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

The bottom line is the bottom line is DIFFERENT for everybody.

Most of us here can't imagine a day when they get up and don't want to work toward being able to run faster.

Those who should go into academia can't imagine a day when they don't want to work toward learning something no one else knows even if they don't know how much or even if they are going to get paid.

If you don't understand the flaws in the statement below you shouldn't be considering a career in academia, since you have no chance at one.

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.

Er... wrote:

If you don't understand the flaws in the statement below you shouldn't be considering a career in academia, since you have no chance at one.

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.

If you don't understand the fallacy in your reading of this statement then you shouldn't be a career academic either, though I realize you'll have plenty of chances.

Speaking for biodciences, there's a lot more disillusioned postdocs than there were 20 yrs ago. Lots are considering the 'dark side' (commerce!) which never used to be the case. Excellence will always get good gigs, of course, but 80% of postdocs are average - its these that are po'd.

why the hell HS teachers are expressing their opinions here? OP is asking about something completely different. Last time I checked HS teacher don't do research.

OP: I enjoy it. Reasons are:

a) I like research

b) I equally like teaching. A good academic must be able to juggle both.

c) I get to travel a lot on grant/university money, it's like getting several mini-vacations each year

d) I decide what I should focus on. Not my boss. Not my department head. No one. Other people might not get that level of freedom, I do.

e) My current pay is lower than what I would get working for a company, but the perks make up for it. Today I got here at 11. Will be leaving at 5.

"Your welcome".

Yes - I'm at a small/medium state school with a pretty well funded research program. I love it.

However, it has pretty much been my life for the past 15 years and I'm completely out of shape. Now that I'm tenured and full prof, I have more time to do what I want so I plan on working on that.

Unless you're a genius, there is no way to make it in academia without being all in. You can either be one of those adjunct sad sack types or be on the top of the foodchain on the academic side. There is no middle ground unless you're in the process of being promoted.

somebloke wrote:

why the hell HS teachers are expressing their opinions here? OP is asking about something completely different. Last time I checked HS teacher don't do research.

OP: I enjoy it. Reasons are:

a) I like research

b) I equally like teaching. A good academic must be able to juggle both.

c) I get to travel a lot on grant/university money, it's like getting several mini-vacations each year

d) I decide what I should focus on. Not my boss. Not my department head. No one. Other people might not get that level of freedom, I do.

e) My current pay is lower than what I would get working for a company, but the perks make up for it. Today I got here at 11. Will be leaving at 5.

"Your welcome".

somebloke, can I ask what size institution you're at? I'm a post-doc in biophysics currently trying to decide my next step. Like you I really like research...but I don't have the impression that the vast majority of PIs actually do benchwork. I like mentoring students in their research but I vastly prefer doing experiments myself. Have you been able to continue to actually be in the lab as a professor, and if so, how have you managed to do that?

My institution is ranked #1 in the US in my field. And it's big.

re stepping away from the bench: It's a natural progression from PhD student -> postdoc -> "lab manager" -> professor. You will have to do it at some point, simply because of time limitations. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I get my hands dirty, but it is usually to help a student with a small task they are struggling with. And it's a once a month sort of thing.

In my field we don't have the same notion of "PIs" as you do in biology, but I know exactly what you mean. One of my closest friends is a "PI". The lab she works for hires cheap labour (technicians) to do experiments. The "PI" only decides and plans those.

My2c.

somebloke wrote:

why the hell HS teachers are expressing their opinions here? OP is asking about something completely different. Last time I checked HS teacher don't do research.

OP: I enjoy it. Reasons are:

a) I like research

b) I equally like teaching. A good academic must be able to juggle both.

c) I get to travel a lot on grant/university money, it's like getting several mini-vacations each year

d) I decide what I should focus on. Not my boss. Not my department head. No one. Other people might not get that level of freedom, I do.

e) My current pay is lower than what I would get working for a company, but the perks make up for it. Today I got here at 11. Will be leaving at 5.

"Your welcome".

I'm a high school teacher and do plenty of educational research. Most of my research revolves around best practices at the high school level but I've done some at the middle school level also. I travel the country during the summer doing professional development on these topics.

I am probably more published than your average doc at a college also.

The fact that you think academia research is isolated to the college level professor show's your misunderstanding of the field.

