Leaving academia(austinhenley.com)
austinhenley.com
Leaving academia
https://austinhenley.com/blog/leavingacademia.html
73 comments
I can relate to what the author is saying. I stopped my PhD program after having completed all coursework, and right as I was beginning the work on my dissertation. I had a great pair of professors as my main advisors, who frankly asked "Why? Why are you pursuing this PhD?". My answer was that I felt that I would enjoy and thrive doing "pure research". Their feedback was very honest and frank: "but we hardly ever get to do any pure research". They went on about faculty politics, hours spent writing grant proposals, hustling to get published, ..., and how teaching students is actually a pain (if one really wanted to do research) after a relatively short time.
That was 1993, and the exploding new world of opportunities in working on _actual_ distributed systems (my dissertation topic area) in the newly forming "Internet Era" were real and exciting. Those opportunities, juxtaposed with my advisors' depictions of academia, made the choice easier. I felt very grateful to get such honest insight. For years I wondered/worried if I would regret abandoning all the work I had done, and it felt uncomfortable having not finished a goal I had set. By 10 years after, though, I had no regrets or worries remaining.
That was 1993, and the exploding new world of opportunities in working on _actual_ distributed systems (my dissertation topic area) in the newly forming "Internet Era" were real and exciting. Those opportunities, juxtaposed with my advisors' depictions of academia, made the choice easier. I felt very grateful to get such honest insight. For years I wondered/worried if I would regret abandoning all the work I had done, and it felt uncomfortable having not finished a goal I had set. By 10 years after, though, I had no regrets or worries remaining.
Have seen both sides of this. I quit grad school to work, and was much happier having done so, and then returned to teach years later and was much happier than before. A few things:
* There should be much more tolerance for going back and forth. I find many colleagues who have only been academics feel a frustration I don't have, rooted in an over-identification with what the guild thinks of them. When you've had some success in other contexts, it is easier to appreciate the guild and take its excesses with a grain of salt.
* This stuff isn't for everybody. I realized I love this job because, given the choice, I would rather hide and write a paper than build a company or a product or offer a service. Thank Goodness most people in the world aren't like that, we would be screwed. I am hugely grateful for my non-academic collaborators who are not like that. It should be perfectly respectable to get an advanced degree, if you want, and then peace out. (That said, lots of people who are natural scholars get treated as if they don't belong because of their identity, background, etc. So it is not enough to simply assume the people who are in these roles are those who should or could be.)
Leaving that first time was a moment of great joy for me. I celebrate with those who leave, just as I am grateful I found my way back.
* There should be much more tolerance for going back and forth. I find many colleagues who have only been academics feel a frustration I don't have, rooted in an over-identification with what the guild thinks of them. When you've had some success in other contexts, it is easier to appreciate the guild and take its excesses with a grain of salt.
* This stuff isn't for everybody. I realized I love this job because, given the choice, I would rather hide and write a paper than build a company or a product or offer a service. Thank Goodness most people in the world aren't like that, we would be screwed. I am hugely grateful for my non-academic collaborators who are not like that. It should be perfectly respectable to get an advanced degree, if you want, and then peace out. (That said, lots of people who are natural scholars get treated as if they don't belong because of their identity, background, etc. So it is not enough to simply assume the people who are in these roles are those who should or could be.)
Leaving that first time was a moment of great joy for me. I celebrate with those who leave, just as I am grateful I found my way back.
The lure of industry is strong for academics, especially in CS. It's hard to pass up making my 2x or more in industry. But every time I think about making the switch, I find it really hard to put a value on what the author points out at the end:
Is a 2x salary increase worth giving up that kind of time? For me I think It'd have to be a sum where I could retire much sooner, but what I would imagine myself doing in early retirement is the research I'm doing right now.
I know a lot of people that made the same decision as this author, and they do report they miss the freedom of summer that academics get.
* - you get 6 years or so to prove you've spent your time wisely.
The freedom and unstructured time to explore fuzzy problems is unmatched.
Is a 2x salary increase worth giving up that kind of time? For me I think It'd have to be a sum where I could retire much sooner, but what I would imagine myself doing in early retirement is the research I'm doing right now.
I know a lot of people that made the same decision as this author, and they do report they miss the freedom of summer that academics get.
* - you get 6 years or so to prove you've spent your time wisely.
> It's hard to pass up making my 2x or more in industry.
Austin's salary is public data, and I have a really good sample of what people like him make in industry.
Try 5x. Before RSU appreciation.
Maybe 3x. But 3x would imply a VERY chill industry position. "Name your interest space and we'll let you work on that" type of gig. Probably way more chill than academia.
> The freedom and unstructured time to explore fuzzy problems is unmatched.
Industry also provides this. Actually, I find much more freedom in industry than in academia. And, if we're honest, my industry position is probably at least as secure as a faculty position at a public university in a red state.
> I don't know any other job that gives you 6-figure salary and lets you basically do whatever you want for 42% of the year.
In industry research, you can't do whatever you want. But you can usually do what you want.
In fact, the caveat of "prove your worth" is a huge tell. In industry, you REALLY CAN do what you want! Real freedom; just be useful. In academia you have "freedom". By which we mean "raise money".
But even if not... look at it like this: an industry position that pays 5x allows you to work for a year and then take the next 4 off. 2/5 is bigger than 1/5. And that is time you can actually take off. To do whatever. Not "off" in the "better be writing grant proposals!" sense. Actually off.
> Is a 2x salary increase worth giving up that kind of time?
Probably not. But if you can land an R1 CS position in SE, you should be making closer to 5x.
Austin's salary is public data, and I have a really good sample of what people like him make in industry.
Try 5x. Before RSU appreciation.
Maybe 3x. But 3x would imply a VERY chill industry position. "Name your interest space and we'll let you work on that" type of gig. Probably way more chill than academia.
> The freedom and unstructured time to explore fuzzy problems is unmatched.
Industry also provides this. Actually, I find much more freedom in industry than in academia. And, if we're honest, my industry position is probably at least as secure as a faculty position at a public university in a red state.
> I don't know any other job that gives you 6-figure salary and lets you basically do whatever you want for 42% of the year.
In industry research, you can't do whatever you want. But you can usually do what you want.
In fact, the caveat of "prove your worth" is a huge tell. In industry, you REALLY CAN do what you want! Real freedom; just be useful. In academia you have "freedom". By which we mean "raise money".
But even if not... look at it like this: an industry position that pays 5x allows you to work for a year and then take the next 4 off. 2/5 is bigger than 1/5. And that is time you can actually take off. To do whatever. Not "off" in the "better be writing grant proposals!" sense. Actually off.
> Is a 2x salary increase worth giving up that kind of time?
Probably not. But if you can land an R1 CS position in SE, you should be making closer to 5x.
Do you know anyone who made $500k for a year and then took 4 years off to work on their research? I'd like to see what they managed to do with their time.
To be fair, no. (People do switch between "low key pure-R" jobs and "higher stress r&D" jobs. Perhaps similar.)
But... perhaps this is because after you've made $industry_money for 10 years and hit your late 30s, you realize you'd rather spend all of your time training your biological AGI agents and don't really give a shit about the kinda unpleasant industry rat race, much less the totally brutal higher ed rat race.
Or skiing. Lots of multi-millionaire ski bums in my grad cohort. No idea what they do in the summers. Not my cup of tea, but probably better than writing papers no one will read.
