Why It’s a Bad Idea to get a Ph.D in Particle Physics

I wanted to write about this since the summer. At the time, I thought it would be a good way to organize my thoughts and help me decide what to do. Now I finally have the motivation to write about it! Although I’ve already decided, it’s still fun to write all of it down.

To start, there is a reason that also applies to any other field. Why narrow your study in any particular field at all? Why become a specialist? The academic field offers such a myriad of topics to study and each topic offers an endless list of difficult problems begging to be solved. Each solution begets a new, harder question, and one’s thirst to understand a topic might never be satiated. If you throw yourself completely into one field, how will you fulfill the pleasure of learning about others? In my case, if I love physics and music, and (being a follower of the there-is-no-afterlife belief) if there’s only one life to live, how could I be happy knowing that I won’t have a chance to create, play, or study music? Or film? Or photography? With a limited time here on Earth, would I like to spend most of it in only one field? There are so many interesting things out there; surely I can’t dedicate my life to only one thing!

The next reason is the most obvious. Anyone serious about going into Particle Physics is not concerned about getting rich. I’m going into experimental, and perhaps theorists are even less interested in financial fortune. Suppose I felt that personal fulfillment would not be achieved if I dedicated my life to particle physics. Then at least I could get rich and live a leisurely lifestyle. That means: Treating everything I enjoy as hobbies, and being able to experience everything I enjoy! I could travel the world, learn to speak several languages and different cultures, play an instrument, star gaze, hike, write novels, etc… Basically, I could just get a 9-5 job that pays well enough to not have feelings of despair when working a job I don’t necessarily love. One professor in the Berkeley physics department described it best: “My sister (from the United States) was able to fly to Paris for the weekend just to buy a pair of shoes. She doesn’t love her job, but she makes enough not to care.”

Speaking of money, the financial situation right now in particle physics, or high-energy physics, or HEP for short, is described by some as a “crisis.” Some senior physicists have described the current state as one of the worst funding disasters in their whole lives. Let me explain a little. The budget for HEP this year was supposed to increase. (In some instances, people are claiming that the budget is increasing, but actually the rate of inflation increased faster). The United States was one of the major contributors to the next generation of particle accelerators (the International Linear Collider, or ILC for short). Recently, the funding budget for the HEP program in the United States was cut so severely that research in ILC was suddenly forced to end. This was already several billion dollars into the program. Many people suddenly were forced to either move to another topic or worry about bringing back US support for the ILC. I know several professors at Berkeley spent most of their time researching for ILC development and I’m extremely curious on what they’re doing these days. The sudden call to end funding for the ILC has also put the US in an awkward position – people have already signed agreements internationally that they would support the project. Since the government (mostly from Congress) has called to end funding, the credibility of the US’s promises is in question. But this is another story.

So indeed there is a very weak budget for HEP. Not just the ILC is feeling it. People at Fermilab (the Chicago based HEP center which houses the Tevatron – currently the world’s most powerful accelerator), and SLAC (the linear collider at Stanford) are facing salary decreases and in the worst cases, layoffs. In fact, this has already affected me since it is unclear if I am still going to be able to work at SLAC this summer. The current funding situation is perhaps the strongest practical reason to avoid going into HEP.

Another reason is that HEP is a rather cold subject. People can spend hours in front of the computer to code or analyze data. Inspiration and synthesizing ideas can be thrilling, but the bulk of the time will be spent on debugging code, running jobs, or doing tedious calculations. If one “loves life,” one should be out in the world and living life to its fullest! Stuck in an office in front of the computer is not the way to “carpe diem.” More than that, the stuff you study doesn’t really care about you. Particles could care less if you knew more about them. Besides, there are so many particles. You’re bound to lose track of them all. It’s enough of a hassle that you have to remember that the proton has + charge, the electron has – charge, and the neutron is neutral. Why would anyone care that the neutrino is also neutral? None of the other particles make up the world around us anyway. Let’s digest that for a moment. In all of the matter that you will ever “touch,” they will only be made of the proton, electron and neutron. That’s it! When I am eating a delicious piece of steak (apple, if you’re vegetarian), I don’t care about the elements that made it, much less the particles that made those elements! Even though there’s only 3! Studying particles is…dull and boring. Who cares if you’ve found the smallest bit of matter?

That brings us to the next reason. How is this useful for humanity? So what if you found the Higgs boson? Will it solve any of the world’s problems? Hunger, disease, conflicts, inhumanity and all the rest will not change just because you know that the universe is made actually of 11 dimensions instead of 3. All the suffering in the world…why don’t you invest your time into solving these problems? Maybe Congress was right in giving HEP the ax. How is spending billions of dollars on a linear accelerator going to help our nation? How are we to defend our nation if we’re putting so much money into something that won’t give something practical back?

The next reason has to do more with the situation in getting a job in academia. Towards the end of this reason, I focus on HEP specifically. Suppose you work your fingers to the bone for 6 years to get a Ph.D. Then you’d need 2 years as a post-doc, and if you’re lucky you’ll be hired as an Assistant Professor. 6 years of this and then you’d be hired as an Associate Professor for another 2 years before finally being granted the noble dream level of tenured professor. Doing the math and ideally considering you’ll only need 1 post-doc position to land a professor job and also that you’ll be able to land any of these levels the first try, this is 16 years from the start of graduate school to a stable job. Not to mention that at each step, there is a HUGE amount of stress. And it only increases at each level. Worry about classes and finals, comprehensive exams, oral exams, PhD defenses, meeting deadlines for papers, getting known in the field by networking, being good enough to continue being productive, moving around often, giving talks, writing grants consistently, being refused grants consistently, reviewing papers, publish or perish, and…even if there was more to this list, it seems already painful enough. Whereas in a 9-5 job, most of the time, after 5 you’re done for the day. In academia, it never ends. There is no such thing as a workaholic in academia, since being a workaholic is how you survive in it. Problems are still turning in your mind even after you come home. Handling all this stress is also something to stress about!

Now we talk about the academic job specifically as it relates to HEP.

There are only a few labs in the world (as opposed to another physics field like condensed matter where there are probably at least 10 labs in any physics university), so many people are working at the same lab. Thousands. The easiest way to convince yourself of this is to pull out any HEP paper and count the authors. For example, CMS, one of the detectors at LHC (the next “big thing” for particle accelerators), has papers with more pages containing the authors than the actual content of the paper itself! The problem with that is…how the heck do you get recognized? You’re in for some serious competition. Not just among your own country either! We’re talking the entire world! So if you want to stand out so you can get that nice academic job that everyone you’re competing against is also applying for…you better know some good ways to relieve stress!

Suppose you really do get that job. Experimental HEP people rarely live in some area for two years or so. They move around to different accelerator centers for a few months at a time for collaboration, or they come home to their home university for teaching duties – all the time flying back to where their family’s (significant other, children) city is to visit. It seems hard to really settle down, much less meet someone and stay committed- if your desire one day is to meet someone and start a family. The problem of location may not be the only issue to affect family. There is a large investment of time for working which means less time for family stuff. Also, many stressful things in the workplace could affect the home environment.

So, it’s a really bad idea to get a Ph.D in particle physics. You can do so many other things that are better paying, more practical for humanity, and serves more helpings of chicken soup for the soul.

A Ph.D in particle physics? Forget it!

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