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A dissenting view It's true that, as the article and many commenters have said,there are lots of bad places, and bad cultures within academia. So what? There

A dissenting view It's true that, as the article and many commenters have said,there are lots of bad places, and bad cultures within academia. So what? There's also some great groups and great cultures within academia. If you want to go the academic path, the thing to do is to make sure you end up in such a place. So far as I can see the way to achieve this is: (1) Do a lot of research before you join a group. Just because a group looks great from the outside (brand name University, famous prof) doesn't mean it'll be a good experience. Interview former members; tour the lab; ask hard questions about the culture - what do people love about their jobs; what do they think is the worst thing about the culture; what do they think about their career prospects? Follow up on these questions in detail - most people love to talk about their careers, and if they won't, it often means that they're not happy. If you get defensive responses, or a refusal to respond, that tells you what you need to know about the culture. Don't look back. (2) Iterate until you find a group that looks excellent. (3) Mentally, when you join a group, think of it as being on probation. After three and then six months, ask yourself "Am I having fun? Is what I'm doing making a difference? Is the culture here genuinely good?" If the answer to all these questions isn't yes, get out, and go join another group. This is hard to do - you'll get a lot of advice to the contrary - but 9 times out of 10 the results are a major improvement. I'm leaving academia now, after PhD, postdocs, being a tenured prof, the whole nine yards. It was tough at times, but overall, it was an asbolute blast.

npk 19y ago
I'd like to second Michael's point. My research is genuinely exciting. It's enthralling for little kids, grandparents, and everything in between. More importantly, I find my research fascinating. The career path is challenging. Salary/hours worked sucks. Multiple moves are required for the two postdocs and a permanent job. There are serious politics. The question is ultimately personal. Is academia worth it?
- amichail 19y ago
  If you are an independent thinker and don't care much about what your peers think, then I don't think academia is a good choice. I think it's no coincidence that startup founders tend to be more of the rebellious types.
  - yters 19y ago
    Unless a person needs specialized equipment or materials, why go into academia for research in the first place? It's easy enough to become financially free so you can spend all your time researching. The internet is there if you need to collaborate.
    - mechanical_fish 19y ago
      Unless a person needs specialized equipment or materials... That is a pretty huge caveat. If you're lucky enough to be a mathematician, that's easy to say. If you're a molecular biologist... brace yourself for the sticker shock. And it depends on your goals. If your goal is to enlighten yourself, you don't need to be an academic: you just need a decent library that gets all the Nature journals, a pile of textbooks, a local university full of grad students that like to talk about their work, and time. But if your goal is to do original work, you've got bigger financial problems.
      - yters 19y ago
        Do you know why this is the case? The most ground breaking science has been relatively inexpensive. Has all the low hanging fruit already been picked? Anyways, in today's world, I see the real need lying in integration, not more and more specialized research. I think this is reflected in the discouraging stories above.
        asciilifeform 19y ago
        > Do you know why this is the case? Open a lab equipment catalog. What do you suppose the availability of grant money to most purchasers does to the prices? Also don't forget that the delivery of anything chemistry-related to a private residence is all but banned under American law.
  - npk 19y ago
    I completely disagree with your first sentence. At least in the physical sciences. There is a spectrum of academics out there, that map to a spectrum of different personalities. Some work on stuff few people care about, some work in the mainstream and some pioneer the mainstream. There are pro/cons to all three types. Personally, I do not know many startup founders. But, the basic underlying principle of success (that I've gathered from news.yc) is "build something people want." So startups are there to provide services. Necessarily, founders do care what other people think. Academic scientists don't necessarily have that constraint.
mechanical_fish 19y ago
If the article at the top of the thread is atypical of a tenured professor, this post is absolutely typical. I've heard this speech a million times. If you ever need to hear it again, ask any professor to give it to you and they'll happily oblige. Undoubtedly, most tenured professors are having an "absolute blast". Why shouldn't they be? They are the end product of a rigorous system of selection for their particular set of personality traits. If you're not the kind of person who adores being a researcher to the exclusion of all other thoughts -- if you are not either a truly diehard optimist, or the most stubborn person you'll ever know -- you won't make it to where this guy is. The career advice here is good, solid advice, as far as it goes. But the parody of this would be fun to write, and might contain equal amounts of truth. ("(2) Iterate until you find a group that looks excellent, or until you discover that all the excellent groups have a waiting list, at which point you need to either quit grad school, apply for a personal fellowship and win it, or work for whoever has the grant money to pay you.") No time for extensive parody today, though -- besides, the guy at Piled Higher and Deeper has covered that ground better than I ever could -- so I'll leave you with this caveat: Very, very few of the people you interview with in a research group will ever tell you that your academic career is a waste of time and that you should just leave, even if it's true. They've got a very strong incentive to recruit you, so that you can apply your inexpensive intelligence and energy to their projects. They've got an incentive to be careful what they say to you, because if word gets back to their colleagues that they are discouraging prospective students it might derail their careers. They also have an even bigger incentive to keep fooling themselves. And, you know, academic scientists really don't like pain. They're not drill sergeants. Taking starry-eyed optimists, most of whom remind you of yourself, and kicking them in the chest is not a lot of fun. It's for their own good, but it feels like euthanizing puppies. It's just so much easier to encourage them to follow the same path that you did, and to let time and nature and bureaucracy take care of teaching them the harsh realities of life.
- michael_nielsen 19y ago
  "Very, very few of the people you interview with in a research group will ever tell you that your academic career is a waste of time and that you should just leave, even if it's true." It's true that they'll rarely say this explicitly. Ultimately, it's the potential grad student's responsibility to dig and find out what kind of a culture a research group has. This is a difficult thing to do, requiring considerable self-confidence and tenacity. Still, in my opinion, if someone is not willing to do this, then they really should consider some path other than academia. "(2) Iterate until you find a group that looks excellent, or until you discover that all the excellent groups have a waiting list, at which point you need to either quit grad school, apply for a personal fellowship and win it, or work for whoever has the grant money to pay you." You seem to be implicitly assuming that the world owes you a position in a good group. It doesn't. If you can't find one, then you shouldn't work for whoever has grant money to pay you. You should go and do something else - like start a company.

