the CPSJ essays, in toto

[Arthur E. Sowers]

LONG FILE: about 100K

beginning of copyrighted material

======== Title =================================

Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs (CPSJ) - in seven parts.

SECOND EDITION

by: Arthur E. Sowers, PhD

March 27, 1996

e-mail addresses:
<arth...@access.digex.net> and
<arth...@dmv.com>

====== Contents ====================

i. Copyright (conditions for unlimited reproduction)
ii. Preface to Second Edition

Part 1. The job crunch and the grant crunch
Part 2. What needs to be in a CV
Part 3. Self Evaluation and Some things YOU can do for YOU
Part 4. Tenure and terminations
Part 5A & 5B. Uncollegial behavior & Ref List
Part 6. Before the PhD, the post-doc search
Part 7. When ESCAPE from the science career is needed (Was ATSJ)

i. ================================

Copyright with conditions for unlimited reproduction

This material is copyrighted. However, I hereby grant anyone non-
exclusive permission to reproduce and distribute, royalty-free, these
essays under the following three conditions: a) all material will remain
unmodified and unedited and complete, b) I be informed of who is
using the material and in what way (including installation at a Web
site, reproduction for handouts, etc.), and c) no profits or fee be
charged to the end user in any connection with using or distributing
this material.

----start of note made on May 9, 1996----
Installation at a WWW site as an "unmodified and unedited and
complete" single document may lead to excessively long download
times. For WWW sites, I grant the sysops and/or the operating entity
permission to break the whole document into one page containing title,
contents, copyright, and preface to second edition, and seven
subpages for the seven "parts." Each part should be started with
the statement that "Readers should be aware of the copyright
conditions for unlimited reproduction" and a link back to the title page.
----end of note made on May 9, 1996----

ii. ========= Preface to Second Edition =====

Earlier versions of these essays have been posted primarily and
repeatedly on the internet newsgroup <sci.research.careers> for
approximately one year (March 1995 to March 1996). A number of
versions are archived at a number of sites. These essays were written
in the public interest and for the benefit of younger people who are in
the grad school to postdoc pipeline. This edition was cleaned up,
reorganized somewhat, slightly shortened, and brought up to date.

People who are in the grad school to postdoc pipeline are, for the
most part, hoping to see their dreams come true with a real and decent
career job in science. The purpose of this document is to inform these
people about the realities that will be in conflict with their dreams.

While the model "job" in this document is a faculty position in
academia, much of the job situation holds true for non academic jobs
in industry, also. The model "job" also has a research component.
Today, most research is done in post baccalaureate institutions usually
called a "research university", but can also be done at "health science
centers" (usually dominated by a medical school), or one of many
private institutions (eg. Salk Institute, etc.). The total number of
faculty, in all subjects, at all collegiate and university institutions, is
about 700,000. The total number of faculty at medical schools is about
80,000. Some research, better labeled as "development" also takes
place in industrial and government settings. While some details of jobs
in these environments will be discussed, the primary scope of this
document is academia.

With the exception of a small number of "hot" fields, the number of
all after-the-postdoc jobs is half or less of what it needs to be to
absorb all of those coming through the pipeline. Some of the rest
will, indeed, have some success and see their dreams for a career
partly fulfilled but the career there will be a shortfall in rewards. This
is because not only are there not enough jobs, but the funding levels
(primarily through government funding agencies) are not high enough
to support those jobs. Also, at many institutions, tenure is either
already diluted, being diluted, or being separated from promotions.
What this means is that you may spend one or two decades of hard
work devoting your life to a pursuit that can be pulled out from under
you at any time because of a funding glitch or politics in your local
power hierarchy. I would also guess that in the future about five to
ten percent of all scientists are likely to run into really nasty
personality and ideological conflicts in their work environments and
have their career unjustly derailed or delayed.

From personal contacts, my own experience, and much private email
to me in response to my postings, it is clear that a large fraction of
all young people in the pipeline are not getting good mentoring. I
wrote this material to fill at least some of the gaps. There is an
implicit fork in the road for you to take at some time in the future:
decide if you can extrapolate from your present knowledge of your
progress in preparation for your career and conclude that you have a
competitive chance at success, or conclude that you will be, or already
are, in the "bottom half" of the entire pool of people in your class and
get out of the pipeline now and into non-academic pursuits.

Remember some things about my advice in this document. It might not
be right for you. There is a lot of "conventional wisdom" out there in
the world, but there are also a lot of "exceptions to the rule," too.
YOU need to find what is right for you. Another thing about my
advice: I think of it as "weak ideas that actually might be useful." I
say that because there are rarely any "magic" answers that work all
the time and often we do not have as much control over our future as
we would like. Miracles are more likely to happen in dreams than in
reality.

As I have a very large collection of relevant newspaper and journal
articles, uncollated notes and references, and many untold stories, I
suppose I should be thinking about a third edition of this document.
This might become available in 1997.

=================================
Part 1: THE JOB CRUNCH AND THE GRANT CRUNCH

While the emphasis of this part is on the academic environment,
much is applicable to industrial environments and even non-science
environments. While the emphasis in this posting is on
problems which are detrimental to the individual and/or his/her
desired career interests, it is also true that individuals, both at
the student, faculty, and staff level, sometimes cause problems for
other individuals, institutions, and the scientific community in
general. A minority of people in all environments are the cause of
misdeeds of varying severity. My essays will not cover these
issues, but relevant material can be found in the literature.

THE JOB CRUNCH:
In most areas of science (and at least some areas in engineering)
there are few jobs and many applicants. National PhD production in
the biomedical sciences is stated (Science, vol. 265, p. 33,
[1994]) to be around 3500 per year and rising. At the time of
graduation, about 68 % of these had jobs in 1982, but has decreased
to 50% by 1992 (Science, vol. 265, p. 1906 [1994]). While
postdoctoral positions are not as difficult to find, the applicant
to job ratios for tenure track jobs now run around 100-300 to one,
or more, and have been at that level for two decades now. The
lower ratios are for more specialized topics and positions at
isolated institutions. The references for 700-1,000 applicants per
job are: Wall Street Journal, Feb 15, 1994 (front page); Chronicle
of Higher Education, March 23, 1994 (Section 2, pull out, page B1).
An additional relevant article is in The Chronicle of Higher
Education, April 27, 1994. A relatively new phenomenon in the last
few years for many advertised teaching positions is a request for
documentation of teaching experience and submission of
transcripts or copies of transcripts. On top of the bad job market
is the fact that downsizings are going on all over. Stanford and
MIT have budget problems (Chronicle of Higher Education May 4,
1994). The pharmaceutical industry has downsized by a total of
46,380 jobs (15% of all pharmaceutical jobs) since 1990 (The
Scientist, Dec 12, 1994, p. 11), although how many of those were at
the PhD level was not stated. The implication here is that a great
many people in the PhD-postdoc pipeline will never get a crack at
that tenure-track job and the only alternative is hang on in the
hopes of a random chance of "looking good" to a hiring entity.
Another reason for hanging on is the principle of the path of least
resistance: "I am here, therefore I will stay here until something
forces me to move to something else." These scenarios will end
with postdocs in their 40s and 50s finally not being able to land
another postdoc. Individuals should consider getting out now if
not soon.

THE GRANT CRUNCH:
In most academic science/research jobs, a faculty member will be
expected to get substantial grant money to keep his/her job and/or
laboratory. A fact not widely known is that in many departments
between at least 25% (the summer salary) and 100% of the paycheck
of a Principal Investigator is generated from a grant (the higher
end is commonly true at most if not all medical schools and
clinical departments). So what happens when you loose your grant?
You loose that part of your paycheck! No, the chairman will not
rush in with money to fill the gap. Yes, you tighten the belt. In
some institutions, you may get one year to get your grant restored
or you then loose your job, in some cases even if you have tenure.
I have heard now of a number of cases where, even with tenure,
faculty were terminated when it became known that their grants were
not going to be renewed. What happens if you leave the
institution? They have 200-300 new applicants to choose from. Its
a buyers market. In the early 1980s about half of all grant
proposals were funded but, since then this funding success rate has
slowly diminished to about 15-20% at present (Science, vol. 263, p.
1213 [1994] and Science, vol. 266, p. 1789 [1994]). Superstars with
outstanding reputations probably have less trouble getting funded,
leaving a much smaller than 15-20% average success left for the
rest. To complete the circle, renewal of grants is not automatic.
In general, a significant fraction of all grants are not renewed,
thus forcing the Principal Investigator to always be submitting
grants with bracketed proposed funding periods in a strategy aimed
at keeping funding unbroken. I read somewhere that the average rate
of non-renewal of NIH grants is about 30% on the arrival of the
first competitive renewal date and 60% on the second.

=================================
Part 2. What Good CVs Look Like

(The Science Career Path Reality)

My 9 years in industry, 5 years in academia, and 4 years
as a postdoc tell me this about getting a regular (tenure-track)
faculty appointment:

On a very simple level, one who wishes to be in lofty pursuits (an
academic position at a research institution, where the goals are
noble and the intellectual rewards are pure and at least some
people respect you) would follow this conventional-wisdom paradigm:

Get i) PhD (or MD/PhD), ii) get a postdoc, and then iii) get an
asst. prof. position. After that things are supposed to be more or
less automatic. Right?

Bzzzzt. Wrong answer!

In 1977 I got my PhD and did a postdoc (1978-1981) and then began
to learn how all of this really worked.

