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It seems to me that you have it exactly backwards. First, as a university professor (in the U.S.), I don't have a supervisor in the sense the term is used in b
by ggchappell 17y ago
It seems to me that you have it exactly backwards.
First, as a university professor (in the U.S.), I don't have a supervisor in the sense the term is used in business. Yes, my department has a chair, but this is a "first among equals" position, periodically elected from among the members of the department. Governance is mostly collegial in nature, and much of the evaluation & promotion process is handled by committees. (Note: all this varies a fair amount from one university to another.)
Second, I do whatever research I want; no one tells me what to research. My work needs to be able to get through a peer-review process and be published, but that is not much of a restriction on topics.
Certainly academia has its downside; things like political nastiness, low pay and other budgetary woes, and excessive paperwork are often cited, along with various troubles with the tenure system. More related to what the article is talking about, there is the question of the value of research. If research topics are chosen on the basis of interest, then there is not much incentive to do something that makes the world a better place, generates money for someone, or anything like that.
- amichail 17y agoYou don't have a supervisor. You have many and they hide behind anonymity -- namely your peers who evaluate your papers, grant proposals, etc. In a way this is much worse than having a supervisor in industry. At least your supervisor wants you to succeed. Your peers not so much unless it suits their agenda. The freedom you have is only an illusion. What good is this freedom if your grant proposals / papers get rejected? Moreover, your freedom is severely restricted by the scientific approach demanded by computer science. It is hard to fund/publish novel ideas that are not easy to evaluate. In startups, you can more easily explore novel ideas and change them without worrying about evaluation methodology. Ultimately, your criteria for success are simple: how many users do you have? how much money are you making? etc.
- ggchappell 17y agoWell, it sounds like we want to live our lives in different ways. Which is fine. In any case, as I said, academia does have its downside. So, I think, does working for a large company, or starting a small one. Life is full of trade-offs. > In startups, you can more easily explore ideas and change them without worrying about evaluation methodology. Ultimately, your criteria for success are simple: how many users do you have? how much money are you making? etc. I find this comment odd. First, how can I explore something in a startup that isn't going to make anyone some money? That sounds like a severe restriction to me. Second, it seems strange to name your evaluation criteria ("how much money ..."), but also say you don't need to worry about it. Of course you need to worry about it. A company that doesn't make any money is going to die.
- amichail 17y agoNowadays, you can build apps/services as a one person company. You don't need to make that much money as your expenses are minimal.
- Locke1689 17y agoMoreover, your freedom is severely restricted by the scientific approach demanded by computer science. It is hard to fund/publish novel ideas that are not easy to evaluate. What? That's the point -- science is hard. If it weren't hard it wouldn't be worth doing. I guess you could argue that academia is bad because you don't get to sit around and jerk off and collect a pay check, and you'd be right, but you would completely be missing the point. For me, academia is about examining the limits of our knowledge in a field and then working to expand it. The freedom you have is only an illusion. What good is this freedom if your grant proposals / papers get rejected? Fantastic! It means you are not good enough! (or your idea isn't anyway) The scientific community does not accept substandard research or conclusions and rightly so. Academia is not fun and games but it can be rewarding in its own way.
- amichail 17y agoI don't care about advancement of a field. I care about working on novel ideas that are of interest to me.
- foldr 17y agoAcademia can often be a good place to do that, but it depends on exactly what you are working on. I don't know of anywhere else where I could get paid to work on what I find interesting (but I am not a computer scientist). One thing you're missing here is the collaborative aspect of academia. Most people work much better when they're constantly in contact with other people who are experts in their areas of interest. In many subjects, you just have to be in an academic environment to get that, since there isn't a culture of online discussion. For example, there is very little high quality discussion of philosophy online. (For whatever reason, the best philosophers just don't engage in it.) If you're trying to do serious intellectual work, don't kid yourself that you can work out for yourself whether you've got it right or not. You need other experts to tell you when you're full of crap.
- bayareaguy 17y agoWhile there is some truth to what you say, I've seen a few startups fail because they lost focus. While there may be fewer people to oppose you if you want to experiment with truely novel ideas in a startup, you're still increasing your risk doing so. Startups should avoid experimenting until after they are profitable.