In early retirement, there's time for research. And time to share that research. Just... no incentive to do the rat race thing that's necessary to convince an academic you're "accomplished something". But who cares? You finished the race. You don't have to get paper awards or NSF grants. You just have to do work that matters. Or ski. Or change diapers.
So, I guess, to be even more fair: yes. CS PhDs work through their 30s and then retire. Totally. All the time.
But... perhaps this is because after you've made $industry_money for 10 years and hit your late 30s, you realize you'd rather spend all of your time training your biological AGI agents and don't really give a shit about the kinda unpleasant industry rat race, much less the totally brutal higher ed rat race.
Or skiing. Lots of multi-millionaire ski bums in my grad cohort. No idea what they do in the summers. Not my cup of tea, but probably better than writing papers no one will read.
In early retirement, there's time for research. And time to share that research. Just... no incentive to do the rat race thing that's necessary to convince an academic you're "accomplished something". But who cares? You finished the race. You don't have to get paper awards or NSF grants. You just have to do work that matters. Or ski. Or change diapers.
So, I guess, to be even more fair: yes. CS PhDs work through their 30s and then retire. Totally. All the time.
That's not too different than what I did. I left Google fall 2018, at the time thinking I'd write a video game. That morphed into doing research on 2D rendering, because building the infrastructure for that was more interesting and exciting than the actual game. For a while (not the whole time) it was pure unstructured time, no outside responsibilities. I rejoined Google a year ago with a research software engineer title, mostly because it was a better place to pursue this research than just continuing on my own.
Partly I'm posting this to support 'lapsedacademic's assertion, you can do good research in industry. It takes a certain element of luck to land a spot, but it also helps to be very passionate about the research itself.
I'm now writing a paper on an exciting GPU algorithm, but it's pure love, funding doesn't depend on it, it just makes a nice point on my list of accomplishments during perf time.
Partly I'm posting this to support 'lapsedacademic's assertion, you can do good research in industry. It takes a certain element of luck to land a spot, but it also helps to be very passionate about the research itself.
I'm now writing a paper on an exciting GPU algorithm, but it's pure love, funding doesn't depend on it, it just makes a nice point on my list of accomplishments during perf time.
I'm curious, what are your options for starting a company based on the research you're doing at Google? What kind of ownership do they get (I assume it's not nothing)?
I thought about starting a company, but that's not where my energy is, it's doing the science. Everything I do is permissively licensed open source (though if I had a chance to work on awesome rendering in a proprietary product I would not turn it down).
I'll also add, I looked into academia and talked to some people about steps in that direction, for example seriously considering taking on teaching a class at UC Berkeley. But I decided that the daily grind of academia was not for me. I think I get to spend a larger fraction of my time actually working on my problems at Google than I would at a university.
I'll also add, I looked into academia and talked to some people about steps in that direction, for example seriously considering taking on teaching a class at UC Berkeley. But I decided that the daily grind of academia was not for me. I think I get to spend a larger fraction of my time actually working on my problems at Google than I would at a university.
What genre of game did you want to build, out of curiosity?
A Zach-like with music synthesis as the core mechanic. I still think it's a good idea, but I don't really know how to write fun games (I think you have to write one or two to get enough experience) and I do know how to write 2D renderers, and increasingly feel able to claim I know how to program GPUs as well. I think it was Ivan Sutherland who said a good plan for research is to do something you think is easy and other people think is hard.
That's a pretty neat idea! (Though probably hard as hell to design...)
A friend of mine did! He's been pretty productive, both in terms of academic things and living a good life.
CS is nice in that you don't (initially) need access to a lot of resources. I think this would be much harder to do in a wet-lab field, which is one of the reasons I'm still here.
CS is nice in that you don't (initially) need access to a lot of resources. I think this would be much harder to do in a wet-lab field, which is one of the reasons I'm still here.
>you REALLY CAN do what you want! Real freedom; just be useful.
exactly. high-level ICs at FAANG set their own schedules/roadmaps and salaries as long as they pushing expanding the forefront of an area that brings value. the truth is academia is a shelter for a lot of people who can't do useful things.
exactly. high-level ICs at FAANG set their own schedules/roadmaps and salaries as long as they pushing expanding the forefront of an area that brings value. the truth is academia is a shelter for a lot of people who can't do useful things.
> the truth is academia is a shelter for a lot of people who can't do useful things.
And that's a good thing, because often times it's not obvious immediately how a particular thing is useful or brings value. Sometimes a particular area of inquiry doesn't appear promising until a subsequent invention many years later.
For example, driverless cars were incubated in academia. Now corporations are using those same techniques. A lot of researchers crashed a lot of cars before a winning combo was discovered. You don't get positive results without a ton of failures and not-useful ideas. It's worth noting that industry was not the one footing the bill here to get all of these negative results. There were no high-level ICs at Google doing this research when it was being done at CMU. Google only started doing it only once the the techniques were proven at the DARPA grand challenges.
And that's a good thing, because often times it's not obvious immediately how a particular thing is useful or brings value. Sometimes a particular area of inquiry doesn't appear promising until a subsequent invention many years later.
For example, driverless cars were incubated in academia. Now corporations are using those same techniques. A lot of researchers crashed a lot of cars before a winning combo was discovered. You don't get positive results without a ton of failures and not-useful ideas. It's worth noting that industry was not the one footing the bill here to get all of these negative results. There were no high-level ICs at Google doing this research when it was being done at CMU. Google only started doing it only once the the techniques were proven at the DARPA grand challenges.
>Sometimes a particular area of inquiry doesn't appear promising until a subsequent invention many years later.
this could be the tagline of every single application to NSF. i'm not sure if you're in academia but there are hordes of projects that are funded that are clearly useless.
>For example, driverless cars were incubated in academia.
are you really claiming that driverless cars weren't immediately obvious as valuable? just because CMU got to it first doesn't mean industry wouldn't have gotten to it.
this could be the tagline of every single application to NSF. i'm not sure if you're in academia but there are hordes of projects that are funded that are clearly useless.
>For example, driverless cars were incubated in academia.
are you really claiming that driverless cars weren't immediately obvious as valuable? just because CMU got to it first doesn't mean industry wouldn't have gotten to it.
> hordes of projects that are funded that are clearly useless
I don't understand what your point is. It's not like industry is immune to funding ideas that are clearly useless (Juicero) or even fraudulent (Theranos). If you have a way to fund only good ideas, I think that would be quite a breakthrough. I mean, look around you: this community is set up around a good-idea selection engine that itself struggles to consistently identify good ideas. Bad ideas are a part of getting to good ideas. If you really had a 100% fool-proof way if identifying bad/good ideas at the pre-funding stage you wouldn't be here talking about it -- you'd be using it to make a ton of money.
Also, I would challenge you to point to a NSF funded idea that is 100% clearly, objectively useless. Something so clearly has no plausible utility whatsoever. I think this would be very hard to do.
> are you really claiming that driverless cars weren't immediately obvious as valuable?
It's true that industry could have but they didn't, and that's the point. It only became attractive to industry after the public sector dumped a massive amount of R&D into it and basically proved how to do it to industry, and that's not a coincidence. Before the the DARPA grand challenges it was absolutely a question as to how viable the idea of driverless cars were. This story is not an uncommon thing.