The situation back then was, as it is today, about 200-300
applications per entry level (assistant prof) tenure-track slot.
What I saw then (doing a postdoc at UNC, School of Medicine, Chapel
Hill) was that the CVs that rose to the top, indeed, had or tended
to have certain "obvious" characteristics:

A1 - Ivy league, big 10 or big 20 institution names for the PhD.
A2 - Places that are "exotic" for a postdoc to be from: eg.
Rockefeller, Max Plank, Cold Spring Harbor, IN ADDITION TO
the usual.
A3 - Publications (about 2-3 per year) in, yes, Science, Nature,
Cell, PNAS
A4 - An existing, transferable grant (usually NIH, and $60+K of
indirect costs).
A5 - A specialization that fit in with the specialization that was
desired (i.e. as advertised).
A6 - A specialization that could be a natural integration for one
to two existing faculty for the purpose of becoming a co-
investigator on future grant proposals (such arrangements
can be great since you have enthusiastic "partners" to help
with writing, but can be bad if the other guys let you do
most of the work and they take the credit)
A7 - (thanks to Ken Steele [at: stee...@appstate.edu] for this
one). "The homeboy factor is stronger than many imagine"
quoted with permission. Basically, some selection mindsets
operate on what I will call the comfort principle: A few guys
in the department are from some region, school, or have a
religious factor in common, and this is what they look for, or
notice, in an applicant pool, and, ergo, true merit gets lost
in the dust (I am not arguing for or against this, it all
depends on your perspective). A variation on this may be
found by looking in college and university catalogs in
your libraries. Look at the faculty list and see if they show
where the faculty got their degrees from. Ivy league schools
usually recruit from other ivy leagues. Small, elite colleges
often recruit from prestige schools (eg. ivy league), and
state schools recruit from all places.
Teaching institutions often recruit for teaching promise
and experience while research competence means little or
nothing.
A8 - Small elite (or even not so elite) colleges are not going to
be research career focused. Rather, they will be more
concerned with the commitment you have towards teaching and
the small college ambience and culture. In other words, how
you look as a researcher doesn't matter much, but if you have
no teaching experience AND don't have anything on
your CV or cover letter (or the rest of your application
package) that really shows an interest in teaching, then your
CV is going to end up in the trash (or the fireplace).

There were anti-selection characteristics, too:

B1 - Subject areas not in "square" with job description (eg. an
entomologist applying for a job in an anatomy department)
B2 - Anybody higher than associate prof, and including chairmen,
and people who were only at teaching institutions, and
people who were not young, fell off the list, quickly, on
the first round.
B3 - Anybody who was already asst prof at 2 or more other
institutions. This is because the people on the sellection committee
figure that there is something wrong with you because you did not
get tenure.
B4 - Obscure, short papers in trashy, obscure journals (especially
if there were, eg., 10 or more per year).
B5 - Anybody who followed a non-ideal career path. For example, a
truck driver for ten years goes back to school for PhD, a woman
who steps off the path to be mother for 2-3 years (yeah, I'm sorry
but they see that gap as a blemish on a career trajectory).
B6 - People who had dirt on their name. Bad gossip, whether true
or false, certain political problems (10-20 years ago you
might have had trouble if you were very left wing - you would
not get a job in science). Today, it may not be important.
B7 - Thanks to <an26...@anon.penet.fi> for this one and I HAVE
heard about it before but left it out because I did not want
to stigmatize anyone. But, we ought to tell-it-like-it-is.
"Postdocs" at government labs may not be a good idea for your
career. Yes, academia generally does not respect time spent at
such places and that needs to be considered even though the
pay might be greater. <an26...@anon.penet.fi> says in his
private e-mail to me that "I'm one of those guys
in his 50s- and its hard to believe that I might not make it
in this career to retirement." and they "have postdocs..." and
"But they are committing professional suicide because we
are not in a glamour area of science and we are not at a fancy
institution." (write to him if you want, folks, but get the
help file first [send any subject any text to
<he...@anon.penet.fi> before you get your password or send
non-anonymously, also see the help file).

IN OTHER WORDS, YOU HAVE A WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
AND IF YOU MISS IT, THEN YOU ARE MESSED UP FOR LIFE.

People who are selected as candidates for a position had to give a
seminar and spend at least a day at the institution. The seminar
had to be in a quality level that I would call the "upper half"
category. To fall off the short list, you had to give a really
goofy or bad seminar (and this happened, too). In contrast, at a
teaching institution, your seminar or (short demonstration of
presentation abilities) will be more scrutinized for delivery,
content, collegiality, and style.

Some real-life but non-obvious factors might play a significant
role in a person being offered a position. However, these factors
may never become public knowledge. Some are:

C1 - Real programmatic considerations,
C2 - Absolutely astounding letters of recommendation from
luminaries (one prof at Berkeley told me this: he considered
himself average, but he got the job because of an
exceptional recommendation letter),
C3 - Operation in the background of a personal connection or
preference of some kind (some people call this politics
and it does happen).
C4 - An agenda. For example, there may be an actual preference to
hire a minority or a female, or a science
subdiscipline (eg. HIV science, extracellular matrix,
biotechnology, etc., or some other "hot topic").

Some of these non-obvious factors may actually dominate the
decision making to the point of relegating the obvious factors out
of the question. Anti-discrimination laws help prevent some of the
outlandish anti-sellection factor processes, but they don't seem to
have much effect until someone already hired is released or
denied tenure or tenure removed (see Chronicle of Higher Education
all year long on this). I think not much else has changed since the
mid 1970s except the much greater competition for grant funding.

This is what you have to measure yourself against.

What was the most intimidating CV I ever saw? It was just two pages
long! The top half of the first page had the education. The bottom
half of the first page had a list of special awards. The second page just
gave numbers of journal papers, books, and chapters, not the titles and
citations. The second page also had a story in which the individual
said how many PhDs he graduated (it was around 40-50 if I recall
correctly), how many of those went on into tenure track positions (it
was most of them) and how many of those were promoted with tenure
(almost of them). In other words it was an awesome success story.
This guy not only did get the job, but he also got the whole floor of
a building. I am sure the rest of the "package" (i.e. start up money,
etc.) was also impressive.

There is also a line of thinking that is developing. Departments are
not going to play a significant role as much as centers of excellence
(containing 10-20 or more people). Such centers of excellence will
have a "life cycle" of 12-15 years and then be disbanded.

Try not to use the above material to gauge yourself in an absolute
way, because there are often exceptions to the rule in real life.
But do use it as a guide.

====== Pt. 3. ======================

Self Evaluation and What YOU can do for YOU

Although there is not MUCH you can do, there are a FEW things that
you CAN do. People in their 40s and 50s have, probably,
less options unless they have a specific fall back plan of their
own. Its basically one of three things: i) make the decision to get out
of science now or soon, or ii) keep some ideas and/or strategies in
mind if you want to be stubborn and hang on (this is what I did) as
long as possible or iii) collect more information and
develop a more long term plan.

There are no magic answers or guaranteed solutions to the
job problem. The major problem is that funding for most research is
unlikely to increase, and more likely to remain flat or decrease by 5
- 10% or more over the next 5-10 years. The next problem is,
depending on you view it, either not enough jobs or too
many PhDs or a combination of both. I think there will be
substantial agreement that two things contribute to this situation:
i) the end of the cold war, and ii) global competition which lead to
reorganizations in 1980s, and reengineering from private industry
and reinvention from the government in the 1990s (new buzzwords
for reorganization combined with increased workloads for the
survivors), and iii) a recently developed mood in government to
suicidally, rapidly, and prematurely dismantle a substantial
fraction of the infrastructure of our society (eg. cut gov spending
and simultaneously wipe out all the revenue flow to the private
sector that built up around it). And, unfortunately, I don't think
it will do much good if we all write letters to our leaders or
otherwise present rational and logical arguments based on benefits
and costs.

My advice:

1. Keep tuned in to deeper analysis in the significant
newspapers or magazines which cover trends in our culture. I read
the Wall Street Journal and The Scientist for the human-angle
job/funding stories. The Chronicle of Higher Education covers all
news in Academia including science and non-science, institutional
problems, trends, etc. A new periodical, "Academic Physician &
Scientist" (Academic Physician & Scientist, 907 Embarcadero, Suite
4, El Dorado Hills, California 95762, (916) 939-4242, fax: (916)
939-4249, internet: gopher.acad_phy_sci.com), is really a both
newsletter for the medical science community and a job listing at
medical schools/centers for primarily clinician and/or clinical
science department jobs (95% MDs and MD/PhDs) and 5% or less
jobs are for PhDs (in basic sciences). They list maybe 200-300 or
more MD requiring jobs from all over the country and maybe 20-30
PhD jobs. Lastly, keep an eye out for things that are said by trend
setter pundits (eg. Peter Drucker, Tom Peters [of "In search of
excellence"]). Its not that they are right about anything, but a
lot of people who have a lot of power do think guys like these are
gods. Sometimes relevant material can be found in Science, but the
career "specials" that they have been having annually in the last
three years tend to be obviously "sanitized" or concentrate on the
"positive" elements rather than the "reality" elements. It might be
worth checking some of the other newsgroups and occasionally
posting a question about what the job market is like in "?", etc.
This is a resource, don't be afraid to use it and if you feel like
sharing what you learn, please do. Yes, its probably more
worthwhile to do this than keep up with the journals in your field.

2. Don't quit graduate school or you post-doc tomorrow. But DO
start thinking about two scenarios. First, you wait and wait and
wait while you do postdocs until at some point no one will hire you
any more because you start to look old ... and ... why hire you
(or keep you) when they can get a younger guy maybe doing
something more in line with what the PI wants to do now than what
he wanted to do three-four years ago. Second, you set a one semester
or one year time limit to make up your mind about getting out.

