It's so heartening to see young PhDs figuring out that academia is a scam before they invest 25 years into it, like I did. The other point to make is that the reward for doing one or more postdocs is a chance at a crappy academic position with continued low pay (relative to your skill set) more work, insane expectations and colleagues, etc. This is coming from a tenured full professor at an R1 university who resigned his position after twenty years.

The most depressing thing about this video, is that it is actually an understatement for how bad it really is for a lot of postdocs. You make all of these great points about how exploitative postdoc positions are, assuming that they make around between 50-60k. That salary is absolutely far too low given the level of expertise and training a postdoc has under their belt. But here I am, on my 3rd postdoc at my 3rd university and my salary is 38k, at one of the largest universities in the US. I had to get an apartment 45 miles away from campus just to afford a roof over my head, as the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city of my university is 80% of my monthly take home salary.

When I proposed doing what I called a "postdoc tour" to get experience in multiple fields, my advisor said immediately "I hope you like poverty". That says it all.

Average salary of a tenured professor in the US: $145,000.00 Average salary of a MSL (one of possible entry roles for a PhD in pharma): $175,000.00. One needs multiple postdocs, luck, and many years... to earn less than entry positions in industry.

Your hypothesis about classes being taught by a dead man online happened in my city. Back in 2021 it was revealed that students in a class at a local university were watching recorded lectures and notes from a teacher who had died in 2019 without knowing he had died. They just... didn't inform the students... or take his name off the course... so the students only found out he was dead a few weeks into the semester after one of them tried to look up his email and found his obituary.

I feel like the clown meme fits well with this video like: "Sure, I'll move across the country" "Leave my spouse and kids or uproot them too." "For minimal pay." "For a temporary position." "Because it will be worth it in the end."

Legend has it that Angela is still deleting lloans and re-typing lloans to this day.

A word from an ex postdoc: Get a government job as was already stated. I gave all my twenties and thirties to my academic career just to notice I have to get out of here and get a real stable job before 40. If I would have done this 5-10 years earlier I would even earn more money. As I realized: Those people with the high salary do not nearly have, if any at all, as many academic achievements as I do: research money, patents, publications, students. So what can you do? Built your own niche, challenge yourself academically, rebuilt your network and try to avoid being the donkey for others. And remember always: If you come from a non academic family background and did a PhD you are already the 1% compared to other non academic children. Postdoc even more unlikelier. So do not be bitter if you cannot achieve the further 1% of postdocs making it to prof. If you now have a stable decent paying job try not to be bitter or envious. Enjoy life and built your career from where you are now.

I was a postdoc in physics at Harvard from 1986 to 1990. When I adjusted my salary to 2023, I got $82K. It sure looks like salaries have not kept up. I did really enjoy my postdoc, but I might not if I was paid 25% less.

I’m a physicist and while working on my PhD dissertation I realized I was making the highest earning research student at $22K annually, mandatory health insurance had to be budgeted out of that, school was in DC so I needed a car to commute from the more affordable suburbs, and I finally looked at the post doc in my group at 3 am asked him his salary he said $36K and I left the school a week later and got a federal job for $75K starting. I’m at $150K ten years later with benefits. The post doc is now an adjunct professor.

Yep about the last point. When I tell professors that I don't intend to be a professor, they are shocked: "Why on earth would anyone not want an amazing job like ours?!?". I reply, "Because ruthlessly exploiting others is mandatory for a professor, while I have no taste for that." These professors just gasp, screech and panic. Hilarious every time. One of these times it was on my presentation for a panel of world-class academics that evaluated my research center. They got so mad that they devoted an entire paragraph of their evaluation report to me, like: "Your researchers are delusional about the academic environment worldwide". That's how deep in denial these profs are.

To those of us still in academia: unionize, and unionize across job categories! Worker-led unions in partnership with their surrounding communites (including students, in the case of academia) are the only way any sort of effective and positive systemic change will happen.

Yes! "Talk about money with your friends, it's important." The social taboo against this needs to go. I find your videos amazing. Thank you!

Advice from an "old guy": If you aren't in the top 5% of the graduate students in your field (and can "prove" it with papers that are already becoming heavily cited) then you should forget about academia. Get a postdoc position with the (USA) federal government. You'll have to put up with way more bureaucracy than in academia or private industry, but the pay is twice academia's and the academic freedom is way more than private industry. And the federal S&E workforce is older than the general population, so there's a decent chance of a permanent job at the end of the postdoc, instead of an entire career as a postdoc. AND, you are generally expected to work 40 hours per week, like a normal human being. (US citizenship helps with your long-term prospects.) [btw: I never did a postdoc. PhD --> feds. 30+ years now. Not famous, or rich, but have done interesting work in a half-dozen fields. (At least, I thought my work was interesting. Not the citations I'd like, though. Feel free to fix that for me before I retire!)]

I left uni after an MSc in physics and started in applied research in underwater acoustics for the Canadian navy. Not only did I enter the work force 3 years earlier (by not doing PhD), I was making real money, and three years later I was well established in my field, writing journal papers, and attending conferences. I received several professional distinctions during my career, and was able to retire at age 55 with a decent pension. That was 15 years ago, and I have enjoyed myself in amateur astronomy since then (my first love).

Great video! I'm from Argentina and did my physics PhD in Manhattan Kansas! I saw many of my postdoc friends leave and fly to some other country just to do another postdoc. Great minds and awesome people with kids in charge and no prospects. When getting into my PhD, I thought that postdocs were the only path worth following, I realized I was so wrong. I finished my degree and changed career path

I was a postdoc for 7 years, came out of it with no academic job, no money, having probably lost my opportunity to have children, and ruined mental health. Thank you so much for this, breaking down the financial side alone is incredibly validating.

I'm a postdoc at MIT. You told the entire story dead on. A LOT of postdocs have help from their parents. If you really really want to be faculty, then do it. I can't say I regret it, but I'm happy I took an industry position and will have the freedom to enjoy the other facets of life that matter. I can have my garage machine shop and maybe get a pilot's license one day! If you want to be really pissed off, ask about how much how much you cost your grant! Even though you take home 40k-70k per year, the cost to your grant is deep into the six figures. The overhead the university charges is truly insane.

