Years ago I aroused the ire of most of my fellow Brazilian scientists when I wrote a post called “Do you really want to be a scientist?” follow the master-doctoral-post-doctoral-professor path that shapes the career of the vast majority of scientists today. I was accused of discouraging youth, being unpatriotic (a charge repeated years later, when I decided to leave the country to work in the USA) and helping to empty the laboratories of colleagues of the cheap labor that young Brazilians provide.
Well, sharpen your canines, because I’m back to the charge, motivated by a report in Nature magazine about the insufficient financial conditions of doctoral students… in the USA. Out here, doctoral students earn salaries of between 20 and 30 thousand dollars a year to work in research that is crowned with a degree, necessary to one day be hired as a professor — a position that in large universities pays “six figures” a year, or that is, from one hundred thousand dollars upwards. In Brazilian terms, the salary of an American doctoral student seems enviable. For the American reality, however, it does not cover the bills, especially in a reality where young people leave home after completing high school.
And in Brazil… Ah, in Brazil. The “salary” of a Brazilian doctoral student is called “bolsa”, because it does not come with labor rights (or duties), and remains at the poverty level of R$ 2,200 per month, a value published in the Official Gazette in 2013 and in force until today. It is less than two minimum wages for young people with a complete higher education and competence acquired at the cost of previous experience working practically for free in the laboratory, without which one cannot enter for a doctorate in Brazil.
I will not go into the obvious merit of the (im)possibility of supporting oneself without family help with a doctoral scholarship. I prefer to use what I have left in this space to renew my appeal to young people: Do you REALLY want to be a scientist?
The reality is that research around the world is driven by doctoral students, young professionals who have been demoted in Brazil to the title of “students”, a justification used for the misery they are paid. The vast majority of researchers who manage to be hired as professors, the dream of success of ten out of ten doctoral students, are forced to act as administrators, writing research projects that each have less than a 10% chance of being approved in order to obtain funding for pay the salary of those who really work hard on the benches and make science happen: idealistic young people, full of will, who agree to stay up all night doing experiments, who don’t have to leave at 5 pm to pick up their children from school, who agree to have lunch free pizza at seminars and noodles dinner every other day. In fact, research professors are such a tiny minority that, in practice, without doctoral students there is no science in the world — which should fill our young people with a sense of power.
If they were older, our young people would refuse to carry Brazilian science on their backs out of misery. They accept it because they are young, and what remains of Brazilian science exists thanks to them. Shame must have those who are older and do not manifest themselves against it, as they only consent.
Chad-98Weaver, a distinguished author at NewsBulletin247, excels in the craft of article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a penchant for storytelling, Chad delivers informative and engaging content that resonates with readers across various subjects. His contributions are a testament to his dedication and expertise in the field of journalism.
