Life outside the lab: The ones who got away

The examples given highlight the three sucky things about academic jobs: (i) less money than top-tier alternatives, (ii) insane competition at the start of your career, and (iii) difficulty maintaining work-life balance if you want to be successful.

I had heard about (i) before I started my PhD. That didn't seem like a big deal since grad school was mostly paid for. I'd get annoyed when people assumed being a scientist meant that you'd never get rich. (ii) was a surprise at graduation time (around 2007). At that time, it was said to be the economy's fault. Almost a decade later, it is clear that there were structural changes going on in my field. If you were in CS, it was far easier to get a professor job during the first dot-com gold rush since CS enrollments were increasing like there was no tomorrow. Regarding (iii), I think this happens in every field. It matters who your spouse is and how supportive they are. Sometimes you learn to throw in the towel and get a good night's sleep. You also need to learn to be efficient. I admit I was not the most efficient graduate student. After working at industry research labs for many years, I am amazed by how much I've changed. I still spend too much time on irrelevant things like writing this comment or reading the article but hey .. no one's perfect.

Regarding the fields picked by the first two examples, I want to bang my head against a wall for my lack of timing. I missed the dot-com days and the app-rush. Also, before 2007, it was obvious that a finance job paid very well - it was hard work but so is everything worth doing. Today, it isn't clear if there are any paths to surefire financial success. In some places I've lived in (outside the US), it seems one of the highest compensating careers was flipping condos. The lesson I learn is to be constantly vigilant of potential opportunities and to strike as soon as possible.

Spend 7 years for a chance at tenure?

In many fields, spend years in a postdoc for a chance at a tenure-track job?

Not smart.

The image that the smartest, most promising ones stay in is just false. Most of the cut-offs in academia are crabshoots. Smart people realize that. The intense competition makes for horrific working conditions, at least until tenure. Smart people realize that as well. Some of the competition is based on ability, but a lot is based on politics. Pick a 'hot' topic. Focus on one field, don't do anything interdisciplinary. Make friends with the people who will write letters. Play department politics. Teach just barely well enough -- to leave enough free time for research. Play the grants game. Etc. None of that is fun.

So smart people go elsewhere.

One of the first things I learned after getting my Ph.D was to go where you were in demand. I switched from my most desirable field to my second (which was more in-demand, and had a younger, more startup culture), and immediately, the amount of respect, independence, flexibility, and just about everything else went up. Difference was like night-and-day.

Always be in a position of leverage.

You might have started with one field in mind, but life happens. At times decisions are also influenced by sad fact that your field is just too stagnated, or plain toxic, as is the case with medicine.

Seems like those kind of lifes aren't simply possible in Germany, where I come frome. Studying Chemistry and then going to a bank and tell then you wanna be a investment banker.

I already have a struggle with going from software engineering to usability engineering.