Comment Physics and Man in the USA (Score 1) 667
By George Uzizo
You've spent five or six years in graduate school. You are finally a doctor, or at least a Ph.D. If you've done really well, you have been offered a position in a big shot professor's group. Your parents worked hard their whole life to give you the opportunities that got you to this point in time. Even though you didn't know what you were doing, you worked hard yourself, and you made it, by yourself. It feels good. It feels good to be wanted. You ask and your new boss (it feels good to say that!) tells you your new salary: $35,000 a year. It's like a kick in the nuts. It's somewhere else of course, in an expensive city (moving will be your life now), and you don't have any friends there. You will need a roommate just to rent an apartment. In four or six years, moving two or three times, you might have a shot at a crappy professorship, in a crappy town you don't want to live in, making a crappy 60k a year. Of people your age you are in the top 10 to 20 physicists in the world. You have a shot at changing that world for the better.
Possibility 2. You haven't been that successful in graduate school. (Or, you are a good, average scientist and you haven't been that lucky.) You're smart. You are a doctor after all. (No, not a real doctor, a PhD.) You have always been an overachiever and a winner. You adapt. You get excited about a "real" job and making a difference. After all, that's why you went into science. You search. Does science still happen in this country? You adapt. You search. No one really knows what to do with you. You search. You get a job! Your PhD helped, but not much. Most websites tell you it's worth about six months seniority. You end up doing logistics programming. Microsoft becomes your friend: scripts, macros, the works. You forget quantum physics. You're thankful; you can focus on your life; you made it out in time. You are making 80k a year. Even though your boss is two years younger than you, you look forward to being able to buy a new car with your newfound wealth.
Another path. There were others who majored in physics in college with you. You forgot about them. Maybe they were smarter, maybe not. What's smart? They were probably girls. They looked ahead and said fuck it. They went to law school. They had a lot of fun. It's easier when you're not working in a room with no windows. They're married now. They started at 150k two years ago doing patent law. They have their own office. (Respect.) They use their brains everyday. They have a career and a life. They didn't need to move around every two years so they have a great community of friends.
Time passes. It works out ok! As a professional, you grew tremendously in graduate school, even if you regressed socially. Yes, ten years of your life were miserable. Your ability to think and be creative saved you though. You have great, smart kids. Yes, you're not as well off as your neighbors. But you survived your dream. You really didn't know any better but to follow it anyway.
You tell your son to go to medical school.
