily. Eventually almost all postdocs move on to vastly higher paying jobs in science or out of science. That can be true, but spending your early-mid 30s making twice minimum wage with a Ph.D is soul-crushing, especially when you don't know how long it's going to last.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 08:58
|
|
|
Bastard Tetris posted:That can be true, but spending your early-mid 30s making twice minimum wage with a Ph.D is soul-crushing, especially when you don't know how long it's going to last. I dunno I consider getting a Phd one of the best decisions of my life. Also no decent postdoc pays 32k. You start out at 40k with imcreases if you live in a big city. That's still not that much though, so I concede its not for everyone.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 13:48
|
|
|
Vladimir Putin posted:I dunno I consider getting a Phd one of the best decisions of my life. Also no decent postdoc pays 32k. You start out at 40k with imcreases if you live in a big city. That's still not that much though, so I concede its not for everyone. He's pretty unhappy because he works for an extremely asian dude who he doesn't click with at all, and he's treated more like a lab monkey than a collaborator. Are you saying there's actually decent postdocs out there? I've never really heard of a happy postdoc
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 15:39
|
|
|
The happiest I've seen a post-doc is when they are leaving to go somewhere else (often to industry).
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 15:49
|
|
|
Your postdoc is like any other job and is highly dependent on your boss and coworkers. So yeah if he gets treated like a lab monkey thats going to suck. A lot of postsocs are unhappy and so are a lot of grad students. But looking back, it wasn't as bad as I felt it was. I was given the freedom to research what I wanted (within reason ) amd the funds to go and do it. Most of my cohort from grad school went on to have pretty interesting careers they would not have access to without a Phd.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 16:24
|
|
|
seacat posted:I've never really heard of a happy postdoc I've seen plenty of content-to-happy postdocs in my previous labs (cell biology, structural biology, cell biology/biotech), the extreme being a 50+ year senior postdoc who has been in the same lab for 15+ years and everyone's go-to guy. He is perfectly happy with doing as much research as he wants without having to worry about the organizational stuff that professors do. That being said, I have no clue what his salary is ...
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2011 17:13
|
|
|
Holy moley, decency from out of nowhere! My company gave me a $100 tax-protected bonus (aka grossed-up for tax purposes so I actually get $100) on my next paycheck as "thanks for good work last month" on one of my projects. They must be preparing to fire me or something. Nobody here gets extra rewards for anything, let alone work on a podunk piece of crap project that I've been doing by damnedest to kill.
|
|
#
?
May 11, 2011 15:53
|
|
|
stab stabby posted:Quoting this post from a few pages back because I'm in the exact same boat. I'm graduating with a degree in microbiology in June and have ~ 2 years of mol bio lab experience. Somehow, I'm completely invisible to potential employers. Hospitals or reference labs. The 2 areas they don't require a certification for employment (usually) is in micro or molecular (almost definitely molecular). Depending on where you live you'll make around 35-60k a year starting. Just google hospitals in whatever area you wanna work at and check what lab positions they have available.
|
|
#
?
May 12, 2011 03:18
|
|
|
Does anyone work in a crime lab? (Criminalist, etc.)
|
|
#
?
May 13, 2011 04:02
|
|
|
Hey industry biologists/chemists, how much do you guys use the academic biomedical literature? A lot? Sometimes? Never? Do your companies provide subscription access to journals?
