I’m going to go way back to my youth for my offering, as this movie is partly to thank/blame for my interest in science.

It’s Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor, from 1961. Here’s a promo:

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Now, I didn’t see this when it was first released—at least, not that I remember. Back then, my concerns were limited to crying for food, producing its various end products, then crying some more. My first memory of seeing the film was on TV, on The Wonderful World of Disney or one of its incarnations, on a Sunday evening in the late Sixties. Let’s say I was seven or eight.

Apparently, flubber is based on polyvinyl acetate. Check the board for any Texas carbons!

The films stars Fred MacMurray as our protagonist, Ned Brainard, a professor at fictional Medfield College, a campus which was the setting of several other films from Disney Studios.

In addition to his teaching duties, Prof. Brainard is enthusiastically engaged in a little garage chemistry. He becomes far too engrossed in his work one evening  and forgets (absent-minded, remember?) his other engagement and his scheduled wedding. There’s a mildly destructive but non-injurious explosion, which serendipitously creates the real star of the film, a bouncy, levitating polymer soon to be known as flubber.

This material has 1001 uses! Well, it probably does, but we only get to see a few. Like make super bouncy balls! Iron it onto sneakers so you can fix a basketball game! Make a car fly! Have a rival arrested on suspicion of a DUI! Secure a potentially lucrative Defense contract!

NEVER sniff your reactions. And, dude, where’s your PPE?

Flubber is even used to thwart the villain, Alonzo Hawk (Who shows up as the baddie in several Disney films, and is portrayed by Keenan Wynn. Alonzo Hawk holds the distinction of being Wynn’s second-most-awesomely-named character, after—naturally—Colonel “Bat” Guano.)

I haven’t seen, and don’t intend to ever see, the colorized version of  The Absent-Minded Professor or the retitled remake with Robin Williams, because I am a pain in the a purist.

Interestingly, the main inspiration for MacMurray’s portrayal of Ned Brainard was Hubert Alyea, professor emeritus at Princeton. Dr. Alyea, who died in 1996, was renowned for his demonstrations of chemistry principles. The sometimes explosive nature of these demonstrations earned Professor Alyea the nickname, “Dr. Boom.”

As an added video bonus, here’s a version of Professor Alyea’s popular lecture on the nature of scientific discovery, entitled ”Lucky Accidents, Great Discoveries and the Prepared Mind,” given in 1985:

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Finally, and sadly, I have yet to make flubber. I still hold out hope, however, that the next reaction I run that gets stupid on me will produce, instead of the usual uncharacterizable, polymeric pile of craptar, something with more flubbery qualities. Thus far, the only flight such material has achieved is while joining the contents of the nearest chemical waste container.

Back to the drawing board.

CBP chemists and scientists “have been critical in classification and valuation of imported goods, enforcing trade laws, performing forensic science, and providing expertise in technical security programs.”

The webinar features Chris Mocella, a tenured chemist with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Laboratories, and Patricia Simpson, Director of Academic Advising and Career Services for students in Chemistry and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Among the topics included in the discussion will be “the history and role of chemists at CBP, including both traditional “wet chemistry” work at lab hoods to front-line field work in support of CBP’s mission.”

Sorry for the short notice. If you can’t catch it in real time, remember that past ACS Webinars are archived and can be watched at your leisure. (Without the interactive capacity, of course. But you can always talk back to the replay. Like I do.)

Coincidentally, an attempt to unearth possible causes of this disparity was a study published earlier this month in Psychological Science, entitled “Not Lack of Ability but More Choice: Individual and Gender Differences in Choice of Careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics,” by Ming-Te Wang, Jacquelynne S. Eccles, and Sarah Kenny, from the University of Pittsburgh and University of Michigan.

Although I’m likely to give this study short shrift by not going into enough detail, let’s focus on the source material. Here’s the full abstract of the original paper:

The pattern of gender differences in math and verbal ability may result in females having a wider choice of careers, in both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM fields, compared with males. The current study tested whether individuals with high math and high verbal ability in 12th grade were more or less likely to choose STEM occupations than those with high math and moderate verbal ability. The 1,490 subjects participated in two waves of a national longitudinal study; one wave was when the subjects were in 12th grade, and the other was when they were 33 years old. Results revealed that mathematically capable individuals who also had high verbal skills were less likely to pursue STEM careers than were individuals who had high math skills but moderate verbal skills. One notable finding was that the group with high math and high verbal ability included more females than males.

