/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4271374]

>Graduate with neuroscience degree, plan on going to grad school
>Decide to take a couple years off and work as a lab tech first as a break
>Scientists in the lab tell me a science career is hell these days due to a glut of PhDs and poor funding
>"Well maybe I'll look into an MD/PhD..."
>All of them tell me that's the best idea and they would have done an MD if they could do things over just for the job security and better opportunities
>Well shit...
>Look up stats for MD/PhD programs. I've already got solid grades and research, this shouldn't be too bad. From what I remember from my pre-med friends back at college all I need is a 30-33 on the MCAT to have a solid shot at getting in. I like to think of myself as smart, I can probably do tha-
>Average MCAT for MD/PhD programs is 35
>Thirty. Fucking. Five.
>A lot of programs have accepted applicants with scores of 38-43
>MFW

All I wanted was to do basic research, why can't things be like they were in the 70s when academic science was a viable career and funding was easy to come by ;_;

[Anonymous No.4271385]

>MD
>a hard science

[Anonymous No.4271400]

>>4271385
Funny isn't it that an MD has plentiful jobs, excellent job security (healthcare demand isn't affected by recessions), and kickass pay that will make you rich as fuck whereas a PhD in a "hard science" like physics or chemistry gets you nojobs, good security only if you pull off the amazing feat of getting tenure, and shit pay unless you get tenure.

[Anonymous No.4271472]

did you take the MCAT yet? howd you do?

[Anonymous No.4271488]

>>4271385

lol, evidence based medicine bro. You can get away with proposing ass-pull theories in astrophysics and mathematics, but when lives are on the line, you better have some empirical research .

[Anonymous No.4271522]

>>4271472
No, I haven't taken it yet. I only decided to seriously consider MD/PhD a few days ago, so I haven't even started prepping for it. That's why I'm like "well fuck" looking at these scores. I went to a pretty good school and I still never met anyone who got over a 35. Hell, most people I knew didn't even get above 31, and only one guy I knew got a 35 (and he was a biology/physics double major with a 3.92 GPA who built robots in his spare time when he wasn't busy doing research or being an EMT). I can't imagine what it fucking takes to get a score above that.

[Anonymous No.4271538]

>>4271522

study your ass for 3 months straight, that's how I did it. I avged about 33-37s on the practice tests and got a 36

[Anonymous No.4271554]

>>4271538
How good are the books versus the classes? I've got the examcrackers set pirated on my HDD right now and a friend said he'd send me his MCAT class lecture recordings (though he hasn't yet). I'm just wondering if it's really worth $2000 for a fucking class.

[Anonymous No.4271563]

>>4271554
Look for video lectures and supplement it with the book knowledge

[Anonymous No.4271566]

>>4271554

if you have the money, it's a decent way to have guided learning if you aren't a terribly great self learner.

personally i just set up a schedule and went over shit and took practice tests. also audio osmosis

[Anonymous No.4271614]

if you just want to do basic research, don't get a fucking MD. Just go back and get a PhD a, its definitely not the best of times in the research world, but its not that terrible.

[Anonymous No.4271645]

>>4271614
From everything I've been hearing about job availability, funding availability, and the politics involved in all of those things as well as in publishing papers, I really feel like I need to hedge my bets on something. I don't want to be one of the many PhDs who finds themselves up shit creek when they have to close down their lab due to being unable to get an R01 (or hell, even an R15 which is just as hard to get these days), to say nothing of all the poor bastards who can't even find decent academic jobs. It's not just a matter of "oh, well I'll be a great scientist and people will hire me and fund me because I'll be so awesome". One of my bosses was talking about how a colleague of his who had publications in Cell only managed to avoid having his lab shut down due to lack of funding because he had the balls to petition the NIH and use his reputation as a way to say "you guys really want to shut ME down?"

Spending 5 more stressful years in school getting an MD/PhD is worth it if it means that I'll always be able to "settle" for a career as a physician if need be.

[Anonymous No.4271652]

>>4271645
fyi MD/PhD is more like 7/8 years

[Anonymous No.4271657]

>>4271652
Well shit, even better.

[Anonymous No.4271668]

Is the outlook similar for PhD's of Computer Science?

[Anonymous No.4271672]

>>4271668
Yes, you're screwed unless you also get an MD.

[Anonymous No.4271675]

>>4271668
I'd think you'd only get a PhD in CompSci if
A) You're going to teach
or
B) You already have a stable job and just want a promotion

So it's different

[Anonymous No.4271680]

I'm starting as an undergraduate next year - how long does getting a MS/PhD in something like math or physics take?

[Anonymous No.4271707]

>>4271680
PhDs in the sciences tend to take about 4-7 years, with an average of 5. I know that's how it is in life science. I don't know what it's like in math though.

Be glad it's not a humanity you're going after. PhDs in humanities take upwards of 10 years these days.

[Anonymous No.4271714]

>>4271675
The other reason would be if you were interested in the actual theory of computer science and wanted to do academic work on that. No company is going to pay you to do shit like that, they're only interested in shit they can sell or use to increase productivity.

So if you just want to engineer programs, write programs, work on AI, network admin, etc., a BA/BS is all you need. If you want to become an archmage of arcane wizadry, then you get the PhD.

[Anonymous No.4271719]

>>4271707
Yikes... I'll be in my early 30's by time I finish.

Welp, guess I better get used to the idea, I plan to be in it for the long haul.

[Anonymous No.4271721]

>>4271714
> If you want to become an archmage of arcane wizadry, then you get the PhD.

I wish they offered that as a major.

