Sir – Steven Weinberg's Concepts essay "Four golden lessons" (Nature 426, 389; 2003) is full of idealism, based on his experience, garnered "about a hundred years ago". Sadly, the research and economic worlds have changed dramatically during the past quarter-century. I suggest that Weinberg's rules should be revised for modern would-be postgrads.

One: look at the career structure in scientific research — it is virtually non-existent. Research careers are usually tied to teaching, so if you want to forge a future in research then you will need to secure academic tenure. If you are still dependent for your salary on 'soft' money –– research grants –– by the age of 35, you will then be told by (much older) tenured colleagues that you are "too old" for research and that you should look for another career. So see your early steps into the research world as leading towards a completely different career. Banking, finance or teaching are common end-points. Academic administration may provide a means for revenge against those professors who misled you about your future.

Two: take note of which areas of research in your chosen discipline have the oldest entrenched academics, and head for those. Many were filled in the 1970s by baby-boomers who are now approaching retirement, so you may be well-positioned for one of their jobs.

Three: look at the best jobs outside academia. For example, a well-known scientific journal advertised a research position last year in a British astrophysics department. Conditions included a poor salary of less than £20,000 (US$35,000) a year, and limited tenure for 12 months "with the possibility of renewal for a further 12 months". The position required a maths/ physics postgraduate with extensive experience in database management. On the following page was an advertisement from a London merchant bank. This asked for identical qualifications, but promised a starting salary of &£48,000 "with rapid advancement" and a well-structured career pathway. So there are good career opportunities for postgrads. They just don't happen to be in academia.

Four: look at the new fields emerging for employment in big, profitable industries. For example, the pharmaceutical industry employs many graduates, in lab research, database and analysis, clinical trials and marketing. Annual reports will reveal what fields companies are moving into, and what they are dropping. 'Pharmacogenomics' and 'proteomics' are examples of trendy new fields that are attracting large budgets, whereas animal testing is gradually being wound down in favour of in vitro cell modelling and large-scale, mathematically based analysis such as cladistics.

Choose your research path according to hard-headed economics, and forget the good old days when students went into research because it was fun. You know that things are different now.

John A. Duley
Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Raymond Terrace, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101, Australia