Many previous studies by other researchers were cited as motivators behind some of the key questions this study poses. The study contains a number of controls that, to me at least, seem sensible and appropriate:

We controlled for several important confounds that are highly related to individual career choices in math-intensive fields: family socioeconomic status, math courses taken, and motivational beliefs and values.

Ability was measured by using the associated sections of the SAT taken by the study participants when they were high school seniors. The participants were then binned into three groups—high, moderate, and low for math and verbal ability, considered separately.

I have a lot of skepticism regarding whether a person’s abilities are accurately gauged by standardized testing, even though (or maybe because) I personally benefitted from my performance on such testing back in the day. But the test results are probably the most easily attainable and least subjective data out there (though still full of subjective flaws in how tests are written).

This longitudinal study then queried the same people roughly fifteen years later, to see in what type of career these people now found themselves. All had achieved a minimum of four-year college degrees.

Specifically, the likelihood of choosing STEM occupations was similar for females and males in the high-math/high-verbal ability group. However, participants with better math-ability self-concepts were more likely to select STEM occupations, and math-ability self-concepts had a stronger impact on participants in the high-math/moderate-verbal ability group than on those in the high-math/high-verbal ability group.

Of course, correlation is not causation. Speculation on the causes can provide some diverse interpretation of the results. Here are some excerpts of the authors’ conclusions from the discussion section of the article:

Students with high math and high verbal abilities presumably have a greater range of both STEM and non-STEM career opportunities to choose from, compared with their peers who have high math ability but moderate verbal ability. Notably, the high-math/high-verbal ability group included more females than males. This is an important finding that contributes to current understanding of females’ underrepresentation in STEM fields.

Our study provides evidence that it is not lack of ability that causes females to pursue non-STEM careers, but rather the greater likelihood that females with high math ability also have high verbal ability and thus can consider a wider range of occupations than their male peers with high math ability, who are more likely to have moderate verbal ability.

At the end of the study article, the authors conclude with: “it is likely that individuals with high math and high verbal ability (who in this study were predominantly female) believe in their potential to succeed in both STEM and non-STEM occupations. These individuals may also feel they are in a position to consider how a STEM or a non-STEM occupation will fulfill their life goals and values.”

There’s a flipside to this particular interpretation that troubles me a little. I find it hard to believe that women in STEM careers are somehow deficient in their ability to communicate when compared to those in non-STEM careers. By saying this, I am in no way trying to ingratiate myself with my wife, daughter, or female colleagues. Not. At. All.

Also, I think this study highlights commonality among a subgroup of women who choose non-STEM careers, rather than a cause for that choice. The study contains no information regarding each participant’s career path toward their current position at age 33. My turn to speculate and pose a couple of questions. First, did any of the non-STEM career participants in the high verbal, high math group initially pursue a STEM career and then opt out? If so, what is the gender distribution within this subgroup? Such an examination may have shown nothing, but I would like to have seen it.

An article last week by Maia Szalavitz in Time, discusses this study and is entitled “How Cultural Stereotypes Lure Women Away From Careers in Science.” While I might quibble a bit with some conclusions extrapolated from and superimposed on the study results, Szalavitz concludes with an observation that strikes me as spot-on: “addressing the gender gap in STEM careers isn’t so much about boosting women’s aptitude in math and science — their results show that’s not the issue — but in making careers in these areas more welcoming, accessible and financially attractive.”

The study authors also blogged about their findings at The Huffington Post. They conclude there with:

Finally, we suggest that it is time to reframe the STEM gender debate. Instead of focusing on what girls don’t have when it comes to mathematics, we need to focus on what they do have, and how to tap into it. It is up to educators, policymakers, and employers to make the STEM pathway, at all stages, more welcoming to women and girls. Until this happens, we cannot be surprised that millions of math-capable females continue to opt for non-STEM careers, in which they are equally able to excel.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s part of the fallacy of much of the cheerleading for increasing STEM education in general which, at times, fails to address the quantity and quality of careers that await new graduates. I feel it’s not enough to foster an interest in STEM. Those careers need to be perceived as attractive for the long haul. No small feat, that.

