6 ms·

During my PhD we had an off-site week, with science, drinking and sailing. At such a conference you think you will be in science for ever. You will travel, give

During my PhD we had an off-site week, with science, drinking and sailing. At such a conference you think you will be in science for ever. You will travel, give talks, receive applause and solve the worlds problems together with you science buddies, who are all just a bit smarter than the rest of the world. One afternoon we were with 100 PhD students in one room, a Prof. addressed us and told us: "You are here with 100 scientists, only 1 of you will make it to become a Professor. The rest will find jobs elsewhere or get stuck eternally as a postdoc." It woke me up, I'm not a hard worker, I'm not that 1%. I started to think about alternatives soon afterwards. This was 20 years ago and I never regretted it. There is an elegance in science, traveling and trying to become a Rock Star of science [0]. But there is also "publish or perish", a high percentage of time spend traveling (away from family) and a work-long-hours honor system. I'm in industry now, it can really be seen as selling out by some scientists, but it's much less stressful if you ask me. And I'm lucky I found a company where I am still quite free to do science (although I now develop software most of the time and haven't seen a biolab since covid...) [0]: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/rock-stars-of-science https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/rock-stars-of-...

a_conservative 5y ago
Thank you for sharing this! It brings to my mind the tension and conflict between Robin Williams and the Fields' medal mathematician in Good Will Hunting. It sounds like you still do get to do science. I suspect that you may be having a bigger impact on the world now than you would have had as another science professor. Can you offer any comment on this? Am I off base?
- teekert 5y ago
  I'm not sure, perhaps. I work in Oncology and I enjoy it indeed, it feels meaningful. Still, of all the research projects I worked on (from circulating tumor cells to Next Generation Sequencing data processing pipelines), only 1 project is actually used on the market (let's say 3 years of work of the past 11). A lot is killed. Some research becomes IP, some research becomes a paper. In a way I find corporate research to be pretty honest work, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work and it's killed. There is no pressure to publish it anyway. There is pressure though to get the FDA to approve something in the end. And for that, it really has to work and be real. We spend a lot of time on reproducing things, also research papers we base our work on. But then you need to patent your work, and that still doesn't always feel right, at least sometimes it doesn't, especially when you won't actually make a product in the end. I try to avoid that. Some professors do pretty amazing stuff. We work with academic groups a lot, they focus on new science, we focus on IP and making products or software we can use.
  - a_conservative 5y ago
    Thank you so much for this reply. For me personally, as I get older and gain experience, I become less ideological about the world and more pragmatic. It makes sense that both good and bad research can take place in either industry or academia. Thanks again for your comments in this thread. They were very enjoyable to read and lessened some cynicism I've been mired in lately.
    - teekert 5y ago
      As one gets older one also learns that being ideological may not be the best way to advance your ideology, it's often done by being pragmatic. I.e., in small steps from within the industry you want to change. You may even go into industry, find that it's not for you, and return to academics to make sure collaborations with industry advance your ideology. But you have to realize all these things take place over years and decades and you have to give yourself time and peace of mind as you try and learn things. One project in my research group is now locked into an EU funded project with a professor that absolutely seems to hate industry and seems to be opposed to anything that gives us more insights then the project plan was supposed to give us. And it is really unworkable. We are good people and we want to solve issues together with others as well. Over the last years I did