HMS Strategic Planning |
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Comments and Discussion
March 21, 2008
HMS graduate student (name withheld by request) The Vanishing Post Doc The attrition rate from graduate student to faculty is extremely high, roughly 98%. Most of this attrition occurs at the post doc level. For several reasons, post doctoral fellows simply evaporate. Another disturbing fact is that there are roughly the same numbers of male and female post docs but a predominantly male faculty. As a graduate student I'm a little nervous about the jump to a post doc. I've tried to identify some problems below but the biggest challenge is... 1) Where have all the post doc's gone? While information about where graduate students end up is kept by departments, there seems to be little to no information on post doc's who do not become faculty. Figuring out where all these post doc's go would be an excellent first step to addressing problems with the post doc and the faculty gender gap. 2) Graduate students are fairly sheltered. I have at least four other faculty members helping me work with my boss (and I've used them). In the post doc, all those protections disappear. Most universities do nothing for their post docs. The boss doesn't like you / That other person's project you're continuing doesn't work anymore / Your coworkers are a bunch of backstabbers. Say good bye to your faculty aspirations. The University needs to be more involved in the post doctoral experience. 2b) Most faculty members are good bosses and managers, but a few are horrible. I've heard of HMS faculty members who gets angry if anyone takes a day off, who are verbally abusive, who are manipulative, or that guy at MIT who has multiple suicides in his lab. These faculty somehow still produce good work and still get grants funded so there is no incentive for the hospitals to get rid of them. This is where the University needs to step in and help push some of these people out the door. 3) Kids. Day care costs for a child under 2 and a post doc's salary are pretty much equal. This forces some to choose between science and children, especially if both parents are scientists. The University needs to help create a subsidized daycare for students and post docs. 4) Let's be perfectly honest. If a post doc wasn't the only way to become a faculty member, then there wouldn't be any post docs. It's a position with a lower pay than industry, a higher chance for mistreatment, and you still have to work on what your boss tells you to (a common argument against industry). 5) Further Reading: Professionalizing the Postdoctoral Experience. Cell, Volume 124, Issue 3, Pages 445-447 C. Aschwanden You can send a comment by clicking here.
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