3. Self evaluation: Part A. It looks to me like future funding is
going to be even more programmatically controlled. Cancer, AIDS,
Heart Disease, Medical/Clinical applications, Gene Therapy and
certain areas in genetics (Human Gene Program - at least until the
sequencing is finished, then those jobs will dry up), and
certain disease entities, and biotechnology, may be areas where
there will be money for some time. Remember that biotechnology
projects all have life-cycles; after a few years the project either
bombs out (you get laid off) or it is successful and makes money
(the project is completed and they don't need you any more so you
still get laid off). Keep an eye on the "propaganda-type" or
"blow-your-own-horn" journals (TIBS, Current Opinion [on hot topic],
BioEssays) and the journals of envy, Science and Nature. If you can't
get a PhD at a neon sign school, then at least you can use the authors
of these often self-promoting articles as leads with whom you can try
to do a postdoc. Also, ask yourself if you (a postdoc) are getting your
name on 2-3 good journal papers in good journals every year. Do you
feel really good about your postdoctoral sponsor? Is the guy honest
with you or does he have ego problems. Is he the kind of guy that
will actually help you with a really positive recommendation
letter. If you know you are having trouble, then you have to look
for another postdoc. After you get at least your first paper
accepted and you want to "test the water" and feel out your
PhD advisor or postdoctoral sponsor's opinion of you, then just come
out and say "Well, you have seen me through my (our) first paper, do
you think I should stay in this stuff?". He will either tell you that you
are dynamite and you should start applying for tenure-track jobs in 1-2
years, or he will tell you your progress is fine but you need to
stick around for 8-10 years (he's using you). If he doesn't like
you, then he will tell you, or you will notice that he doesn't
notice you. Ask your co-workers if you haven't already, and for
people going on to a new lab, then, before you make your decision,
ask people who have already been through that lab and gone on,
wherever that may be. If you are a graduate student looking for a
postdoctoral sponsor, you should be researching out the guys who
went before you. Call them up, look for them at meetings and just
come out and, after you talk about science, then ask "how is this
guy to work for?" Remember, its you that's going to burn out 3-5-7
years of your life in a relationship not unlike marriage and you
are assuming that everything is going to work out. It may OR it
may not. Personality conflicts and ideological clashes are part of
real life. When these relationships go bad, its usually the
"overling" that prevails and the "underling" that gets shafted. On the
other side of the coin, ask yourself if you think you are God's
gift to Man; sometimes its not just funded-tenured faculty that are
the ones with ego problems and without contact with reality.

4. Self evaluation: Part B. You are in your postdoc by 2-3-4 years
now, so, even if you are not quite ready to get REALLY serious
about the job hunt, start anyway to send out your CV and test the
waters for that tenure-track position. Tell your sponsor that you
are doing this NOT because you WANT to leave, but to test the
waters. You can send to places where they do not ask for
recommendation letters with the application (to not burden your
sponsor, and tell him about that too), and see if you get invited
for a seminar. If you have, say, 4-5 papers on your CV and do not
have at least one seminar invitation after about 20-40 applications
in one year, then I think your career hopes are in trouble. If you
don't get an offer after 3-5 seminar invitations, then maybe
there is something wrong with you, or you're having a very bad
string of luck (yes, you can be excellent, but just always be in the
wrong spot at the wrong time).

5. A word about industry/biotech. There is a different kind of
situation here compared to academia. In industry you will have to
sign non-disclosure agreements. You won't be able to talk about at
least some parts of your research (and forever, too, regardless of
where you work afterwards). You may not be permitted to publish
everything, and sometimes maybe nothing at all. You may have to
live with your conscience under some funny conditions. Like, think
about the stories involving: asbestos, (known to be) HIV-contaminated
blood, tobacco, and certain organizations where there were
cover-ups. When they decide to fire people, for good reasons, bad
reasons, or no reasons, they can get nasty and without warning and
without second chances. Also, there has been a high failure rate in
biotech (flops in clinical trials, lawsuits that eat up money, insufficient
capitalization). You will not have traditional academic freedom,
although even that is disappearing from academia now that in most
places there are now policies on intellectual property rights as there
are in industry and your freedom is limited to programs where the
subject mater is already decided. You will likely be subject to
mission-oriented direction and maybe micromanagement.

6. A word about ending up in medical school. This has
merit if you have been thinking about it already. Also, keep in
mind that you need a personality to fit this option. Another problem
that began to surface in 1995 is that, because of insurance industry-
based health care reform, MDs are now just beginning to start having
problems finding work. As of this writing, its more confined to
specialists than general practitioners, but as portions of our industrial
economy disappear (and jobs continue to move) to overseas countries,
this situation might get worse. Also, remember that while jobs at the
end of the pipeline might be much easier to get and move between,
you will be under the pressure of the insurance industry and the
climate on Capitol Hill is to cut government spending (eg. Medicare)
by large amounts. Most of that money normally goes into salaries and
wages and when it gets cut, so do jobs. There are bad things about
medical careers (eg. malpractice lawsuits, temptations, chances to
catch diseases, various pressures, and other risks). If you are the
contemplative-introverted type rather than the outgoing-gregarious
type, think again. Marines might make better MDs than "bookworms"
and "lab rats". Also, the number of applicants to seats is much
much higher than for graduate school. The good thing is that if you
can get "into" medical school, there is a 99% chance you will get your
M.D. which is much better than the average chance of success for a
Ph.D. There will generally not be much financial support for you and
large loans are the way most medical students go. Parents and/or your
loan sources are where you go, and you will probably end up
$100,000 or more in debt for a decade. Your med school dean of
admissions is the person to make an appointment to see for further
information. Note: These guys are "supposed" to be available to talk
with you, but also don't forget that if they get an impression from you
during such an appointment, it really CAN have an influence on the
admission decision.

7. A word about tangential opportunities (these are non-glorious
occupations, but in the long run, you may be better off). A short
article in the Washington Post (page H9-May 14, 1995) said that "18
of the 20 fastest-growing occupations require a vocational
education." Its something to think about. This brings up another
afterthought. The NAS report on graduate education talked about
broadening the PhD curriculum. This may be useful, but it still
"slants" you in a direction that may not be good for you but is
still good for the graduate school infrastructure. An unusual but
possibly useful option which is under utilized is the second BS
degree. It works like this: You are on a PhD for several years and
see disaster, or worse, ahead. You have a look in your local big
city sunday paper (the one with the classified ads) and see more
ads for CPAs in that city than ads in the back pages of Science
for integrin/laminin biologists all over the country. So,
you have the heart-to-heart talk with yourself and see
your campus office of admissions to see how much you would have to
put in to get the Accounting degree. It could be two years or less
if they accept for credit most of your undergraduate courses.
The downside of this is if the government drastically reforms
the IRS and taxes. Then there will be hundreds of thousands of
unemployed and mad CPAs. Another area to think about are "staff"
jobs at, for example, universities. From what I have seen first
hand, staff (also may be known as "support" staff) have a lot
more job security, less stress, and (many times) better offices
than faculty. If it is any kind of state institution, they may
have much more "protection" and/or "insulation" in the event of
faculty-staff friction. Many times, staff (as opposed to
faculty) are within the "administrative" hierarchy, as
opposed to the academic hierarchy. In two cases in which I was
personally familiar with the details, they (the administrative sector)
not only had their own computer network, but it was a better network
than the rest of the faculty. Remember, fate may determine for you,
whether you like it or not, that science is not for you and you will
have no choice but to find something else in life with which to be
happy. And, don't laugh, I was at the beach with my wife one day
and because I was wearing a painter's cap, a guy came up to me and
wanted me to paint his house (I said I wasn't a painter). Later, I
thought twice about that job offer. Another day I had two
carpenters over at my house. Their work cost me a total of $49 per
hour ($52,000 per year, each), and they didn't look like they were
working very hard or losing sleep over their grants either. Yes,
I still like science, but there were some elements in my ambience
that I could do without.

8. Constructive suicide. An article in the Weds, May 24, 1995, Wall
Street Journal (page B1, title: "When shopping sprees pall, some
seek the simple life") prompts me to tell you that its really OK to
bail out and accept that the high stress pursuit may not be right
for you. Over the years, I have seen many articles on people in
jobs that need a "Type A" personality but they are not "Type A"
people. They work 70 hours per week and make a lot of money, but
they decide after a while that its not worth it (in science you
work a lot, too, and probably don't make a lot of money). The
marketing people already have a name for this lifestyle -
"voluntary simplicity". The specific article mentions a molecular
biologist, Mr. Ed Medeiros, who gave it up to run a community
center and loves his new work. The article mentions Helen and Kees
Kolff. Dr. Kolff is going to give up being a pediatrician to work
with environmental groups. Another person, Chris Curtis sold her
two prosperous stores to get away from the nonsense. All of these
people are acknowledgedly poorer but have found much more
happiness in their lives.

9. A word about pressure. In a lot of the hot labs, doing hot
research, there is also a lot of pressure and competition (and I
think, sometimes bad feelings, too). Are strong, ego-driven
personalities present? Is there an undeserving favorite person
present? Is everyone working 60-70 hours per week, or 28 hours per
day, 7 days per week. When I was young I had the idea that science
was a contemplative, peaceful, and rewarding activity where people
are civilized in their behavior and reasonable in attitude towards each
other. As time went by, and as I learned about how science is really
done, especially now, I would now describe much of the science
being done in the establishment as something more akin to a
money-grubbing rat-race. Someday you are going to start getting tired
at the end of the day. Other days, you may even start the day in a
discouraged mood to begin with. A lot of people who sent me e-mail
said that they have this problem already.

10. Always try to have a fall back plan. Either in academia or
industry, science or non-science. Consider what you would do if you
do something to get your boss mad at you (how would that affect your
future). Or your boss suddenly dies, like, in a car accident (etc).
Or the chairman leaves or retires (etc). Or your bosses grant
doesn't get renewed (etc). Or your boss gets in a fight with the
chairman.

11. If you are a graduate student close to the PhD and have
a lot of doubts, then consider dropping out or at least
postponing the award of the degree. Talk this over with
your advisor and explain why. Even better, talk to your fellow
graduate students and/or postdocs; they are going to be in the same
situation as you. After all, once you get the
degree, you can't get rid of it and lots of people will
consider you overqualified for the more mundane but, alas,
abundant jobs. If you are a post doc, consider a heart to
heart talk with your sponsor and see if you can form two kinds
of CV. One where you are listed as a post-doc; the other where
your work is listed as a technician (this might go over better
for applications to jobs where you don't get any chance to "be
independent"). Don't worry about doctoring your CV, its done quite
frequently now, especially when you hear about things over the
network (I don't mean the internet, I mean the grapevine). Have a look
at the classified jobs section in the Sunday paper from a large city; see
how many non-academic jobs you might qualify for that you think you
could stand to do. Go apply for some and see if you can get hired
NOW. Don't quit your career, but test the waters for alternatives.
Actually, since the original posting of these essays back in early 1995,
I have encountered many cases of graduate students up and quitting to
take jobs.

