Dear 'nobody,'
I, for one, will sympathize with your situation. It may not give you much
comfort, but your situation is not that unusual these days. When I got my
BS degree in 1966, you could shoot up into the sky without aiming and
getall kinds of ducks to fall on your head. I applied to two jobs, got two
interviews, in the interviews THEY did 95% of the talking, and at the end
of the interviews they wanted me to show up the next day for work.
It aint like that any more. I am 54 and my career in science ended,
involuntarily for me about two years ago, through circumstances beyond my
control. Today, the average job is looking for a person with an age of
20-30. In your 40s, you might have new difficulties. After 50 it gets much
worse.
However, I'd like to invite you to give us more details of your
job-hunting efforts. We have a variety of people here who will be happy to
try (at least) to offer suggestions and if not, then, moral support.
As far as your conclusion about science being the mistake of your life I
can't disagree. After years of watching the pressure grow on my own career
(at least I can be happy that I had a career in science for 14 years), I
had to get out of it. What I learned over that period I tried to talk
about on my public interest website (see below) and in a couple of
articles I wrote that appeared in the newspaper The Scientist. There will
be, from time to time, lots of people who will do OK, some will do very
well, and after ten to twenty years they will get downsized, reorganized
out, backstabbed, or otherwise lose their careers and then a large
fraction of them have to start from scratch.
I have a resource list, which I will post separately after I send out this
post, with internet resources and book titles. Perhaps some of these will:
i) give you the sense that you are not alone, and ii) give you some help
in finding some kind of work.
Art Sowers
-------------------------------------------------------
Written in the public interest, the essays on
"Contemporary Problems in Science Jobs" are located at:
http://www.access.digex.net/~arthures/homepage.htm
hit stats: http://www.access.digex.net/~arthures/.stats
Snail mail adr to me: P.O.Box 489, Georgetown, DE 19947
Email: arthures at access.digex.net
My "home" newsgroup: sci.research.careers
-------------------------------------------------------
=== no change to below, included for reference and context ====
On Thu, 9 Jul 1998, nobody wrote:
> On 9 Jul 1998, Steven Vere wrote:
> >
> > In <zoro1.768$Zy5.14418379 at wormhole.dimensional.com> sparkles at aol.com> > (cheree) writes:
> > >
> > >My son, who is going to be a senior this year in high school has been
> > >considering majoring in physics in college. After reading this string,
> > now I'm
> > >wondering if majoring in physics is a good idea. He also plans to get
> > his
> > >Ph.D. If you could give advise to a high school senior about what
> > would be a
> > >good field to major in (he is very strong in the maths and sciences),
> > what
> > >would it be? Thanks.
>> I was valedictorian of my high school, with very strong abilities in math
> and science. When starting my undergrad career at a good state
> university, I first picked a major in computer science. In my first
> semester computer sci class, I got the highest score. However, I felt
> unchallenged by the curriculum and switched to chemistry instead. I
> graduated with honors and the award as the top chemistry student. I
> really liked research, so I decided to go to grad school, picking a topic
> in a hot field.
>> Now it's six years later, and here I am. I've sent out resumes to over
> 200 companies in the past two years, with no offers and only 2
> interviews. I've been turned down for 8 postdocs.
>> Picking a career in science was the mistake of my life. Instead of going
> into a red hot job field with a computer B.S. 6 years ago, at the
> beginning of the biggest bull market in history, I'm trying to reinvent
> myself at age 28. I have $273 to my name. In September, I'll be moving
> into my parents' basement in time for my 10th year HS reunion.
>> anon
>>
