4 ms·

This is how it has always been in automotive. ~15 years ago in automotive, juniors making 60-80k/yr. Most engineers were making a nice 100k+/yr. Experts making

This is how it has always been in automotive. ~15 years ago in automotive, juniors making 60-80k/yr. Most engineers were making a nice 100k+/yr. Experts making ~20-60k more. Top of field can make your 300k+ with consulting. Academia? Oof, 40k/yr starting, never breaking 90k. Your best talent basically goes to industry due to the forces of capitalism. The 22 year olds getting masters/PhDs were seen to be the failures who didn't get a job. Now if you talk to the people in Academia, their prestige was well worth the cost of living on an assembly line worker's wage.

quasse 3y ago
My favorite academics in the automotive field were the ones who had already been in the the industry for long enough to make their bag and had come back to teach because it was fun. The head of the automotive program at my alma-mater was very well off and was completely open about the fact that he did consulting on the side if he wanted cash for a new truck or something. This also made him considerably more immune to administratorial university politics. A lot of university bloat and wasted resources came from the fact that the various regents, deans and heads of so-and-so wanted their fingers in every pie and would push various "initiatives" that academic staff were expected to support (which would then be a notch on the belt of the administrator who created it, giving them power to hire more staff and create more initiatives). There were a lot of levers that could be used against academic staff who focused too hard on teaching or supporting grad students. Loss of lab space, no grad students funneled to them, etc. The people who'd already "retired" once and were only there to teach were basically the only line of defense against this type of stuff, because they simply didn't care.

4 ms·

This is how it has always been in automotive. ~15 years ago in automotive, juniors making 60-80k/yr. Most engineers were making a nice 100k+/yr. Experts making

by resource_waste 3y ago

quasse 3y ago
My favorite academics in the automotive field were the ones who had already been in the the industry for long enough to make their bag and had come back to teach because it was fun. The head of the automotive program at my alma-mater was very well off and was completely open about the fact that he did consulting on the side if he wanted cash for a new truck or something. This also made him considerably more immune to administratorial university politics. A lot of university bloat and wasted resources came from the fact that the various regents, deans and heads of so-and-so wanted their fingers in every pie and would push various "initiatives" that academic staff were expected to support (which would then be a notch on the belt of the administrator who created it, giving them power to hire more staff and create more initiatives). There were a lot of levers that could be used against academic staff who focused too hard on teaching or supporting grad students. Loss of lab space, no grad students funneled to them, etc. The people who'd already "retired" once and were only there to teach were basically the only line of defense against this type of stuff, because they simply didn't care.