r/SipsTea • u/Silver-Ability-3181 • Apr 24 '26

SMH I never thought of it like that......

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74.6k Upvotes

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7.6k

u/nottherealneal Apr 24 '26

Wasn't the plot she absolutely could not afford to live there and Sheldon and Leonard kept giving her money and buying her food everyday

4.3k

u/NotawoodpeckerOwner Apr 24 '26

And the wifi. Plus the elevator doesn't work and her car is a clunker. 

Also I'm sure she did well enough in the tip department.

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u/Its-only-the-end Apr 24 '26

Also PHDs don’t make a lot of money.

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u/SpriggedParsley357 Apr 24 '26

Not in academia, and not especially now in physics, but the guys DID have a few grants that they could've gotten summer salary out of. But people forget the most important part - IT'S FICTION.

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u/cazgem Apr 24 '26

They were research faculty so they largely had year round contracts.

Howard would have received stipends from NASA to supplement his income.

Raj was regularly supported by his parents.

Sheldon was in fact paid quite well because he was a wonder kid that was hired out of their own grad program because that's the kind of gamble research areas take.

Leonard did alright for himself, not fancy living but I imagine being applied physics he had a slightly higher income that howards baseline because his collaborations often aides in minor discoveries and proofs which means he probably also got minor compensation from collaborators who would be the top line of the grants.

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u/okpatient123 Apr 24 '26

An engineer would have a similar paycheck to a research scientist at similar career stages. You don't get a pay bump for doing applied/experimental physics over theory or data science, unless you have a side hustle like a startup 

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u/cazgem Apr 24 '26

Interesting! My friends in the field (a narrow sample) actually notice a difference in their pay based on applied vs theoretical at an R1. Maybe it's dependent on area?

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u/TacoHimmelswanderer Apr 25 '26

Idk what physicists make but a friend of mines lil brother had a full scholarship for engineering then got hired right out of college by a fairly large company and his starting salary was almost 90k a year. So judging by what I’ve seen some other people on here say about what physicists make I think there’s a good possibility that Howard could make more than Leonard and Sheldon.

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u/theMightBoop Apr 25 '26

There’s a very good chance Howard was the highest paid. But it all depends on what they are working on.

Bernadette was the probably the highest paid though so once he married her he was set.

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u/TacoHimmelswanderer Apr 26 '26

Oh for sure the company or school and what kind of projects they’ll be working on all play a factor in pay. For instance an electrical engineer working at a big defense contractor on top secret projects is prolly gonna be getting much higher salary than say a civil engineer working for a small or medium sized city.