Unlike most college professors who try to write about secondary education I actually live the life and have real world experience. This makes my published articles more sought after than if I worked at a college and pretended to know what it was like to teach in an inner city high school.

"Your welcome"

Your field is nothing like mine, and likely nothing like anything other than the very specific case of educational research.

You are in a very specific niche. One I consider to be full of hacks, actually.

Sometimes I wonder if I am stuck in a "grass is always greener" mentality. I have friends who say that they love teaching, but I don't think I really love it. I worked in industry during the summers as an undergrad and between undergrad and grad school. I don't have a lot of first hand experience, but in reality, my experience with pressure in industry is very similar to my experience as a tenure-track professor, in the sense that I need to prove to my superiors that I am (a) doing my job well and (b) worth keeping on staff.

I think the best thing about being a professor to me is doing research. I'm at a small liberal arts college, and where the teaching load is 9cr / semester, and research expectation is 1 paper per year. The only thing that gets me through the year is knowing I'll have 3 months over the summer to work on research without the interruptions. And the difference between research in industry and research in academia, is that I am completely free to choose to study what I want. No body else tells me what to research on. I think it is hard to find an industry job with that kind of freedom.

I need to publish one paper per year to stay on track to get tenure. It means that I don't really have time off in the summer. I put in about 40 hours per week all summer on research. During the semester, between teaching, advising, service work, and research, I am working between 50-60 hours per week. Now, the nice thing is that I never need to punch a time clock. A lot of these hours I can do from home, or really from anywhere. And aside from set class time/office hours/meetings, I don't really need to be on campus.

During the Summer, I also have to put in extra hours over the summer to answer emails from advisees, help with scheduling classes, attending student orientations, and department/school/university service. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people ask me "what are you doing with your summer off?" I don't have a summer off. I have a summer to get a paper published, otherwise my contract is not going to be renewed, and I'm not going to get tenure. The general public, and even most of my students, don't realize that publishing is essential to the job. And not only is essential for keeping my job, it would be one of the most important criteria for finding another job.

I would say that it is important for you to think about what kind of institution you would want to work in. I was at a school with a much higher teaching load, and much lower research expectation, and I was not happy at all. It was a terrible fit. I was frustrated, and my department chair was frustrated. Since coming to my current position, I am much happier, and I have a lot of positive feedback from my department and deans, so I think I am in a better fit. I don't think I would want to be in a R1 school, with the additional research responsibilities that it would carry. I think the fit I have now is probably the best I could ask for.

Some of the other downsides in academia is that is really hard to chose a geographical location. You basically have to be willing to go where ever you can find a job. Some people get lucky finding a job in the region of the country they want to live in, but it seems that is very hard to do these days. On the other hand, for example, my wife is in healthcare and she can find a job anywhere in the country that she wants.

My mentors in academia tell me that things get much better after tenure. I have 4 years to go at my current school before I apply. My goal is to see if it gets any better in these 4 years. If I get tenure, then I'll see how it goes. If I don't, then I'll try to find a job in industry.

Combinatorist wrote:

Some of the other downsides in academia is that is really hard to chose a geographical location. You basically have to be willing to go where ever you can find a job. Some people get lucky finding a job in the region of the country they want to live in, but it seems that is very hard to do these days. On the other hand, for example, my wife is in healthcare and she can find a job anywhere in the country that she wants.

Right there with you. It gets far more complicated if you have a significant other that is also in the academic world.

I'm a high school teacher and do plenty of educational research. Most of my research revolves around best practices at the high school level but I've done some at the middle school level also. I travel the country during the summer doing professional development on these topics.

I am probably more published than your average doc at a college also.

The fact that you think academia research is isolated to the college level professor show's your misunderstanding of the field.

Unlike most college professors who try to write about secondary education I actually live the life and have real world experience. This makes my published articles more sought after than if I worked at a college and pretended to know what it was like to teach in an inner city high school.

"Your welcome"

So much to respond to here:

1) Educational research would be a joke if it wasn't so pernicious. Conformation bias, ignorance, petty jealousies, and union politics dominate your field. So sit down and shut up when actual academics are talking.

2) Don't confuse quantity with quality in publishing. My group could publish 30 papers per year, but we focus on good papers and turn out 6-8.