npk 19y ago

I'd like to second Michael's point. My research is genuinely exciting. It's enthralling for little kids, grandparents, and everything in between. More importantly, I find my research fascinating. The career path is challenging. Salary/hours worked sucks. Multiple moves are required for the two postdocs and a permanent job. There are serious politics. The question is ultimately personal. Is academia worth it?

amichail 19y ago
If you are an independent thinker and don't care much about what your peers think, then I don't think academia is a good choice. I think it's no coincidence that startup founders tend to be more of the rebellious types.
- yters 19y ago
  Unless a person needs specialized equipment or materials, why go into academia for research in the first place? It's easy enough to become financially free so you can spend all your time researching. The internet is there if you need to collaborate.
  - mechanical_fish 19y ago
    Unless a person needs specialized equipment or materials... That is a pretty huge caveat. If you're lucky enough to be a mathematician, that's easy to say. If you're a molecular biologist... brace yourself for the sticker shock. And it depends on your goals. If your goal is to enlighten yourself, you don't need to be an academic: you just need a decent library that gets all the Nature journals, a pile of textbooks, a local university full of grad students that like to talk about their work, and time. But if your goal is to do original work, you've got bigger financial problems.
    - yters 19y ago
      Do you know why this is the case? The most ground breaking science has been relatively inexpensive. Has all the low hanging fruit already been picked? Anyways, in today's world, I see the real need lying in integration, not more and more specialized research. I think this is reflected in the discouraging stories above.
      - asciilifeform 19y ago
        > Do you know why this is the case? Open a lab equipment catalog. What do you suppose the availability of grant money to most purchasers does to the prices? Also don't forget that the delivery of anything chemistry-related to a private residence is all but banned under American law.
- npk 19y ago
  I completely disagree with your first sentence. At least in the physical sciences. There is a spectrum of academics out there, that map to a spectrum of different personalities. Some work on stuff few people care about, some work in the mainstream and some pioneer the mainstream. There are pro/cons to all three types. Personally, I do not know many startup founders. But, the basic underlying principle of success (that I've gathered from news.yc) is "build something people want." So startups are there to provide services. Necessarily, founders do care what other people think. Academic scientists don't necessarily have that constraint.

mechanical_fish 19y ago

If the article at the top of the thread is atypical of a tenured professor, this post is absolutely typical. I've heard this speech a million times. If you ever need to hear it again, ask any professor to give it to you and they'll happily oblige. Undoubtedly, most tenured professors are having an "absolute blast". Why shouldn't they be? They are the end product of a rigorous system of selection for their particular set of personality traits. If you're not the kind of person who adores being a researcher to the exclusion of all other thoughts -- if you are not either a truly diehard optimist, or the most stubborn person you'll ever know -- you won't make it to where this guy is. The career advice here is good, solid advice, as far as it goes. But the parody of this would be fun to write, and might contain equal amounts of truth. ("(2) Iterate until you find a group that looks excellent, or until you discover that all the excellent groups have a waiting list, at which point you need to either quit grad school, apply for a personal fellowship and win it, or work for whoever has the grant money to pay you.") No time for extensive parody today, though -- besides, the guy at Piled Higher and Deeper has covered that ground better than I ever could -- so I'll leave you with this caveat: Very, very few of the people you interview with in a research group will ever tell you that your academic career is a waste of time and that you should just leave, even if it's true. They've got a very strong incentive to recruit you, so that you can apply your inexpensive intelligence and energy to their projects. They've got an incentive to be careful what they say to you, because if word gets back to their colleagues that they are discouraging prospective students it might derail their careers. They also have an even bigger incentive to keep fooling themselves. And, you know, academic scientists really don't like pain. They're not drill sergeants. Taking starry-eyed optimists, most of whom remind you of yourself, and kicking them in the chest is not a lot of fun. It's for their own good, but it feels like euthanizing puppies. It's just so much easier to encourage them to follow the same path that you did, and to let time and nature and bureaucracy take care of teaching them the harsh realities of life.

michael_nielsen 19y ago
"Very, very few of the people you interview with in a research group will ever tell you that your academic career is a waste of time and that you should just leave, even if it's true." It's true that they'll rarely say this explicitly. Ultimately, it's the potential grad student's responsibility to dig and find out what kind of a culture a research group has. This is a difficult thing to do, requiring considerable self-confidence and tenacity. Still, in my opinion, if someone is not willing to do this, then they really should consider some path other than academia. "(2) Iterate until you find a group that looks excellent, or until you discover that all the excellent groups have a waiting list, at which point you need to either quit grad school, apply for a personal fellowship and win it, or work for whoever has the grant money to pay you." You seem to be implicitly assuming that the world owes you a position in a good group. It doesn't. If you can't find one, then you shouldn't work for whoever has grant money to pay you. You should go and do something else - like start a company.