Can you get a great advisor at a mid-tier place and a strong guarantee that you won't have to TA a ton? If not, opt out of academia. I had a half dozen tenure-

Can you get a great advisor at a mid-tier place and a strong guarantee that you won't have to TA a ton? If not, opt out of academia. I had a half dozen tenure-track offers and decided on industry. Honestly, academia is not what it used to be. Lots of professors come close to killing their under-paid grad students so that they can spend 20% of their time on blue sky research ideas. I get that time and then some without throwing poor kids under the bus. Without even asking, really. And make 3x what I would've made as a slave driver to boot. Academia sucks, especially if you want to do good research. Seriously, outside of tippy-top elite institutions that can get the very best and brightest phd students, colleges and universities are some of the absolute worst places to do research these days. And if you want to teach CS, don't bother with a PhD. Just ad junct a bit on the side of an industry gig, do not-insanely-bad, and you'll be full time within a year or two. If you want. Which you very likely wont, because teaching one class on the side while engineering is a lot more fun than teaching full time. Teaching is exhausting, even for people who love teaching.