The daycare cost is so real. When one of my parents was a postdoc and the other in residency, daycare put my dad in the red, needed my mom’s salary to help even it out. Eventually it got too much, they sent me back to live with my grandparents in China for a year. That certainly saved money, ha

Hearing her describe post doc and describe how brutal and exploitative it is really made me shook as a resident doing pretty much the same thing lol. I guess we have the bonus of a more certain job market afterwards but still 4 years of this treatment is brutal.

As an employment law attorney serving STEM employees, I love that you’re bringing light to these issues. Helps me and my paralegals understand our clients’ challenges a lot better so we can better represent them. ❤

Ironically, you actually form more work relationships when you job hop every 2-3 years because you meet so many more colleagues in your field. I’ve known so many people who were able to tap previous coworkers for knowledge of positions at other companies before they were advertised that it’s not funny.

I just discovered your channel. After listening to your string theory video, I landed here. You are the first person I saw on YT discussing this. You presented the great frustration every single one of us has giving it full justice, congratulations! Most academics I speak to just look at me as if I was crazy when I vent about this like you did in the video. I graduated last year from my PhD and stayed to work as a postdoc with my PhD avdisor while I was trying to convince myself to do the scary jump and quit. I recently resigned from the postdoc even though I have been told by many that, given my talent, I belong to academia. My last paper was published in Nature last month and this month I have been awarded three important prizes for my PhD research. Even though it hurts leaving, the academic job marlet is a joke and will hurt my private life too much on the long run. Next month I'll start my new job in the real world....

We're seeing this across all jobs that if you break down cost of living in (whatever city, throw a dart at the board) that the salary you're earning against the expenses of rent, utilities, food, and other bills is leaving people with basically nothing for themselves to even save. We're experiencing an unprecedented crisis of compensation today, and there isn't an excuse that it's the depression. It's that all the money is going up and never, ever coming back down.

I'm a retired boomer, but saw this coming from miles away. In my grad school work in computer science & engineering, I saw what the academic route entailed, and mastered out to work at the most prestigious place I could find at the time (Bell Labs, in the 1970s, with a similar offer from Hewlett-Packard, which was then not a synonym for crap). I did marry a DVM who was getting her PhD (and did a postdoc in industry), but for a *very long* time I out-earned her, supported her through the frustrations of getting the PhD, becoming an adjunct and a postdoc, and eventually entering industry herself. After that, I followed her unique career around the country, but had far less frustration in my career moves. A generation later, and we've counseled our kids (one with a PhD from University of Chicago, the other with a PhD from Carnegie-Mellon) to get out of academia and into industry, where they've been for a decade or so each. I've met people in their 50's and 60's who are still occupying postdoc positions, subsisting in college towns in low-cost areas in the Midwest, who yearn to get out of the trap. Get out now. Never subject yourself to it to begin with.

I work in industry doing work R&D on thin films, materials science, things like that. Recently hired a physicist who was looking to escape his n'th postdoc position. I think he had a bit of shell shock after his first day when I showed up around. Samples for an experiment that would have taken months or years to produce at a university he can build in literally an hour or less. If one morning an instrument breaks, or some vacuum equipment is acting up, there is an entire pit crew of people who will fix it for him by lunch. He doesn't have to publish a single paper unless he wants to...just do the experiments and come up with something that works. He asked about TEM and when I showed him that there were four at his disposal + dedicated staff for running them I think he cried a little. Fact is, for the research he is interested in and good at, a university is a shit place to do it, even if they paid as much as we do. This wasn't always the case. The post doc exodus is just one of many ongoing consequences of the hollowing out of public research.

I’ve been bingeing your videos over the past few days and I think one of the reasons I find them so compelling is your compassion. Your compassion for the tomato, the cleaning service, the makers of the Morbius movie, and those who are exploited by academia. Your video on adjuncts too, it was lovely. And so, speaking of compassion and adjuncts, I would love to hear you talk about those Malazan books behind you! (Love the lord of the rings video too!) In any case, cheers!

I am a full successful professor (science) at a UK University in my 50s. But there is no way I would enter this sector as a younger scientist now. Your observation of difficulties in Post-Doc hiring is real. We also have Universities full of professors in their late 60s who will not retire. So there are no new positions and there has been a vacuum of hiring we have not seen before probably stretching over the last 10 years. Thank-you for making this video. I am in the UK but I would say the same problems exist here. Meanwhile we have woefully under-qualified (mentally) VCs making poor institutional decisions to justify their newly elected positions. Don't think of academia as an ivory tower of achievement, think of it as the most poorly run example of a 'business' you can possibly imagine.

My mother is a tenured professor and has been for the entire time I've been alive. Her position pays well but the culture of overwork and unpaid work is so toxic it never ends. Even if you get a tenured position, how are you going to maintain your personal work life balance while you're asking your grad students and postdocs to forgo theirs for poverty wages? You don't. You're also going to overwork. She loved her research but it doesn't change that her work hours kept her absent and now that research funding has dried up she's realizing how little she did to cultivate other parts of her life. Academia just seems like an endless grind in service to an antiquated ideal of what a university used to mean. I don't mean to come off as an anti intellectual, I just think the system is totally busted

I'm a master in Physics from Brasil. I gave up on PhD here cause it's on an even worse scenario. The crowd of grads keep going into an academy path because teachers tell them it's the only way since there's no national industry around here. Truth is there's no path. I'm teaching on High School now, but studying to get into the police. Wish a PhD was worth it.

What a powerful video essay. My best friend was manipulated by this very same system. Took him 10 years to become a professor at a good school. But during that time, i bought a house. 2 nice cars had 2 kids, and I started my own business (with 2 other fellow graduates). My best friend was, at the 10 year mark, renting a room in Boston above some old lady.

I just left a comment on your "the adjunct problem" video saying "I left my PhD program ABD because I was forced to acknowledge how bad the situation is getting... this was over three years ago and it still tears me up inside". I was at Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS. I just felt that the coincidence merited the redundancy. Thank you for your kindness and the cogency of your message.