The bulk of my career was in an industrial R&D setting. This seemed, to me, to be the norm. My tradition. Imagine my surprise when I began to encounter the fairly widespread viewpoint, that, in science, anything outside of academia was considered nontraditional.

But this may be changing, and, perhaps, not for the better. A term describing a shift in tradition regarding science careers may be have recently coined.

An Inside Higher Education article last month, by Scott Jaschik, describes the impact of the worsening job market for people with new doctoral degrees in the sciences, based on research presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which was held in February. The data “suggested that the job market for those in many scientific fields is also taking a beating.”

Jaschik continues,

And this is so much the case that tenure-track jobs should now be considered “alt-ac” positions (or alternative academic careers) because they are not the norm anymore for new Ph.D.s, in the words of Paula Stephan, a professor of economics at Georgia State University who specializes in the intersection of economics and science.

To me, “alt-ac” sounds like a keyboard shortcut, or an engine warning light. Maybe the latter is an appropriate analogy, as it may signal a symptom of a more systemic problem.

Jaschik describes how Stephan presented data for three scientific disciplines: biology, physics and computer science. The data suggests a shift among those earning relatively recent doctoral degrees—a shift away from full-time faculty positions and toward careers comprised of serial postdoctoral gigs.

Taken together, these statistics are going to discourage people from pursuing graduate education and careers in academic science, Stephan said.

She said that research universities need to rethink the way postdocs are used — and to improve their pay and working conditions — to create the kinds of career paths that will attract the best people to research careers.

Stephan is clearly not happy with how academia appears to be taking advantage of the surplus of science PhDs, creating an atmosphere bordering on abuse (emphasis mine):

But increasingly a postdoc doesn’t lead (certainly not quickly) to an independent, tenure-track position, Stephan said. And postdocs are being used, not trained, she said. “Postdocs have become cheap staff scientists,” she said.

A sustained succession of postdoctoral positions, with their associated low pay in the formative years of a scientist’s career, harkens to what Chemjobber and others have referred to as opportunity costs. Paula Stephan proposes a substantial increase in the salaries of post docs, which she recognizes would result in fewer available postdoctoral positions.

Stephan sees this as a good thing, because “universities would then use postdocs when there is an agenda that benefits both the postdoc and the senior scientist running the lab, and other positions would be created to support the lab. Meanwhile, postdoc positions wouldn’t hold out false hope for tenure-track positions that may not exist.”

Clearly, the current situation is not sustainable, and something needs to change. I, for one, hope this recent trend does not possess enough longevity to become tomorrow’s tradition.

The bad news, you say?

Okay, here it is. The bad news—wait for it—is that there is no good news. Cue the trombone.

The surplus of scientists at the bachelor’s and doctoral levels has been a hot discussion topic recently, as well as in the past.

Last week, there was an appearance of even more articles focused on how badly the Great Recession has hurt new college graduates, at all levels. The scope of this phenomenon appears to extend beyond science, and beyond North America or the EU. What follows is a quick overview of three articles on various aspects of this topic.

A devalued bachelor’s degree

First, there’s the provocatively titled “It Takes a B.A. to Find a Job as a File Clerk,” a New York Times article by Catherine Rampell. The opening statement provides a startling and depressing premise:

The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma: the new minimum requirement, albeit an expensive one, for getting even the lowest-level job.

An Atlanta law office is presented as a microcosm of what’s being seen more broadly. At this firm, the minimum prerequisite for employment, regardless of position, is a bachelor’s degree. This includes office administrators, file clerks and even their in-office courier.

Evidence is provided that this situation is not unique to this one law firm:

Economists have referred to this phenomenon as “degree inflation,” and it has been steadily infiltrating America’s job market. Across industries and geographic areas, many other jobs that didn’t used to require a diploma — positions like dental hygienists, cargo agents, clerks and claims adjusters — are increasingly requiring one, according to Burning Glass, a company that analyzes job ads from more than 20,000 online sources, including major job boards and small- to midsize-employer sites.

The shortage of scientists is nonexistent

Returning to the sciences—in spite of the data supporting the premise of a glut of newly graduated scientists, there has been chatter bemoaning the opposite.

