How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#1

Post by yummyfajitas » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 12:31 PM UTC

How to leave academia (for science PhDs)
chrisstucchio.com

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#2

Post by yummyfajitas » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 1:41 PM UTC

By the way, if anyone has good links, particularly on the topics where I've admitted ignorance, please email me. My info is in my profile.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#3

Post by narkee » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 1:54 PM UTC

I'm finishing my PhD, and starting a post-doc in the fall. I had wanted to break out into industry, because I didn't see myself in academia in the long term, but I didn't get anywhere with job applications, so here I am.

I have a few questions:

1. My work consumes most of my time and energy - how would one find time to work on side projects and build a portfolio, when the academic workload is so all-consuming

2. I felt like I had to apply for industry jobs in my niche, otherwise I would be competing against a much larger pool of general engineers/science graduates. Considering that I've spent most of the last 5-6 years focusing on work in a specific niche, how can this be used for leverage for more general technical positions?

Thanks for the interesting article!

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#4

Post by ckas » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 2:04 PM UTC

Which EE specializations are generally best for maximizing backup options in industry in govt/finance/data science?

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#5

Post by jakobe » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 2:14 PM UTC

narkee wrote: post #3

I'm finishing my PhD, and starting a post-doc in the fall. I had wanted to break out into industry, because I didn't see myself in academia in the long term, but I didn't get anywhere with job applications, so here I am. I have a few questions: 1. My work consumes most of my time and energy - how would one find time to work on side projects and build a portfolio, when the academic workload is so all-consuming 2. I fe…

Concerning the workload: As far as I'm concerned, the academic workload is definitely not all-consuming. From watching my colleagues, I came to the conclusion that everybody chooses their own workload. Some of my coworkers come at 9AM and leave at 4PM; others think they absolutely must finish that experiment and stay until 10PM. Some people think they must immediately rush to the lab if their supervisor sends them an email on Saturday afternoon; others just ignore the email until Monday morning.

I have never heard of anybody getting into trouble for turning their computer off on the weekend, or working normal hours; I think much of the pressure is self-inflicted.

Personally, I currently work in academia (doing my PhD), and I run a profitable business on the side (selling my own software). Sometimes this is a bit stressful (when you have to prepare a talk and keep getting emails from customers because of a nasty bug you introduced in the last release), but most of the time this works out just fine.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#6

Post by yummyfajitas » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 2:16 PM UTC

narkee wrote: post #3

I'm finishing my PhD, and starting a post-doc in the fall. I had wanted to break out into industry, because I didn't see myself in academia in the long term, but I didn't get anywhere with job applications, so here I am. I have a few questions: 1. My work consumes most of my time and energy - how would one find time to work on side projects and build a portfolio, when the academic workload is so all-consuming 2. I fe…

1. My work consumes most of my time and energy - how would one find time to work on side projects and build a portfolio, when the academic workload is so all-consuming

Turn off the TV, close Ph.D. comics stop procrastinating. That's a fairly glib and slightly offensive answer, but it's the best I've got. There are no shortcuts. Getting yourself ready to work in industry will take time and effort.

I can, however, suggest that adopting a more rigid industry-style work schedule can help. In grad school, my time management skills sucked, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't alone in that.

One thing you can sometimes do to speed things up is to take pieces of your research and turn it into side projects. For instance, something I didn't do (but should have) was properly package/test my numpy shared memory library.

2. I felt like I had to apply for industry jobs in my niche, otherwise I would be competing against a much larger pool of general engineers/science graduates.

You overestimate the number of general engineers who are capable of quantitative work. When I said there is value being the guy in the room who understands regression and confidence intervals, I meant it.

The much larger pool of general engineers/scientists is the target audience of blog posts like this one: http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/programmer_stats.html

Do things like Naive Bayes, SVMs and Black Scholes seem straightforward to you? If so, you are a quant. Now you just need to become a developer.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#7

Post by _delirium » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 2:21 PM UTC

If you're in the right areas of computer science, esp. machine learning, the answer seems to be that you have to make active effort to resist leaving academia, but not much active effort to let yourself get hired away. The recruiting at grad schools and even academic conferences from folks like Palantir has gotten pretty aggressive lately! They're particularly good at supplying temptation at that moment when a student's finished everything but writing up the dissertation ("ABD").

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#8

Post by noelwelsh » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 2:27 PM UTC

ckas wrote: post #4

Which EE specializations are generally best for maximizing backup options in industry in govt/finance/data science?

If you want a job, go get a job. Don't undertake 6 years of PhD study unless you love what you're doing.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#9

Post by noelwelsh » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 2:28 PM UTC

narkee wrote: post #3

I'm finishing my PhD, and starting a post-doc in the fall. I had wanted to break out into industry, because I didn't see myself in academia in the long term, but I didn't get anywhere with job applications, so here I am. I have a few questions: 1. My work consumes most of my time and energy - how would one find time to work on side projects and build a portfolio, when the academic workload is so all-consuming 2. I fe…

I felt like I had to apply for industry jobs in my niche

It's your job to apply for positions, and their job to filter the applicants. Don't think you have to do their job for them.

Re: How to leave academia (for science PhDs)

#10

Post by amcintyre » Thu, Apr 05, 2012, 2:31 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #6

narkee wrote: post #3

I'm finishing my PhD, and starting a post-doc in the fall. I had wanted to break out into industry, because I didn't see myself in academia in the long term, but I didn't get anywhere with job applications, so here I am. I have a few questions: 1. My work consumes most of my time and energy - how would one find time to work on side projects and build a portfolio, when the academic workload is so all-consuming 2. I fe…

1. My work consumes most of my time and energy - how would one find time to work on side projects and build a portfolio, when the academic workload is so all-consuming Turn off the TV, close Ph.D. comics stop procrastinating. That's a fairly glib and slightly offensive answer, but it's the best I've got. There are no shortcuts. Getting yourself ready to work in industry will take time and effort. I can, however, sugg…

"You overestimate the number of general engineers who are capable of quantitative work. When I said there is value being the guy in the room who understands regression and confidence intervals, I meant it."

I'd just like to second that. If you've learned enough math to be an expert in a scientific niche, you're almost certainly miles ahead of most developers you'll work with.