Frank Feldmann

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since April 24, 2001

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April 24, 2001, on Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists:
I am quite pleased to see alternative points of view vis a vis the "scientist shortage". Although my PhD is in chemistry (1985) I think all PhDs should take a serious look at: http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html Although I am not seeking anyone's solicitude or assistance, I have always struggled with my career in chemistry. Right now, I am an adjunct professor of chemistry at a local university and an Internet consultant. I do not ever expect to be very financially successful. It is probably far too late to help me and many others like me. However, I believe the real answer lies in graduate school reform. In a nutshell, graduate students in all technical fields are in a "barter system". That is, you supply a tremendous amount of skilled but cheap labor to the school. In turn, the school waives your tuition, gives you a small stipend to teach and/or perform research, and hopefully eventually grants you a PhD. The problem with all this is that, because schools want...