The Atlantic associate editor Jordan Weissman had apparently heard enough talk of a shortage of scientists, and presents data that flies in the face of that notion in “The Ph.D Bust: America’s Awful Market for Young Scientists—in 7 Charts.”

Politicians and businessmen are fond of talking about America’s scientist shortage — the dearth of engineering and lab talent that will inevitably leave us sputtering in the global economy. But perhaps it’s time they start talking about our scientist surplus instead.

Weissman makes his case by providing graphs based on data from the National Science Foundation, broken down by broad disciplinary categories. I’ve included the graph for the physical sciences, of which he comments “In disciplines like physics and chemistry, the percentage of employed have also fallen just below the unemployed.” After presenting the entirety of his data carnage, he concludes:

Most of these Ph.D.’s will eventually find work — and probably decently compensated work at that. After all, the unemployment rate for those with even a college degree is under 4 percent, and in 2008, science and engineering doctorate holders up to three years out of school had just 1.5 percent unemployment. But next time you hear a politician talking about our lack of science talent, remember all those young aerospace engineers, chemists, physicists who will still be casting around for a gig after they’re handed a diploma. There’s no great shortage to speak of.

The global recession is, well, global

Finally, to illustrate the global impact of the economy on the employment outlook for those just entering the workforce, there’s The New York Times article “In China, Families Bet It All on College for Their Children,” by Keith Bradsher.

The article focuses on a low-income rural Chinese family which has been tracked for the past seven years by The New York Times. The only child, a daughter, is now enrolled in a three-year polytechnical college. The family’s extreme financial sacrifices to afford her education serve to exemplify the struggles faced throughout China by a majority of families trying to secure a college education for their children.

Many families in the West sacrifice to put their children through school, saving for college educations that they hope will lead to a better life. Few efforts can compare with the heavy financial burden that millions of lower-income Chinese parents now endure as they push their children to obtain as much education as possible.

Even after attaining that educational goal, however, the new graduates find that securing employment is a daunting task.

Yet a college degree no longer ensures a well-paying job, because the number of graduates in China has quadrupled in the last decade.

The lengths to which this family has gone to pay for a college education for their child is not unique in China, and is a driving force toward increased levels of higher education.

Her parents’ sacrifices to educate their daughter explain how the country has managed to leap far ahead of the United States in producing college graduates over the last decade, with eight million Chinese now getting degrees annually from universities and community colleges.

And how has this become a bad thing?

But high education costs coincide with slower growth of the Chinese economy and surging unemployment among recent college graduates.

Unlike the US, where those without a college degree have a harder time finding employment, “young college graduates in China are four times as likely to be unemployed as young people who attended only elementary school, because factory jobs are more plentiful than office jobs.” If this trend continues, it could act as a disincentive to a attending college.

Okay, I’m done

Believe me, I’m also tiring of all the bad economic and employment news. I truly hope that things turn around, and soon. I’ll try to keep my eyes open for something more optimistic.

Now where did I leave my rose-colored glasses?

But what if find you have a different kind of chemistry with a coworker? This is not uncommon, in any workplace. You work closely alongside people with whom you have common interests—a nice starting point for a relationship. But if you find romance in a laboratory setting, how should the two of you behave on the job?

Aw, you got me some Erlenmeyer flasks. You must love me!
Courtesy Flickr user James Fraleigh

Such lab relationships are the topic of “Love in the Lab,” a recent article at Science Careers. The focus is primarily on academic laboratories, but many of the concerns could readily apply in other science workplace settings.

Apart from mutual understanding and moral support, a scientist couple can collaborate and help each other scientifically. But living a romance in the laboratory, as in any other workplace, is complicated.

To say the least. Workplace couples often find themselves often under intense scrutiny from their colleagues if they divulge their relationship:

Some laboratory couples may be inclined to keep their romance a secret, especially at first. But whether your relationship is public knowledge in the lab or kept private, it’s important to remain discreet and professional.

Regardless of the quality of the science performed by each individual, the couple can find their career progression viewed by others through a lens of suspicion:

One issue that can be especially damaging to young scientists is the perception by peers that career success is a result of a relationship and not scientific achievements.

The article continues with good advice regarding quite serious concerns of conflict of interest, abuse of trust, sexual harassment, and avoiding fallout after breakups.

