Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
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Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#2Im surprised the author does not mention tenure. I went to two uni's, one research based and one not. Once the professors hit tenure, the research professors mostly abdicated their teaching responsibilities, whereas the non-research just kept on teaching. I suspect once the author becomes tenured, and thus essentially immune to being fired or laid off, their tone will change.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#3The story resonates but the conclusion doesn't.
As an immigrant, I relate to what she says: feel pressure to work hard -> work hard -> achieve results -> benefit from those results.
As far as I can tell, the system works. She got an opportunity, worked her ass off, produced a lot, and attained a great position/life as consequence.
Those who chose an easier path, perhaps were less stressed but also didn't do or get as much. But I bet they are going to be more stressed as life goes on, while she's in a great spot:
Due to her earlier work, she's at a place to reflect and say "I am at level X, I can dial it back" which is great. But this is a luxury of being at X level to begin with and you mainly don't get there without hard work.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#4The author is too optimistic. There are going to be continuous waves of mass firings of tenured faculty in the 2030s and 2040s.
The overwork and stress culture are going to get much worse over the next quarter century. The problem is structural, not cultural, and there isn't much that academics are going to be able to do in order to combat the problem.
Specific to the USA, but also true in much of the west:
1. Revenue is a huge problem, which means academia will become a zero-sum game even (especially!) for higher-compensated labor. Academia's revenue streams come from three sources that are decreasing in real terms. Those revenue streams will likely begin decreasing even in nominal terms even as inflation reaches a higher steady-state! Government budgets for higher education and academic R&D are more likely to decrease than to increase, and even if they increase almost certainly won't keep up with inflation. Meanwhile, due to demographics, the USA in particular is about to enter a period of decreasing college enrollments (unless the percent of the college-going population can increase substantially, which is unlikely).
2. There is an oversupply of academic labor and labor is the primary controllable expense.
3. Some of these problems used to be manageable because academics controlled the institutions that employed them. But the management culture of universities is becoming professionalized. This means that academics are losing institutional influence that would allow them to maintain good working conditions even in the face of unfavorable market conditions.
I don't think we should give young academics feel good advice like "don't work too hard". What we should be telling them is that even if they bust their ass and get tenure, it's very likely that their pay will languish and they will live in fear of layoffs despite being tenured and working at a steep discount to pay in other industries.
Academia is just another industry, and it's entering a period of secular decline. That situation is never fun for the foot soldiers.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#5That's the tradeoff -- lifetime employment doing what you love should only go to those who are supremely dedicated and won't abuse the privilege.
Part of her issue though is that academic research and academic writing are two different skills, and being a productive researcher essentially requires you to spend a lot of time writing papers. I would think that a grant that allowed scientists (especially) to hire dedicated scientific writers would have a multiplier effect on the productivity of the scientist and would also improve the quality of the papers produced, as having to explain the concept to a non-expert tends to crystallize ideas on presentation.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#6Im surprised the author does not mention tenure. I went to two uni's, one research based and one not. Once the professors hit tenure, the research professors mostly abdicated their teaching responsibilities, whereas the non-research just kept on teaching. I suspect once the author becomes tenured, and thus essentially immune to being fired or laid off, their tone will change.
They didn't mention tenure because it doesn't exist in the UK or Norway.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#7The story resonates but the conclusion doesn't. As an immigrant, I relate to what she says: feel pressure to work hard -> work hard -> achieve results -> benefit from those results. As far as I can tell, the system works. She got an opportunity, worked her ass off, produced a lot, and attained a great position/life as consequence. Those who chose an easier path, perhaps were less stressed but also didn't do or get as…
To some extent. My wife is about to finish her PhD. She's not even a top-level publishing academic and the amount of work she's had to put in for next to no pay (sometimes literally no pay) is insane. Hard work is great and but there is such a thing as too hard and I would argue academia takes advantage of some of the hardest working and most qualified people in the country (I'm in the US).
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#8The story resonates but the conclusion doesn't. As an immigrant, I relate to what she says: feel pressure to work hard -> work hard -> achieve results -> benefit from those results. As far as I can tell, the system works. She got an opportunity, worked her ass off, produced a lot, and attained a great position/life as consequence. Those who chose an easier path, perhaps were less stressed but also didn't do or get as…
As a fellow immigrant, can confirm, hard work works. That’s the main reason I came to USA – hard work didn’t feel like it would work back home. Nothing nefarious, just tall poppy syndrome and general environmental influence or multiplicative factor.
In America, with a bit of luck, it feels like 1x hard work produces 2x result. 3x if you’re privileged. At home, it felt like 1x hard work would get 1.3x result.
BUT! It is important to realize you’re solving a cold start problem. The hustle and hard work only gets you so far. You have to switch to using leverage once you have it. Do not grind yourself to dust.
Yes, dialing back is a luxury. That’s what the hard work was for. Now you can focus on using that position to do more with less. I liken it to running an ultramarathon to get to the start line of the marathon. You now have similar footing to someone who grew up in the social class to which you now belong, just a little later. Good luck.
edit:
I’m not saying hard work guarantees anything. In life there are no guarantees. But I do think it’s a necessary input.
Also there’s studies showing immigrants have the highest class mobility in USA. I’m sure “the immigrant work ethic” has something to do with it. -> https://economics.princeton.edu/working-papers/intergenerati...
At the end of the day, if you want exceptional results, you have to do exceptional things. Such is life. Only 2% of Americans have a PhD. Getting into the top 2% of the population sounds pretty exceptional to me. Doing it in a population you weren’t even born into? Heroic.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#9The story resonates but the conclusion doesn't. As an immigrant, I relate to what she says: feel pressure to work hard -> work hard -> achieve results -> benefit from those results. As far as I can tell, the system works. She got an opportunity, worked her ass off, produced a lot, and attained a great position/life as consequence. Those who chose an easier path, perhaps were less stressed but also didn't do or get as…
> Those who chose an easier path, perhaps were less stressed but also didn't do or get as much.
This is could be true assuming that the goal of society is maximum production and not maximum well-being.
> But this is a luxury of being at X level to begin with and you mainly don't get there without hard work.
Most of the results of hard-work go to the owners of business, not to the people doing that extra effort. And that is also true for academia. To overwork human beings to increase profit in exchange of a fraction of the produced seems inefficient at least, evil at worst.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#10That's the tradeoff -- lifetime employment doing what you love should only go to those who are supremely dedicated and won't abuse the privilege. Part of her issue though is that academic research and academic writing are two different skills, and being a productive researcher essentially requires you to spend a lot of time writing papers. I would think that a grant that allowed scientists (especially) to hire dedica…
> lifetime employment doing what you love should only go to those who are supremely dedicated
Should people give their lives for a profession? That seems prone to create unhealthy societies prone to conflict and cheating. In my experience self described meritocratic societies usually are just cynic nepotist societies. The children of the poor have to work their asses off to get much less that what the children of the rich get without effort.
Homo economicus is dead, and it is time to update the world views on work and economy.