Graduate with physics PhD commits suicide after only able to find job at call centre

[dixiegrrrrl]

We are going to be hearing about this more and more now.

Dr Philip Elliott recently competed a degree at Reading University
In the weeks leading up to his death he had suffered a number of career knock backs
The 31-year-old fell from the roof of an apartment block in west London

An academic jumped off scaffolding to his death when he was only able to find a job in a call centre after finishing his doctorate, an inquest heard today.

Dr Philip Elliott, 31, who had recently completed a PhD in physics at Reading University, was seen on the sixth floor of an apartment block in west London just after 11am on January 27 this year.

Police tried to call him down but he fell from the property in Cromwell Street, Kensington, an hour later, the hearing was told.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2304096/Graduate-physics-PhD-31-fell-death-block-flats-taking-job-centre-qualified-for.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[liberal_at_heart]

1. That is sad. Economics happens in cycles. History happens in cycles.

It's never a bad idea to get a college education. Statistically those with a degree do better during bad economic times and do even better still when the economy gets better. It really sucks in the mean time. We are all struggling. But it's not worth committing suicide over. I have been poor before. I grew up in a mobile home. I know what it feels like. Even if I went back to living in a mobile home or living on the streets I have too many loved ones I want to spend time with to ever commit suicide.

[Kolesar]

4. ^That was nice

I was never poor, but I never thought I was going to find a job in the 1980s.

[babylonsister]

2. Well, physics is OUT for me. Might fuck you up, or, he was disturbed. Yea. nt

[RKP5637]

3. As some of the world descends into Idiocracy, there will be less need for education. Ain't

it just so wonderful.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. that is horrible

[etherealtruth]

6. Truly horrible

[Honeycombe8]

7. How sad. Hard to believe there was no job for someone like that. Heart breaking. nt

[LisaL]

10. I am not sure why it's hard to believe.

In US, there are a lot of PhDs who are supported by federal money from NIH. So what are they going to do now that NIH budget is being cut?

[Honeycombe8]

14. The private industry employs a lot of scientists, too. That's in the U.K., though. Don't know

the situation there. I think it has something to do with bringing all those foreign workers in on visas, for less money.

[Posteritatis]

18. Newly-minted PhDs are pretty specialized all over

There's no such thing as a generic 'scientist' in that sense. If someone's doctoral work has the wrong focus at the wrong time - and there's a three to six year lead on that, usually - it can almost be the equivalent of not having a doctorate at all.

[pnwmom]

28. Not as many as you'd think. But they encourage an oversupply because it

keeps salaries down.

[riderinthestorm]

8. Wait, wut?!11!! Been told over and over that STEM majors are sure thangs here

and those liberal arts majors are stoopid cause there's no careers there....



The job market sucks for EVERYONE... what a terrible waste of a human brain. I am sick when I read this stuff.

Our best and brightest are being sucked into a perfect storm of anti-intellectualism, the economy, student loan debt, and an apathetic culture.

[distantearlywarning]

16. Yeah, I was just thinking that too.

Where are all the posters rushing to blame this guy for majoring in a STEM field? I mean, everyone knows that the only reason you can't find a job, ever, is because you were stupid enough to not major in STEM. RIGHT????

(BTW, before the mean finger-pointing trolls arrive, I am a STEM grad myself, so it's not just sour grapes....I just have some compassion for people out there in this tough economy, unlike some other so-called progressives who always have to chime in on threads like these.)

[dixiegrrrrl]

36. Educate me, if you will. I do not know what "STEM" is.

Been decades since my college years.

[riderinthestorm]

39. Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.

There's a whole subsection of DUers who always chime on student loan debt threads about how stupid liberal arts majors are being for majoring in, well, anything but a STEM field. That if they'd just become an engineer there'd be no job worries....

On those other threads they usually ignore the civil engineer DUer who tells their unemployment woes, or the computer science folks whose jobs have been outsourced... so I'm guessing they'll ignore this thread too since its inconvenient to their perspective that the US has this love/hate relationship with intellectuals and that we don't value college education period etc etc.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. Yep. Overeducated and overqualified in a society based on mediocrity & anti-intellectualism.

Tragic.
Our society throws away millions of peoples' talents in many ways, small and large.

If the government would spend money on R&D, many of these people could make brilliant discoveries. But politicians don't understand science and think basic research is wasteful.

Over here, Waxahachie, Texas, could be a scientific powerhouse, had Congress not stopped funding the Superconducting Supercollider. So now CERN in Switzerland is making those discoveries about subatomic particles.



Hubby has a BS and MS in Physics and wanted to do atomic research. His advisor didn't think that black holes existed back in 1969.

I have a Juris Doctor. We were both thrown away about 30 years ago.

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. "We were both thrown away about 30 years ago. "

Ouch
How sadly true.
And truly sad.

We are the discarded people of this era.

[Initech]

11. This fucking economy.

[bluestate10]

15. The guy was a British citizen who killed himself in Britain after getting his degree from a

British university. It isn't "this fucking economy". Britain and much of Europe embraced cost cutting, their economies went in the tank. Our country has avoided major cost cutting under President Obama and would be stimulating the economy if republicans hadn't taken over the House during the 2010 election.

[99Forever]

29. You think things are better here?

Wake up and smell the Minimum Wage Student Loan Reality.

I see you've also bought into the Good Cop/Bad Cop scam.

[Initech]

32. The shitty economy is happening world wide.

Regardless of what your views on the American economy are and how good / bad it is, we're in the beginning stages of a complete global depression. Look at places like Syria, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt - out of control banks have been looting state treasuries and paying no taxes, crashing the economy in the process. Don't think it can't happen here. If we don't stop Goldman Sachs and the rest from taking another bailout and giving it to themselves, this can and will happen here.