I just spreadsheeted out a potential Boston postdoc today, hahahaha. That's exactly what happened. The other aspect is the uncertainty of the advisor. You could get a good one, like the one you mentioned. You can also get a sociopath, like my first PhD advisor. I've already turned down a few PIs that looked and talked like sociopaths. Many are out there. We get locked into a non-negotiable deal for 2-3 years, with little knowledge of what we're walking into.

I'm a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering. I made a (liveable, before the pandemic) slave wage, with mostly subsidized health insurance and free tuition. Why would I want to do a post doc for $50k when I can go straight to a job in my field for $110k? I gain nothing, unless I absolutely wanted to be a professor. And after seeing the culture, it's really not for me

I grew up dirt poor. My first contract research position in/after undergrad paid me twice as much as my family had growing up. Going into grad school, I figured be financially comfortable because of this (the position had been DOE/DOD). It was only a few months of living in a decent-sized city on grad student pay that I realized I had made a huge mistake in not just going into industry.

Thanks for this video, I was very much a person biding time in a postdoc. In industry now and my mental health is vastly improved. I could not handle the precarity of postdocs, I couldn’t get out of my head the anxiety about ‘what happens next.’ My performance as a scientist went down the toilet. Now I’m thriving in industry. Looking back, depression and anxiety really sapped my ability to do work in my postdoc. Class isn’t takes about enough in academia. I grew up middle class and I worried about money, but in grad school I was surrounded by people who didn’t really have to think about it. They didn’t act snobbish or upper class, but having that safety net changed their whole outlook.

I love videos that weigh ethically murky quandaries. As someone who isn't in academia and didn't pursue a PhD, it feels like professors have no choice but to continue perpetuating the current system. Publish or perish, even if it's at the expense of your own morals.

I was PhD tracked after my BS, had everything ready to go. I watched a KZfaq Video about the opportunity cost of 5 years in school on a 23k stipend, and the math just doesnt check out. I ended up backing out and jumping straight into industry, I still got my higher education as I am doing my M.S. part time (Paid for by my employer), and I make almost 4 times what my friends doing their PhDs are making now, its criminal. I can see this will ultimately decline the amount of people that pursue PhDs, and it wont get better until they actually get paid.

This was so depressing and hilarious at the same time. I binge this like it was an opening day at Oppenheimer in 70mm. Thank you for the lols and hope you are okay

I'm not in STEM or Academia, and still have no clue what I want to do but I find this fascinating. Definitely a good heads up with all the associated and hidden costs for when you move somewhere, the opportunity costs other than money that you have to consider, etc. Your financial awareness are critical thinking are really making me realize how much I'm ignoring at the moment >.

I'm a PhD student, and I come from a home with 3 generations of academics. My dad saw all of this happening, looked at me, and basically forbade me from doing a postdoc. If I really want to do it, just join a startup, ideally one which a professor is engaged with, if not a direct founder and executive. The second option is working at a national lab if I just love academic research that much. Otherwise, I should do what he did and spend a decade or so in industry before returning to academia.

I did my PhD at cern and it was crazy seeing folks doing close to if not more than 10 years of postdoc and moving around the world with wife and kids.

When I was a Masters student more than a decade ago, I had the option of becoming a programmer and making a shit ton of money, or continue to subsist on ramen for another 4-5 years while being totally dependent on the whims of an advisor. I already knew a few PhD students who had lost the spark of joy in what they did daily. I chose the sensible option, and though I often think about going back and doing that PhD, the rational side of my brain reminds me that I'd be stupid to abandon what I have right now. I like what I do and get paid a decent amount for doing this. I know what PhD students make and I know what postdocs make. It is all a scam.

Thank you for this video. I see myself in your story. I also lived off my graduate and postdoctoral salaries. I grew up in a lower class family and education changed my life. However, when deciding whether or not to take a faculty job I also declined. I couldn’t see myself in a position where I’ll use people the same way I was used. During my postdoc years I realized that even good people who are professors foster the many traits that make academia toxic. The stakes are so low and thus the competition is so fierce. It’s very petty, rude and condescending. I don’t necessarily regret my postdoc from a personal standpoint at least, I met cool people. But economically speaking it was a waste. You’re very right on that. Also, I am not white so that was a bit complicated some times, I had several difficult experiences. In terms of training I didn’t learn more than what I had already learnt during graduate school. So, that was also not good. Overall it’s not worth it.

"Is your job just emailing out relevant PDF's to make everyone else do your work?" You know, you run into these types across all industries, and I feel like we all collectively just need to sacrifice them on an altar.

My oldest brother works in the army, and he has to uproot every one to three years. He knew that would be a big ask from a partner, so when he found someone who was down for it, he married her quicktime. But even tho there is the challenge of having to move often, the army pays the moving expenses, covers the costs if they have to temporarily own two houses, comes with reeeeaaally good family benefits, opportunities for education advancement (they pay my brother to get a masters degree), and a good salary. If a job is going to require you to move that often, they better have some really strong pros to back up such a big ask.

Thank you for this video. I currently work on my family farm and download videos to listen to during the workday, and your videos have provided excellent educational content that is intellectually challenging yet easy for a novice physicist to understand. I’d love to continue my education someday but I worry about the cost/benefit analysis of going back into academia; videos like this help with decisions that will be integral to my future, and certainly for the futures of other viewers. Thank you for what you do.

Your videos are great and as a nurse of ten years, I'm amazed at how much a long talk on the postdoc exodus would resonate with my own experience in healthcare watching the nurse exodus grow each year.

I’m in the exact situation you gave in the example in the video. I did my post doc in chemistry at MIT right after I finished my phd, and convinced my wife to leave her high paid job to go with me. So we left cali and came to Boston. Life was tough with low income and high rent. And worst, I didn’t see the light in the tunnel. So I gave up my chemistry research career and moved into IT. Maybe I’m lucky, I bumped my salary from 48K to 300 K within 2 years. And I’m so happy I made that decision , otherwise, I might still be stuck in that post doc infinite loop.