12. Watch very carefully the changes in budget levels of
government sponsored R&D. I see in the 14 April issue of Science
(1995) that the Senate has voted on R&D cuts, and there is $ 90
millions in cuts out of the $ 431 million originally proposed for the
Advanced Technology Program (page 195) and over on page 192 they
are talking about big 10-15% cuts in Energy (some of that goes into
the Human Genome Project, so where are those guys going to go),
and 10-15 % cuts in the NIH budget. And 80-90 % of that money
ends up directly in salaries. Watch how the next election develops.
What I see so far is that it doesn't matter which party you belong to,
they are all talking about budget and program cuts. If these
budget projections turn out to be the case, newcomers are probably
going to be hurt more than the established guys.

13. There is a lot of talk about broadening the PhD, whatever
that means. If you have to bail out of the science career
trajectory, I think it still hurts your job prospects in the
commercial (yes, those boring mundane jobs, but they help pay the
rent) world to have a PhD. You are still overqualified for almost
anything. Consider this instead: go for a second bachelors
degree. Again, look at the classifies and look at what course work
you need. If you are halfway through a 4 year (4 years minimum
these days) PhD, you could probably get credit for at least half of
your undergraduate work and just bang away for the last two years
for some subject more marketable. Remember, in the future,
if you are that specialized, you'll likely have to move across the
country maybe several times in your life. If you are not that
specialized, you'll probably be able to find new jobs across town.
Many a time I've told secretary-types that they are in better
positions that they think. I've seen it happen many times. They can
lose a job, and usually go down a couple of blocks and get another
job in the same afternoon.

14. If you are early in your graduate education, try to get a
teaching assistantship (to get teaching experience on your CV).
It might be possible to do this as a post doc, but less likely
at a medical school institution. Consider teaching night class.

15. Think about getting computer courses and experience. This is
clean work if you can deal with it. Some people I know who have
experience in this area are having some success getting work (i.e.
job offers).

================================
Pt. 4. Tenure and Termination

While applicable to persons in tenure track positions (eg. asst.
prof), many persons at the postdoctoral and graduate student have
little awareness of the hurdles ahead that await them. Since, in
my opinion, the major problem today in science jobs is funding,
lack of grant funding will probably be the major reason for being
denied tenure or being terminated in academic environments, and
lack of sufficient capital will lead to downsizing in industry.
However, as will be seen below, other factors and situations can
play a role. The primary purpose of this part is informational
and to stimulate discussion, information gathering, and assist
people who need to worry about keeping their (tenure-track or non
tenure track) jobs. The secondary purpose is in connection with my
advice to people in the graduate-school-to-postdoc pipeline to
consider alternatives to a career in science; the climate is much
more hostile today than 10-20 years ago.

The usual understanding of why people get fired is that they either
don't do their work or that something like a government contract is
lost or a company "downsizes" in the name of some ideology (real or
imaginary). This posting is about the lessor known political
firing. Maybe Josslyn Elders mouthed off a little too much ...
... so ... poof ... she goes into history. Get the idea?

ON TENURE:
When tenure is "offered" or "granted" to persons in tenure-track
appointments, it usually occurs after one is at the assistant
professor level for a trial period of usually 5-6 years, but can be
at the associate professor level and after a shorter period.
Tenure has different meanings depending on the institution. It can
mean permanent employment for life, or it can mean very little. It
all depends on the practices at a given institution. When one is
denied tenure, it means one has to leave the institution. The lead
time on this may be on the order of months.

You guys going for your PhD know you have a final exam, which in
most cases is more formality than a serious danger. After that,
your serious problems are usually funding and getting journal
papers. But when you've been on a tenure-track slot for 5-6 years,
and come up for tenure, it can be terrifying.

The important thing here is the real and finite risk of being
denied tenure. This is devastating to science careers in the
tight job market which exists today. This can happen if the review
committee votes against you. Or, if the tenure committee votes
for you, then it can happen if the chairman votes against you.
Conversely, if the committee votes against you, the chairman can
usually save you by overriding the committee vote. Lastly, the
dean can accept or reject a chairperson's recommendation. I am
now aware, first hand, of examples of all three possibilities.

A saving grace may be whether there is an procedure to appeal a
decision to deny tenure. I know about one case where tenure was
granted on appeal and one where it was not.

ON TENURE DENIAL RATES (anecdotal):
While tenure review is like a trial by fire which should weed out
people of substandard competence, the more important thing here is
that good people can be denied tenure on quite flimsy grounds. In
my lifetime, my casual inquiries (i.e. asking, verbally, colleagues
who I felt would give a frank opinion) allow me to give you the
following information. Tenure denial rates can be from as low as
one in ten (10%) to as high as one hundred percent. One chairman in
a department in Philadelphia, I was told (by a person in another
department), declined to recommend tenure for all (repeat, ALL) of
six asst profs up for tenure that came through that department. At
another department in the DC area, I was told by a tenured member
in his department that all of the last three asst profs were
denied tenure when they came up for it. To me, these are abnormally
high rates. After all, search committees from those departments are
supposed to be picking people likely to succeed.

TENURE DENIAL GROUNDS:
I would say that tenure review can follow two paths: fair and
unfair. When it is fair, it is because reasonable standards were
applied. Tenure in a science department of a typical research
universities could only follow the award of grant(s) leading to a
revenue inflow in the $150,000 to $300,000 per year range. In many
if not most medical schools, promotions will be made more and more
in the future without tenure. The danger comes in when such a
department gets a new chairman. If that chairman develops a personal
and/or professional dislike for your or your science, you could get
fired. Forget teaching competence (except at pure teaching jobs). I've
sometimes had better teachers who were later denied tenure than
teachers who had tenure.

Unfair tenure review basically boils down to: i) you made enemies,
or ii) people with power decide that they don't like you. If you
have been at a place for your 5 years and didn't get at least one
major grant (you have to get those journal papers too) by then,
then they have a good reason to dump you. It may still be unfair
considering that its getting very hard to get grants now. It
is quite unfortunate that in an atmosphere where truth and wisdom
and the quest for more of each, there is often a resort to
barbaric, brutal, and intolerant feudalism. Competence and
accomplishment can mean nothing. Personality, connections,
politics, and power can mean everything.

FAMOUS UNFAIR TENURE DENIAL CASES WITH HAPPY(?)
ENDINGS:

-JENNY HARRISON
References:
"Does the Harrison Case Reveal Sexism in Math?" Science, vol 252,
p. 1781-1783, [1991].
"Harrison Case: No Calm After the Storm" Science, vol 262, p. 324-
327, [1993].
"Harrison Case Nears Settlement" Science, vol 257, p. 151 [1992].
"The possibility of tenure" Science, vol 257, p. 1188 [1992].
"Mathematician Settles Berkeley Suit" Science, vol 259, p. 1683
[1993]
Summary: Denied tenure in 1986, after six years of litigation and
$50,000 in legal bills, a settlement and process showing Dr.
Harrison's work to be essentially equivalent in quality and
quantity to that of other tenured (male) faculty in her department led
to Dr. Harrison finally getting tenure at U Cal, Berkeley.

-CHARLES NOBLE
References:
"MIT Tenure Case Heads for Trial" Science, vol 247, p. 1536 [1990].
"A Noble Settlement" Science, vol 251, p. 1301 [1991].
"An Outspoken Critic...." Chronicle of Higher Education, July 17,
1991
Summary (somewhat simplified): Dr. Noble was openly critical of
MIT's links to industry but when he came up for tenure, found his
enemies placed on his tenure review committee. After a bitter five
year legal battle, MIT settled a suit against it. Dr. Noble dropped
his demand for reinstatement and $1.5 million in damages in
exchange for MIT releasing documents showing "...he was denied
tenure on political grounds." and reexamining its tenure procedures
(evidently MIT would have to establish a tenure appeal process).
Dr. Noble evidently managed to have a tenured position with Drexel
during much of this battle, but as of the last article was at York
University in Canada.

RELEVANT BOOKS ON THIS SUBJECT

I have no connection whatsoever with these books and I have not
read them myself, but they may be helpful. See if you can get them
by inter-library loan instead of buying them.

"Tenure, Discrimination, and the Courts" by Terry L. Leap (ILR
Press, Cornell University, Ithaca).

"Mentor in a Manual" (with an appendix "What to do if I don't make
tenure") by A.Clay Schoenfeld and Robert Magnan

TERMINATIONS:
Depending on the policies and practices at a given institution,
individuals may be terminated well before they come up for tenure.
People can be terminated if their salary comes exclusively from a
grant and the grant runs out or is not renewed. People can fail to
perform or otherwise create problems, but in many cases it is an
unfair termination. I have heard of this happening in numerous
cases. In those where I had fairly detailed knowledge, it was again
a matter of someone with power becoming annoyed with someone with
less power and more vulnerability. A substantial fraction of
private, health/medical science universities normally do not
grant tenure to most of their faculty. What this does is
allow a chairman (or someone who has influence with the chairman)
to, for example, vacate some slots in his department if he takes
a liking to somebody who is elsewhere and he wants to recruit that
person. I have seen this exact scenario take place on at least 4
occasions. About 30 years ago, I, a white person, had a job as a
lab assistant but was replaced one day by a black person simply
because my supervisor wanted to help a black person. In 1991
I was involuntarily terminated after nine (repeat 9) successful years
with a normal rate of research including publications and grants and
successful external and internal reviews. I received a confidential
memorandum to me containing flimsy, Alice-in-wonderland language
and a rationale completely contrary to what the institution openly
distributed as written policy and told that my program was being
terminated in about six months. The fact that I had transferable grant
funding and that I had good luck in an unusual circumstance allowed
me to save my career without interruption. The story behind that will
someday be told. But otherwise, career damage is almost always
irreversible.