[cthulu2016]

12. This is a story about mental health, not the economy

[LisaL]

13. His mental health appears to have been fine while he was in school, since he was doing well

and able to graduate.
Why is it so hard to believe that he gotten depressed because he couldn't find a job?

[distantearlywarning]

17. Because then we would have to discuss what is wrong with a culture

Much easier to just blame the victim, feel good because you don't have "mental health problems" and therefore nothing bad will ever happen to you, and then move merrily on your way. You are certain that you know the answer (mental health problems), so no need to think any further on it.

It's the American thought process these days. It's how people get through their days in an uncertain climate. Sucks though when you're on the losing end and everyone is rubbing salt in your wounds by pointing the finger at you.

Also see: Just World Theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

And Fundamental Attribution Error: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

[liberal_at_heart]

21. it's also easy to simply look at the trigger and miss the deeper problems such as mental

health. Even if you recognize the trigger it is still necessary to recognize and treat the mental illness.

[cthulu2016]

25. What a childish response

You actually called suggesting somebody that jumped from a building was depressed "blame the victim"???

Blaming the victim (sic) for what? For being deeply depressed?

You consider saying someone is sick to be blaming them for something?

Your ignorance of depression is startling.

If it makes you feel better to pretend that somebody commits suicide because they don't like their job then you will believe just that, but why subject others to it?

[SmileyRose]

19. he found a job.

and still deleted himself.

It's entirely about mental health.

[distantearlywarning]

20. Glad you've got everything figured out.

Feel safer about the world now?

[SmileyRose]

27. not exactly

It pains me to hear someone in a society that got him the advantages of a PhD was not also able to help him build the coping skills to handle disappointment.

There are a lot of toiling at the bottom who never had opportunity for advantage of high school let alone college and our expectations are more about avoiding starvation than economic status. I don't mean to belittle this person or educated people. I 'm just saying for some a call center job is a step up.

[Skip Intro]

23. Yes. He found a job. He could have survived. That wasn't why he killed himself.

Doesn't make any sense.

Being pissed off, sure.

Being depressed, sure.

But killing oneself because you can't get the job you want?

Nah, something else going on there besides economics.

[snappyturtle]

26. Maybe he saw no way out of student debt. Would make me 'crazy'. nt

[jsr]

22. Douglas Prasher drove a bus for $8.50 an hour

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher

On 8 October 2008, the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Chalfie, and Tsien for their work on GFP.[7] Prasher was not included among the Nobel laureates, as only 3 individuals can share in a single Nobel Prize. Chalfie said of Prasher's contribution:

&quot Douglas Prasher's) work was critical and essential for the work we did in our lab. They could've easily given the prize to Douglas and the other two and left me out."[8]

Tsien also agreed that they couldn't have done it without Prasher and "Doug Prasher had a very important role."[9]

In an October 9, 2008 phone interview with National Public Radio (NPR) and October 14, 2008 TV interview with Inside Edition, Prasher reported that he was unable to find a job in science, his life savings had run out and that he was working as a courtesy shuttle bus driver for Bill Penney Toyota in Huntsville, Alabama at $8.50 an hour.

[Shankapotomus]

24. He was still young.

Never let a job or the lack of one define who you are.

RIP.

[flamingdem]

30. yes but to get a PhD one must be all in

and it's like telling an athlete not to exercise at all anymore... can you imagine how that would feel?

One's brain is not so different from ones body ...

[treestar]

33. Depression

But hey, we are supposed to feel sorry for middle class people getting a slowdown on chained CPI so their social security benefits are lowered though they have pensions and 401ks. That's supposed to be way more important than young people even getting a job.

[Zax2me]

34. Economy is 'turning around'....

What we keep being told, month after month...
Year after year....

[JDPriestly]

35. How tragic. If there ever was a time that we needed scientists,

more understanding of physics, this is it.

Austerity is a foolish policy.

But all Western leaders seem bent on imposing it and ruining their economies.

What is going on? I can't figure out what is really behind this?

Is it the oligarchs pulling their final coup to obtain total power before climate change kills many of us?

Austerity -- it will cause many deaths, not just this one. And a lot of them will be seniors. The cruelty of today's announcement about Obama's budget is depressing me and a lot of other seniors.

Most of the young people will live to do well when and if we finally get a recovery, but seniors will just get worse and worse off.

[dixiegrrrrl]

37. "What is going on? I can't figure out what is really behind this? "

The Oilgarchs really believe that over population is one of the major problems.
That thinking goes way back to David Rockefeller and Kissinger. Listen closely enough and you can hear them talking about it.
Look at Romney's sincere belief that 47% of the people in this country are useless and not worth even sucking up to for the votes.

They need "just enough" people to turn the wheels and oil the machine of profit making.
Preferably dumb people.
So, you destroy the middle class, create a class of people whose primary energy is on day to day survival,
whose life are totally dependent on those who can profit from the dependence.
The modern serfdom, if you will.
You own the mechanism of governments, so you can privatize every service that will make a profit.
and you sell off everything and anything you don't need that brings in money il, water, minerals, trees,
etc.
Last one over the cliff wins.

Same thing has happened over and over and over in history..subjected people eventually rising up to take down kings and Pharaohs, over and over.
We are living in that repeated pattern.
'Cept this time, it may be irreversible, given the damage to the planet.

Well, that is how I see it, anyway.

[polly7]

38. I agree with you, and I see it happening all over the world. nt.