On Leaving Academia
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On Leaving Academia
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Re: On Leaving Academia
#2This article articulates a whole slew of issues that I'm sure many hners with experience wrt graduate school or beyond have observed and / or experienced first hand.
All I can say is this, jumping into industry, and spending my time on engineering and research of my own that'd be too risky for academia, and that would not have a clear payoff value for a big co R&D lab, its the sexiest, best, most exciting and amazing decision i've ever made.
If my current endeavors pan out, I will actually be able to say I've created software (and an associated business, WellPosed Ltd) that makes innovation on our wee planet happen faster. I'd not be able to attack the high risk & high impact area I'm working on right now as a grad student or jr faculty, but as my own wee company, I can!
:-) (anyone who's intrigued regarding building better shovels for the data mining gold rush, whether as a user or maker, shoot me a line at first name at wellposed dot com, subject: awesome shovels)
Re: On Leaving Academia
#3This article articulates a whole slew of issues that I'm sure many hners with experience wrt graduate school or beyond have observed and / or experienced first hand. All I can say is this, jumping into industry, and spending my time on engineering and research of my own that'd be too risky for academia, and that would not have a clear payoff value for a big co R&D lab, its the sexiest, best, most exciting and amazing…
research of my own that'd be too risky for academia
I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business.
Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do research that is too risky for industry. For example: finding the higgs boson. I don't see any examples of industry doing research that is "too risky for the university."
Re: On Leaving Academia
#4This article articulates a whole slew of issues that I'm sure many hners with experience wrt graduate school or beyond have observed and / or experienced first hand. All I can say is this, jumping into industry, and spending my time on engineering and research of my own that'd be too risky for academia, and that would not have a clear payoff value for a big co R&D lab, its the sexiest, best, most exciting and amazing…
research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…
That's the point, but the reality of job, training, and funding structures today is that almost no one in academia can do anything that is not an incremental step on the research who has already managed to become politically established.
Re: On Leaving Academia
#5This article articulates a whole slew of issues that I'm sure many hners with experience wrt graduate school or beyond have observed and / or experienced first hand. All I can say is this, jumping into industry, and spending my time on engineering and research of my own that'd be too risky for academia, and that would not have a clear payoff value for a big co R&D lab, its the sexiest, best, most exciting and amazing…
research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…
Business is perfectly willing to fund 10 ideas if one success will produce an outsized profit. Academia is not so kind.
Re: On Leaving Academia
#6As a physics PhD with two postdocs, this highlights almost perfectly my decision to leave for industry. When I defended the plan was to become faculty, but my first postdoc made it clear to me that goal was never going to make me happy, or allow for a balanced life.
I would add to the list one other important factor: getting papers accepted at desirable journals feels less like success for me now than it did when I was younger. The 14th edit of a paper just feels like pointless tedium and is time not spent making or testing something. And once you get a faculty appointment all the hands on time vanishes, and you're more of a professional writer/editor. I still need to be working with my hands.
That said, I'm finding it somewhat more difficult than I expected to transition to industry. I find that a lot of companies don't understand that graduate school and postdoc level research are not like college. I am also frequently treated with skepticism (from the CEO level to HR) that I really want to leave academia after developing such a strong academic CV. There still seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about the differences in environment from both sides.
Re: On Leaving Academia
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…
That's the point, but the reality of job, training, and funding structures today is that almost no one in academia can do anything that is not an incremental step on the research who has already managed to become politically established.
Right, but that's pretty much true of industry as well. I just don't see any examples of major scientific breakthroughs coming from industry that aren't equally coming from universities.
Re: On Leaving Academia
#8This article articulates a whole slew of issues that I'm sure many hners with experience wrt graduate school or beyond have observed and / or experienced first hand. All I can say is this, jumping into industry, and spending my time on engineering and research of my own that'd be too risky for academia, and that would not have a clear payoff value for a big co R&D lab, its the sexiest, best, most exciting and amazing…
research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…
With business, if you don't innovate, you die. University research is usually grant-driven. Grants are the result of filling in the right answers and telling a committee what they'd like to hear. There's much more urgency to be constantly innovating in business.
Re: On Leaving Academia
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…
Business is perfectly willing to fund 10 ideas if one success will produce an outsized profit. Academia is not so kind.
Two enormous successes of academia are mapping the human genome and finding the higgs boson. Both were hugely speculative the time the projects were undertaken. If there's something comparable coming out of industry, I don't know about it.
Re: On Leaving Academia
#10This article articulates a whole slew of issues that I'm sure many hners with experience wrt graduate school or beyond have observed and / or experienced first hand. All I can say is this, jumping into industry, and spending my time on engineering and research of my own that'd be too risky for academia, and that would not have a clear payoff value for a big co R&D lab, its the sexiest, best, most exciting and amazing…
research of my own that'd be too risky for academia I don't get this. The whole point of university research is that it is too risky (or benefits will be too far in the future) to make it profitable for companies to pursue. I don't see how anything could be too risky for the university, but not too risky for a business. Edit: I'm not saying universities are perfect. I'm just saying that they still manage to do resear…
That should be the case but it is not primarily for 2 rather related reasons: tenure & funding.
Everything you do as university research is towards the aim of getting publications to progress either you or your adviser towards tenure. The problem is that things that don't work are not usually publishable. This leads to 'fluffing' up results (read enough academic papers and you'll find some hilarity there) and avoiding anything that might not pan out.
Just as important is funding, even a small lab with a few computers and one or two grad students needs funding. And in CS that largely means DARPA or a handful of other government agencies. If your particular research interest involves eventually killing someone, you'll do fantastic. There are of course other sources of funding but they typically have much smaller wallets, especially the further you go on the 'for the good of humanity' scale.
I've seen countless times were grad students are doing something really interesting, but because it's not going to help anyone get tenure and not going to bring in any funding, these students are strongly encourage to 'get back on track'.