Sometimes full scale litigation (eg. the Harrison case, above) can
lead to justice through, for example, compensatory damages and/or
an acceptable redress of grievances, but otherwise are very
expensive, emotionally draining, and often lead to being
blacklisted and cause ones physical health to suffer. Useful
information can be found in Faculty Handbooks, and written
institutional policies. The journal ACADEME, published by the
American Association of University Professors, provides extensive
reports on dishonorable and dishonest political activities of college and
university administrations. Even more useful information can be
obtained by finding a knowledgeable person on your Faculty Senate
who is willing to tell you how things really work.

It is my understanding that people in untenured positions can be given
as little as minutes of notice of termination. In the worst of cases I
have known or heard about, faculty have been visited by one or two
campus police and told to immediately vacate the building and not
come back or face arrest and prosecution. No hearings or appeals,
etc., were granted.

Although I have not pursued all the possibilities, details, and policies,
the usual reason for a termination is funding. But, "programmatic"
reasons, which can be anything, are not excluded.

In private industry, staff may be let go with little or no
warning, terminated at the pleasure of management, for relevant
(financial realities) or irrelevant reasons (eg. politics,
personality), and with relatively little recourse (except
litigation). In some states case law recognizes "wrongful
discharge" if it occurs for a poor reason. Terminations that can be
shown in court (regardless of reality) on any kind of recognized
discrimination, can be litigated. But, a termination based on a
superior who, ostensibly, just dislikes a subordinate, his
personality, or his program is really legal. In cases where a
termination is initiated by management with reluctance, it may be
possible for you to negotiate a "severance package" or "severance
agreement" where you get a little more severance pay, or other
benefits.

The only job security you can have is in what used to be called
"permanent" positions which have strong "personnel policies and
procedures" and prior practices for termination (eg. the old
permanent government jobs) or you have a contractual arrangement
with strong provisions. In contrast, most jobs today, even for
PhDs, are temporary. Often the pay is low, there are no fringe
benefits (including unemployment compensation, medical, or
pension), and people can be terminated with little or no notice.
This practice has now spread extensively into even the government.
Things like "work performance reviews" are not legally a contract
and can have little or no value in the court system, especially in
states where the case law is against you. Work performance reviews
are generally set up to put pressure on employees, but even if you
perform up to "fully satisfactory" in all categories, they can
terminate you (this happened to me) by bringing in factors (after the
fact) not in the original "performance standards" which are supposed
to be agreed upon by "negotiations" at the beginning of the
performance review period. Employers spend large amounts of money
hiring lawyers to write procedures and details into their employee
manuals which benefit the organization and omit or circumvent
procedures and details which benefit the individual. Sometimes, highly
placed officers in corporations have perks in their contracts such as
golden parachutes with extremely generous (i.e. obscene) severance
packages.

Short notice terminations can be administrative. If you discover
you are a target for a termination which is unfair (regardless of
whether it is or not) you have to maintain your cool because they
can give you, for example a two week notice, but then put you
immediately on administrative leave (meaning they can have a police
officer or guard posted or on alert to prevent you from entering a
building) until that period is up. I have a written signed
document, in which I am not a party, dealing with someone where
this actually happened. And I know that person was not "crazy"
or otherwise a danger to anyone. In fact that person is working in
science, today, but in an administrative capacity.

===============================

Part 5a: Uncollegial Behavior (Part 5b is the reference list)

Disputes Solved by Power Rather than Merit

While the most serious problem confronting the science
infrastructure in our society today is the bleak future for
funding, the mismatch between people looking for science jobs and
the jobs that are available is also going to contribute to anguish
on an unprecedented scale.

As much as I sympathize with presenting rational arguments for
more funding to our leaders, I doubt if this will work. The
most vulnerable populations are among the graduate students
and postdocs. Look in the back pages of eg. the journal
Science and the postdoc positions outnumber the tenure track
jobs by about 2-3 to 1. I disregard the primarily industrial
jobs since the drug and biotech industry is not doing so well
either and a future for those jobs may not be foreseeable
beyond 3-5 years. The tenure track jobs, at least nominally,
are potentially permanent and are probably the only real
career jobs in science. I am leaving out a lot of peripheral
considerations here to help limit the space of this part.

The present problem, "uncollegial behavior", covers the dirt that most
people would prefer not to discuss. There has been in the last few
years extensive arguing about scientific misconduct and how it is
defined. The more rigorous and broad definitions of misconduct in the
scientific community do appear to take into consideration the
possibilities of certain institutionalized abuses of power by
administrators (chairs and deans) when dealing with faculty and some
of the most vocal opposition to these broad definitions come from
those who may want to retain "control" and "privilege" (otherwise
known as political power). I invite the reader to search for the
literature, reports, and related documents.

Serious and very serious disputes are usually very embarrassing to the
individual who is in the weaker position and the person in the stronger
position usually does not want to see any small problems turn into
larger problems. And if litigation is involved, everyone is usually
advised by their lawyers to not talk to anyone about anything. This
effectively hides these disputes from broader scrutiny.

I have not discussed at all a group of problems created by
individuals that fall under the category of scientific misconduct
or moral turpitude or pure crime (in the traditional sense). Walter
Stewart and Ned Feder, controversial characters in the minds of
many, have devoted much of their life to scientific misconduct and
there is a very large literature on this.

As far as what can happen to you, as an individual, then imagine
if a brick falls out of the sky and lands on someone's head,
you might feel sympathetic and remorseful. However, if the
brick falls on your head, your feelings might be substantially
stronger. If you find that the brick was dropped on your head
deliberately, you might find yourself in a completely different
universe of feelings. The purpose of discussing these situations is to
bring awareness to scenarios which may be largely beyond anyone's
control. These situations lead, in many cases in my opinion,
to unjustified frustration, anger, and despair. Figuring out
how to cope with these situations and how to deflect their
effects should one ever be on a collision course with disaster
is the goal of this discussion. While my scrapbook is full of
newspaper and journal articles, I will try to cite a few useful
examples (a short annotated bibliography is Part 5B of the series).

In academia (and in lots of other places in the world, and
maybe to a worse degree) many things happen that should not
happen. A denial of tenure on flimsy grounds is an
unjustifiable action. However, other unfortunate, possibly
less serious, but equally unjustifiable actions take place at
higher rates of occurrence. Lies are not common, but not
uncommon either. Suppose you are offered a job and they tell
you that you will get X staff, Y dollars, and Z space. After you
come, you get X/2 staff, Y/2 dollars, and Z/2 space. Is this for
a good reason? Or did they tell you that to get you to come and
they knew ahead of time they had no intention of giving you what
they promised. Yes, I would be upset. What do you do? Think twice
about filing a grievance. That makes trouble for people above. A
common result is that you could get fired.

Did they tell you that your job would be safe as long as you had
a grant (this is what they said at my previous job in open and
distributed memoranda sent around at various times all along)?
Then, one day you get a private confidential memo, or other
communication, that contains an absolutely contrived rationale which
evades the original conditions and situation and brings in new rules,
standards, or criteria to justify terminating you and your program.
This is not so common, but its not rare either, and you need to
be thinking about it in case it happens to you.

Another example, discussed in a recent issue of The Scientist
(April [1995]), involves a young faculty member (probably
without tenure) who set up a facility in connection with his
scholarly responsibilities, operated the facility, and began
to attract significant attention. For reasons not needing
mention here (but mentioned in cursory detail in the article),
older and more established (probably with tenure) faculty
members became upset with the way that facility was operated
and led to an administrative action that took the facility away
from the young faculty member. From the article, it would
appear that the younger faculty member was also being pushed
out (i.e. fired?). I read this as a dispute solved by power
rather than by merit. Of course, this event also involved many
significant and difficult to resolve issues. Also, there may
be additional relevant facts that were not discussed. Still,
the scenario is recognizable.

I have heard directly and indirectly of the occurrence of
the application of continuous or intermittent terror. This
includes finding the locks changed overnight on ones office
and lab door (I have one documented case in writing with
signatures), being notified that one has to move their office
and or lab from one floor to another every year or so, having
space or financial support taken away and given to someone
else (another not common but not rare story).

While there should be more discussion on a lot of well
publicized cases, this is beyond the scope of this part. As an
alternative, I have prepared short summaries and a reference
list including self explanatory titles and citations and
anyone wishing to look up the original material can get that
out of Part 5b of my postings. This is not all inclusive, but
one should be aware of as many tricks, and how they play out,
as possible.

On page 16 of the October 2, 1995 issue of The Scientist is an
article that talks about department chairmen. The author describes
chairmen as coming in four basic types: altruist, parasite, egoist,
and survivor. I read the article. The author didn't lie.

For a range of discussions on various kinds of strife in the whole
range of academic situations, I would recommend regular reading the
Chronicle of Higher Education. All you have to have is the capability
to imagine yourself caught up in a bad situation. For the lowdown on
dirt in the industrial-commercial sector of society (this involves
unethical and illegal activities; guys don't just lose their labs or jobs,
they go to jail!) just read relevant articles in, for example, the Wall
Street Journal for a year. A recent article (WSJ, March 1, 1995)
explains document shredding by a drug company to thwart FDA
investigation. Folks, I don't at all think the whole world is rotten, but
I do think that what we read in the newspapers is the tip of the
iceberg.

RECOURSE POSSIBILITIES (for individuals):

-LITIGATION.
Lawsuits are probably the most powerful tools available but
you have to make sure you have a situation that has civil or
case law on your side. They are incredibly expensive,
incredibly emotionally draining, can drag on for years, and
leave marks on personalities for life. In many cases you may be
avoided by most employers if you've been in a high profile
lawsuit. And, remember, many nasty things in life are,
unfortunately, legal.

-GRIEVING.
Grievance (and/or Appeal) procedures may be available in
written policy, but require that existing authority carry them
out. This may not happen if higher authority does not have
the will power, or it prefers to back up the existing
hierarchy. I was made aware by personal letter of one such
case involving another individual where this was the case. The
individual absolutely does not want publicity. In fact, I
think this is what happens most of the time. Since grievance
procedures are usually internal affairs, there is little
chance for external publicity to exert influence and more chance
for the institution to control the outcome and use minimal
resources. One grievance case in Canada with an apparently happy
ending was over discrimination (an Indian-born person) was
discussed at some length in Science vol. 258, p. 223.

