Wee Boon retweetledi
The phenomenon of the 'forever postdoc':
Many people who get stuck after a PhD - either as forever postdocs, temporary staff, or adjunct professors.
In academia, it’s often either tenure or nothing.
For these people the problem is - their time is ticking.
There’s no stability - people delay starting families.
There’s no decent income - they can’t build a financial safety cushion. No savings, no decent retirement contribution.
There’s no clear vision - their future becomes too unpredictable and leads to very real issues with physical & mental health.
And their time keeps ticking.
At some point, some of them start asking questions:
“Was my PhD really that useful?”
“Why a highly educated & experienced person is so poorly employed..?”
📍They face the reality:
- In academia, there are almost no positions for older scientists who’ve done two/three postdocs. Academic positions are made for early-career people - those who’ve just finished their PhD or a short postdoc.
- In industry, your academic accomplishments mean very little, and the fact that you’ve never worked in industry means a lot. They don’t want to hire someone who chose an academic track and has zero experience in the ‘real world’.
And again - their time is ticking.
Every. Single. Year.
⭕️ This is the human cost of the ‘academic pipeline’.
Thus - I strongly, strongly advise everyone considering this ‘forever postdoc’ path to think TEN TIMES before deciding to do it.
And find a way out as soon as possible if you've already started down this path. The more you delay, the more it slips away.
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