3 ms·

That's unfortunate. There are bad professors in academia just like there are bad bosses in industry. Hopefully anyone with bad ones will find better ones.

halfdan 3y ago
The big problem in academia very often is that you cannot simply take your research and finish your PhD elsewhere. With jobs you mostly can switch without losing much. Obviously depends on the situation.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- paulddraper 3y ago
  > With jobs you mostly can switch without losing much Seniority, bonuses, equity vesting, resume damage
  - BeetleB 3y ago
    > Seniority, bonuses, equity vesting, resume damage Relatively minor. Most senior people I know who leave with bad blood end up with equally senior roles, and often "fail upwards" to even more senior roles in another company. Bonuses/Vesting: Very common to get good vesting at a new company to make up for what you're losing. Of the people I know who've moved, it's the exception that didn't get decent replacement for vesting. Resume damage: What? Person spent 4 years at a company and left. What resume damage? Your experience still counts. Contrast with a PhD who leaves in the middle of a program: The years he spent are 0. Generally, the experience/knowledge accumulated is not factored into it when he applies elsewhere for a PhD - unless he has some fantastic publication. Still, this is the good outcome - I've often seen students leave an advisor or school and succeed elsewhere. The real danger is when you get your PhD and the advisor will not write letters of recommendation. Unless you've made some really special connections, it means your academic career is over. You won't get a post doc. You won't get an academic position. You won't get into a national lab. And depending on your field, you won't get a research position in industry either. In the industry, no boss has that power.
    - JanisErdmanis 3y ago
      > Contrast with a PhD who leaves in the middle of a program: The years he spent are 0. Generally, the experience/knowledge accumulated is not factored into it when he applies elsewhere for a PhD - unless he has some fantastic publication. When I relised this kind of power inbalance during my PhD resulting docile behaviour of my collegues and partly myself, I even did not even wanted to chage my supervisour nor make a protest as the power inbalances are normalized. This awareness made my PhD easier as I did not put false hopes and did not invest my leisure time into becoming more specialised or come up with my own ideas which could latter be turned down to not allign with funded project as my collegues did. I found the remedy in fight for a better tooling and investing my leisure time in completely different field in which papers were still not been written by robots.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Those are a thing but probably not as bad. You may gain seniority. The second is unavoidable. The last can be dealt with and there are levels of ethics around that.
bsder 3y ago
Yeah, that doesn't work. Once you are in a PhD program you are locked in for 5+ years. It's almost as bad as the green card timeline.
analog31 3y ago
I think it's much worse for a grad student. It may have to do with the cultures of industry and the academe. In industry, competitive hiring and job-hopping are considered to be normal. Confidentiality is assumed, for the most part. There are some stock, face-saving reasons why you're leaving your previous job, that don't open cans of worms. There are lists of questions that you don't ask. And It's not weird if you're changing jobs after a couple of years. Your seniority and promotion clocks don't typically get reset to zero.

halfdan 3y ago

The big problem in academia very often is that you cannot simply take your research and finish your PhD elsewhere. With jobs you mostly can switch without losing much. Obviously depends on the situation.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
paulddraper 3y ago
> With jobs you mostly can switch without losing much Seniority, bonuses, equity vesting, resume damage
- BeetleB 3y ago
  > Seniority, bonuses, equity vesting, resume damage Relatively minor. Most senior people I know who leave with bad blood end up with equally senior roles, and often "fail upwards" to even more senior roles in another company. Bonuses/Vesting: Very common to get good vesting at a new company to make up for what you're losing. Of the people I know who've moved, it's the exception that didn't get decent replacement for vesting. Resume damage: What? Person spent 4 years at a company and left. What resume damage? Your experience still counts. Contrast with a PhD who leaves in the middle of a program: The years he spent are 0. Generally, the experience/knowledge accumulated is not factored into it when he applies elsewhere for a PhD - unless he has some fantastic publication. Still, this is the good outcome - I've often seen students leave an advisor or school and succeed elsewhere. The real danger is when you get your PhD and the advisor will not write letters of recommendation. Unless you've made some really special connections, it means your academic career is over. You won't get a post doc. You won't get an academic position. You won't get into a national lab. And depending on your field, you won't get a research position in industry either. In the industry, no boss has that power.
  - JanisErdmanis 3y ago
    > Contrast with a PhD who leaves in the middle of a program: The years he spent are 0. Generally, the experience/knowledge accumulated is not factored into it when he applies elsewhere for a PhD - unless he has some fantastic publication. When I relised this kind of power inbalance during my PhD resulting docile behaviour of my collegues and partly myself, I even did not even wanted to chage my supervisour nor make a protest as the power inbalances are normalized. This awareness made my PhD easier as I did not put false hopes and did not invest my leisure time into becoming more specialised or come up with my own ideas which could latter be turned down to not allign with funded project as my collegues did. I found the remedy in fight for a better tooling and investing my leisure time in completely different field in which papers were still not been written by robots.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Those are a thing but probably not as bad. You may gain seniority. The second is unavoidable. The last can be dealt with and there are levels of ethics around that.

bsder 3y ago

Yeah, that doesn't work. Once you are in a PhD program you are locked in for 5+ years. It's almost as bad as the green card timeline.

analog31 3y ago

I think it's much worse for a grad student. It may have to do with the cultures of industry and the academe. In industry, competitive hiring and job-hopping are considered to be normal. Confidentiality is assumed, for the most part. There are some stock, face-saving reasons why you're leaving your previous job, that don't open cans of worms. There are lists of questions that you don't ask. And It's not weird if you're changing jobs after a couple of years. Your seniority and promotion clocks don't typically get reset to zero.