I have completed my master’s in pure mathematics in India. Though I am passionate about mathematics and would really want to do a PhD in pure mathematics, one thing I am uncertain about is how would my life turn out after getting a PhD in pure mathematics.
I checked the departmental homepage of some reputed institutes and universities in our country to gather knowledge about their past PhD students. I found that only a handful of them go to postdocs and a very few get recruited as assistant professors in other institutes. There is no information about the other students and I can't get any information about what they are doing.
My questions are:
- Is there no guarantee to get a job after doing a PhD in pure mathematics?
- Or it is that everyone will get a postdoc after getting a PhD in some institute?
- Is a postdoc absolutely necessary after doing a PhD in mathematics?
- Will I get a job after a postdoc in mathematics?
I am concerned because I don’t want to be among those who are without any work after doing a PhD.
Answer
There is a filter, surely.
Actually, at least in German system there are two filters: PhD → postdoc and postdoc → tenure/tenure-track.
But you are missing out one issue. Even if all people doing postdoc probably would like to get a tenure-track position (but do not), not all PhD students would like to get a postdoc. Heck, not all PhD students even finish their PhD! But the major point is: not all PhD holders want and do stay in academia.
Ok, you do want to stay in academia. There are three major issues:
- Publications
- Teaching experience
- Funding acquisition.
The detailed answer is probably too long and too country-dependent, but typically you'd need these three major issues to be covered, if you want to land a tenure-track position.
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