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2011 03:42
|
|
|
polyfractal posted:Hey industry biologists/chemists, how much do you guys use the academic biomedical literature? A lot? Sometimes? Never? Do your companies provide subscription access to journals? Some of the better companies like our sister company do have access to academic journals like JACS, though. However I would doubt in any industry lab it's like at a big university where you can go to a library and access anything you want. It's usually only poo poo directly related to your industry.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2011 03:50
|
|
|
polyfractal posted:Hey industry biologists/chemists, how much do you guys use the academic biomedical literature? A lot? Sometimes? Never? Do your companies provide subscription access to journals? Even when we were a small company we had access to a lot of journals. We are an organic syn lab and we do quite a bit of R&D on reactions we aren't familiar with.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2011 14:02
|
|
|
polyfractal posted:Hey industry biologists/chemists, how much do you guys use the academic biomedical literature? A lot? Sometimes? Never? Do your companies provide subscription access to journals? Until last year, we were permitted to have full-access to journals our company subscribed to, plus a personal subscription to one journal of our choice regardless of its job-relevance. For example, even though I'm in mat-sci/chem now, I wanted to keep up with my old bio stuff + major science in general, so my personal subscription was to Nature. The personal subscriptions were canned last year, and we now are only permitted access to sub-site licenses specific to our job function. My computer's account won't let me use the site licenses for Nature, for example, and pretty much limits me to JPharmSci(pretty good quality), PharmTechnology (pretty bad), Pharm Outsourcing (absolute piece of bullshit with no value whatsoever). I don't get to anything beyond the applied field sciences anymore. No direct chem, no materials research, etc. I didn't read them very much for my actual work, but I loved having them for personal reading. Now... if someone ever starts the International Journal of Dealing with Assholes Wearing Suits, I'll be all over that one. My publication record will skyrocket, too.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2011 15:47
|
|
|
There isn't really a journal called Pharm Outsourcing..........is there?
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2011 15:51
|
|
|
Sundae posted:Until last year, we were permitted to have full-access to journals our company subscribed to, plus a personal subscription to one journal of our choice regardless of its job-relevance. For example, even though I'm in mat-sci/chem now, I wanted to keep up with my old bio stuff + major science in general, so my personal subscription was to Nature. You're mat sci? You get your degree in chem e or in chem? Or are you a PhD?
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2011 17:46
|
|
|
seacat posted:I wish. We do have the USP monographs, Pharmacopeia, Merck Index, etc., but absolutely no access to primary literature because they don't want to pay for it although we definitely need it. So our main tool is to google poo poo, read the abstracts and whatever free poo poo we can find, then try to develop methods from that. Sometimes the companies that sell standards kits will provide you with some free info. soupy posted:Even when we were a small company we had access to a lot of journals. We are an organic syn lab and we do quite a bit of R&D on reactions we aren't familiar with. Sundae posted:Until last year, we were permitted to have full-access to journals our company subscribed to, plus a personal subscription to one journal of our choice regardless of its job-relevance. For example, even though I'm in mat-sci/chem now, I wanted to keep up with my old bio stuff + major science in general, so my personal subscription was to Nature. Interesting, thanks for the replies. I'm working on a virtual librarian/article recommendation algorithm to help academics sort through the mountain of primary literature, but I was also curious if industry might be interested too. If subscriptions are generally pretty limited, I imagine it wouldn't be very helpful (outside providing more relevant abstracts for you to read). (That said, if any of you industry folk have a burning need for a certain type of software or web service, feel free to let me know. I'm shopping around for ideas )Generally speaking, it's too bad you guys don't have access to primary literature. I always assumed industry was voraciously reading what academics were writing since it is basically free R&D, guess that was a pretty naive thought 
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2011 18:21
|
|
|
Vladimir Putin posted:There isn't really a journal called Pharm Outsourcing..........is there? http://pharmoutsourcing.com/ Sorry. They've got all the impact-factor of a fly swatter thankfully, but it doesn't mean they're not trying.quote:You're mat sci? You get your degree in chem e or in chem? Or are you a PhD? Late-state formulation development, so a little bit of mat-sci, a little bit of industrial engineering. No PhD (M.Eng + B.S), and I don't use anything in my degree whatsoever. I was bioengineering.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2011 23:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 13:11 |
|
|
