All I understand is research scientists do some research and publish a paper. Do they get for the publishing? Or is it all grant based for wherever they are researching at? What about a philosophy major? Where would they even work, and get paid for what?
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I can definitely explain how it works for scientists.
As you guessed, many scientists are grant-funded, and they often work for universities or research labs. The university or lab is their employer, so they get a guaranteed salary. However, as part of their job they’re expected to help apply for research grants, where someone gives them a lot of money in order to do their research. A single grant might be for millions of dollars and it might pay for the salaries and lab equipment for several researchers and additional staff.
Grants often come from the U.S. government, or from private companies that benefit from scientific research.
However, that’s only research scientists. Many scientists work directly for a company – using science to improve the company’s products or processes.
And of course many scientists teach, especially if they work at a university.
As for philosophy, I’ve never really heard of a career path other than becoming a philosophy professor and teaching more philosophy students. I’ve literally never seen a job ad that’s specifically looking for philosophy majors.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that a degree in philosophy is a bad idea. There are many people with philosophy degrees who are doing lots of amazing things in the world – it’s just that most of what they get paid to do isn’t “philosophy”. Philosophy is similar to other liberal arts degrees where the goal isn’t necessarily to teach someone a direct career path as much as to give them a well-rounded education.
I do think it’s a bad idea to go deeply into debt to major in philosophy and have no life plan. There’s no guarantee of a job just because you got a degree.
And that’s actually true for science, too – many science majors actually have a hard time finding jobs in their specific field. Physics is a classic example – there are a lot more people graduating with physics degrees than there are jobs for physicists right now. Many physics majors end up applying their knowledge to similar fields in science, technology, or engineering where there are more job openings.
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