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Bingo. CS is lucky in that it's relatively cheap to study. Other than compute time, all most people need is a good coffee maker and a white board. Biology prof

Bingo. CS is lucky in that it's relatively cheap to study. Other than compute time, all most people need is a good coffee maker and a white board. Biology professors need to bring in an order of magnitude more grant money to keep their labs running. As a result, most of them do very little of their own research; they may look at data or plan an experiment with a grad student or postdoc, but the vast majority of their time is spent raising money or reviewing other people's work.

danieltillett 10y ago
Having been a biology professor this is 100% accurate except most of your time is spent dealing with politics and administrative garbage.
- mattkrause 10y ago
  From your profile, it looks like you got out. Any regrets (or advice)?
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    Yes I regret every day leaving science as I love it. In an ideal world I would still be a professional scientist, but we don't live in an ideal world so you have to make the best of what opportunities you have - I certainly can't complain about my life. My only advice is seize the chances that come your way and make the most of them. It is all too easy to stay in the warm cocoon of academia even when you know you should leave.
    - jawilson2 10y ago
      I got out a little over a year ago. I was a BME PhD and did a lot of software engineering and signal analysis of brain signals for brain-computer interfaces. I was a neurology professor for a few years (after a 4 year neurosurgery postdoc), and decided academia wasn't for me. I now work at a trading firm as a quant researcher/trading system software engineer. I have never been happier, but definitely miss the science part of research (i.e., NOT grant writing, politics, etc). I have been doing part time consulting work on Upwork focusing primarily on helping with biomedical signal analysis and software/app design. I still get to be involved in that niche, but now I have money left to feed my kids after all my student loans have been paid. We are actually able to buy a house, which was going to be more than a decade away had I stayed in academia (and got NIH funding, and tenure, etc). I guess I value financial security and that of my kids too much to sacrifice my life for doing science.

danieltillett 10y ago

Having been a biology professor this is 100% accurate except most of your time is spent dealing with politics and administrative garbage.

mattkrause 10y ago
From your profile, it looks like you got out. Any regrets (or advice)?
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Yes I regret every day leaving science as I love it. In an ideal world I would still be a professional scientist, but we don't live in an ideal world so you have to make the best of what opportunities you have - I certainly can't complain about my life. My only advice is seize the chances that come your way and make the most of them. It is all too easy to stay in the warm cocoon of academia even when you know you should leave.
  - jawilson2 10y ago
    I got out a little over a year ago. I was a BME PhD and did a lot of software engineering and signal analysis of brain signals for brain-computer interfaces. I was a neurology professor for a few years (after a 4 year neurosurgery postdoc), and decided academia wasn't for me. I now work at a trading firm as a quant researcher/trading system software engineer. I have never been happier, but definitely miss the science part of research (i.e., NOT grant writing, politics, etc). I have been doing part time consulting work on Upwork focusing primarily on helping with biomedical signal analysis and software/app design. I still get to be involved in that niche, but now I have money left to feed my kids after all my student loans have been paid. We are actually able to buy a house, which was going to be more than a decade away had I stayed in academia (and got NIH funding, and tenure, etc). I guess I value financial security and that of my kids too much to sacrifice my life for doing science.