I don't understand what your point is. It's not like industry is immune to funding ideas that are clearly useless (Juicero) or even fraudulent (Theranos). If you have a way to fund only good ideas, I think that would be quite a breakthrough. I mean, look around you: this community is set up around a good-idea selection engine that itself struggles to consistently identify good ideas. Bad ideas are a part of getting to good ideas. If you really had a 100% fool-proof way if identifying bad/good ideas at the pre-funding stage you wouldn't be here talking about it -- you'd be using it to make a ton of money.
Also, I would challenge you to point to a NSF funded idea that is 100% clearly, objectively useless. Something so clearly has no plausible utility whatsoever. I think this would be very hard to do.
> are you really claiming that driverless cars weren't immediately obvious as valuable?
It's true that industry could have but they didn't, and that's the point. It only became attractive to industry after the public sector dumped a massive amount of R&D into it and basically proved how to do it to industry, and that's not a coincidence. Before the the DARPA grand challenges it was absolutely a question as to how viable the idea of driverless cars were. This story is not an uncommon thing.
>I don't understand what your point is
No it's I that don't understand your implicit point that we should let academics fiddle. Is it just because there's some grand narrative around science being objectively and absolutely for the betterment of mankind? The ideological devotion to science as some kind of monastic pursuit blinds you to the very real facts (on the ground) about how much funding is wasted on one off papers, one off projects, whole conferences devoted to areas that will never improve anyone's life or generate absolutely any return on investment.
>Also, I would challenge you to point to a NSF funded idea that is 100% clearly, objectively useless
It's very easy: pick any nsf grant going back as far as you'd like (such that there's enough lead time) and look at the number of citations on the papers generated from the grant. I don't even have to do this because everyone knows that probably 50% of all papers get absolutely zero citations (https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/not-so-many-uncite...).
>It's true that industry could have but they didn't, and that's the point
Again I have no clue what you're claiming here. You're trying to make some kind of case for academic science shouldering the burden of some fraction of fundamental (pie in the sky) research by citing self-driving cars which is positively laughable as an example of such research.
No it's I that don't understand your implicit point that we should let academics fiddle. Is it just because there's some grand narrative around science being objectively and absolutely for the betterment of mankind? The ideological devotion to science as some kind of monastic pursuit blinds you to the very real facts (on the ground) about how much funding is wasted on one off papers, one off projects, whole conferences devoted to areas that will never improve anyone's life or generate absolutely any return on investment.
>Also, I would challenge you to point to a NSF funded idea that is 100% clearly, objectively useless
It's very easy: pick any nsf grant going back as far as you'd like (such that there's enough lead time) and look at the number of citations on the papers generated from the grant. I don't even have to do this because everyone knows that probably 50% of all papers get absolutely zero citations (https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/not-so-many-uncite...).
>It's true that industry could have but they didn't, and that's the point
Again I have no clue what you're claiming here. You're trying to make some kind of case for academic science shouldering the burden of some fraction of fundamental (pie in the sky) research by citing self-driving cars which is positively laughable as an example of such research.
> whole conferences devoted to areas... pick any nsf grant... and look at the number of citations
Do you see the contradiction here? I don't think bibliometrics are useful for measuring utility.
> I don't understand your implicit point that we should let academics fiddle
I'm actually totally okay with letting academics fiddle. They are super cheap and you're mostly just paying them for small amounts of their time.
But, it should be the faculty who are allowed to fiddle. They shouldn't be given resources to direct other people's fiddling time. In particular, I think we should massively reform the graduate student system to invert the power relationship between faculty and students on any highly exploratory projects.
Specifically, for any grant whose purpose is "fundamental science" and/or training (e.g., ALL NSF money as a starter):
1. the agency funds students instead of faculty. So 100% of the money that goes to graduate students on NSF grants should be redirected to a GRFP-like funding model. This means that NSF grants to faculty should only fund PI summer salaries & shared department resources. Never students. Want a student? Recruit them to collaborate with you.
2. NSF should put a hard upper bound on the number of funded teaching hours permissible or required and funded through any sort of stipend.
NB: students can still teach more hours! But then they will be normal W2 employees who are paid prevailing rates, are included in faculty+staff retirement/pension/benefits, get FICA benefits, etc. The point: if your uni takes a single dollar from NSF, then student stipends can only be actual stipends, not back doors for tax-advantaged ad junct labor that excludes universities from paying FICA taxes on behalf of their teaching staff (who happen to be grad students).
Do you see the contradiction here? I don't think bibliometrics are useful for measuring utility.
> I don't understand your implicit point that we should let academics fiddle
I'm actually totally okay with letting academics fiddle. They are super cheap and you're mostly just paying them for small amounts of their time.
But, it should be the faculty who are allowed to fiddle. They shouldn't be given resources to direct other people's fiddling time. In particular, I think we should massively reform the graduate student system to invert the power relationship between faculty and students on any highly exploratory projects.
Specifically, for any grant whose purpose is "fundamental science" and/or training (e.g., ALL NSF money as a starter):
1. the agency funds students instead of faculty. So 100% of the money that goes to graduate students on NSF grants should be redirected to a GRFP-like funding model. This means that NSF grants to faculty should only fund PI summer salaries & shared department resources. Never students. Want a student? Recruit them to collaborate with you.
2. NSF should put a hard upper bound on the number of funded teaching hours permissible or required and funded through any sort of stipend.
NB: students can still teach more hours! But then they will be normal W2 employees who are paid prevailing rates, are included in faculty+staff retirement/pension/benefits, get FICA benefits, etc. The point: if your uni takes a single dollar from NSF, then student stipends can only be actual stipends, not back doors for tax-advantaged ad junct labor that excludes universities from paying FICA taxes on behalf of their teaching staff (who happen to be grad students).
MIT is one step ahead of you, they already ding faculty with NSF GRF students extra overhead because ostensibly the NSF fellow is there for MIT's brand and not the professor's research.
Yeah, places like MIT are where I got the model. Seeing how my peers were treating at places that are not like MIT is how I got the motivation to care.
Tippy-top programs in any particular field already operate in a way that treats grad students more like students than itinerant labor.
It's the other 99% of institutions that are gutting scientific human capital in the name of empowering incompetent middle management. (Professors are middle management. Most of them are incompetent at that job.)
Tippy-top programs in any particular field already operate in a way that treats grad students more like students than itinerant labor.
It's the other 99% of institutions that are gutting scientific human capital in the name of empowering incompetent middle management. (Professors are middle management. Most of them are incompetent at that job.)
>Do you see the contradiction here? I don't think bibliometrics are useful for measuring utility.
that's not a contradiction that's like just your opinion man. it's also the no true scotsman fallacy on your part.
>we should massively
>NSF grants should be redirected to a GRFP-like funding model
>NSF should put a hard upper bound
cool when you replace panchanathan you can institute all of the policies and only then will academia be more egalitarian and possibly more useful to society as a whole. until then you're just playing bait and switch wrt the current state of things.
that's not a contradiction that's like just your opinion man. it's also the no true scotsman fallacy on your part.
>we should massively
>NSF grants should be redirected to a GRFP-like funding model
>NSF should put a hard upper bound
cool when you replace panchanathan you can institute all of the policies and only then will academia be more egalitarian and possibly more useful to society as a whole. until then you're just playing bait and switch wrt the current state of things.
> that's not a contradiction that's like just your opinion man. it's also the no true scotsman fallacy on your part.
I don't follow.
Useless work gets cited all the time. I'm not suggesting that there should be less accountability to be useful to society. I'm just pointing out that bibliometrics is a particularly bad way of measuring utility.