Good points! As a grad student doing my Ph.D. I found this super helpful! There are other things too that I would like to add. Specifically, the publish or perish culture. A lot of people end up taking postdocs because they want to get their publications up. But the reality is that publishing even in a decent journal is a very difficult proposition. You might work hard for 6 months on a project and labour over how to write it up for publication. Once submitted to a journal you might not hear back from them for months. And then it can get rejected for trivial reasons such as reviewers don't share the same sentiment about your research, not enough explanation etc etc.. So you might end up doing lot of work, but because it has not been published you will have little or nothing to show for it, this perpetually keeping you in the post doc loop.

This is an absolutely devastating takedown of the postdoc trap. Well done.

This depressed me because it was a largely a recap of what drove my decision to stay out of academia (despite a PhD and a being a descendant of multiple generations of tenured professors, not like I didn't know the option). The depressing part was that I made the decision in the 1980's and 90's (I'm in engineering, it's not necessarily a one-time decision there.) The pandemic effects are a new complication, but even then, when student loan loads were lower and tenure track positions more numerous, the only advantage to a post-doc was a headstart getting on the publication hamster wheel. I will also second the conclusion that the Ivy League way oversells their cachet, at least from industry's point of view. I have decades of visibility now in the industry side of hiring decisions and the marginal advantage of Ivy League is tiny. Harvard or Yale might get you a few more interviews right at graduation, but you'll be in the same salary band as the ones who got decent grades and in-state tuition at their local public university, and probably net less after loan payments. (This is true for STEM; maybe for some other disciplines [law?] it could be different.) My advice is to pick the school you can afford--if you can get a full scholarship at an elite school, that's fantastic, but if your choice is to pay by mortgaging the house you don't own yet, you're way better off at your local Wassamatta U with tuition you can pay as you go. At the PhD level, it gets more complex because of specialization. In my specific esoteric area of expertise, there are a dozen state universities I'd rank above any Ivy League school. That's because they have faculty who've chosen to specialize in particular topics (and chances are I know them; sub-specialties in science and engineering are amazingly small communities.) Pick your graduate school based on what the professor and who they know.

I quit my Ph.D. program 7 years ago because I saw the writing on the wall. I looked at the salaries offered at postdoc positions. I worked with postdocs in the lab and saw the squalor by which they carried themselves. I don't mean this in a bad way to them. I'd have been exactly the same way if I had been subjected to that kind of work environment. My advisor ran on the whole notion of being tough and doing the proper thing and whatnot, telling students that his fiancee died during his ph.d. studies and yet he continued, as if I'd somehow be inspired by that. Quite the opposite. It had this undertone of "you better be able to handle a whole lot worse." These kinds of positions, this kind of chaotic lifestyle worked in an environment that once had stronger systemic support structures, safety nets, etc. Things were more affordable as less money was being funneled away to corporate coffers and raising shareholder value. The risk of uprooting your life and moving from place to place was so much lower. That lifestyle CANNOT exist without strong societal support.

Sadly a lot of foreigners can't get into industry as they need visa sponsorship but postdoc is the easiest to get into and has great promise of preparing you for getting an academic job such as professorship

I appreciate the things you are saying about the postdoctoral route, and compensation in academia generally. Some of it corresponds to my experience, though there are also some differences. I definitely empathize with the temporary lifestyle that graduate school and a postdoc brings. Having run that gauntlet, I would just like to say a few things. The situation of postodocs is unfortunate, and I'm not trying to sugar coat it. But there are a few things that one could do to optimize it, at least. First, there are a variety of job opportunities with distinct pros and cons. For example, if you get a postdoc at a national lab, the pros include a higher salary (often substantially higher than academic postdocs), the potential to become a full-time hire (this comes with a major pay bump as well, with regular cost of living raises and merit increases, though ymmv), very nice Federal benefits, decent work-life balance, etc. The cons include being subject to mercurial funding issues like Congressional squabbling (eg., furloughs happened when the gov't shut down in 2018-19), having to deal with constant and very frustrating red tape/paperwork/delays/busy-work (this is true of any Federal job), being in a more sterile environment that lacks the youthful energy/creativity universities have, and so on. Every national lab is different, and I've personally worked in some capacity at 2 different ones over the years, so I can say the pros and cons are quite different from one national lab to the next. Some pay be better fits than others. But still, based on the items you brought up in this video, I suspect a national lab postdoc might have been a better fit for you personally. (There are also industrial postdocs, which sound like they would pay even more, but I don't know anything about those personally.) Second, people who are interested in industry should identify that goal as soon as possible. It's the most direct route to somewhat permanent, well-paid life which may or may not feature good work-life balance. It's generally known which companies are slave-drivers and which are good to work for, so it's possible to aim at the latter if it's a priority. As you laid out nicely in your video, time is money when it comes to the decision of going into industry. Third, even if your goal is to become a tenure-track professor, there's no rule that you have to go into it right away, as long as you continue to publish in the meantime. In my case, I was able to work in higher-paying jobs for awhile to amass considerable savings, before circling back around and getting an academic position at an R1. Now, in a sense, I have my cake and eat it too: I have my dream job as a professor, meanwhile the growth of my investment portfolio covers the academic salary penalty. Fourth, and this is only an opinion, but I think that one can only come to recognize the good things about academia after having stepped away from it. Outside of the ivory tower, people are often more interested in filling out checklists than satisfying curiosities. It sounds cliche, but it really is true. Working in a national lab, I really missed standing in front of a white board with several interested coworkers puzzling out some esoteric detail or devising some apparatus, with people yelling out suggestions, joshing around, having fun. It's a lot of work, and it's underpaid, but it's also your lived experience for however many hours per week, what is that worth in USD? For me, it was worth a pretty substantial pay cut. But what I'll say is, once you've made enough money to be alright, then it stops being so much of a priority and you can start caring more about how you're actually spending your time. (And that doesn't necessarily mean everyone wants to spend it in academia. I'm a sample size of 1.) It's hard to boil this down to actual advice, for someone just now applying for a phd program or graduating from one, but what I would wholeheartedly recommend is for people in these positions to contact an organization like the ACS, ask to be connected to mentors who are further along in their career. Just bounce some ideas off these people in terms of career goals. They will have some insight about how different career routes really are, what goals are realistic or fanciful, what specific action plans would be to optimize the chances of realizing a particular career plan, what non-standard career paths are available, etc. I'm active in my local branch of the ACS and this in my opinion is the most important resource it offers younger people.