polyfractal posted:(That said, if any of you industry folk have a burning need for a certain type of software or web service, feel free to let me know. I'm shopping around for ideas quote:Generally speaking, it's too bad you guys don't have access to primary literature. I always assumed industry was voraciously reading what academics were writing since it is basically free R&D, guess that was a pretty naive thought Primary lit is some ideas scientifically demonstrated to work in a very controlled environment, that you pay for, basically. Applying it, whether in manufacturing or in medicine or whatever is a whole different story.SIDE NOTE: This rant applies only to USA. I have no idea what science in other countries is like. Industry does what industry has to do to make money. The good R&D / process&scale chem / high purity standard manufacturing / analytical chemistry divisions absolutely subscribe to and read academic journals related to their industry that might improve their methods of either making money (by doing better work or pretending they're doing better work) or increasing regulatory compliance, yes. I would say the directly applicable papers will be read by someone that's making or analyzing something somewhere. But most people don't really give a poo poo about obscure theories on molecular orbitals or the ring strain energy of some compound nobody's ever heard of or (outside of chemistry) astrophysics or evolution. They're not devouring scientific literature about every topic as you envision. The primary purpose of universities is to "create" knowledge, applicable or not. The real world uses whatever the real world needs at the time. Another problem though is that it's hard to speak of "industry science" in general because there are so many vast very specialized fields. Whenever people speak to me of "chemist in industry", I think manufacturing (making poo poo) or analytical (measuring poo poo, whether it be human blood or fertilizer or water or whatever). For manufacturing, whether you're making cranberry juice or toothpaste or explosives or drugs, maybe 1 in 100 academic articles will actually have something useful to you, and then you have to adapt that method to your facilities, prove to management that it's worth whatever you have to pay (not just for the journal subscription but for any equipment, reagents, whatever). Also consider most university research is obviously done on a small lab scale, which is fine for analysis, but scaling up processes to make poo poo in industry-sized batches is HUGELY different from the lab. I don't know if pharma is different since the amount of active ingredient in most medications is generally on the ug-mg scale-- maybe Sundae can comment. It seems that with the incredible (well, maybe not so more -- offshoring of manufacturing) amount of stuff that gets made in the whole of the USA, every scientific article would have a purpose SOMEWHERE. But there are a lot fewer jobs than there are university students cranking out papers, and the jobs that require scientific and technical knowledge (OUTSIDE of medicine) are getting fewer while the amount of managers and bureaucrats keeps growing and growing. Remember, universities are not a market - you can research whatever the gently caress you want as long as you pay tuition (undergrad) or provide vast amounts of cheap (and possibly free if you are on say, an NSF fellowship where the university pays nothing) labor and TA and grade papers and also even possibly pay tuition (grad). Tons of poo poo at our plant gets shipped to other companies for testing just because it's often much cheaper to pay someone who only tests for compound X or does calorimetry on Y type of product than to research journals (which we dont have access to LOL), have a senior scientist develop and validate a method, equip your lab, write up the necessary paperwork to have the method be government-compliant and hire competent educated people to do the analysis and write up the results in an ISO:9000/cGMP compliant way. Much easier to seal a sample, send it to a certified facility, and not to have to worry about any of that poo poo because they are a certified lab and the CoA they send you proves their compliance and you can just slap those results onto your product directly. There are also some private companies "hybrid" R&D fields like medical research, alternative fuel research, which are funded either by rich fuckers who aren't bothered by some small amount like $10,000,000 for a potential huge payoff, or by venture capitalists, but these opportunities are terribly, terribly few into and generally require more than a bachelors or masters science degree (think MD/PhD) or some hell of experience or connections. Most likely you'll be working on some boring rear end poo poo and you won't see a scientific paper for the first couple years of your career. I personally think that the majority of literature produced by academia goes unread and unused by most people in industry. But to put a silver lining on that cloud, you never know what tidbit of knowledge COULD be useful in the future (although if it's over 10 years old, it is probably in oblivion). I am young in my career so if anyone wants to contradict me please feel free, it would prolly make me feel better. I'm 100% sure that nobody has ever read or quoted any of MY papers TL;DR: Use of academic literature in industry is an incredibly convoluted topic and I'm pretty sure most papers that are published don't get read. seacat fucked around with this message at 06:02 on May 21, 2011 |
|
#
?
May 21, 2011 04:27
|
|