3) It's great you're so chest out about your badass job in the hood, but some day you will realize that you wasted your life and that you p!ssed away resources that could be spent on deserving and capable students. Including federal $$, it costs $30-$50k per year to educate students in major urban centers on the east coast. That wouldn't be so bad if there was some reasonable output. But instead, we get illiterate morons and imbeciles from secondary ed in this country,

Congrats on the great job that you guys are doing - keep it up!

somebloke wrote:

Combinatorist wrote:

Some of the other downsides in academia is that is really hard to chose a geographical location. You basically have to be willing to go where ever you can find a job. Some people get lucky finding a job in the region of the country they want to live in, but it seems that is very hard to do these days. On the other hand, for example, my wife is in healthcare and she can find a job anywhere in the country that she wants.

Right there with you. It gets far more complicated if you have a significant other that is also in the academic world.

I am with you guys on the SO, but I think you have to have the confidence to go where you want and plant your own flag. I'm very happy that I went to a small place and started a strong research program. There were times when it sucked because I lacked resources, but now that I have them, I'm glad that I did it this way.

llort_vbo wrote:

somebloke wrote:

Right there with you. It gets far more complicated if you have a significant other that is also in the academic world.

I am with you guys on the SO, but I think you have to have the confidence to go where you want and plant your own flag. I'm very happy that I went to a small place and started a strong research program. There were times when it sucked because I lacked resources, but now that I have them, I'm glad that I did it this way.

My wife and I both do research, we both moved from Baltimore, where we were happy, to Iowa, where we were apprehensive. She works in the hospital, me in the university. We like Iowa.

Having a spouse who understands your work is helpful, and while it can make it difficult to find jobs, if you're lucky enough, it sometimes makes it easier-- if one of you is sought after. It can be done, either way.

I'll echo whoever said that academia is great if you a) like your research b) like teaching.

I'll add: c) you get a balanced teaching load that allows you to enjoy both a large amount of the time.

If you don't like these things, it's not the field for you. There are a lot of stresses, a number of which include:

1. Getting a "good" job. The market is tight for tenure-track professors.

2. Navigating tenure.

3. Dealing with blow-hards, try-hards, and arrogant people.

4. Almost all PhDs could make more by leaving academia and using their skills in industry.

But if you like research, you like teaching, you can tolerate bureaucracy,you don't want to get rich, and you can't imagine doing anything else, it's a good life.

The good news is most PhDs are funded, so if you leave early, you're not broke. If your PhD isn't funded, it's not a good PhD. Stop now. And if you finish and want to leave academia, you now have a PhD. You only lose the short-term opportunity cost, which will probably be made up for over time -- ESPECIALLY if you don't go into a university.

My opinion for those who ask is that if you can get into a good, funded PhD program, you have little to lose if you think the life may be a good match. A few years in, you'll have a better idea. When you're done the PhD, you'll be entering a spot where you can profitably go back to "normal" work, or start the post/doc/tenure-track job search/publishing+teaching life adventure. If you fail at that, which many many do -- and I may still -- there's no reason you can't go back into industry and make more than you did before.

somebloke wrote:

Combinatorist wrote:

Some of the other downsides in academia is that is really hard to chose a geographical location. You basically have to be willing to go where ever you can find a job. Some people get lucky finding a job in the region of the country they want to live in, but it seems that is very hard to do these days. On the other hand, for example, my wife is in healthcare and she can find a job anywhere in the country that she wants.

Right there with you. It gets far more complicated if you have a significant other that is also in the academic world.

Indeed it does; my wife and I left academia in part because we couldn't solve the two-body problem.

Thank you for showing us how little you truly know.

somebloke wrote:

Your field is nothing like mine, and likely nothing like anything other than the very specific case of educational research.

You are in a very specific niche. One I consider to be full of hacks, actually.

Oh you mean a niche field that effects millions of people.

Nice try though.

Why don't you man up and tells us what field of research you are in. Or are you afraid its just another nich field full of hacks.

hhmmmmmmmmmmmm wrote:

somebloke wrote:

Your field is nothing like mine, and likely nothing like anything other than the very specific case of educational research.

You are in a very specific niche. One I consider to be full of hacks, actually.

Oh you mean a niche field that effects millions of people.

Nice try though.

Why don't you man up and tells us what field of research you are in. Or are you afraid its just another nich field full of hacks.

DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?

LRC THIS IS IRONY. THIS IS YOUR DEFINITION.