{"id":547,"date":"2007-10-18T23:24:12","date_gmt":"2007-10-19T05:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=547"},"modified":"2007-10-18T23:24:12","modified_gmt":"2007-10-19T05:24:12","slug":"my-job-prospects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"My Job Prospects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, this<\/a> is depressing:<\/p>\n

It’s easy to wish upon a star \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but if you want to make a living studying them, things get quite a bit tougher.<\/p>\n

Take a look at any astronomy-themed Web site, or tune in to a science television program, and you’re sure to be dazzled by the wonders of the universe. Black holes! Dark matter! Colliding galaxies!<\/p>\n

What you won’t hear is what many graduate and post-doctoral students in astronomy today know all too well \u00e2\u20ac\u201d permanent, tenure-track jobs in the field are rare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Last year was a bad year for jobs. I know a number of top-notch people who got precisely zero offers. Not being a top-notch person myself, I didn’t even get short-listed. Were it not for the funds remaining on my HST grant, I would be out of astronomy right now. And I’m convinced that if I don’t land a big NSF grant, my astronomy career will be over by August.<\/p>\n

This has been going on for a while — it’s the spooky music that underlies the beautiful images you see from Hubble. Astronomy programs have been graduating way more Ph.D.’s than there are permanent jobs.<\/p>\n

I started doing astronomy in 1993 and have enjoyed it immensely. Graduate school was one of the poorest but best times of my life and the people I suffered with are still my best friends. If I leave the profession after 15 years, I won’t regret the time I’ve spent here.<\/p>\n

But I do sometimes wish they’d be a little more realistic with incoming graduate students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, this is depressing: It’s easy to wish upon a star \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but if you want to make a living studying them, things get quite a bit tougher. Take a look at any astronomy-themed Web site, or tune in to a science television program, and you’re sure to be dazzled by the wonders of the … Continue reading My Job Prospects<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BzKF-8P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelsiegel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}