In my career, I’ve know a few couples who have worked together in the lab, and all seemed to employ strategies to separate their relationship from their work. One colleague in such a relationship told me that “we never talk about chemistry at home.”

After my initial surprise this made sense, because there have been times, at home, when I’ve tried to describe some chemistry I’d been working on in detail. My wife—not a chemist—would listen attentively until her eyes glazed over a bit. This was, of course, my cue to change the subject. Now I try to keep things on a high level, like “I was able to get some tough chemistry to work today.” Or, more often, sadly, I’m venting about things that didn’t work. But that’s science for you.

Did I mention I love chemistry?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Earlier this week, Chemjobber blogged about the regrettable employment situation for chemists. The centerpiece of the post was a graphic, which originally appeared in a Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on 2012 employment numbers. The figure represented the unemployment numbers, broken down by highest level of education completed and the associated wages for those employed in each group.

Chemjobber amended the graphic with both the ACS member unemployment numbers (also by degree), plus the BLS numbers in the category “chemists and material scientists.” The result is powerful. Chemjobber summed it up:

As you can note, chemists come out worse in every single apples-to-apples comparison on all equivalent degree holders.

Not. Good.

A further irony is found in the title of the original graphic, which Chemjobber retained: “Education Pays.” Well, yes, if you’re employed, your salary will generally increase with level of education (except for the slight dropoff from “Professional degree” to “Doctoral degree”).

However, if you have the misfortune of being among the unemployed—the numbers are even worse for recent graduates—your return on investment is currently zero. This adds insult to injury, particularly if you attended an expensive private institution and have a seemingly insurmountable student loan debt to pay off. “Education Pays” then sounds derisive.

The soaring cost of higher education was the subject of a recent New York Times op-ed piece, entitled “My Valuable, Cheap College Degree,” by Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute and former professor at Syracuse University.

The title refers to an effort to provide more affordable higher education opportunities:

One idea gaining currency is the $10,000 college degree — the so-called 10K-B.A. — which apparently was inspired by a challenge to educators from Bill Gates, and has recently led to efforts to make it a reality by governors in Texas, Florida and Wisconsin, as well as by a state assemblyman in California.

To achieve these cost cuts, there is a reliance on distance learning, such as massive online open courses (MOOC) and other formats. Understandably, this goal has been greeted with a fair amount of skepticism:

Some critics see it as an invitation to charlatans and diploma mills. Even supporters often suggest that this is just an idea to give poor people marginally better life opportunities.

Brooks then strongly disagrees with the notion that this effort will only amount to “awarding degrees that are worthless to people.” As he then points out:

I possess a 10K-B.A., which I got way back in 1994. And it was the most important intellectual and career move I ever made.

He describes how he was able to take correspondence courses and other means to obtain an bachelor’s degree. But that wasn’t the end:

I followed the 10K-B.A. with a 5K-M.A. at a local university while working full time, and then endured the standard penury of being a full-time doctoral fellow in a residential Ph.D. program. The final tally for a guy in his 30s supporting a family: three degrees, zero debt.

Okay, I recognize that the American Enterprise Institute is a conservative think tank, the primary coverage was by the National Review, and all three governors mentioned as supporters are Republicans who do not shy away from controversy. So my (mostly) non-conservatism is on high alert when considering this proposal. However, I must admit I do share Brooks’ disdain for intellectual snobbery, which I agree is not a prerequisite nor a substitute for intellectual rigor.

I can imagine several fields where this could work: accounting, political science, history, etc. But chemistry? This article (from Fox News—see previous paragraph) describes a scenario where, yes, you can:

Under one model being implemented in Texas, only high school students who graduate with at least a 2.5 grade-point average and complete at least 30 hours of college credit are eligible. They then a spend a year at Southwest Texas Junior College before completing their degrees at Sul Ross State University Rio Grande College, where they must maintain a 3.0 grade-point average and take 15 hours of classes per semester. If those criteria are met, students can graduate with a bachelor’s degree in biology, chemistry or mathematics.

