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Imo, having worked in academia and industry (and having worked with academics transitioning into industry), phd students and profs have it way easier. (Versus t

Imo, having worked in academia and industry (and having worked with academics transitioning into industry), phd students and profs have it way easier. (Versus the other careers the parent mentions) Not only are the pace and pressure higher in industry, you're, to a large extent, doing what someone else wants you to do, which makes it much harder to push through. Academy is much more about doing the interesting stuff, even if you're working for a prof. Industry, someone has to do all the shitty, repetitive or uninteresting stuff, and that's mostly what the long hours are made of. Academics (including me) when they transition to industry often come in seeing all that stuff beneath them and think they are there because of their brain. Industry work can be more interesting because you're working on high value problems, but it's way more work.

andreyk 4y ago
I think the variance wrt expected work load is way larger in industry though. Plenty of my friends working at FAANG companies have a really chill lifestyle, which is true of very few of my grad school friends. The notion that profs have way less work than industry in particular is crazy to me, their workloads are simply insane (at least for more junior faculty, but often also for senior ones).
matthewdgreen 4y ago
I’ve worked in industry as a software developer, run a consulting business, founded a startup with seed funding, and been a TT professor. Only the last of these jobs required me to edit a document while my wife was in labor (a thing I have yet to live down.) The challenge in academia is the essentially unbounded nature of the work, and the fact that you’re constantly competing with what appear to be major stakes. Also: my friends in industry have hobbies that don’t involve their work. Even the ones in FAANGs. Seriously I don’t even understand the concept: does going to the gym count?
- version_five 4y ago
  > required me to edit a document while my wife was in labor Not to be a jerk but, the only thing that required that was you. The big thing I learned in management consulting is that the sun always rises tomorrow no matter what you do. People attach urgency to things, but unless you're a doctor or deployed military or one of the other rare instances where life depends on what you are doing, it really doesn't matter if it's late or not done, and it's important to prioritize the things they do matter.
  - matthewdgreen 4y ago
    My wife is happy to tell me I’m a jerk (over that one), so don’t feel bad about that part. But in this instance I had a camera-ready due with a hard deadline and nobody else was available to submit it. I guess I could have put a year’s worth of research at risk, but that’s much harder than you think (for what it’s worth, labor lasted a long time and had a lot of ‘down time’. But it’s a choice I still regret.) Add to the list of challenges: in industry you usually have a pretty deep bench to back you up, and in academic projects you may be one out of one or two contributors.
- kergonath 4y ago
  > The challenge in academia is the essentially unbounded nature of the work, and the fact that you’re constantly competing with what appear to be major stakes. The thing is, the stakes really are not that high and as academics we are too often complicit in letting the situation fester (and administrators are guilty of putting insane pressure on academics and pushing them to overwork). We ought to take a step back and see what’s really important.

andreyk 4y ago

I think the variance wrt expected work load is way larger in industry though. Plenty of my friends working at FAANG companies have a really chill lifestyle, which is true of very few of my grad school friends. The notion that profs have way less work than industry in particular is crazy to me, their workloads are simply insane (at least for more junior faculty, but often also for senior ones).

matthewdgreen 4y ago

I’ve worked in industry as a software developer, run a consulting business, founded a startup with seed funding, and been a TT professor. Only the last of these jobs required me to edit a document while my wife was in labor (a thing I have yet to live down.) The challenge in academia is the essentially unbounded nature of the work, and the fact that you’re constantly competing with what appear to be major stakes. Also: my friends in industry have hobbies that don’t involve their work. Even the ones in FAANGs. Seriously I don’t even understand the concept: does going to the gym count?

version_five 4y ago
> required me to edit a document while my wife was in labor Not to be a jerk but, the only thing that required that was you. The big thing I learned in management consulting is that the sun always rises tomorrow no matter what you do. People attach urgency to things, but unless you're a doctor or deployed military or one of the other rare instances where life depends on what you are doing, it really doesn't matter if it's late or not done, and it's important to prioritize the things they do matter.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  My wife is happy to tell me I’m a jerk (over that one), so don’t feel bad about that part. But in this instance I had a camera-ready due with a hard deadline and nobody else was available to submit it. I guess I could have put a year’s worth of research at risk, but that’s much harder than you think (for what it’s worth, labor lasted a long time and had a lot of ‘down time’. But it’s a choice I still regret.) Add to the list of challenges: in industry you usually have a pretty deep bench to back you up, and in academic projects you may be one out of one or two contributors.
kergonath 4y ago
> The challenge in academia is the essentially unbounded nature of the work, and the fact that you’re constantly competing with what appear to be major stakes. The thing is, the stakes really are not that high and as academics we are too often complicit in letting the situation fester (and administrators are guilty of putting insane pressure on academics and pushing them to overwork). We ought to take a step back and see what’s really important.