Shit maybe I’m attending class full time and don’t have a job
And have you literally ever met an academic scientist that wasn’t strapped for cash lmao my astrophysics professor wasn’t even able to afford his own house until he was 41
And SHIT maybe people have student debt?? Or medical issues??
It’s a wild concept, I know. Take your time.
Anon, scientists that don’t sell their souls to a corporation or work in a field capitalism can’t make money out of live from grant to grant.
Grants fund a project for a fixed sum of money for a fixed length of time, and in health and biology at least (my field), there’s about a 14-18% chance of getting one in Australia from the major funding bodies.
These blessed souls then use the grant to buy all tools and expendables for the project, after handing aside some to their institution to pay their rent, electricity, etc. They also pay their own salary from it (fixed amount allocated, they don’t choose it). If there’s anything left over they can then hire staff. If they can’t afford it, shit son, you either have to do it alone, or more likely take on students, as they’re cheap.
So the remaining 82+% scientist fight for jobs created by a small minority and either wind up having to take lower paid jobs than our pay grade, or fight over a small pool of teaching jobs, or work at a cafe or something with a PhD and crushing despair at years of life wasted, or are unemployed.
I was very lucky this year. I got a year’s work this year. I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing next year. My contract wasn’t renewed and I’ve been very sick. Unlike Americans, I don’t have to worry about medical bills, but am only recovering now after the post-grant results job hiring is almost over. Could you imagine how bad it would have been if I also had debt?
There’s people who will be on year to year contracts until their 40s, or permanently. Only 1 in 10 academics at universities ever get tenure. If you’re good at getting funding money it’s more like 3-5 years of employment at a time, and if you’re actually vital to your institution, or beloved by all, everyone in your lab will rifle through their pockets and funding to cobble together a salary for you to work for their various projects (20% of your salary and workload is from project A, 30%, project B, and that’s all we can afford so we hate to tell you this but you’re now part time) on a bad year. Assuming they have the money and you aren’t too expensive. People can get laid off for after working at a place for a decade through no fault of their own, and everyone is heartbroken because that person did nothing wrong, nor did anyone else.
So yeah. Starving and broke scientists are a fucking thing. We are some of the most highly educated people in society but have some of the worst job security. Leave Kaijuno the fuck alone. Science is a fucking hard career.
This pretty much sums it up. Only science “rock stars” make bank. The rest of us live our entire lives like college students. We don’t do what we do for the money, because there isn’t any. We do it because we want to help the world. We do it because we want to help build a future we won’t get to see. We do it for the sake of learning. 9 times out of 10, to quote Hamilton, it’s planting seeds in a garden we’ll never get to see.
How could you, an astrophysicist, be struggling to pay a few bills? Makes no sense how such a high paying job that I know for a fact comes with health insurance and whatnot could leave someone in debt still?
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