I want to suspend my disbelief, but I feel the value of a 10K bachelor’s degree in chemistry may be limited for subdisciplines which place a premium on undergraduate research at the bench. The cost of maintaining the lab space and infrastructure necessary to support undergraduate research would likely exclude them from a 10K curriculum. However, low-cost degrees in these areas may be enough to be a springboard to graduate school. Those are my initial impressions—but perhaps I, too, am guilty of snobbery.

Maybe there are some chemistry fields of study where the 10K degree could lead directly to employment. I’d like to think so, but the current job market makes that a tough sell. With the supply of chemists with newly-earned bachelor’s degrees already exceeding the demand, a comparison to others with more traditionally-obtained degrees would likely have the 10K degree holders at a disadvantage.

Except when it comes to student debt.

The coverage consisted of several simultaneously published stories regarding various aspects of the employment outlook. The main focus shared by many of these stories was on chemists already in the workforce, and the effects that recent or impending layoffs have had on their lives. I offered a few thoughts on the topic as it stirred up fresh memories of having gone through similar experiences myself.

The bleak employment outlook for recent graduates with bachelor’s degrees in chemistry was also described, but in less detail than given for experienced workers. Those details, plus profiles of some recent graduates, were provided earlier this week, in “New Bachelor-Level Chemists Face Grim Job Market,” an excellent article by C&EN Senior Editor Susan J. Ainsworth. Some thoughtful comments on this story have been provided by Chemjobber this week.

The first paragraph of the C&EN article sets the tone for what is to follow:

The inhospitable employment climate has not spared anyone in the chemical sciences, but many who have recently earned a bachelor’s degree may be in for a particularly tough fight.

Some survey data was provided to accompany the previous qualitative assessment:

In the most recent American Chemical Society survey of new graduates in chemistry and related fields, in 2011, 14% of recent bachelor’s degree recipients reported that they didn’t have a job but were seeking one, up from 12% in 2010 (C&EN, June 4, 2012, page 36). In contrast, 9% of new Ph.D. grads said they were seeking employment in 2011, up from 6% in 2010.

With such limited employment prospects for new graduates, it stands to reason that the bar would be set high to be considered for those opportunities that do exist.

However, even as an incremental number of jobs open for new B.S. grads, competition for those opportunities remains fierce. To stand out in a sea of applicants, candidates need to cultivate skills and experience to make their résumés sparkle.

Often, it’s not enough to have been an exemplary student or perform undergraduate research:

Recruiters also covet students who have exhibited “thought leadership,” which involves more than just serving as president of an on-campus organization, Simpson says. Instead, such students “have taken ownership of a project or come up with a new solution to a problem,” she explains.

Several success stories are highlighted—chemists who have gone the extra mile to become attractive candidates for employment and have been rewarded with positions from which to embark upon their careers. The article then returns to those who haven’t been as fortunate, and who are now struggling to land their first job after receiving their bachelor’s degree.

Even while many freshly minted bachelor-level chemical professionals are finding stimulating jobs, many of their peers—grads of big universities as well as small colleges—are still trying to launch their careers.

The lack of employment opportunities for new chemistry graduates has been discussed broadly in recent months, but the focus has been primarily on those completing their PhDs.

With the likelihood of employment within their discipline fading, many BS/BA chemists have opted to continue their education—often outside of science altogether, let alone chemistry. Some popular choices: law school and MBA programs.

So. They’re seeking a career change. Before their careers have even begun.

I’m sad that this decision has been forced upon them, but I certainly wish them all well.

First, if you haven’t done so already, you should check out The Watch Glass, a Tumblr which contains excerpts from the C&EN Archives. This endeavor is curated by recent JAEP guest poster, Deirdre Lockwood. Although The Watch Glass is only a couple of weeks old, there have already been some very interesting nostalgic snapshots of chemists and chemistry from the past.

This inspired me to have my own peek at the archives and see what interesting things I might find. It didn’t take long. I’d like to highlight one discovery in particular, a small article entitled “Ph.D. outlook: too many for too few jobs.” Hmmm, doesn’t that sound familiar?

Yes, but here’s the kicker. The publication date of this article: August 13, 1979.

“What? 1979? Surely there must be some mistake! That’s a current topic!” I hear you scream. That, or it’s just the voices. You know, the shrill ones in my head.