have some really good experiences with other academic groups by the way, so often it works well. Blocking a market with shitty IP you are never going to put in practice yourself is pretty bad imo. But publishing something that is wrong wasting a lot of other researchers' time and sometimes even stopping progress (if a group/prof is influential) is also bad. Both are part of the game and arguably we shouldn't blame the players. But avoiding such things, sometimes at great cost, is what being ideological is all about ;) (a quick example: I once came up with a nice new type of assay, and knew my company would never ever make a product out of this. So I won't push on the IP angle, instead I express the benefits of publishing the assay [open access] as a way to show our company's expertise.)
jenny91 5y ago
Off-topic, but would you mind sharing your opinion on your PhD? I presume you completed it. If you were in the same situation today, would you complete your PhD or drop out to go into industry? Basically, is a PhD worth it even if you're 100% planning to go into industry?
- teekert 5y ago
  I think that is a hard question to answer, because it depends on many things. So I'll give you some (hopefully useful) details. To start with answering your question: I completed my PhD indeed and I would do it again. But mainly because I had such a good time. It was fun, I was with people in my age group, traveled (about once a year internationally). My prof was an older man and really cared for his students, he wanted us to learn something and took time to help, even in the lab. This was all in the Netherlands where the salary for a PhD student is quite ok. I published only one article (although my thesis had 4 scientific chapters that could have been published). There was not a lot of stress nor a competitive environment. That said, I had direct colleagues under an Assistant Professor that were pushed much harder, that Assistant Prof still had prove himself and his students had a worse time than me. Being in between a Physics Prof and a Molecular Biology Professor also taught me the importance of plotting my own path, I was the one with the best information in both fields. I realized this quite late. My PhD did help me get hired where I work now (although I may have been hired faster at other places without it), and it makes some things easier, mainly I think it helps in meetings with many other PhDs. But that may just be how I experience it. Interestingly I have a colleague with who I am often seen as "a pair" but after her MSc she briefly worked in an academic lab then switched to industry. She is very good at organizing stuff and got the team lead position that I also applied for. She is at the same level as me (although she got there a bit later) and makes about the same as well. She proved herself in the company and I bet she would have no problems finding a job elsewhere with her track record. She leaves no loose ends and gets things done in complex research projects. You don't need a PhD for that. But she confesses she often feels uncomfortable when we have meeting where everyone introduces themselves and their PhD topic and further career. I think it's BS, she's being too modest often, I wonder if a title would have helped her there. Was it worth it? I don't know, I liked it. My advice would be to try and find a nice prof, a fun group, make sure you don't end up as a "measurement slave" and burn out. That may mean you ignore that super high profile lab, but that lab may burn you out. I've heard professors smilingly proclaim "This was tough, I burned 6 PhD students on this". You don't want to be one of those. It's nice to be able to focus on 1 topic for 4 years and make it your own. But you can get where I am without it. And you may find something like that in industry as well. I ended up in a Research department, where we had a lot freedom, a lot of money and a lot or rapid prototyping technology. I really enjoyed that. I still got to go to conferences, albeit a bit less than during my PhD. I saw people dropping out, and I understood why, even though our group and prof were low-stress it isn't for everyone. There is no shame in it. Only finish it if you're having a good time or the finish line is near. Hope this helps, feel free to ask more. I often coach the young ones over a beer late at night during the few conferences I still attend (pre-covid) ;)