> until then you're just playing bait and switch wrt the current state of things.
Again, I don't follow. How am I playing bait and switch? I don't work in academia.
> replace panchanathan
Fortunately, that's not necessary. You don't put pressure on agencies like NSF by joining the civil service. Even high-ranking civil servants are... well, servants. You put pressure on federal agencies by having tons of money and free time. Which many lapsed academics in CS have in spades ;-)
I don't follow.
Useless work gets cited all the time. I'm not suggesting that there should be less accountability to be useful to society. I'm just pointing out that bibliometrics is a particularly bad way of measuring utility.
> until then you're just playing bait and switch wrt the current state of things.
Again, I don't follow. How am I playing bait and switch? I don't work in academia.
> replace panchanathan
Fortunately, that's not necessary. You don't put pressure on agencies like NSF by joining the civil service. Even high-ranking civil servants are... well, servants. You put pressure on federal agencies by having tons of money and free time. Which many lapsed academics in CS have in spades ;-)
This is only somewhat true, to get hired to a tenure track position you generally have to propose a body of research to the other faculty members during your job talk, so it has to be research they find compelling AND that they think will pull down grant money, so . . . generally not absolute freedom there.
Also when you work as an academic you are underpaid and working the equivalent of three jobs, 1) research and begging for grant money, 2) teaching, 3) bureaucratic nonsense, committees, student advising, etc. So I think 42% to do your research is a very generous estimate.
I left academia after my PhD and wish I would've left sooner. It's a house of cards built on the illusion "prestige" and indentured servant wages.
Also when you work as an academic you are underpaid and working the equivalent of three jobs, 1) research and begging for grant money, 2) teaching, 3) bureaucratic nonsense, committees, student advising, etc. So I think 42% to do your research is a very generous estimate.
I left academia after my PhD and wish I would've left sooner. It's a house of cards built on the illusion "prestige" and indentured servant wages.
In the research world, the summer (and the holidays) is the rare time where you can actually get work done.
A tenure-track professor, in particular, isn't going to be taking 42% of the year off. They're going to be crushing it, attempting to turn out quality work and secure enduring funding.
The reason to pursue a Ph.D. is love. Perhaps the reason to pursue a professorship: if you look at the combined tasks of committee-work, grant-applications, teaching, and research and think, "hell yes, I'm in!", it might be for you.
As I worked through my undergraduate, graduate, and post-doc careers, I consistently noted that faculty were not, on average, all that happy. The work can have real purpose, but the sacrifices one (and their families) must make toward that purpose are substantial.
A major reason that I left academia was that we were under-resourced, especially in institutional support, to do our jobs, despite being extremely well-funded by academic standards. The IT-onboarding my first day in industry was a huge breath of fresh air -- it would have taken 1-4 weeks to do in academia what was accomplished in 4 hr; industry values time.
A tenure-track professor, in particular, isn't going to be taking 42% of the year off. They're going to be crushing it, attempting to turn out quality work and secure enduring funding.
The reason to pursue a Ph.D. is love. Perhaps the reason to pursue a professorship: if you look at the combined tasks of committee-work, grant-applications, teaching, and research and think, "hell yes, I'm in!", it might be for you.
As I worked through my undergraduate, graduate, and post-doc careers, I consistently noted that faculty were not, on average, all that happy. The work can have real purpose, but the sacrifices one (and their families) must make toward that purpose are substantial.
A major reason that I left academia was that we were under-resourced, especially in institutional support, to do our jobs, despite being extremely well-funded by academic standards. The IT-onboarding my first day in industry was a huge breath of fresh air -- it would have taken 1-4 weeks to do in academia what was accomplished in 4 hr; industry values time.
> lets you basically do whatever* you want for 42% of the year.
Henry Ford once said "A customer can have any color they want, as long as it is black".
You can do whatever you want as long as you want to do exactly what you've been told you have to do. You have to do something extremely specialized - publish your work in good outlets (whatever that means, depending on the field). The truth is that you can work on any topic you want, as long as you can publish in the right place. You have to deal with reviewers. You have to follow the norms of the profession. Don't like the way things are done? Tough. You do it the way the reviewers and editors want you to do it.
I'm writing this more for anyone that's considering going into academia. It's not at all what you think when you hear people talking about your "freedom". There's a long list of rules you have to follow, not unlike any profession.
Henry Ford once said "A customer can have any color they want, as long as it is black".
You can do whatever you want as long as you want to do exactly what you've been told you have to do. You have to do something extremely specialized - publish your work in good outlets (whatever that means, depending on the field). The truth is that you can work on any topic you want, as long as you can publish in the right place. You have to deal with reviewers. You have to follow the norms of the profession. Don't like the way things are done? Tough. You do it the way the reviewers and editors want you to do it.
I'm writing this more for anyone that's considering going into academia. It's not at all what you think when you hear people talking about your "freedom". There's a long list of rules you have to follow, not unlike any profession.
You're not going to release anything people actually use in academia. Research is useful, but it's not product. Based on what he says at the end of that message, it seems like he wants to release a product; I take him at his word. To do that, he basically has to go into industry.
It's pretty easy to make $100K per year doing consulting at half-time or less, and have 50% or more time left-over to do whatever you want. If there is any argument about staying in academia, it cannot be rooted in financial considerations.
2x? Try 10x
How common is it for an assistant professor to move into a role for one million dollars a year?
Very uncommon. I've never seen it.
3x-5x is more reasonable.
But those numbers are before RSU appreciation, which I suspect you're massively underestimating.
FB granted 5 years ago went from 128 to 326. AMZN 800 to 3200. AAPL 29 to 171. GOOG 800 to 2700. MSFT 62 to 311. (Netflix excluded for the obvious reason.)
So if your total comp is 500K and half or more of that is long-dated stock (or you just didn't sell) then over the last 4-5 years you could very well have been making million a year or so. And 500K is doable for an asst prof.
Not guaranteed, of course. But cash is comp is risky as well. How many professors got a 7% raise to adjust for inflation last year?
10x pre-appreciation is certainly possible after 5-10 years in industry, though. Probably not the norm, but not some crazy impossible out-of-reach number.
3x-5x is more reasonable.
But those numbers are before RSU appreciation, which I suspect you're massively underestimating.
FB granted 5 years ago went from 128 to 326. AMZN 800 to 3200. AAPL 29 to 171. GOOG 800 to 2700. MSFT 62 to 311. (Netflix excluded for the obvious reason.)
So if your total comp is 500K and half or more of that is long-dated stock (or you just didn't sell) then over the last 4-5 years you could very well have been making million a year or so. And 500K is doable for an asst prof.
Not guaranteed, of course. But cash is comp is risky as well. How many professors got a 7% raise to adjust for inflation last year?
10x pre-appreciation is certainly possible after 5-10 years in industry, though. Probably not the norm, but not some crazy impossible out-of-reach number.
I understand what RSUs are, but the way I look at it, they are essentially payment for the fact that Google or whoever owns the IP to all of your output. The kind of IP language in contracts I've been under can be quite onerous, and NDAs can even prevent you from talking about your work freely! Or are there situations where industry researchers own the IP they create at e.g. Google, and can go on to create companies based off of that IP?
I'm sure; I didn't mean to imply otherwise. The appreciation in RSUs can have a staggering effect on total comp even to those of us who should know better :)
Regarding IP: Yup. It's true. If you're willing and able to do the work to make millions in ARR from your IP then academia can break even. (beware tech transfer... universities can be more predatory than the slimiest of VC firms!)