Okay, the C&EN archives are by subscription only. That is a bit problematic, because not all readers of this blog have access, whether they’re ACS members or not. I had to wait for the library to email a pdf from scanned microfiche (ask your parents or advisor). Fortunately, the article is short, and the abstract, which is viewable to all, contains roughly half the content, from which you can get the gist. It begins:

The fourth in a series of employment reports from the National Science Foundation has been issued. The report concludes that the number of science and engineering Ph.D.’s in the labor force will increase nearly 50% by 1987.

Well, that’s quite a large increase. That’s good, though, right? The result of a productive American education system. U-S-A! U-S-A!!

The only hitch is that the number of traditional employment positions available to these Ph.D.’s will increase only 35% over the same period.

Wait, that number’s smaller. Thank you, Señor Buzzkill. (Wait, was the  word buzzkill even used back then? Never mind.)

Thus, the trend of scientists and engineers with Ph.D.’s to work outside their fields appears to be increasing. In 1977, for example, only 25,000 or about 9% of the doctoral labor force held nontraditional jobs. By 1987, about 17% or 70,000 of the Ph.D.’s will be otherwise employed.

There’s that word—nontraditional. Although, back in 1979, a nontraditional science career seemed to mean anything outside of academia.  The article goes on to forecast more nontraditionalism to come:

Moreover, NSF’s projections for science and engineering doctoral degree holders who receive their degrees between now and 1987 indicate that even a larger number of these will find jobs in areas unrelated to their training. By 1987 it could be as high as 25%, NSF believes.

And that’s where the abstract ends. Here’s a table from the article (it’s okay to share that, right?), which gives some additional numbers.

This all struck me as very similar to what we’re seeing now. The much-debated glut of PhDs was recently verified by the ACS Presidential Commission report “Advancing Graduate Education in the Chemical Sciences.”  So is what we’re seeing now really so new? The precise circumstances contributing to this are different, certainly, but the effect is the same, and has been recently likened to a pyramid scheme.

Also, the summer of 1979, when this article was published, was in between my freshman and sophomore years as an undergrad.  If I had read this story back then, would this information have dissuaded me from pursuing a chemistry career? I doubt it very much. It may have not even have concerned me. My ignorance did pay out in bliss later, with the industrial hiring boom that existed by the time I finished grad school. Unfortunately, that scenario is not seen to be a likely outcome by the end of this decade. I don’t recommend burying one’s head in the sand as I seem to have done back then, regardless of the favorable outcome I enjoyed.

But even if the economic circumstances and outlook which existed back then were exact copies of those existing today, I imagine I would have kept going along a similar path.

Would that have been so wrong?

For example, many chemists have left the bench after becoming disenchanted with laboratory work, and then seek something else, often because of a perceived lack of opportunities for career progression in a lab-based position.

And then there are those who are forced to seek a career change because their position, which may have been considered traditional, no longer exists, nor does any real prospect of future opportunities in their field.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve come across blog posts about people in other disciplines seeking alternatives to their “traditional” career options. This should come as no surprise—the circumstances described above for seeking a career change are by no means experienced by chemists alone.

A couple of random examples include a profile within the field of sports psychology and speculation on career possibilities for boxer Manny Pacquiao (okay, that latter example is pretty specific).

One career, in particular, seemed to stand out by its prevalence—Lawyers seeking nontraditional or alternative careers. Nontraditional careers are a recurring topic on the law blog Above the Law. Some recent examples include yoga instructor, comedian, and screenwriter. Another law blog, Legal Nomads, has a series entitled Thrillable Hours with examples such as fashion entrepreneur, marketing director, and wildlife journalist. The profiles describe reasons for career changes that are eerily similar to ones that have been described here.

An example:

It is simple really: I was just never cut out for a life of 9-5 traipsing into work every day and doing something I really didn’t care about. Unfortunately for me, legal work was something I really didn’t care about.

Not too different than a research chemist losing interest in research.

One reason why the notion of lawyers in nontraditional careers caught my attention is because, as you may remember, the law—specifically patent law—was highlighted as a nontraditional chemistry career option in a profile here a couple of years ago. The possibility seems somewhat unlikely, but I’m anxious to see if it comes full circle—are there examples of a lawyer (or someone from another career covered here) seeking out chemistry as their nontraditional career of choice? I’ll keep looking.