I quit my PhD when I was about to finish it because they kept throwing work at me when I already had what I needed to graduate. From my main advisor, he wanted me to work on another project of his (but while getting paid from my project) and wanted to held submitting my main publication to force me to keep working for him at PhD salary (and I am in EU so I was employed). At the uni they wanted me to make more ECTS from courses even though I had already covered the minimum, my other supervisor wanted me to run more simulations for him… And on top of all of that I have never felt my work so undervalued. It felt like that would never end, so I told all of them to fuck off and got a job in industry in applied research, they have so far treated me way better than academia ever has and I earn very well, and even it is supposed to be competitive and harsh environment, for me it has never gotten as bad as academia in terms of toxic culture.

I worked 3 years ago for a company that refused to offer a flexible/remote schedule for a job that absolutely didn't require physical presence. They paid ~$31,000 in the heart of Tempe, Arizona (right near ASU), but it was my first salaried job as an artist. I literally moved into my SUV and one of the "benefits" they gave me was the ability to park my car in the company lot at night while I slept in it. I lived in my SUV for 379 days while I worked full-time, also doing gig-work during the weekends in a coffee shop. The whole time I felt like they were doing me this massive favor by letting me sleep in my car every night instead of them just paying me a fucking livable wage (after I left, I found out the person two positions above me was making $350,000 before bonuses). Large organizations get away with this shit because there are just enough people like me who need the work and are willing to throw themselves under the bus for what they perceive to be a star on a resume. I'm nearly 34 now and probably beyond the point where I'll ever be able have kids because I'll be too old by the time I can afford it. I'll be lucky if I ever make enough to lease a house at this rate. Fortunately, my partner is going into the medical field, so at least one of us has job security. I guess the joke is on me for being such a hopelessly optimist artist in late-stage capitalism.

Man, this hit so hard... you're 100% correct about your sense of post-docs being like an MLM. I looked at opportunity costs while mid-PhD and decided to "pursue other opportunities" outside academia. It's so exploitative and gross, modern-day indentured servitude. Edited to add: at 27:35 my experience was so similar, more or less universally and regardless of what I was trying to accomplish. I'm not proud of it, but at one point I let my frustration get the best of me and asked someone, "Okay... so, just for my own reference, what the fuck do you actually do here?"

It's interesting to hear this perspective. I'm a grad student in a developing country, and honestly? The pay isn't amazing but it's pretty good compared to the median income. It's far less prestigious than being in an Ivy League school and there are problems with it, but here there is demand for talented STEM people for teaching and research, the universities are eager to to get their name out there. The cost of living is also drastically lower (you can rent a pretty good place for less than 500 bucks a month, for instance). I don't think I'll stay here forever but sometimes it honestly feels like I might have better prospects at home than in a developed nation, which is absolutely wild.

As a married father of three who never graduated college, I can honestly say that I feel that I have gotten more jobs working in labs then I ever could have if I would have graduated in the field that I was studying for. Now? I own my own business and my wife and I run it. We are happy, we make great money, we have great customers that we have formed great relationships with and I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. But this is coming from a guy who quit college after 3 years and has no degrees! I know a few of the professors in the college in the town where I live and I actually make more than they do in a year! But, it was never really about the money. It's about being happy with what you have and where you are in your life and I am extremely happy and couldn't see myself being much happier.

Academia is where you get the best minds working on the most complex problems, solving them for the first time in the world, and then you pay them a sustenance wage.

Anecdotally, I'm pretty sure these numbers are much worse in the humanities. I lucked into a FT position my first year out of grad school or I would not be in academia. I have friends who are just now starting FT positions, EIGHT years after grad school--that runway is way too long, especially on postdocs paying 30-40k instead of the 50 estimated in this video. Thanks for breaking this down so clearly.

I feel like binging every video she has ever done. There is a vibe here I like

I wish I had found this video sooner! It puts into words why I left academia way better than I ever could have. I've been struggling with guilt over "selling out" ever since, but seeing this video is a great reminder of just how bad academia was. My life is so much better now than if I had stayed.

I know a PhD getting an NIH fellowship as the fellowship review committee read he published in "Cell" (the premier journal), while he published it in "Cells". Dude is a Harvard postdoc now. Prestige is worth a sack of peanuts.

Oh lords this rings true. I was a postdoc in the UK, decent (for academia) pay, really great group, but I felt I stalled out. Then I moved to North America, the working conditions dropped like a stone, and I am now looking at a nice, comfy industrial position in a few months time. I really, really, really love my research . I really, really, really, hated having to do it at a university. I have five generations of academics to look back on, I really wanted to become a professor, and I do feel like I am betraying myself by quitting. But staying would be worse.

I really wanted to do a Ph.D. Now, I am doing it for six months and I love it, honestly, the research is so much fun! But at the same time, you point out that the system is broken and I see this in my university and the universities of my friends. Thank you for providing all of this information so I could make a conscious decision on what to do after my Ph.D.

I can see the sorrow in your eyes. So sad. Thanks for the honesty. Thanks for sharing your personal academic journey.

This channel is going to get big! Academia in general doesn't make a lot of sense right now. Why sacrifice your financial future and time with your family for a narrowing and under-appreciated career path? Why sacrifice those for anything??

I moved to the US from British academia to be closer to family. British academia isn't perfect, but you have a good pension and are paid okay relative to the cost of living. When I moved to the US, I was shocked at how little you made as a postdoc. For a number of other reasons (including the institution) I was absolutely miserable and unhappy, and left after only 9 months to go into industry. And oh boy, I have never been happier! I earn almost 3x the amount of compensation with far more career mobility on a team that I enjoy being a part of. And I work fewer hours! My advice to anyone who feels 'stuck' in academia is just to make a change. There are soooo many opportunities out there for people with your talent and dedication it's unbelievable. So many academics shun or look down on industry or other career paths -- but the reality is that people in academia are in the minority. PS, this was actually in Boston, so I feel the pain.

