Is anyone working in academia actually happy with their career path?

I'm only a lowly high school teacher... but between my free paid vacations that last half the school year, I would say that academia is personally fulfilling, but professionally frustrating.

The teaching portion is awesome. So is coaching.

The legislative oversight makes the job nearly unbearable.

I think this will hold true for most that work in academia.

Grad Bound wrote:

Obviously there must be SOME people out there who are, but they seem to be a tiny minority from my experience. Even professors I have talked to in their 60s who have been very successful and spent most of their career in better times than now still recommend against going into academia. What percentage of people working in academia are actually happy with it? And what kind of person does it take to be happy working in academia? Is it just "the grass is always greener" type of thing, or does academia genuinely suck? I'm curious to hear from anyone here who is a part of the system. Thanks.

Clearly the "Grass is greener" affect from people who've never worked in the private sector. Summers off, can't get fired once they get tenure, and all sorts of security in a PC environment..Plus, as you get older the (co-eds) stay the same age, in the words of a famous philosopher. What's not to like? It's dog eat dog once you get off campus and have to meet quotas, deadlines, and stick your nose up the bosses ass. Then every few years you have to deal with a new boss, who ignores what you've accomplished and brings in his friends to a business you helped build and they decide you're too old to do the job anymore.

My friend is a dean at very nice university in Penna. Good bucks, good benefits, good hours...took him awhile to get to that level but he loves it.

I am reasonably happy. The problem is funding of basic science.

I guess you are living in the US, where it is more competitive than in most other countries. Even after landing a permanent job, you typically have to teach more than in Europe (unless you are at a good place with grad school).

My jobs is awesome

private sector can't compare

:)

Lazy Unionized Unfireable wrote:

I'm only a lowly high school teacher... but between my free paid vacations that last half the school year, I would say that academia is personally fulfilling, but professionally frustrating.

The teaching portion is awesome. So is coaching.

The legislative oversight makes the job nearly unbearable.

I think this will hold true for most that work in academia.

I appreciate your input, but I guess I was referring more to higher education, working in research as a post-doc, being a professor, dean, etc. I think being a professor would be the perfect job for me, 40 years ago... Funding is so so tight these days, and professors end up just chasing funding all the time, working long hours, and using grad students as slave laborers. Jobs are so scarce that everyone is trying to stab everyone in the back, and good luck getting a job even remotely close to where you would actually LIKE to live (who wants to live in Kansas, Alabama, North Dakota, etc). If you get a job somewhere, you have to take it whether or not you want it because you're unlikely to get anything else. I have a friend who's a forest ecologist who moved to QATAR (forest central) because after 1.5 years of applying, that's the only position he was offered.

Lazy Unionized Unfireable wrote:

I'm only a lowly high school teacher... but between my free paid vacations that last half the school year, I would say that academia is personally fulfilling, but professionally frustrating.

The teaching portion is awesome. So is coaching.

The legislative oversight makes the job nearly unbearable.

I think this will hold true for most that work in academia.

I also am a HS teacher and agree with this completely. Working with the kids is great and very rewarding. I love that aspect of the job.

Dealing with administrators however, is absolutely maddening.

I have 14 years of teaching experience and have a Masters. I make $63k, which is of course not bad at all. My "boss", a guy who taught 2nd grade for a few years and then decided to chase the money and go into administration, makes over $105k. And I'd be willing to bet I work at least 85% of the hours he does, if not more. (His contract is for 12 months, mine is for 9.)

The problem (as I see it) is that the pay differential between teachers and administrators is way too high. I don't blame anyone for trying to make more money, but the fact is that people go in to administration for the money, not because they want to "administrate", and that is a disaster. My boss is scared of high school kids. He is terribly uncomfortable with confrontation, yet he is a high school administrator. That job is almost ALL about confrontation: with kids, with cranky parents, with incompetent teachers. It's maddening.

"Even professors I have talked to in their 60s who have been very successful and spent most of their career in better times than now still recommend against going into academia."

I also recommend against going into academia to anyone who asks. Like many choices in life, you need to realize that if you have to ask, the answer is NO!

Grad Bound wrote:

Even professors I have talked to in their 60s who have been very successful and spent most of their career in better times than now still recommend against going into academia.

I would also recommend against it, not because I am unhappy about my current job, but because the attrition rate is so high. I spent five years at three different schools as an adjunct after my Ph.D. before I finally got my current job. And I consider myself lucky. I know people who are lifetime adjunct or worse.

Grad Bound wrote:

And what kind of person does it take to be happy working in academia?

If you want both security and autonomy, it's a good choice. If you think making a lot of money is important, you should never choose academia.

2nd generation, but make that gen 1.5 because I didn't do the entire thing.

My father was an academic and wrote a world class dissertation. It won paper of the year for his field in his academic society (and not just a narrow niche but an organization that covered an entire field of study).

He spent the next 10-12 years in academia at a major research university. They ran him into the ground literally. The dept. head had a god complex who took out his insecurities on the faculty.

A generation later I went for my own quest, but was not as successful. Won a couple state awards and some fellowships but only managed to cobble a 4-5 year post doc career that involved some teaching, research, and service. Applied for 150-200 jobs and only netted a couple tenure track interviews.