[Anonymous No.4271740]

>>4271719
math should at least be on the lower end of that, as you're at less at the mercy of experiments that can go wrong. but you're still probably looking at 4 years

[Anonymous No.4271762]

>>4271719
it'll take a while but the benefits of grad school are more than worth it whether you're getting a masters or going for the phd

[Anonymous No.4271767]

Just do a fucking PhD

Do you really want to be in school with Medical Students? Go to student doctor, they are neurotic and insane.

[Anonymous No.4271829]

>>4271714
You will never have a PhD in Wizardry from Hogwarts

[Anonymous No.4271856]

>>4271767
Hm. do you share your first few years of classes with medical students in MD/PhD? I'm not familar with how the track goes.

also, SDN is not indicative of overall med students, just the aforementioned insane neurotic ones

[Anonymous No.4271877]

Speaking of SDN, that is some PRIME trolling grounds.

[Anonymous No.4272260]

>Funny isn't it that an MD has plentiful jobs, excellent job security (healthcare demand isn't affected by recessions), and kickass pay that will make you rich as fuck

Spoken like a med student.

The pay certainly isn't "kickass" anymore, not for the amount of debt and years of training. Throw in the current litigious climate of medicine and the decreasing reimbursements, and medicine isn't so awesome. If you had spent any time in an actual hospital, not jerking off the SDN's pre-med forum, you'd probably know this.

>whereas a PhD in a "hard science" like physics or chemistry gets you nojobs, good security only if you pull off the amazing feat of getting tenure, and shit pay unless you get tenure.

This applies if you want to stay in academia. There are plenty of options for chemistry and physics PhDs outside of academia, which can be very lucrative.

[Anonymous No.4272386]

>majoring in neuroscience with hopes of getting PhD and conducting research
>this thread
What the fuck do I do? Will I get a break if my research is in genetics?

[Anonymous No.4274323]

>>4271767
>Do you really want to be in school with Medical Students?
I went to a college that, due to having one of the top med schools in the country, attracted virtually nothing but premeds to its undergrad colleges. Everyone was a fucking premed. The bio majors were premed, the neuro majors were premed, the chem majors were premed, the physics and math majors were all premed, even the fucking humanities students were mostly premed.

So believe me, I'm well aware of what med school students are probably like considering that most of the people I went to college with got into med school. I can actually stand the neuroticism and constant anxiety they have; what pisses me off is that the vast majority of them not only have little to no interest in science but actually seem to be hostile to it. It's obvious that none of them would be doing biology if it wasn't for the fact that they need to in order to become a doctor like they've wanted since they were 4 years old. Hell, as I said before, I majored in neuroscience and with the exception of like one or two people I knew, all of my classmates in my neuro classes made it clear that the only reason they were majoring in neuroscience was because they thought it would make them look more "interesting" to med school adcoms (which doesn't even make sense since neuroscience is largely a subfield of biology).

>>4272386
Genetics is big, molecular is HUGE, and from what I hear brain scan studies are also big (despite all their criticisms).

Problem is, all this means is that if you do genetics, molecular, or brain scan studies you have a (small) chance of being funded, whereas if you do anything else you're fucked. On the brightside though, if you go into genetics or molecular bio as a field there's a decent amount of industry jobs out there for you. Unfortunately there's not much of an industry for neuroscience yet.

[Anonymous No.4274525]

>>4274323
>I majored in neuroscience and with the exception of like one or two people I knew, all of my classmates in my neuro classes made it clear that the only reason they were majoring in neuroscience was because they thought it would make them look more "interesting" to med school adcoms

Vanderbilt?

[Anonymous No.4274558]

>>4274323
Exactly why I decided to focus on molecular after I started. It's interesting enough to me, I get good enough grades (4.0 sci GPA), and there's actually a fucking future in it. If nothing else I can just engineer some petroliophage bacteria and make shittons from big oil or go into big pharma or something

[Anonymous No.4274846]

>>4272260
>The pay certainly isn't "kickass" anymore, not for the amount of debt and years of training. Throw in the current litigious climate of medicine and the decreasing reimbursements, and medicine isn't so awesome. If you had spent any time in an actual hospital, not jerking off the SDN's pre-med forum, you'd probably know this.

You have to fuck up HUGE to get sued.

Someone of equal or greater standing HAS TO TESTIFY AGAINST YOU

hurrdurrr malpractice is just bullshit fed to you by insurance companies.

[Anonymous No.4274920]

>>4274525
Emory

[Anonymous No.4274968]

Don't forget about the DDS/PhD route. Not as common, need to take the DAT (which has a spatial acuity portion + MCAT stuff), but on the plus side, not as much competition since not many really know about it

[Anonymous No.4275003]

>>4271719
I'm starting my first year of a PhD program this year and I'm turning 30. It's no big deal, there are lots of people that don't finish a PhD until after they are 30.

A math PhD takes ~5 years after you finish your BS/BA. Doing an MS doesn't really shave any time off of that, so if you do an MS you're looking at 7 years post-bachelors; go straight into a PhD program if you have the grades/research experience.

Something that they don't tell a lot of people starting out in the sciences (hard sciences, math, comp sci, etc) is that you DO NOT HAVE TO PAY to be in a PhD program. Generally your tuition is waived and you get a stipend (for being a TA or research assistant.

There are lots of research positions for PhDs in this country, though government funding is shit at the moment. But for profit research companies like IBM are still around, and their research division won't even look at you unless you have a PhD. I can't speak for the bio field, but surely pharma companies hire lots of researchers, right?

[Anonymous No.4276195]

>>4275003
>But for profit research companies like IBM are still around, and their research division won't even look at you unless you have a PhD. I can't speak for the bio field, but surely pharma companies hire lots of researchers, right?

From what bio people have been telling me, a PhD doesn't get you much farther in biotech companies than a PhD. It's like a difference of $3,000 in annual pay. From what I gather PhDs are only useful in private industry if you're trying to become head of an entire research department. Otherwise they almost prefer you to have an MS.