I'm just about to graduate undergrad and head into my PhD program. I was initially planning on doing research in academia, but this video has made me seriously rethink my plans -- especially since I know the PhD period is itself going to be long, grueling, and exploitative. I don't want to get out of school just to dive right back into the same situation -- especially since all the major schools in New Zealand (where I'll be studying and later working) are currently having budget crises. Strangely, the amount of money going to the administrative division during these periods of hardship seems to be increasing (and this is also the case in my home university in the US). Wonder how THAT'S happening, it's almost like the capitalist administrators of universities dont have the best interests of students or professors in mind! As much as I think we need highly educated people doing publicly-funded research rather than locked into serving capitalism... the governments and universities aren't really holding up their end of the "funding" part of "publicly-funded research".

If you haven't already you should absolutely read Utopia of Rules or Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (RIP). He touches on a lot these issues at Universities, about administrative bloat, about professors spending all their time doing everything but teach and research, the low pay. Its very enlightening, humorous and expanded my political consciousness as well.

This hit the feels hard. The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was moving from the UK after my PhD to a prestigious US (public) university. The reasons are numerous, like the ones you mentioned low pay ($42K a year in 2014, in the SF Bay Area, competing with techbros for apartments), moving costs etc. Plus I ended up in a really bad academic environment and that did not help my career (directly). I am now in Australia, and while I am still "just" a post-doc, I am much happier. I am paid a good salary ($100k AUD), live in the nicest, cleanest, most friendly place I have ever lived and my career is (mostly) going well. After years of pain, it lead to a great discovery with publication, I now (co-)supervise two PhD students (who are great) and I am teaching a class (which I am finding really enjoyable). Is academia and doing post-docs an MLM: yes. And I am the sucker that is deep into it. But in Australia, I find it a lot better than in the US (or UK).

I just want to comment that I went through the exact same thought process and came to the exact same conclusions after applying for postdocs in late 2021 and being rejected for all of them. It was, without a doubt, the best thing that has happened to me on my 10 year academic journey in high energy physics. It made me see academia for what it truly is and I'm really happy that I've found a new career in a national lab doing R&D. It's been a night and day difference between how academia treats me as an employee (and human) to my current lab, including a real 2023 adjusted living wage and work-life balance. It's great to know that we as PhDs and PDs are waking up and realizing our market value.

Thank you for this video. I want to go into research (if I don't change my mind in the next 6 years or so), it was useful to know what the opportunities, or lack thereof in postdoc, are. Industry jobs definitely sound more stable

I got 2000 Euro per month as post doc in Germany. At a MPI, comparable to MIT in the US. This was a stipend from Max Planck Society. Did not have to pay taxes on it, health insurance through my wife. Can't found a family on that. I resigned after 1.5 years.

looks like you hitting a life crisis with what you love doing and reality. Same for me. I love doing research but I had the same thoughts when I started my PhD. How is this supposed to work? I feel being lied to. I feel tricked but at the same time I just want to do research. It really crushed me these to contradicting parts and needs in side of me. Its not worth sacrificing your total life for a job. Thats insane. Still haven't figured out what to do. Things should change...

Thank you for expressing publicly what many graduate students, postdocs, and adjuncts say to each other in private all the time. The public needs to know, and so do those students who are made to feel guilty or lazy for being annoyed or feeling loathing for the institutional exploitation and runaround, the BS that we don't have to pay you as much because you love your work (also a line used to excuse bad teacher pay in schools).

This is why I took a “leave of absence” from my PhD program after three years to go to Navy officer candidate school. Out of ~400 in my class, well over half had masters or doctorates. I ended up finishing my degree on the government’s dime (years later, granted), retired from my naval career after 23 years, and was young enough to start a second career. Plus, I escaped departmental budget wars (well, university departmental budget wars, anyway), being treated as an indentured servant, and a future that you are describing.

It's so funny this was recommended to me, my partner has a postdoc in boulder at the moment (probably where you went). We're a little luckier in that I work from home, so I could actually follow her without quitting my job, and I earn a lot more than her (engineer in industry), but even still money is tight given the cost of living here compared to what we're used to especially given our savings goals. Renting our 3 bedroom house costs 30% more than buying a 5 bedroom house on 5x the land where we're from, and groceries are nearly double the price. I can't imagine living here on 1 income. She also hates the job. I've been trying to convince her to apply like crazy so we can leave ASAP and stop wasting money on rent, buy a house, etc, but the mindset of needing a good postdoc to get a good professorship can be hard to get away from. I don't know anyone could ever make this work without outside financial support (my income), which is insane because she has a PhD. Twice the schooling, half the income. Insanity.

3 years BSc, 2 year research MSc, 5.5 year PhD. 1 year research assistant. 3.8 years postdoc. 14 publications (STEM) started postdoc in 2018. Went "absolutely not" and and quit postdoc to get a job in the pharmaceutical industry. Love my position here, and already have a publication submitted and one in writing after a year. It's fantastic and so is the science. For the first time in years I have loved science and I don't have to worry about ridiculous admin, grants and all the insecurity, and poor pay. I won't look back to those dark days of academia.

The takeaway for me is: how do I become a broker in Boston?