Even at tippy top R1s that's a tiny fraction of faculty and requires a ton of extra work. But, yeah, it's a good case where academia can make sense.
Regarding IP: Yup. It's true. If you're willing and able to do the work to make millions in ARR from your IP then academia can break even. (beware tech transfer... universities can be more predatory than the slimiest of VC firms!)
Even at tippy top R1s that's a tiny fraction of faculty and requires a ton of extra work. But, yeah, it's a good case where academia can make sense.
I am in the same position as the author: I have a tenure track in academia, a semi-decent work, and good feedback from peers/students. However, I never felt so miserable.
I've been thinking about all the reasons why I should not quit. The "freedom" in Academia, helping society (or a few people in it), the grass being greener on the other side, the pandemic is exacerbating my thoughts, it's just burnout, and so on.
I grow more convinced by the minute, particularly when I read that other share the same agonies (thanks for sharing this, author!). Industry is though in many aspects, but at least it's not a delusional bubble fueled by frustration as Academia is. If nothing else, Industry feels more real and with better chances of making me feel alive.
I've been thinking about all the reasons why I should not quit. The "freedom" in Academia, helping society (or a few people in it), the grass being greener on the other side, the pandemic is exacerbating my thoughts, it's just burnout, and so on.
I grow more convinced by the minute, particularly when I read that other share the same agonies (thanks for sharing this, author!). Industry is though in many aspects, but at least it's not a delusional bubble fueled by frustration as Academia is. If nothing else, Industry feels more real and with better chances of making me feel alive.
I quit academia after my PhD. Now, working as a developer remotely I have no money stress, relaxed work schedule, relaxed colleagues, no need to write grant applications etc. I even have some time to study the same academic stuff I was doing before, but without the pressure. The only thing missing is the academic network for exchanging ideas.
When I tell this to my friends still in academia, I can sense some envy, but also get this feeling that they are not comfortable with even entertaining the idea of getting out of academia.
When I tell this to my friends still in academia, I can sense some envy, but also get this feeling that they are not comfortable with even entertaining the idea of getting out of academia.
You are not alone...I found the 'quit lit' genre to be both comforting and tempting as a grad student, e.g.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/08/18/re...
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/08/18/re...
> The freedom and unstructured time to explore fuzzy problems is unmatched.
This right here is probably one of the biggest reasons why I am planning on academia. From the little time that I have spent in industry (working alongside a bachelors degree) I have always felt a little unsatisfied when we just had to ship something without exploring the outer edges of a problem. I would really like to experience working on problems so thoroughly in ways that industry usually can’t afford to do. Plus, I think I will enjoy teaching. There’s nothing like seeing a lightbulb turn on in somebody’s head after you have explained something to them.
This right here is probably one of the biggest reasons why I am planning on academia. From the little time that I have spent in industry (working alongside a bachelors degree) I have always felt a little unsatisfied when we just had to ship something without exploring the outer edges of a problem. I would really like to experience working on problems so thoroughly in ways that industry usually can’t afford to do. Plus, I think I will enjoy teaching. There’s nothing like seeing a lightbulb turn on in somebody’s head after you have explained something to them.
His research field is software engineering. Which is one of those fields where all the exciting and fun advancements happen in the industry, and the academic research is often quite boring and slow.
Not to mention in terms of making money, you would be far better off in the industry than spending 6 years in hopes of getting a tenure.
Not to mention in terms of making money, you would be far better off in the industry than spending 6 years in hopes of getting a tenure.
> His research field is software engineering
I think this is really key. Unlike many computer science disciplines that really benefit from the academic environment (e.g. you can work on a problem for a long time without the constraints of business considerations), when your field is literally "how to best build software in a collaborative environment", the best place to really learn that is by building software in a collaborative environment.
The tech giants even have large, focused research teams on how to improve their own software engineering processes.
I think this is really key. Unlike many computer science disciplines that really benefit from the academic environment (e.g. you can work on a problem for a long time without the constraints of business considerations), when your field is literally "how to best build software in a collaborative environment", the best place to really learn that is by building software in a collaborative environment.
The tech giants even have large, focused research teams on how to improve their own software engineering processes.
> Not to mention in terms of making money, you would be far better off in the industry than spending 6 years in hopes of getting a tenure.
That's true for most technical fields in academia. A physics degree can land you a well paid job as a data analyst/scientist or in quantitative finance.
That's true for most technical fields in academia. A physics degree can land you a well paid job as a data analyst/scientist or in quantitative finance.
The grass is always greener...?
On the flip side, I really don't like the tech industry. I'd love to try grad school, as a research career seems more fulfilling and helpful to humanity (compared to most companies) -- but I'm shy about getting rec letters, nor did I do any undergrad research.
On the flip side, I really don't like the tech industry. I'd love to try grad school, as a research career seems more fulfilling and helpful to humanity (compared to most companies) -- but I'm shy about getting rec letters, nor did I do any undergrad research.
> I'd love to try grad school, as a research career seems more fulfilling and helpful to humanity (compared to most companies)
Most research is done simply to publish. The methods don’t even really have to work outside of your small dataset. Call me jaded, but my peers used to idolize the geniuses in industry who built way more advanced stuff than we had been working on.
Now I’m in industry and I’ve found a place that I feel does make the world a better place and I’m happier that my contributions matter.
Most research is done simply to publish. The methods don’t even really have to work outside of your small dataset. Call me jaded, but my peers used to idolize the geniuses in industry who built way more advanced stuff than we had been working on.
Now I’m in industry and I’ve found a place that I feel does make the world a better place and I’m happier that my contributions matter.
Yes, the stuff applied/invented in industry has to work and generate a benifit. In academia I see it often that people stop after the proof of principle (which if the dataset is too small only appears to be a proof of principle)
I'm in the same boat as you, tech industry with casual aspirations to rejoin academia. But I'm skeptical the grass is greener.
Check out the "PhD grind". The author details his experience with how publishing papers in academia has become just as game-ified as tech is today (for a fraction of the compensation).
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15731248-the-ph-d-grind
Check out the "PhD grind". The author details his experience with how publishing papers in academia has become just as game-ified as tech is today (for a fraction of the compensation).
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15731248-the-ph-d-grind
It is fairly easy for a person in industry to go back to academia as a student. If you are serious - talk to a faculty member - and chart out a plan.
Is this true? I’ve always felt “locked out” of any serious academic career as someone who, in their undergrad, focused on getting into industry rather than on research experience.
What does that path look like?
What does that path look like?
Couple of suggestions:
- A lot of people have written really good advice about the application process; see https://blog.keithw.org/2016/02/stock-advice-for-undergradua... for a compilation.
- In the U.S., university faculty usually have substantial influence (and, depending on the department, sometimes close to "they 100% make the decision yes or no") on the PhD admissions decisions among applicants to their department's PhD program who name the faculty member in their application materials. So if you want to come and do a PhD as a "non-traditional" applicant, your real task is to have some faculty members decide they want to hire you as their student.
- If you want to start doing research as a non-traditional applicant, the faculty member's main questions are likely to be things like, "What can this person do for me and my research group? Will this person be a net asset and a contributor of ideas and perspective and get-it-done-ness?", but...
- The prospect of a "mature" PhD applicant can be tantalizing to a faculty member because (a) it's helpful to have people in a research group who have a different perspective and new ideas (about problems of interest, and ways to solve them), (b) older applicants might be assumed to be more mature and have better self-knowledge about what kind of environment they need around themselves to be happy/productive, and (c) applicants from the industry often have skills that are useful to a research group but not necessarily widespread in academia.