-USE OF THE FACULTY SENATE (usually only at universities).
Made up of faculty, they have no power other than public opinion,
knowledge of prior problems, and knowledge of details of procedure.
Sometimes they can slow down an administration which is determined
to pull off some crap on the faculty. If something bad may happen
to you or actually is happening to you someone in the faculty
senate may know of a procedural detail or idea that can help you.
And, if you are a candidate for a position at an institution,
sometimes you might be able to ferret out at that institution
whether there have been patterns of mistreatment of faculty that
you might not find out about through the normal grapevine.

-AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS.
Although they have little power, in general, they are the official agent
to negotiate on behalf of faculty in those cases where the faculty are
unionized. Sometimes they can advise faculty and may provide legal
help in certain cases. For faculty, these people, and members of your
local Faculty Senate, are probably the only people who can/might/will
help you with a bad situation brought about by people above you. The
AAUP is located at Suite 500, 1012 14th Street, Washington, DC.
Their email address is <aa...@igc.apc.org>.

-USE OF FALL-BACK PLANS.
Anticipating a problem and changing course of or diverting the
lightning bolt takes much finesse and luck and is highly dependent
on the situation. The fall-back plan (some kind of physical exit
from the situation), is often the best solution and you can find
some examples if you look at some of the articles in Part 5B.

-GET IT OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM.
Moaning and groaning is not useless. For many people, having anger
and frustration bottled up is not good. It has to pass. You have to
get it behind you. Maybe that is why there are newsgroups like:
<alt.bitterness><alt.flame><alt.angst><alt.revenge><alt.pet
-peeve). Letting things consume you without doing something about
them is not something I would recommend. On the other hand,
moaning and groaning 100% of the time is neither productive nor
healthy. I have run into many problems in life and it has always made
me feel better when I found someone else with the same problem
(Ahh, so I'm not alone in this!) and vice versa. However, spending
some time to warn and mentor others should be a moral obligation. On
the other hand, its not wise to go around telling virtually every person
you meet about your problems.

RECOURSE POSSIBILITIES (for groups). This means you have more
than one person involved with a problem. The course of action is
organizing and there are many books on how to do this. The next
possible step, if it is a possibility, is litigation as a class or
group action. And the newspapers and libraries are filled with
this. Go to your local public library and read books on lawyers and
how to use them. One book, by a lawyer, said something interesting
about law. He said that law was NOT about justice. Rather, law was
about PROCEDURE.

RECOURSE POSSIBILITIES (for individuals). Go talk to people on
your faculty senate. They usually don't have any real power, but they,
somewhat like a union, have an advocacy interest in faculty matters
and interests and may know about "things" that can help you deal
with your problem because you can KNOW MORE ABOUT your
problem. There are powerful grapevines among collegial faculty.
Indeed, I was surprised at how easy it was to obtain a copy of a
certain document not too long ago, through certain means, that would
not at all be available to me by any normal channel.

=============================
Part 5B, Annotated Bibliography for Part 5A (see above)

Journal Abbreviation: CHE = Chronicle of Higher Education)

JOBS, STRATEGY, AND TENURE DISCUSSIONS:

Summary: Hiring preferences are at entry level (i.e. asst prof)
Letters to editor, Science vol. 195, p.440+ (4 Feb 1977)

Summary: 80 professors will go to renewable contracts. Faculty
governing body was disbanded. Four faculty resigned over policy
changes.
"Abolition of Tenure Rattles Faculty at College of Ozarks" CHE Jan
26, 1994, p. A18.

Summary: A good article on how things have changed over the last 20
years. Major shift in employer-employee paradigm.
"Employment perspectives in the laboratory: changed relationships
over twenty years" American Laboratory Feb 1989. p. 128+

Summary: Major upheavals.
"Dismissals 'for cause'- Removing a tenured professor can be a
lengthy, expensive, and bitter process" CHE Dec 7, 1994. p. A17.

CONFLICTS BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS IN
ACADEMIA:

"Kinsey Institute Director Sues Indiana University" Science, vol.
256, 17 April 1992, p. 304
"Conflict Between Dean and Faculty Members Flares Anew at
Columbia
U.'s Social-Work School" CHE Aug 17, 1994, p. A16
"Professors Quite Tuskegee Veterinary School, Reportedly in Anger
Over Dean's Direction" CHE Aug 17. 1994, p. A16.
"The Needless Agony and Expense of Conflict Among Scientists"
CHE
Feb 23, 1994, p. B1.
"MIT, Professor Reach Settlement in Lawsuit" CHE, March 1993.
"Prominent Scientist [Carlo Croce] Switches Labs, Sparking
Administrative Fireworks" The Scientist, June 24, 1991, p.1.
"The Race for the Cystic Fibrosis Gene" Science vol
240, p. 141-143. (this is a quote "This is not your average
ego-driven science. This is nasty").

TERMINATIONS ON FLIMSY GROUNDS:

"If the Numbers Don't Look Good, Dump the Dean"
CHE Nov 2, 1994, p. A72.
"Shock Trauma doctors win injunction on firing" The
Baltimore Sun, Aug 1, 1992, page 1.

LARGE SCALE TERMINATIONS:

"Howard University Lays Off 400 in Effort to Reduce Its $6.9-
Million Deficit" CHE Nov 16, 1994, p. A28.

DISPUTES INVOLVING TERMINATIONS (AND FORCED
RESIGNATIONS):

Summary: The PI wanted the postdoc to work 60 hours per week, he
worked more than 50 but less than 60 and was fired after one month.
A dispute with many legal issues. As of the appearance of the
article the university president was to set up a committee to study
the general problem and the dispute was unresolved and the postdoc
was without a job.
"U. of Idaho Looks Into Researcher's Complaint About Schedule"
CHE Nov 16, 1994, p. A26.

ON FRANCIS CONLEY VS. GERALD SILVERBERG (at Stanford):
A very interesting story about how faculty deal with each other:
insults, put downs, innuendo, claims and counter claims (sounds
like real life). in "The Brain Surgeon Who Hit a Nerve" Washington
Post, Nov. 6, 1991. p. B1-B2.

SLAVE LABOR ON CAMPUS: THE UNPAID POSTDOC
Yes, that is the title. You can find it on pages 714-715, Science
vol 216: 14 May 1982. And, I knew of at least one a few years ago,
so it is still happening. This is REAL slave labor.

THE HEIDI WEISSMANN CASE:
Summary: settlement for a colleague stealing her written work and
presenting it as his own. Legal bills totaled $1.5 million, one
settlement was for $900,000 including $325,000 for legal fees. HW
(age 43 in '94) was evidently out of work from '87 until at least
'94 and unable to find work anywhere.
"After 5 Years, Heated Controversy Persists in Science Copyright
Case" [this is the big article] The Scientist Sept. 14, 1992. p.1+
"Professor Accepts $900,000 Settlement to Drop 7-year Sex Bias
Battle Against Yeshiva U." CHE March 23, '94.
"Breaking the Glass Ceiling for $900,000" Science vol 263. 25 Mar
1994. p. 1688.
"Weismann Honored" (by the Cavallo Foundation for acts of moral
courage) The Scientist, June 13, 1994

===============================
Part 6: Before the PhD - the Postdoc search

For the future: Looking for a postdoctoral lab-

If you are finishing a PhD, consider the following which I
consider (modestly) as weak but possibly actually useful advice.

If you can predict the future, you should be in the stock market.
They say to me if your so smart why aren't you rich. I answer that
I'm really not so smart and that I know I'm right because I'm not
rich. Others say if I want to get rich I should buy a lottery
ticket. I say, no, the better idea is to sell lottery tickets.

If you want to do the research-professor thing, there is the
"conventional wisdom" that you should seek out the biggest, most
prestigious group that you can find to do your post-doc in. I got
this from many people. Its well meaning and it might help. Because
of the world situation (poor job market for tenure track jobs, poor
prospects for funding success, and an unknown up-or-out tenure
decision), the choice of post-doc subject and lab can be the most
critical decision you make. A good post-doc period, if you can get
it, can make up for a PhD being from a non-luminary institution.
The downside is: What if you get in with egos that are over your
head? What if the pressure is more that you can take? What if you
come up too low on the "pecking order." What if the postdoctoral
sponsor gives you a problem that: i) you don't like, ii) is a
terminal burnout problem (meaning you solve it or burnout), iii)
leads to irreconcilable ideological conflict.

Doing a postdoc may not be so important if you decide to get into
something else, like pure teaching at a teaching institution (eg.
at small prestigious colleges, or even less prestigious ones).

The two main purposes of post-docs these days are: i) to get a
"track record" of several papers in "good" and "reviewed" journals
and ii) to get one or more good references (i.e. job-winning
letters, and phone conversations in which your sponsor talks
about you to your next prospective employer in superlatives). Book
chapters are OK but the reviewed papers are the publications that
really count. A secondary purpose is to change fields (i.e. get
away from the dissertation subject/advisor because it/he made you
sick, but not sick enough to get out of science). It is also
conventional wisdom that changing fields and/or labs is
good for your career. I agree most of the time, but there can be
exceptions.

If you are near finishing a PhD, you should already be
sending out CVs under cover letters to ANY prospective lab in which
you might be interested. PIs cannot materialize funds to bring
someone, in even if they want to, at the precise moment that the
post-doc candidate presents himself/herself to the PI as being
available for work. I don't see any problem with getting as many
irons in the fire, as soon as possible. You should indicate
approximately when you think you will be done. Be warned, however,
that you will probably be asked to give a seminar on your topic.
And, contrary to the conventional wisdom of changing labs/subjects,
some postdoc sponsors may already want someone who already has
experience in their topic. Ergo, you blow your chance to change
subjects.