Im not in physics, I am an health science undergrad but I had casual conversation with my tesis director (he is tenured researcher with 100+ articles [that he actually wrote and actually advises his students] in health science field) and when I asked about post doc he told me doing a post-doc is basically just agreeing to being exploited for a few more years after your PhD, and that only reason you would do a post doc is to learn a very specific technique in a really high-level research group (not ivy league school, he meant a specific research group that has been consistently droping bangers on a area of your interest) , or if you already have a guaranteed job with the posibility to do a post-doc and keeping your position, so that you learn a new technique to bring back to your lab. Otherwise he wouldnt recommend it. The conversation ended with him telling me that, basically, wanting to get into academia involves both luck and skill, you cant depend on your skill alone because you need a little luck to find the correct opportunities and you cant depend on your luck because even if you find opportunities if you dont have the skill you wont be able to take them, even if he has seen people who he believes do not deserve their positions getting there by sheer luck, you cant just trust you will be lucky. And there is also the nepotism too, but the talk was more inclined to talk about my personal posibilities. He told me he was one of the lucky few who got a guaranteed permament position even before finishing his PhD, because the correct apportunity presented itself at the correct time, he applied, and because of his skill he was given the job. But he admitted he was exception not the rule, and if someone with contacts had applied too no matter how good he was, he wasnt going to get the job, so his situation after his PhD was a mix of luck and skill.

Great content! Every video that I've watched so far has had relevant and interesting topics, presented in an understandable way, which makes what would otherwise seem boring to me interesting and engaging. ....as shallow as this may or may not be, the fact that you are super pretty, funny, and personable made me an instant fan 😅💚 I'm glad that everything is working out for you. I have faith that with time and more exposure, the academic community will have to implement some of the long over due changes before it's too late...

I know this video is old but I wanna share the situation in Brazil. Fresh off of a PhD, you basically have two options: a postdoc or a temporary teaching position (2 year contract). The postdoc will allow you to publish and inflate your curriculum so you can have a better chance at a tenure position, however a postdoc here is different than most places. It's basically a PhD position with a slightly larger scholarship. Depending on the funding organization you can get a higher salary, but it is in general slightly lower than a temporary teaching position. And oh, the grants for postocs here are one year plus one year (not two plus one), and you have all the (non) perks of a PhD scholarship: no paid vacation, no medical or grocery benefits (somewhat common perks to regular jobs here in Brazil), no transport expenses. It's basically an extension of your PhD for one (or two) years so you can focus on publishing your research. Then there's the temporary teaching position, where you have a decent salary plus regular benefits from a normal job here in Brazil (paid transportation, grocery benefits, a healthcare plan if you're lucky, paid vacations, the ''thirteenth'' salary as we call it lol it's an extra salary a year you receive by the year's end, also pretty common benefit in Brazil). This might seem as the better option. However, you are so overworked with teaching you basically have no time left for research, and as with the postdoc, there's no stability. Every two years you have to take another test to apply for the position again (and there's a law prohibiting you from applying to the same institution twice in a row, which honestly most institutions don't follow or else they'd be understaffed, but some do). And you never know if the position you applied for will be open again in the following years, since the government is always cutting down on university staff (I should've mentioned this before but most serious research universities in Brazil are government funded). Since tenure positions are more expensive than these temporary contracts, there has been fewer and fewer openings for tenure positions. In the university I'm currently teaching (with a temporary two year contract) there hasn't been an opening for tenure since 2014 (edit to clarify: not just in physics, in ALL departments)! Then, we see bizarre scenarios like teachers that have been on these two year contracts for 10+ years and are already doing very important research and administrative work in the university because the government won't give openings for tenure positions. And the sad thing is that the few tenure positions openings there are are often left for those more privileged who've had the financial stability to basically pay to publish by doing post-doc after post-doc and inflate their curricula. Apart from that, the other option one has is to move to very small and often isolated cities which have newly opened universities. One can often find tenure positions in these places, but even applying for the position is an investment (the last one I've seen was in a remote city north of Brazil, around 1000km away from where I live. There were three rounds of tests/interviews, each of them weeks or months apart, and were I to do them I'd have to spend around R$15k just on travel expenses, which is roughly three times my monthly salary...). Apart from that, if you work on any of the basic sciences, you are, let's say, isolated research-wise. There's no incentive to form any sort of department or laboratory in these small city universities, which are more focused on applied sciences and what we call here ''technical courses'', whose undergraduates go on to work on first line jobs in the industry. So you see a lot of PhDs stuck on these two year temporary contract positions waiting someday for the golden pot at the end of the rainbow that is the tenure position, only to see it be taken away by someone else who's had the financial privilege to basically fund their own research by doing years of post-docs around the country. It's funny cause ten years ago the situation was so different. Even in the most prestigious universities there was a lack of workforce to fill tenure positions, and the government during the 2000s offered lots of PhD scholarships, and lots of students could get their PhDs and find a tenure position right afterwards since there was little to no competition. My PhD advisor told me there was literally no one else applying for the tenure position he eventually got back in 2010. At the same time, tenure positions didn't increase at the same rate. In fact, it has been decreasing for the last few years, and there's a load of PhDs who are not going the academic route simply because there's no place for everybody. The scenario has changed so much in recent years and a traditional academic career is looking more and more like an illusion. And Brazil is not a heavily industrialized country (it has actually lost so much of its industry in the last fifty or so years due to the neoliberal takeover) that the market for PhDs outside of academia is extremely scarce. Thanks if you've read it all the way down. TLDR: the future of a PhD in Brazil is looking grimmer by the second. If that's what you want to pursue, know what you're getting into.

I went to grad school in the UK and noticed that the professors (I'm not going to go through the full list of everything they go by here, let's just call them professors) were always stressed. Like all of the time, and now I have connected the dots. These men and women don't make much more than what you describe and they have to make that money go really far. Most of them are in their forties, married, with kids. So they make up the difference by writing and publishing books (called readers in the UK, or monographs if it is just one author). So on top of doing their day jobs, they are writing their books and sending them to publishers, just so they can like, go on vacation and live full lives. Pretty messed up.

You are absolutely correct about the system. Your videos are magnificent! I was just going watch one and I still haven't gone to the grocery store. Time well spent. Keep on keeping on...

I got out of academia after my bachelors in chemistry. The first job I got offered was as an adjunct for the O Chem lab for a whopping $3K for a semester. None of the other jobs they said were things I could go into just weren’t available and if they were they definitely weren’t gonna hire someone from a smaller university like mine when all the competition comes from bigger schools. I was able to pivot more into music/live sound and that’s what I’ve been doing since.

