Who's working? Industry? Academia? Research?

[synthetic]

I guess the first questions I have are to those who are actively working in the sciences, such as post-docs, government research scientists, industry research scientists, general Industry, and Law.

 

What are your degrees in?

 

What are your interests?

 

What are your job responsibilities?

 

Your location?

 

Your career plans?

 

What is the typical pay scale for what you do? If you'd rather PM private information, I'd accept that. I know on the internet people love to "fluffen their numbers" However, this post is not about comparing two individuals. It is about knowing what to expect in a certain field.

 

The reason behind this post is I've seen numerous graduating Physics PhD students more than happy accepting jobs paying 40-50k a year. Some not even finding jobs, but this may also be their own doing. Point being, I would not be happy on that pay scale coming out of 8 years of school, since I could do the same coming out of 4 years of school.

 

This is part of the reason I chose Materials Science opposed to Physics for grad school, as I was inclined to pursue physics to begin with. My understanding is there exists a significant industry for materials scientists that pays well. That said, I'm deathly afraid of accepting a position of monotony. I went back to school because working a boring monotonous job was enough to quench my desire to live. I'm not equipped to live that type of life. I want something intellectually challenging and would like to see an appropriate pay scale for that.

 

So...I know this is probably a terribly difficult thing to ask after reading the introduction thread, but lets keep the opinions to a minimum, and if you must express an opinion - CLEARLY label said opinion to differentiate it from experience or fact.

 

I'd like to learn something from this thread. I hate to go around asking my professors how much they get paid and how much their students are getting paid, it makes for an awkward situation. However, these are concerns I need to address. The bills will come.

Edited April 28, 2012 by synthetic

[Arete]

What are your degrees in?

BSc (Biology)

MSc (Evolutionary Biology)

MSc (Conservation Management)

PhD (Evolutionary Biology)

 

What are your interests?

I'm a scuba divemaster.

I ride BMX and mountain bikes.

I have a rusty old car in a shed I like to cut my knuckles on and swear at.

 

What are your job responsibilities?

Postdoc on an NIH funded project working on parasite genomics.

I do a fair bit of the analytical and bench based grunt work, most of the writing, some of the field collection. I am in on Saturday preparing conference abstracts and dealing with revisions on a MS from my PhD studies.

I co-supervise 2 grad students and have a lab tech answerable directly to me and the PI

Basically the PI meets with us once a week to maintain overall direction, but the day to day project management, formulation of actual papers and analytical expertise is me.

 

Your location?

Northeast USA.

 

Your career plans?

My wife is also a postdoc, so we have the two body problem. We're actively applying for junior faculty/tenure track jobs this season.

 

What is the typical pay scale for what you do?

Postdocs at my institution get $37-44 K p.a.

 

One thing to remember when looking at grad schools and stipends is that 30K in NYC is very different to 30K in a middle of nowhere college town.

[synthetic]

Arete, thank you for your response. I'm actually not speaking of stipends. I don't expect much from a stipend. I currently get 24k for that. Fortunately, the cost of living is very cheap as well. I just don't want to graduate and make less than double what I made as a student. I'm mostly looking for responses outside of post-doc appointments, but these are welcomed as well. It is good to see how many people went post-doc first. I understand it is the traditional route to academia. Do you have any idea of the public university salary for a professor in your field?

 

I am currently helping a PhD student with his job hunting and noticed most places do not specify even a range of pay, so it's hard to tell. I did find NRL offered I think 70k+ for a post doc position. A Japanese national lab was offering the same to it's post docs.