- But... the PI may also wonder, "Is this person going to enjoy and survive in an unstructured research environment where they are my apprentice, but essentially their own boss most of the week, and they have to sustain their own motivation in a multi-year research project where success is uncertain and goals often shift?" or perhaps, "If this person was living on $300,000 a year in the industry, do they really want to come here and work for me as a doctoral student for $62,000 for 5-6 years, or are they going to leave and go back to industry when the going gets tough in year 3? Are they just coming here to meet people to form a startup with and I'll have wasted a year or two training them?"
- Some of the ways to de-risk that person's hiring decision are to (a) get your foot in the door in research somehow -- this may require volunteering for free in a research group if you are already out of school, (b) demonstrate promise in research in that group by contributing to a project and ideally a paper submission, and (c) have the PI be able to write you strong letter of recommendation where they write something like, "X was always contributing new ideas and has a great deal of independence/resilience in the face of setbacks/creativity/brilliance/a unique perspective on problems. I would gladly take X as my own student! They remind me of a young [now accomplished researcher] when they were at a similar stage." This kind of letter will be persuasive with the PI's colleagues in the same subdiscipline at other universities, and if the PI really likes you, they will offer you admission as a PhD student at their own institution. Or, you could do something else awesome that demonstrates initiative and creativity and resilience and makes you an interesting applicant -- you don't necessarily have to work in a research lab, but it does make the decision easier.
- For the love of God, please read the faculty member's own website before you email them. Do not send a long email that is all about yourself, your accomplishments, and your interests. Faculty members at well-known universities get tons of those emails. What's interesting to the recipient is usually some question about their work and their interests that provokes thought. If you have a good question about their work, ask it! If you have an idea for how their work might be extended or improved, you might ask if they know of somebody already working on that idea. Faculty members usually love talking about their work and engaging with people who seriously engage with them.
- Other ideas for how to get a sense of what research is like and what you might be interested in (and meet people): attend talks at your local college or university (they are usually open to the public). Go to research conferences in your field of interest and listen to some talks and meet people in the hallways and poster sessions.
- A lot of people have written really good advice about the application process; see https://blog.keithw.org/2016/02/stock-advice-for-undergradua... for a compilation.
- In the U.S., university faculty usually have substantial influence (and, depending on the department, sometimes close to "they 100% make the decision yes or no") on the PhD admissions decisions among applicants to their department's PhD program who name the faculty member in their application materials. So if you want to come and do a PhD as a "non-traditional" applicant, your real task is to have some faculty members decide they want to hire you as their student.
- If you want to start doing research as a non-traditional applicant, the faculty member's main questions are likely to be things like, "What can this person do for me and my research group? Will this person be a net asset and a contributor of ideas and perspective and get-it-done-ness?", but...
- The prospect of a "mature" PhD applicant can be tantalizing to a faculty member because (a) it's helpful to have people in a research group who have a different perspective and new ideas (about problems of interest, and ways to solve them), (b) older applicants might be assumed to be more mature and have better self-knowledge about what kind of environment they need around themselves to be happy/productive, and (c) applicants from the industry often have skills that are useful to a research group but not necessarily widespread in academia.
- But... the PI may also wonder, "Is this person going to enjoy and survive in an unstructured research environment where they are my apprentice, but essentially their own boss most of the week, and they have to sustain their own motivation in a multi-year research project where success is uncertain and goals often shift?" or perhaps, "If this person was living on $300,000 a year in the industry, do they really want to come here and work for me as a doctoral student for $62,000 for 5-6 years, or are they going to leave and go back to industry when the going gets tough in year 3? Are they just coming here to meet people to form a startup with and I'll have wasted a year or two training them?"
- Some of the ways to de-risk that person's hiring decision are to (a) get your foot in the door in research somehow -- this may require volunteering for free in a research group if you are already out of school, (b) demonstrate promise in research in that group by contributing to a project and ideally a paper submission, and (c) have the PI be able to write you strong letter of recommendation where they write something like, "X was always contributing new ideas and has a great deal of independence/resilience in the face of setbacks/creativity/brilliance/a unique perspective on problems. I would gladly take X as my own student! They remind me of a young [now accomplished researcher] when they were at a similar stage." This kind of letter will be persuasive with the PI's colleagues in the same subdiscipline at other universities, and if the PI really likes you, they will offer you admission as a PhD student at their own institution. Or, you could do something else awesome that demonstrates initiative and creativity and resilience and makes you an interesting applicant -- you don't necessarily have to work in a research lab, but it does make the decision easier.
- For the love of God, please read the faculty member's own website before you email them. Do not send a long email that is all about yourself, your accomplishments, and your interests. Faculty members at well-known universities get tons of those emails. What's interesting to the recipient is usually some question about their work and their interests that provokes thought. If you have a good question about their work, ask it! If you have an idea for how their work might be extended or improved, you might ask if they know of somebody already working on that idea. Faculty members usually love talking about their work and engaging with people who seriously engage with them.
- Other ideas for how to get a sense of what research is like and what you might be interested in (and meet people): attend talks at your local college or university (they are usually open to the public). Go to research conferences in your field of interest and listen to some talks and meet people in the hallways and poster sessions.
> If this person was living on $300,000 a year in the industry, do they really want to come here and work for me as a doctoral student for $62,000
Damn $62k as a PhD student? I thought it was more like half that. It wasn’t too long away I was only making a bit more than that in a failed industry career.
I’m thinking about doing one (not in CS though) and this does seem like a helpful blog, though I’ll have to complete undergrad first, which is it’s own beast a non traditional student (I’m convinced the university system doesn’t give a damn about non traditional students outside very specific demographics)
Damn $62k as a PhD student? I thought it was more like half that. It wasn’t too long away I was only making a bit more than that in a failed industry career.
I’m thinking about doing one (not in CS though) and this does seem like a helpful blog, though I’ll have to complete undergrad first, which is it’s own beast a non traditional student (I’m convinced the university system doesn’t give a damn about non traditional students outside very specific demographics)
That is a crazy stipend! Maybe somewhere in California + CS + some kind of top-up, but elsewhere, half of that is still relatively generous.
For reference, the NIH stipend for a starting grad student is $26,648; you'll get to $62k after six years...of postdoc.
For reference, the NIH stipend for a starting grad student is $26,648; you'll get to $62k after six years...of postdoc.
That's the current salary for a Stanford CS PhD candidate who stays for the summer in a "90%" research assistantship (as is typical in some subdisciplines), but (a) obviously the cost of living here is high, and I think some of that salary has to go back and pay for housing and some portion of health insurance, and (b) many PhD students do an internship in industry during the summer and can end up making more than that.
Frist you'll have to find a researcher you want to work with. Go through all the schools you would apply to and look at the individual faculty pages. Reach out to them and mention your interest with specificity. I get a lot of cold e-mail with a generic "I've looked at your research and it is interesting to me." and those letters go right into the junk folder.
You're most likely to get a reply from a PI who just landed a big grant. They will be flush with cash and in need of students. Departments like to trumpet when their faculty get these big grants, so you can monitor department pages and see who is getting grants. Then you can congratulate them and ask if they need any help, and if so you'd like to join their lab.
