4 ms·

What always strikes me about academia is the propensity for complaining. I only sort of mean that in a bad way. Maybe my experience is exceptional, but I have m

What always strikes me about academia is the propensity for complaining. I only sort of mean that in a bad way. Maybe my experience is exceptional, but I have met quite a lot of people with PhDs. The vast majority of PhDs who went into industry afterwards viewed their PhD more as a rite of passage than actual valuable work. Every one of them has a story of their supervisor or some other academic putting them through random bullshit for no reason. The more experienced academics I've met are in two camps: the climbers- the small handful of academics who are more interested in becoming chief commissar of the faculty and get onto that gravy train. They're generally terrible people - the sort of person who complains that women simply aren't smart enough to do engineering. The other kind are the flagellators, people who will give you a dissertation in why their life sucks, and how the hoops of academia are so completely at odds with what real research requires. It all leaves me at a loss as to why anyone would choose that life. There are bad things about life in industry, but no one I work with complains anything like that badly.

borroka 7y ago
It is the result of the combination of path dependency and it-will-be-different-for-me syndrome. Path dependency because many PhDs specialize in fields and skills that have little value outside of academia – think biology (e.g., all those researchers that spend years in the lab and their only marketable skills without further training lead them to a career as lab technicians; nothing wrong with that, but not what you expect after 5-7 years of Ph.D. studies), humanities, obscure areas of math etc. Then, academia is an environment that tends to infantilize people. And kids either want to become their parents (more frequently) or the opposite of their parents. It-will-be-different-for-me is self-explanatory and particularly strong when there is some kind of emotional commitment to the cause. Another example is marriage.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  In partial defense of "It-will-be-different-for-me" syndrome.... Most grad students and postdocs know that academia is competitive and tenure-track jobs are rare, and I bet many of them can quote the 1:9 statistic (or whatever applies to their field). However, that's just the prior. It's really hard to know your individual likelihood because it depends on a ton of factors that you don't--and sometimes can't--know or control. It really might be different this time. For example, Cell/Nature/Science papers have a huge impact on hiring; a recent study suggested CNS authors are ~5x more likely to find a job. While you need to work hard to develop a good paper, you also need to be lucky in a lot of ways, ranging from the initial choice of topic to how well your write-up comports with 3 reviewers' whims. It's also unclear how to weight many other factors. Is your advisor well-known? But what about the department's reputation? Is your sub-field trendy? How does your publication record stack up? I don't think anyone can confidently answer those questions and decide they're in the top 11%
  - borroka 7y ago
    I agree with your points, except for not knowing whether you have good chances or not of landing a TT position, say at a top R1 institution. The world is full of delusional people, and I have been among those a few times, but especially if you are doing your Ph.D. or a postdoc in a good lab, that is a lab that produces TT material, you know your chances. Then, life outcomes are probabilistic – looking back, my chances were at 5% (which does not mean that I have to apply to x positions to have > 50% probability of getting a TT position, it means that if we have 100 replicates of myself on the job market for 5 years, only 5 will get an offer). My "it-will-be-different-for-me" syndrome was one of the reasons I found for why people still want to have an academic career when most academics are (quite vocally) miserable: burdened by endless bureaucratic work, often bullied by more powerful or astute colleagues, constantly receiving the complaints of students and committees, and brutally rejected on the regular by granting agencies, reviewers, and conference organizers. Most think or hope it will be different for them. But very likely, it won't be.

borroka 7y ago

It is the result of the combination of path dependency and it-will-be-different-for-me syndrome. Path dependency because many PhDs specialize in fields and skills that have little value outside of academia – think biology (e.g., all those researchers that spend years in the lab and their only marketable skills without further training lead them to a career as lab technicians; nothing wrong with that, but not what you expect after 5-7 years of Ph.D. studies), humanities, obscure areas of math etc. Then, academia is an environment that tends to infantilize people. And kids either want to become their parents (more frequently) or the opposite of their parents. It-will-be-different-for-me is self-explanatory and particularly strong when there is some kind of emotional commitment to the cause. Another example is marriage.

mattkrause 7y ago
In partial defense of "It-will-be-different-for-me" syndrome.... Most grad students and postdocs know that academia is competitive and tenure-track jobs are rare, and I bet many of them can quote the 1:9 statistic (or whatever applies to their field). However, that's just the prior. It's really hard to know your individual likelihood because it depends on a ton of factors that you don't--and sometimes can't--know or control. It really might be different this time. For example, Cell/Nature/Science papers have a huge impact on hiring; a recent study suggested CNS authors are ~5x more likely to find a job. While you need to work hard to develop a good paper, you also need to be lucky in a lot of ways, ranging from the initial choice of topic to how well your write-up comports with 3 reviewers' whims. It's also unclear how to weight many other factors. Is your advisor well-known? But what about the department's reputation? Is your sub-field trendy? How does your publication record stack up? I don't think anyone can confidently answer those questions and decide they're in the top 11%
- borroka 7y ago
  I agree with your points, except for not knowing whether you have good chances or not of landing a TT position, say at a top R1 institution. The world is full of delusional people, and I have been among those a few times, but especially if you are doing your Ph.D. or a postdoc in a good lab, that is a lab that produces TT material, you know your chances. Then, life outcomes are probabilistic – looking back, my chances were at 5% (which does not mean that I have to apply to x positions to have > 50% probability of getting a TT position, it means that if we have 100 replicates of myself on the job market for 5 years, only 5 will get an offer). My "it-will-be-different-for-me" syndrome was one of the reasons I found for why people still want to have an academic career when most academics are (quite vocally) miserable: burdened by endless bureaucratic work, often bullied by more powerful or astute colleagues, constantly receiving the complaints of students and committees, and brutally rejected on the regular by granting agencies, reviewers, and conference organizers. Most think or hope it will be different for them. But very likely, it won't be.