a_conservative 5y ago

Thank you for sharing this! It brings to my mind the tension and conflict between Robin Williams and the Fields' medal mathematician in Good Will Hunting. It sounds like you still do get to do science. I suspect that you may be having a bigger impact on the world now than you would have had as another science professor. Can you offer any comment on this? Am I off base?

teekert 5y ago
I'm not sure, perhaps. I work in Oncology and I enjoy it indeed, it feels meaningful. Still, of all the research projects I worked on (from circulating tumor cells to Next Generation Sequencing data processing pipelines), only 1 project is actually used on the market (let's say 3 years of work of the past 11). A lot is killed. Some research becomes IP, some research becomes a paper. In a way I find corporate research to be pretty honest work, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work and it's killed. There is no pressure to publish it anyway. There is pressure though to get the FDA to approve something in the end. And for that, it really has to work and be real. We spend a lot of time on reproducing things, also research papers we base our work on. But then you need to patent your work, and that still doesn't always feel right, at least sometimes it doesn't, especially when you won't actually make a product in the end. I try to avoid that. Some professors do pretty amazing stuff. We work with academic groups a lot, they focus on new science, we focus on IP and making products or software we can use.
- a_conservative 5y ago
  Thank you so much for this reply. For me personally, as I get older and gain experience, I become less ideological about the world and more pragmatic. It makes sense that both good and bad research can take place in either industry or academia. Thanks again for your comments in this thread. They were very enjoyable to read and lessened some cynicism I've been mired in lately.
  - teekert 5y ago
    As one gets older one also learns that being ideological may not be the best way to advance your ideology, it's often done by being pragmatic. I.e., in small steps from within the industry you want to change. You may even go into industry, find that it's not for you, and return to academics to make sure collaborations with industry advance your ideology. But you have to realize all these things take place over years and decades and you have to give yourself time and peace of mind as you try and learn things. One project in my research group is now locked into an EU funded project with a professor that absolutely seems to hate industry and seems to be opposed to anything that gives us more insights then the project plan was supposed to give us. And it is really unworkable. We are good people and we want to solve issues together with others as well. Over the last years I did have some really good experiences with other academic groups by the way, so often it works well. Blocking a market with shitty IP you are never going to put in practice yourself is pretty bad imo. But publishing something that is wrong wasting a lot of other researchers' time and sometimes even stopping progress (if a group/prof is influential) is also bad. Both are part of the game and arguably we shouldn't blame the players. But avoiding such things, sometimes at great cost, is what being ideological is all about ;) (a quick example: I once came up with a nice new type of assay, and knew my company would never ever make a product out of this. So I won't push on the IP angle, instead I express the benefits of publishing the assay [open access] as a way to show our company's expertise.)

jenny91 5y ago

Off-topic, but would you mind sharing your opinion on your PhD? I presume you completed it. If you were in the same situation today, would you complete your PhD or drop out to go into industry? Basically, is a PhD worth it even if you're 100% planning to go into industry?

teekert 5y ago
I think that is a hard question to answer, because it depends on many things. So I'll give you some (hopefully useful) details. To start with answering your question: I completed my PhD indeed and I would do it again. But mainly because I had such a good time. It was fun, I was with people in my age group, traveled (about once a year internationally). My prof was an older man and really cared for his students, he wanted us to learn something and took time to help, even in the lab. This was all in the Netherlands where the salary for a PhD student is quite ok. I published only one article (although my thesis had 4 scientific chapters that could have been published). There was not a lot of stress nor a competitive environment. That said, I had direct colleagues under an Assistant Professor that were pushed much harder, that Assistant Prof still had prove himself and his students had a worse time than me. Being in between a Physics Prof and a Molecular Biology Professor also taught me the importance of plotting my own path, I was the one with the best information in both fields. I realized this quite late. My PhD did help me get hired where I work now (although I may have been hired faster at other places without it), and it makes some things easier, mainly I think it helps in meetings with many other PhDs. But that may just be how I experience it. Interestingly I have a colleague with who I am often seen as "a pair" but after her MSc she briefly worked in an academic lab then switched to industry. She is very good at organizing stuff and got the team lead position that I also applied for. She is at the same level as me (although she got there a bit later) and makes about the same as well. She proved herself in the company and I bet she would have no problems finding a job elsewhere with her track record. She leaves no loose ends and gets things done in complex research projects. You don't need a PhD for that. But she confesses she often feels uncomfortable when we have meeting where everyone introduces themselves and their PhD topic and further career. I think it's BS, she's being too modest often, I wonder if a title would have helped her there. Was it worth it? I don't know, I liked it. My advice would be to try and find a nice prof, a fun group, make sure you don't end up as a "measurement slave" and burn out. That may mean you ignore that super high profile lab, but that lab may burn you out. I've heard professors smilingly proclaim "This was tough, I burned 6 PhD students on this". You don't want to be one of those. It's nice to be able to focus on 1 topic for 4 years and make it your own. But you can get where I am without it. And you may find something like that in industry as well. I ended up in a Research department, where we had a lot freedom, a lot of money and a lot or rapid prototyping technology. I really enjoyed that. I still got to go to conferences, albeit a bit less than during my PhD. I saw people dropping out, and I understood why, even though our group and prof were low-stress it isn't for everyone. There is no shame in it. Only finish it if you're having a good time or the finish line is near. Hope this helps, feel free to ask more. I often coach the young ones over a beer late at night during the few conferences I still attend (pre-covid) ;)