I disagree with the sibling comment that you would ever be "locked out" of anything. You might not be getting in to the tippy-top programs as the competition there will be quite fierce, but there's so many programs I think you can find something somewhere. You don't even have to have that much relevant experience in the field. Some programs have catch-up coursework for students who are cross discipline. I did an undergrad in Physics and switched to a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and really didn't know much going in.
So I wouldn't worry about being behind. And honestly, if you've been in industry a while you might have quite a leg up on 22 year-olds from a project and time management standpoint.
You're most likely to get a reply from a PI who just landed a big grant. They will be flush with cash and in need of students. Departments like to trumpet when their faculty get these big grants, so you can monitor department pages and see who is getting grants. Then you can congratulate them and ask if they need any help, and if so you'd like to join their lab.
I disagree with the sibling comment that you would ever be "locked out" of anything. You might not be getting in to the tippy-top programs as the competition there will be quite fierce, but there's so many programs I think you can find something somewhere. You don't even have to have that much relevant experience in the field. Some programs have catch-up coursework for students who are cross discipline. I did an undergrad in Physics and switched to a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and really didn't know much going in.
So I wouldn't worry about being behind. And honestly, if you've been in industry a while you might have quite a leg up on 22 year-olds from a project and time management standpoint.
Having almost finished, it's not just possible it's relatively straightforward and not that uncommon. I didn't even have a good undergrad GPA.
You do need an advisor with some imagination to leverage your skills and fill in gaps that most 22 year olds don't have.
You do need an advisor with some imagination to leverage your skills and fill in gaps that most 22 year olds don't have.
Excellent detailed advice by the others in this thread.
Let me add what I think you can bring to the table: a track record in getting things done. The only thing a professor has less of than money is time. If you can convince a PI that you can implement stuff more reliably than ‘mere’ students, without having to be held by the hand all the time, that’s a winner.
Let me add what I think you can bring to the table: a track record in getting things done. The only thing a professor has less of than money is time. If you can convince a PI that you can implement stuff more reliably than ‘mere’ students, without having to be held by the hand all the time, that’s a winner.
it depends on what your skillset really is and what areas you're interested in for your phd.
pure theory (finite automata, complexity, computational geometry, optimization)? yea you're probably locked out by virtue of competing against students that have the relevant theory fresher in their heads. note i didn't list ML there because i personally don't consider ML theory heavy (no matter what the wannbes will claim wrt to TDA or whatever).
basically in any other area, if you have true hard skills (e.g., deep systems knowledge, networks, graphics) then you're competitive as long as you have a decent ugrad GPA and can get a decent GRE and some decent letters of rec. the path looks like reaching out to a potential advisor and starting a conversation with them about whatever research of theirs you find interesting.
pure theory (finite automata, complexity, computational geometry, optimization)? yea you're probably locked out by virtue of competing against students that have the relevant theory fresher in their heads. note i didn't list ML there because i personally don't consider ML theory heavy (no matter what the wannbes will claim wrt to TDA or whatever).
basically in any other area, if you have true hard skills (e.g., deep systems knowledge, networks, graphics) then you're competitive as long as you have a decent ugrad GPA and can get a decent GRE and some decent letters of rec. the path looks like reaching out to a potential advisor and starting a conversation with them about whatever research of theirs you find interesting.
Yep. In my lab two people are doing a PhD while having left university for awhile and while still doing their job (teaching English).
Honestly, you are going to see a LOT of this due to COVID.
COVID hasn't been good to anyone but faculty are in a particularly difficult situation. Increasingly, they are made to feel responsible for their students' mental health and well being alongside increasing expectations around teaching, inevitably increasing expectations around research, ever more administrative nonsense, and ever more interference and being messed about with. Add in just he absolute sheer NOISE of doing anything - including trying to publish and it's just overwhelming.
Honestly, if I leave academia - it will be HR that finally does it. I work at a university where the sheer incompetence of HR has effectively wrenched complete control away from anyone else.
COVID hasn't been good to anyone but faculty are in a particularly difficult situation. Increasingly, they are made to feel responsible for their students' mental health and well being alongside increasing expectations around teaching, inevitably increasing expectations around research, ever more administrative nonsense, and ever more interference and being messed about with. Add in just he absolute sheer NOISE of doing anything - including trying to publish and it's just overwhelming.
Honestly, if I leave academia - it will be HR that finally does it. I work at a university where the sheer incompetence of HR has effectively wrenched complete control away from anyone else.
>the sheer incompetence of HR
please expound. i am in a similar predicament and feel like a lone voice in the wild when trying to express this to my peers. i can't tell if they don't see what i do or if they are on board with it.
please expound. i am in a similar predicament and feel like a lone voice in the wild when trying to express this to my peers. i can't tell if they don't see what i do or if they are on board with it.
E.g., (1) it took us 7 months to hire a (US citizen) post doc. (2) we lost a faculty candidate because HR took so long to generate an offer letter that the person applied for and started another job between when they got a verbal offer and when they got a written offer letter.
HR is completely non responsive and on the off chance you get in contact with them you get one of three answers:
- you're dumb because you didn't know about this other form/rule/policy
- you actually need to talk to X (typically the person who sent me to them)
- the policy from last time changed, or are claimed to have changed
HR is completely non responsive and on the off chance you get in contact with them you get one of three answers:
- you're dumb because you didn't know about this other form/rule/policy
- you actually need to talk to X (typically the person who sent me to them)
- the policy from last time changed, or are claimed to have changed
That doesn't sound too much worse than some HR in industry...
OT: could I ask you some questions about another thread (semiconductor fabs), privately? My twitter contact info is in my profile.
OT: could I ask you some questions about another thread (semiconductor fabs), privately? My twitter contact info is in my profile.
amen. thank you. unfortunately similar challenges exist in industry enterprise environments. small companies can be immune from it.
I've worked at a bunch of places...honestly small company/startup HR scares me just as much.
Somewhere in there is a happy balance between 'no HR' and an 'HR run organization'. I haven't experienced it, but I would choose big companies over academia in a heart beat
Somewhere in there is a happy balance between 'no HR' and an 'HR run organization'. I haven't experienced it, but I would choose big companies over academia in a heart beat
Do you not feel responsibility for the mental health or well being of your students?
I’m trying to interpret your comment charitably, so I hope I’m not misinterpreting.
I’m trying to interpret your comment charitably, so I hope I’m not misinterpreting.
I teach at a college. I’m not in any way responsible for my students’ mental health or well being. That is far too much of a burden to have and I’m not paid nearly enough to take that on. Also, I have no training in mental health. The health care system is where one should go for mental health help.
I think people may read this as blunt and dismissive. I think its worth considering the poster's core thesis: You don't want us doing this job.
If I spend 2-4 hours a week with 120 students it is really a lot to ask faculty (who are not trained) or dorm RAs (who are minimally trained) to be responsible for the enormous mental health challenges facing this generation.
It is not reasonable, safe, or even possible.
If I spend 2-4 hours a week with 120 students it is really a lot to ask faculty (who are not trained) or dorm RAs (who are minimally trained) to be responsible for the enormous mental health challenges facing this generation.
It is not reasonable, safe, or even possible.
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There's a big and important difference between caring about something and feeling/being responsible for something.
I care about an aircraft being flown safely. But for the love of God, don't put me in the cockpit and make me responsible for flying the plane safely.
Ditto for mental health of undergrads when I'm lecturing. I'm there to teach them how to implement a red-black tree. Do I care about their mental health? Of course. Do I feel any responsibility for it? Hell no.