Man, I was so lucky. My mentor helped me get a few of interviews with his professor friends. They dispelled the mystique of post-grad and PhD work real fast. Another one of my mentors called her PhD "just a membership card." If I went after a PhD, I'd have set myself back a decade: 4+ years of schooling for a PhD, 4+ years of post-doc work trying to get a professor position, no chance of a family or home or stability. Instead, within that first 4 years, I've been promoted twice and make six figures. There is no possible way the PhD could ever be worthwhile. The value will never catch up. I can literally just go get a PhD later, after retirement, for fun if I want.

I never got to that point of being a post-doc because I worked as an undergrad student in exciting early cancer detection research and even got that paper published along with the PI, a post-doc, a graduate student, and volunteer undergraduate. While I was getting paid an okay amount, I knew they were not getting paid much more. I was already married and with a child. I loved the research but not the constant uncertainty, so I decided to get a job in something I love and still am envolved in research in some way. I throughly enjoyed your video.

So damn glad I left academia two years ago. Nowadays, one of my greatest joys is laughing at my old inbox full of publication/conference emails and sometimes reporting them as spammers.

I'm a first gen grad, I've been watching a lot of your videos lately, because I was struggling with my doctoral studies and decided to leave with a Master's rather than continuing. I'm still salty about it, and broadly I felt that the research environment was great but was at odds with research production and how I work. I"m neurodivergent, and my family + general background has a big 'don't ask don't tell' attitude towards mental health, so I had to spend a long time figuring stuff out and getting a diagnosis. The long and short of it is that I am good at what I'm studying, but that I just simply need clearer guidance from supervisors in terms of what is expected from me, and that wasn't available at all if not seen as preposterous when asked for. Classmates and friends understood that I had this issue, but since I was doing a job I liked (benchmark for me was being paid to read and write, which felt like a dream even at below minimum wage) I felt I had to take on the mental stress as part of the job simply to stay afloat. What really bugged me is how often my issues were presented as a personal problem of not knowing what I should do, as if I landed where I did whilst having a range of options. I always pursued my discipline because it was a place where I felt like I had a choice to do what I liked, and I'm deeply grateful for it. Nevertheless, that sort of middle class presupposition of you're only doing what you like really annoyed me and I found I picked it up on the radar more than a few times, especially when professors emphasized that I work for the love of labour, even as I was telling them that I was having breakdowns due to workload --something beyond my control due to my condition. Eventually it all came to a head, and after failing an assessment my profs said that I should reconsider doctoral studies. It fucked me up for a while, but I thought that it's not worth staying in this environment anymore and that I'm going to try job hunting with what I have. The road ahead seemed bleak as I realised that no matter how hard I try I'll always be in this position of feeling gaslit about personal problems from people who've either never had to face them or have already pulled the ladder up from behind them. I'd rather work service at minimum wage and apply for jobs, since then the precarity is obvious and doesn't come with this sort of recurring isolation and mental cost. It really contributes to the feeling that people from working class backgrounds are filtered from these places.

As someone who is likely going to be leaving their current program with an MS, thank you for making this video. I’ve been disillusioned to a lot of the crap and it’s not fun. It’s already difficult having to deal with not finding fulfillment in your research but then having to witness all the other BS makes it worse. I’m hoping to either change programs or get out and not look back because I have grown sick of a lot of the crap in my field/academia for years.

Very true and accurate! I moved across the world to do a postdoc, even though I made great friends, it was the wrong lab I realised at the end. I am now in industry. As much as I would like to have my own lab, I will not go back to academia unless things change. I also experienced bullying in academia, which is never addressed and is common. Also what put me off is if I got an assistant professor position, you are kind of stuck with limited opportunity to move or change positions or institutions!

This is a great video that shows "State of the Univ" not just in the US but in many other countries that have modeled their univ's after the US model. Thank you.

This is so spot on. After I got my phd (humanities)i went throgh the hard, painful and frustrating realization that only those with the fanacial ability can continue like that and agree to this lifestyle. I come from no money. Had to fight my way through the phd and work all the time. I received a tiny scholarship for 2 years that now I realize had only made me keep being blind to the absurdity of the whole operation. To get a tenure position, some of my friends had to do at least three postdocs to eventually being hired as adjuncts. Its a bad bad path for anyone who has no money from home.

Thank you for your honesty. It's refreshing to hear someone articulate my thoughts so eloquently. I've been delaying entering the real world for so long. Much appreciated!

33:00 That exploitation describes not only academic life, but corporate life as well. The deal used to be "suffer for years but then you will probably get a good TT job," but that is no longer the case. For many PhDs today, there is no industry job either.

I agree that postdoc is very tough financially on young academics. They should be paid more! However, there are some details left out. First of all, you don't do 3 year postdoc multiple times. You do it once. After 6 months starting your postdoc, you apply for tenured-track positions immediately, if you get an offer leave in year 2. If your first round is unsuccessful, which is very likely, you do a second round in your 2nd year, and you leave in year 3 if you get an offer. If your second round is not successfully, apply for industry jobs and leave by the end of year 3 - this is what most people do. You can apply for tenure-track position for a third round at year 3, if you get an offer, you can decide to to take it and leave your industry job or delay the start of your tenured-track position so you finish at least 1 year at your industry job (this is better). No one should do more than one 3-year postdoc. Those that choose to do it, is their choice and should not complain. One thing to look out is that industry likes to hire a fresh PhD than a postdoc, so your career bifurcates at this point. Both career paths can converge, but its difficult to transition b/w industry and academia. We need to pay postdocs more. They are experienced and are in a very creative stage of their life/career. This person actually got an offer (probably a tenure-track position) and then turn it down...and I suppose she got other industry job offers and turn them down...interesting. Basically, don't put yourself in this situation.

I have a PhD and work on building sites doing relatively menial work. It's more money and less stress. I work 3 days a week, sleep like a baby and never work weekends. I try my best not to spend money on frippery and fortunately grew up in an era where I could by a house. I do think I'm wasting my brain power but unless you love what you do, why would you do it? I'm glad others do but I'm also glad I don't.