"I forked out over $2000 to attend two conferences [..] at the second I was cut off half-way into my paper."
I have never seen this happen at any conference. It makes the author sound like a crackpot.
When tenure never comes
31–40 of 144 posts
Re: When tenure never comes
#32An academic career should never be your only option. Make sure you study something that is useful in the real economy.
I sincerely hope that people who are genuinely excited about research do not adopt this attitude. Our affluent society allows us to specialize in what we like; allowing the best of us to create art and mathematics and make discoveries in science is as important as being a "contributing member of society".
We all have to make choices between what we enjoy and have a passion for and what pays the bills. For many of us, there is a degree of overlap though likely not 100%.
Our society is not so affluent that, if what you are genuinely excited about is medieval German poetry, you can reasonably expect to be supported with that passion unless you win a very specific academic track lottery (or have other sources of income).
Re: When tenure never comes
#33Being out of an academic job is a painful experience. I have a PhD in math and, entering grad school, was aiming only for an academic career. However, it was very clear to everyone in my grad program (as well as to my friends doing physics PhDs across the street) that this requires 1-2 competitive postdocs (3-6 years at low salary) and a stiff competition to a tenure track. And you do not usually get a choice: i.e.,…
For many years, universities had mandatory retirement ages:
>Until 1982, retirement of faculty members at many universities was mandatory at age 65. Because of amendments to the ADEA, in 1982 the minimum allowable mandatory retirement age was increased to age 70. In 1986 Congress made additional amendments to the ADEA, prohibiting any mandatory retirement ages for most workers in the United States. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3737001/
Re: When tenure never comes
#34"I forked out over $2000 to attend two conferences [..] at the second I was cut off half-way into my paper." I have never seen this happen at any conference. It makes the author sound like a crackpot.
"I have never seen this happen" =/= "This has never happened"
Re: When tenure never comes
#35An academic career should never be your only option. Make sure you study something that is useful in the real economy.
> An academic career should never be your only option. Make sure you study something that is useful in the real economy.
And where do the English and Economics professors that teach those STEM graduates come from, hmmmmmm?
The real issue is that we graduate too many PhD's for too few positions because PhD's are nice slave labor for universities.
This kind of overgraduation is true now in almost every field. We're either going to come to grips with the fact that there simply aren't enough jobs or things are going to collapse.
Re: When tenure never comes
#36>I don’t need to start building a life from scratch in my late thirties. I definitely don’t need to do it for a nine—or three-month contract without benefits, or costs of moving.
Well, it's not like the academic world, even when it was much better itself, has done much to protest and assist with the same and much worse situation in blue collar (and even office) jobs.
First they came for the McDonalds burger flippers, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a McDonalds burger flipper...
et al
Re: When tenure never comes
#37An academic career should never be your only option. Make sure you study something that is useful in the real economy.
I sincerely hope that people who are genuinely excited about research do not adopt this attitude. Our affluent society allows us to specialize in what we like; allowing the best of us to create art and mathematics and make discoveries in science is as important as being a "contributing member of society".
Our affluent society doesn't actually, unless food stamps are an acceptable outcome. The affluence does not wish to provide funding for very many excited researchers.
Re: When tenure never comes
#38"I forked out over $2000 to attend two conferences [..] at the second I was cut off half-way into my paper." I have never seen this happen at any conference. It makes the author sound like a crackpot.
"I have never seen this happen" =/= "This has never happened"
I'm not questioning whether it happened or not, I'm curious about the reasons their presentation was cut short.
"There’s nothing quite like having an established academic decide that hearing eight minutes of the allotted twenty would be sufficient. As a self-funded under-employed contingent, I wasn’t going to say anything useful anyway."
How would this established academic know they're self-funded and under-employed?
Re: When tenure never comes
#39> I don’t need to start building a life from scratch in my late thirties. I definitely don’t need to do it for a nine—or three-month contract without benefits, or costs of moving. Well, it's not like the academic world, even when it was much better itself, has done much to protest and assist with the same and much worse situation in blue collar (and even office) jobs. First they came for the McDonalds burger flippers…
Does McDonald's lay off staff every 9 months?
Re: When tenure never comes
#40My experience in finance was that 50% of quants (especially physics PhDs from the 90s, when all the Cold War-era funding dried up) were failed academics. Most of the rest were PhDs jumping straight to industry to avoid chasing tenure for years.
And the remaining few were successful academics who jumped to industry for astronomical pay raises.