Given the choice I wouldn't do it again.

That said, had some friends (in different fields of study, let's see applied chemistry, geology, English) that locked into tenure-track positions and loved their jobs.

A friend of my at a small private university loves his job. With the lack of PhDs in his in demand field he has already received a year long sabbatical and tenure. And he knows he can leave at anytime and find a better job.

BonifaceMerande wrote:

The problem (as I see it) is that the pay differential between teachers and administrators is way too high. I don't blame anyone for trying to make more money, but the fact is that people go in to administration for the money, not because they want to "administrate", and that is a disaster. My boss is scared of high school kids. He is terribly uncomfortable with confrontation, yet he is a high school administrator. That job is almost ALL about confrontation: with kids, with cranky parents, with incompetent teachers. It's maddening.

Former public school teacher here (now teaching in the private sector). Administration is full of "Peter Principle" types. Definitely shouldn't make as much money as they do (or they should raise teacher salaries).

Teaching adjunct is a complete suck-fest! Terrible pay. Terrible hours. No benefits. No retirement. (But, you usually get left alone...which is a perk.)

If you can get full-time (which in today's day-and-age is tough), you'll probably wind-up in someplace terrible & teaching a lower-level college (i.e. not the intellectual stimulation that you think of with colleges & university).

THEN, there's the whole publish or perish pressure too. Whew!

Grad Bound wrote:

good luck getting a job even remotely close to where you would actually LIKE to live (who wants to live in Kansas, Alabama, North Dakota, etc). If you get a job somewhere, you have to take it whether or not you want it because you're unlikely to get anything else.

Well, Lawrence, KS and Tuscaloosa, AL are not bad places to live, if you like college towns. (I've never been to Grand Forks. I have been to only BIsmarck and Fargo in ND). So it depends on where you want to live. I am satisfied with the town I live, although it's not the place I would choose if not for my current job.

Grad Bound wrote:

Even professors I have talked to in their 60s who have been very successful and spent most of their career in better times than now still recommend against going into academia.

I haven't had the same experience with professors. Tons of people leave industry and enter academia late in life. Elite business schools are full of retired C_Os. A transportation planning class I took was taught by one of the original venture capitalists who invested in EZ Pass. All of these people could easily jump back into industry or retire to a sunny island if they wanted to, but they are choosing to work in academics.

Similarly, med school faculty aren't incredibly well compensated relative to non-academic MDs/DOs, but many of the best and brightest physicians choose that route. They obviously don't hate it, or they'd jump into private practice or non-academic hospitalist work.

Got into academia by accident years ago. Enjoy it immensely. Pay is not great, but knowledge gained cannot be measured with dollars.

Adjunct SUCK-Fest wrote:Teaching adjunct is a complete suck-fest! Terrible pay. Terrible hours. No benefits. No retirement. (But, you usually get left alone...which is a perk.)

True. Adjuncts get screwed. Yet there are always people wanting to adjunct.

I was a tenured engineering professor at a major research university for over a decade. A lot of pressure, but it was cool, exciting work and real treat to work with undergrad and grad students.

Now I'm at a private undergrad school, working even harder for less money, doing exactly what I want, loving it more, and being more at peace.

Being in academia is totally different that what it looks like from the outside and more like the real world than you think (yes, I have worked in the real world), but it can be very fulfilling. It has its frustrations, but is a pretty sweet gig in its own way.

I'm in science, which I imagine is a good bit different than business, the humanities, etc. I have still known of vets turned PIs and other similar transitions, but even for me, someone with only a couple of bachelor's degrees, it's hard to wrap my mind around why anyone would give up a $50k/year 40hr/week job to work 60hrs/week and make peanuts for 5-15 years, and though some gigs are not like that, in most science fields, if you're not putting in 60+hrs/week, you're going to be left behind those who are.

Grad Bound wrote:

I'm in science, which I imagine is a good bit different than business, the humanities, etc. I have still known of vets turned PIs and other similar transitions, but even for me, someone with only a couple of bachelor's degrees, it's hard to wrap my mind around why anyone would give up a $50k/year 40hr/week job to work 60hrs/week and make peanuts for 5-15 years, and though some gigs are not like that, in most science fields, if you're not putting in 60+hrs/week, you're going to be left behind those who are.

The main ingredients for being happy as a professor in the sciences are genuine curiosity about your field (so that you get caught up in the actual research, and not the rat race) and genuine interest in teaching students (a constant challenge and source of satisfaction).

Knowing that your class is going well, with students satisfied and learning, is a very good feeling. I ran home today excited about the semester that is just starting, because I think my class is going to be a lot of fun.

Finding the answers to a difficult research question at the end of years of work is a good feeling. Immensely satisfying to identify a hole in the field, figure out how to fill it, and then go do it.

However, it is true that federal funding is very difficult these days. I've had a lot of NSF grants over the past 25 years, and have one now, and my assessment is that stable funding is harder now than at any point in my career. It is also true that adjuncts are not paid nearly as well, but that;s the nature of the beast... the competition for tenure track jobs at good schools is fierce, and those jobs consequently are paid better.