2 ms·

Do you want a professorship?

• mechanical_fish 19y ago
  Who, me? Heck, no! I'm not convinced that I ever did, although at certain times in my career I used to claim that I did in a half-hearted fashion. The thing is, when someone asks you why you're studying physics they expect a more conventional answer than "because I haven't gotten bored with it yet". I once flirted with trying to find a role as a non-tenured "member of the technical staff"... I even did an experimental postdoc with that goal in mind. I eventually concluded that my enjoyment of doing science (as opposed to "reading and writing about science", which is rather more fun) wasn't really high enough to overcome the relatively low pay and the fact that I'd be subordinate to an academic bureaucracy throughout my entire career. In other words: if you like being a glorified postdoc, it may well be possible to do it forever, but you have to like it a lot to stay happy doing it for forty years.