What goes into a cover letter might be important. Good cover
letters should impress the reader. Its good to make a
convincing case that (if you are changing fields) you are
interested in subject "X" and since prof Z is in this field, you
are applying to him/her as a possible postdoctoral student. Don't
write a letter that starts out "I have been interested in your
famous papers". It should be more tactful, reserved, and
tentative. You should actually read some papers of prof Z and
mention some part of some paper to really demonstrate that you read
it. I've had a few letters come to me from guys that said they read
my papers. As far as I am concerned they maybe read only the titles.
If you have some substantive and credible message that you can put
into your cover letter, then by all means put it in. If you don't know
anything about the place you are applying to, then I would say don't
try to fake it on them. You might actually hit on the wrong buttons
and blow your own efforts up. There are a lot of places where they
will look at the CV first, and then the letter. I think in most cases you
will NOT get a job offer based on a dazzling cover letter and
mediocre CV.

I don't think you should be afraid to talk about your own strengths
and weaknesses. A number of people who answered my polls
self-identified weaknesses that they knew they had, but they still
got jobs. If at all possible, offer to go and visit, and if it can
be arranged, give a seminar on your work (these guys need to see
you in action, and learn about your problem and how you handled
it). Then, sneak in a hint for some "travel assistance" if you have
to go some distance. Its good to keep your doctoral or postdoc
advisor informed about this process. That is, unless you are
having personality conflict problems where he can shoot down your
efforts or otherwise get you under his thumb. There are going to
be cases where communication between the doctoral advisor and the
student is not good. Sometimes its a poor student. Sometimes its a
faculty member who is insensitive and out of touch with reason. I
have known directly and indirectly examples of both situations. You
have to proceed at your own risk, judgement, and creativity with
the situation. Getting out of bad situations without permanent
damage, let alone blisters and bruises, is much more difficult than
getting into bad situations.

If you have a dissertation advisor or post doctoral sponsor that
you don't (or can't) trust, then you have a real problem. This
happens, too, and, from anecdotal stories, I would estimate it can
be a situation in about 5-10% of all cases. This actually happened
to me. Not just once, either. And, I was the major advisor for my
own PhD student and had to work a deal with my former department's
chairman, who was quite altruistic about it, to change my students
committee when we discovered hostility towards the student.

Some of the considerations in selecting a subject or problem area
or lab are:

1. Anything with obvious commercial & clinical implications or very
easy to grasp (eg. AIDS, Cancer, Heart Disease, Obesity). This will
help make you employable. Methodologies are also important (molec.
biology, tissue culture, assays, etc.).
2. Problem areas that are both new and expanding. Labs that are on
the rising curve for citation rates may be good candidates (but
other PhDs will have the same idea, and that may keep you from
being offered a post-doc).
3. Is the problem close to being solved? Once that gene sequence is
finished, or the disease entity mechanism worked out, its dead.
They gave the nobel prize recently for work on G-proteins and one
of the guys said NIH isn't funding this stuff any more. Watch out.
4. Beware of unsolvable problems. Some areas lose interest if the
rate of progress is not high.
5. Molecular biology techniques and approaches are "in," or so it
seems, and almost everything else is "out," at least for now.
6. Beware of areas which are unpopular and have few labs or few
investigators all over the world or the investigators are all very
senior.

Unfortunately you could spend months (maybe half a year), full
time, just researching this out. And, this may not be what YOU
should do.

Do you ask nasty questions (but not in a nasty way) of a potential
post doctoral sponsor? Yes, you would like to know if he has
tenure, or is coming up for it six months after you would join his
lab. Or, if his grant funding is up for renewal the day after you
burn all your bridges to other job opportunities. This requires
communication with and commitment from your PhD sponsor, and
good communication with your potential post-doctoral sponsor. When
you go to scientific meetings, there is nothing wrong with walking up
to somebody you think you might like to do a post doc with and
introduce yourself and start the "look-each-other-over" process.
You should do it with anybody, for practice. You actually might
turn out liking the possibility and the sponsor better than you
originally though. A lot of PIs are as much interested in
recruiting a good postdoc as they are interested in getting a Nobel
Prize.

At the graduate student level, one of the best criteria for
selecting a major advisor is not on subject matter but whether the
guy has already been graduating PhDs regularly, in good numbers,
and without unreasonably long periods of study. 4-5 years is
reasonable. I have actually heard of faculty holding graduate
students for 10-11 years before they get their PhD degree. I don't
believe in this.

Then comes the skulduggery. Is the postdoctoral experience going to
be good? Probably the best way to judge this is to go around and
try to find people who have already been in that lab, or have gone
on to tenure-track positions, themselves. If you can't find those
guys that post-docked a few years before, you should be asking what
happened to them. Try to find them (in person, at meetings) and
ask "how was that guy to work for?". See what they tell you. Then
get into the Citation Index. Try to be "upfront" with everyone (its
not always possible or advisable) but as a general rule you will
make more long term solid relationships if you can disclose the
whole spectrum of your concerns, possibilities, and intentions.

On business ethics. All parties should understand that a guy who
says he's going to post-doc in some lab may change his mind at
any time, after or even before moving into that lab. You are
getting your PhD and, ideally, should have at least three real
offers. The post doctoral sponsor should know that even if you say
you are coming, you may chose to go with someone else. Sure that
will make him mad, but that goes on all the time. Its his worry to
figure out how to staff his lab, so he may have to make a tentative
offer that he could withdraw at any time. In fact, he may have
also made three offers with the knowledge that he can only fund
one. Job offers, even if in writing, don't mean a contractual
promise. After you are physically present AND on the payroll, then
you can say you are in a job. I've heard about a lot of job offer
letters and then all of a sudden there's a telephone call and ...
"Gee, sorry, we had a budget problem...." I've also heard of the
telephone calls, where, "Gee, sorry, I decided to go someplace
else." There is a lot of opportunity for mistrust, double-
crossing, exploitation, etc. in these areas. I have even seen many
examples of the head of one lab robbing another lab of its people.
Many years ago there was more ethics about this sort of thing, but
not today. The injured party will remember this, so understand the
consequences (eg. bad letters of recommendation). I've told a few
people who worked for me that even after they make a verbal, or
even written, promise to one guy and then a better second offer
comes through a day before they go, they should follow the selfish
interest. Tell the one guy you changed your mind. After all, you
have to live with your bad decision otherwise for the rest of your
life. The one guy is going to be mad for a few days or weeks, but
is probably in a better position to survive, adapt, or otherwise
get past it than you. Personnel offices commonly tell employers to
absolutely say nothing about the recruiting progress to any
candidates other than the prime candidate, even until that person
is actually on board. Anybody who is squeamish about this should
understand that in the real business world (i.e. everything else in
the world outside of academia) this is all mickey mouse. Just read
the newspapers for some of the real "hard ball" action (eg. real,
big, massive, serious corporate lawsuits [think Microsoft, think
tobacco, think asbestos]). There's a lot in academia, but its
usually swept under the rug. Overall, academia is a piece of cake
compared to some of the things that go on in the private sector.

Other ethics. There are people who would recommend books like
"how to intimidate, influence, manipulate, win, etc" to achieve your
goal, and I'm generally against that. When I talk with people I am
"turned off" by bullshit artists. Also, some people like to play
"games" in their lives. As far as I am concerned, I'm very sensitive
to game playing and it may work with other people, but not with me.
Eric Berne wrote a book "Games People Play" but these are part of
broader problems in society and are not germane to what I have
covered in this document. Sometimes you have to "play the system"
and structure your interactions in a focused manner for purpose, but
at some point it becomes using someone else as a stepping stone and
I won't do it. Of course one should try to be polite, civilized,
fair, and generally "positive" in collegial interactions. You need
all the friends you can get and try to avoid making enemies. You
know the old saying "Friends come and go, but enemies just
multiply."

Above all - I don't think its possible to find the perfect post-doc
lab. But, do the best you can.

================================

Part 7. When Escape from the Science Career is Needed.

originally was: ALTERNATIVES TO SCIENCE JOBS (ATSJ).

The Young Scientist Network (YSN) was formed as an internet entity
a good number of years ago and was made up of primarily PhD-level
physicists who were having a lot of difficulty getting decent jobs (eg.
tenure-track). Many were in never ending postdoc positions. There is
also a wealth of information at that site (the Young Scientist Network)
at different links and levels and anyone wishing to look at the job
situation in science would do well to spend some time at that internet
site. The YSN was set up many years ago to discuss the difficult job
situation (primarily in the physical sciences). The WWW site is now:

http://www.physics.uiuc.edu

and you will need to hunt around. Some of the original YSN material
is at an FTP site:

ftp://snorri.chem.washington.edu/pub/ysn/

and I was able to navigate around faster in that hierarchy with any
decent FTP client than at the WWW site with a web browser. I recall
a note left at the FTP site that it may not be in existence in the future.

This part was initially developed in response to a private
e-mail to me from someone who was reading my CPSJ essays and
after finishing his PhD decided that a conventional career (i.e. staying
in academia) is NOT what he would like to do for the rest of his
life. Most of his reason for this decision centered around the
phrase "...disillusionment with the [academic] culture."

Another reason for developing this posting is that I know many
colleagues who, in this day and age of grant non-renewals, are
rather openly considering leaving academia for other lines of
endeavor and gainful employment. I even know graduate students and
postdocs who, in the face of seeing their peers have difficulty
finding work, are asking themselves if they have made the right
decision and if they will ever succeed if they continue in the
direction they are now going. This posting is meant to address this
question and explore alternatives.

I have received email from a tenured faculty member who resigned
his position over the senselessness of institutions continuing to
graduate ever more PhDs who cannot find jobs and otherwise conduct
themselves in manners inconsistent with traditional academic
inquiry. He is leaving science and academia.

I have actually heard of many cases of people at various stages
in their lives waking up one day and deciding to make a change.
Some are in "ordinary" jobs and suddenly decide to go into
some "high profile" work. Some are in certain high-pressure
businesses as financial markets, law, sales, investment banking
where it is expected that you put in 50-60 hours per week for
the rest of your life and they get sick of it and decide to pursue
less materialistic but more satisfying and lower stress pursuits
(again showing that money and prestige are not everything).

