Originally Posted by Bostonian
Ok, but someone smart enough to earn a PhD is usually not content to be a technician or research assistant for the long term. I think JonLaw was saying, correctly, that one needs a PhD for a scientific career.

Not sure if that's what he meant, but you're mostly correct. People with Ph.D.s won't get hired to be technicians for the most part. But people without them may be promoted to Scientist roles if they have a lot of experience and impress their employers in industry. This pretty much won't happen in the US in academia.

My overall point was that there aren't a whole lot of jobs for Ph.D.-level scientists compared to people with lower degrees.

When I lived in Ireland, people who did research Master's degrees would typically be employed as "research assistants" in academia. This term was used very differently then over there. It meant "someone who can work independently on a project." RAs there were somewhere between technicians and postdocs. Many of them that I knew ended up writing up their work and getting PhDs anyway. Don't know if that's changed.

Last edited by Val; 05/21/13 03:42 PM.