Sometimes caring about something means NOT taking responsibility for that thing.
I care about an aircraft being flown safely. But for the love of God, don't put me in the cockpit and make me responsible for flying the plane safely.
Ditto for mental health of undergrads when I'm lecturing. I'm there to teach them how to implement a red-black tree. Do I care about their mental health? Of course. Do I feel any responsibility for it? Hell no.
Sometimes caring about something means NOT taking responsibility for that thing.
I do - it's about messaging and shifting of responsibility and about what I can be responsible for. Not so much misinterpreting as me being glib/short.
The reality is complicated:
- there are things I do that affect students' mental health
- there are things my university does that affect students mental health
- there are things that society does that affect my students mental health
- there are things my students do that affect their mental health
What I can influence is basically the first category - that is where my responsibility is. What I am being asked to deal with is accommodating ALL of the categories. I am pro-better mental health, I have my own mental health issues, and worry about our students mental health. I can (to an extent) accommodate the other categories - but it creates a load on me and really it just pushes the issue further along. However asking me to accommodate EVERYTHING is a negative feedback loop. We need to FIX these things not accommodate them. Instead, what we get told to do is 'accommodate' by 'being flexible'. Well guess what, that doesn't involve anyone taking responsibility, its just kicking the can down the road. Administration sends emails to faculty about flexibility but can't get our mental health services off of a six month wait list. Most faculty aren't trained to teach - even fewer are trained for this. Frankly, you don't want us to play mental health professional.
I feel responsible for the way my classes interact with students' mental health. For my own mental health I wish I could not be responsible for the impact my (less generous) peers have on them. Where it starts to affect my mental health is that I feel responsible for my universities policies and the way students treat each other and the way society treats mental health. There are so many stressors that are so far beyond both my responsibility and control. I wish I could convince this country to maybe address mental health as an illness, work to meet people's basic needs, make college free or low cost - that would do far more for mental health than I can. At some point, my own mental health requires me to put some emotional distance between me and the students stressed about med school so I can focus on trying to link the students who are homeless to housing resources.
Story for context: in fall of 2020, I had a student BEG me to bump their grade up to an incomplete because they had miscalculated their grade. I sent them five emails of increasing frankness telling them 'you earned an A and our school doesn't do +/-' including pointing out their miscalculation. They literally came to my office in tears. I told them, again, no seriously YOU GOT EARNED AN A. they filed a grade complaint.
Charitability appreciated, I should have phrased more carefully. I'm one of the people who has been banging the drum on this for years and it's frustrating to see it now used as a justification for all sorts of stupid crap and larger asks of faculty that are not reasonable. When I see 'mental health' used as a reason to push people back to the classroom I fume - the mental health issues were there before and no one really cared, I don't believe you actually care now.
The reality is complicated:
- there are things I do that affect students' mental health
- there are things my university does that affect students mental health
- there are things that society does that affect my students mental health
- there are things my students do that affect their mental health
What I can influence is basically the first category - that is where my responsibility is. What I am being asked to deal with is accommodating ALL of the categories. I am pro-better mental health, I have my own mental health issues, and worry about our students mental health. I can (to an extent) accommodate the other categories - but it creates a load on me and really it just pushes the issue further along. However asking me to accommodate EVERYTHING is a negative feedback loop. We need to FIX these things not accommodate them. Instead, what we get told to do is 'accommodate' by 'being flexible'. Well guess what, that doesn't involve anyone taking responsibility, its just kicking the can down the road. Administration sends emails to faculty about flexibility but can't get our mental health services off of a six month wait list. Most faculty aren't trained to teach - even fewer are trained for this. Frankly, you don't want us to play mental health professional.
I feel responsible for the way my classes interact with students' mental health. For my own mental health I wish I could not be responsible for the impact my (less generous) peers have on them. Where it starts to affect my mental health is that I feel responsible for my universities policies and the way students treat each other and the way society treats mental health. There are so many stressors that are so far beyond both my responsibility and control. I wish I could convince this country to maybe address mental health as an illness, work to meet people's basic needs, make college free or low cost - that would do far more for mental health than I can. At some point, my own mental health requires me to put some emotional distance between me and the students stressed about med school so I can focus on trying to link the students who are homeless to housing resources.
Story for context: in fall of 2020, I had a student BEG me to bump their grade up to an incomplete because they had miscalculated their grade. I sent them five emails of increasing frankness telling them 'you earned an A and our school doesn't do +/-' including pointing out their miscalculation. They literally came to my office in tears. I told them, again, no seriously YOU GOT EARNED AN A. they filed a grade complaint.
Charitability appreciated, I should have phrased more carefully. I'm one of the people who has been banging the drum on this for years and it's frustrating to see it now used as a justification for all sorts of stupid crap and larger asks of faculty that are not reasonable. When I see 'mental health' used as a reason to push people back to the classroom I fume - the mental health issues were there before and no one really cared, I don't believe you actually care now.
Don't do it!!!! Based on my personal experiences, you will regret this.
I was a tenure track faculty, got tenure, then I also go the industry itch. Fortunately was given the opportunity to to spend my sabbatical at Google Research, which was insightful, but I was very glad to return to academia knowing that I couldn't last a day longer in industry. Being stuck in a cubicle with 3 other engineers having to attend meeting after meeting working on things that did not interest me the least. 1.5 hours lunches while being stuck on that campus from like 7 to 7 and I was bored out of my skull. Academia offers unlimited freedom, a freedom that you will only value when being stuck working from 9-5 job on someone else's ideas instead of your own. For me, pursuing my own research at my own pace is the ultimate motivation and I simply can't be bothered working on projects whose only goal is to make money. Working with students and seeing them grown is also very rewarding. I will never leave academia.
I was a tenure track faculty, got tenure, then I also go the industry itch. Fortunately was given the opportunity to to spend my sabbatical at Google Research, which was insightful, but I was very glad to return to academia knowing that I couldn't last a day longer in industry. Being stuck in a cubicle with 3 other engineers having to attend meeting after meeting working on things that did not interest me the least. 1.5 hours lunches while being stuck on that campus from like 7 to 7 and I was bored out of my skull. Academia offers unlimited freedom, a freedom that you will only value when being stuck working from 9-5 job on someone else's ideas instead of your own. For me, pursuing my own research at my own pace is the ultimate motivation and I simply can't be bothered working on projects whose only goal is to make money. Working with students and seeing them grown is also very rewarding. I will never leave academia.
I vouched for your comment but suffice it to say it doesn't match my experience. Being on the right team and having the right project makes a lot of difference. Way too many meetings is definitely a common problem at Google but you also don't have to be completely passive and helpless about it either.
In any case, glad you have found your niche in academia! Working with students is indeed rewarding - I've gotten to do some through Summer of Code, but academia is definitely a better place if that's your passion.
In any case, glad you have found your niche in academia! Working with students is indeed rewarding - I've gotten to do some through Summer of Code, but academia is definitely a better place if that's your passion.
Some of them were amazed that nobody cared about certain aspects of academia. Things they felt incredibly stressed or embarrassed about, like failing to complete some research or publish, or failing to get tenure, simply didn't matter at all in the outside world.
When you are on the inside, the academic culture becomes your entire life. It seems like it's all that matters. After you leave, you'll find out that nobody on the outside knew or cared. In terms of an insular subculture with its own reality, I can't think of much else that compares, other than maybe the military, or prison gangs.