One case I knew about involved a medical student who, at the end
of his first year decided that "this is not for me" and quit,
went into graduate school in Botany and, as far as I knew last
time I checked (many years ago) made tenure at an institution
where tenure probably means something. Way back, I heard that once
he found what he was looking for, he was really happy. However, I
would not recommend this choice today based on the job market for
PhD botanists being infinitely worse that the job market for
biomedical-based PhDs which is just microscopically less bad.

One person told me he was a truck driver for years and was kind-of
lazy for years and then decided to go back to graduate school. Now
he is a department chairman (However, he is not young and I would
not count on this happening in today's culture).

Anther guy had a PhD in history and is now happily running a
country inn. He told me he was unhappy with academia even though
he was in it for a number of years.

Still another PhD I once talked with said that he "didn't fit in"
with his colleagues; and, as of the last time I talked to him, he
was an arbitrageur on the stock market (rich, making money
in the morning, and chasing women the rest of the day).

I have been saving newspaper clippings for a number of years
that describe all kinds of people who wake up one day and decide
to change their lives to do something that "fits them" better.
Sometimes these changes are bizarre. eg. the wealthy banker who
gives up all of his money and possessions to become a priest in a
monastery. Well, who cares as long as the guy is happy.

I remember once a woman who was in a convent for many years and
was there as a result of an earlier decision to devote her whole life
to that end. But later, she decided, with the help of outsiders,
that life on the outside would be better for her and was
transitioning back into mainstream society.

Probably the biggest question I would ask is whether such changes
can end in fairly permanent success. I knew personally another
case where a guy was a prison psychologist but all his life wanted
to run a restaurant. Finally he saved enough money, quit his job,
and started a restaurant. Two years later the restaurant went bust
and he went back to his old job (he was lucky they took him back).
Basically this seems like a sad ending.

So, one of the first things to consider is, as I brought up in the
CPSJ series, the success rate. We almost never read about the
personal failures in the newspapers (except if it involves a media
star). We only hear about the successes such as the movie star or
sports figure that came out of, for example, the ghetto or poverty.

Is it possible to be pursuing a career path now and then consider
something that might be more suitable, more rewarding, less
anxiety-generating?

There is much conventional wisdom to be found. What came across
from one guy who posted on this newsgroup is that: i) all it takes
is work, and ii) while you are at it, quit complaining (about
anything).

The tight job market for PhDs has been around for at least two
decades (but not in the late 50s and 60s when there was a lot of
expansion in both institution numbers and sizes and the NIH budgets
were expanding at 15-20% per year). In the last few years, the NIH
budgets have not kept up with inflation and institutional practices
of shifting indirect costs into direct costs and making, in many
cases, even more tenure track faculty get substantial fractions of
their salary from grants (thus keeping up the total collection of
indirect costs for the institution), which in turn puts more and
more pressure on the backs of the individual. And, I have gone into
some detail on this in parts of my CPSJ essays.

Hence, the problem is that you spend a lot of your life
specializing for something that you can only find in a few places
in the country and if you lose your funding base, you are out in
the cold. If you have a house (and family), you will probably at
least have to move to another state (unless you can find something
in another department or another institution in your city) and
maybe even across the country.

Institutions fight the probability that a lone PI can lose his
funding and get kicked out by encouraging large groups where all
the PhDs work on a part of the problem and multiple grants feed the
large project. This is OK, but the problems for the individual are
two fold: First, you become lost on the author list as it becomes
longer and longer (this has been happening in physics for a long
time, and in biology much more so in recent years). Second, you
still can run into power battles, ideological struggles, and
personality conflicts. Its OK if you can come out on top, but
if you don't, then you become the candidate for "out-placement"
next time there is a downward fluctuation in the grant funding
stream. I think the flat funding future should really be an omen to
PhDs in the grad-student to post-doc pipeline to be looking for
other things to do.

So, if you want to look at alternate things to do with your life,
then spend time noticing what other people (outside academia) are
doing. There are probably books in the library. Look for craft fair
announcements in the newspapers. Have the courage to just walk up
to some guys there and ask them "how did you get into this stuff".
Most will be too busy or for other reasons will not talk to you,
but some will. At least listening to THEIR story should be
inspiring. The advice that you should go from a 50-60 hour per week
effort to a 70-80 hour per week effort, or go from a 5 year
post-doc period to a 10 year period, so that you can become more
competitive, will put you in the nuthouse for sure.

I have noticed in recent years that support group strategies
for victims of violence, rape, alcoholism, cancer, etc. almost
always involve talking to others as a coping and healing mechanism.
I think anyone who has to bear up with the kinds of uncertainty in
todays world needs some thing to boost morale.

The "grass is greener in the other back yard" syndrome is something
you can get trapped into. You may have your eye on something else,
but once you get into it, it might be a bigger problem than you
could ever have imagined before you got into it. Sometimes its
better to stay where you are. Perhaps you need to make sure you
don't burn bridges that you might want to use to get back to and
pick up where you left off!

THERE ARE FORMAL STUDIES OF MAJOR CAREER CHANGES

One book title which I found in the "new books" section (its an
interesting place to notice monographs that may be worth looking up
someday) in the journal Science was:

Holding on or Letting Go:
Men and Career Change at Midlife

the author is: Samuel D. Osherson

The Free Press
(Div. of Macmillan)

copyright: 1980

In our library, the call number is:

HF/5381/.089/1980

You might be able to find it in your library and have a look at it.

Although the book was less useful than I originally hoped for, it
was worth looking at and I present the following "book review" or
perhaps I should call it a "book reaction." Its actually out of a
sub discipline of Psychology called Social Psychology. The point of
mentioning this book is that many people chose, voluntarily, different
careers and somehow manage to adjust to this. Also, a lot of people
undergo career changes involuntarily when there are downsizings, loss
of grant or contract support, or other nasty things happen (see above).
The good news is that a large fraction of people DO manage to make
adjustments, find new work, and salvage their lives and self esteem.
Some even end up happier. Unfortunately, some are worse off and
never recover.

ATTITUDES:

Except for a few "hot" areas, there is much moaning and groaning
about the poor job market, the low job security, and other
discouraging situations in many science jobs. Also, there are people
who are doing just fine but they don't understand that other people are
hurting. Just as I think it is natural for one to say "ouch" if one's
finger is accidentally struck by a hammer, I think that it is perfectly
natural for anyone to moan and groan about the poor situation in most
job markets

There is another fraction of the population who views people who
are having extraordinary difficulty in finding work as having a bad
attitude. I don't agree with this view. I think there are many
people who are having difficulty just because the PhD/Job ratio is
unusually high. In fact in the broader job market, there are a lot
of people out of work simply because their company downsized and
not because there is anything wrong with them or their work.

However, having a positive attitude about the future will be more
helpful than having a negative attitude.

POSSIBLE RESOURCES TO HELP YOU FIND ANOTHER LINE
OF WORK:

People with academic backgrounds generally have unusually difficult
times finding jobs in non-academic environments. This is because
there are two universes of reality: i) academia, which is not a good
example of reality and is often out of touch with it, and ii) real world.
Out in the real world you flip burgers at McDonalds, help people buy stuff
at Wal-Mart, and other such workaday monotonous, boring, tedious,
low-respect jobs. From there everything is up. Managerial and
administrative jobs pay more but are harder to find. Where to start?
GO TO THE CLASSIFIED SECTION OF ANY MAJOR CITY
NEWSPAPER. It ain't pretty, but at least half of you readers will be
out there in the next 5-10 years doing this because there are not
enough PhD requiring jobs for everyone. The other most obvious
place to go is the Public Library (and a moments reflection will
provide you with some starting points, besides asking the librarian).
Another obvious place is friends, acquaintances, and other contacts.
If all of your friends are in academia, this will not help you get out of
academia. The next thing is to go out on the pavement and try to get
an interview. You wont get a job if you keep your nose stuck in the
books all the time.

A major problem with non-academic jobs is that they almost always
demand experience. If you don't have that experience, then you don't
get the job.

Back to the books, however, I have always wished for something more
specific. Recently I ran across "The Whole Work Catalog" This is a
catalog of books almost exclusively dealing with jobs and job
related subjects. The catalog is 32 pages long and there are about
8-10 books listed on each page. A lot of these are jobs you can start
yourself and generally without very large sums of money. You may
want to write to them (The New Careers Center, Inc., 1515-23rd
Street, P.O. Box 339-CT, Boulder, CO 80306) and see if you can get
your own copy of the catalog. To save you money you might use the
catalog to chose titles of interest to you, and then look them up in
your local library first. And, by the way, I am in no way connected
with these people.

INTERNET RESOURCES IN FINDING JOBS

There are now many Web Sites dealing with jobs and careers. You
will have to use some imagination and resourcefulness in finding these,
but you can start with search engines (Yahoo, AltaVista). Also, there
are a lot of computer bulletin board systems devoted to jobs,
listservers, gophers, etc. Again, the key is to use resources, ask
questions, and spend time yourself ON the net and lurking on the
newsgroups. In the last year there have appeared now many books at
the library and in bookstores which are devoted to internet resources,
including job resources. These will be more complete than the very
cursory list I originally provided.

INTERNET NEWSGROUPS DEALING ONLY WITH JOBS:

Hundreds of newsgroups are available on my internet
provider that list jobs wanted, jobs offered, or some
mixture of both. In the mainstream hierarchies you should be able to
find: <misc.jobs.contract>,<misc.jobs.misc>, etc. Most are
computer oriented, but some may be non-computer technical jobs, or
even non technical jobs. In many cases you can guess where the jobs
are. For example, <balt.jobs> is Baltimore and <dc.jobs> is
Washington DC jobs. Many internet service providers now have their
own private newsgroups that you CANNOT access from outside that
system and the postings are NOT propagated outside. Hence there are
probably thousands of newsgroups that you will never be able to
access. Be aware of this. Spend some time seeing if your internet
provider has them, or ask your sysop to tell you how to get the list of
all newsgroups at your site. Some are in foreign countries.

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