Goodbye Academia
anothersb.blogspot.co.uk
Goodbye Academia
1–10 of 217 posts
Re: Goodbye Academia
#2It is indeed sad what's going on in the U.S. with regards to Research funding. Maybe you can go directly to the public who sympathises, for example maybe a kickstarter of sorts for researchers?
Re: Goodbye Academia
#3[deleted]
Re: Goodbye Academia
#4These kinds of things are daily discussions in laboratories all over the world. Everyone knows there's no future in academia, and so everyone is looking for an exit plan. I actively discourage people from doing a PhD. Academia is a horrible feudalistic system that doesn't pay well enough to keep the bright minds it attracts. There is no sense in being a post-doc for life. Much better to take that hedge fund job.
The really concerning potential consequence of this is that it could result in a dearth of innovation in cures for diseases, and we won't see the affect of losses until 5 or 10 years down the road. No one will fund a biotech startup that's not backed by MDs or PhDs and academia-approved proof-of-concept results. Good luck getting that when everyone is running for the lifeboats.
Re: Goodbye Academia
#5It's not just the US, it's internationally. Last time I was interviewed for an academic position the interview feedback I got made no sense whatsoever. A different (ivy league) position doing some really interesting work fell through for bureaucratic reasons around the same time. It was around that time that I FYIQ'ed myself.
If you're technically minded, open source software developer provides many of the good things about academic work without many of the downsides.
Re: Goodbye Academia
#6This is a really thoughtful post highlighting many of the deeply-rooted problems in securing funding as an early-stage academic. It's depressing for bright young scientists to be looking forward to lives as assistant professors submitting grant after grant with an expected ~10% success rate.
But what surprised me most was that at the end of the essay, after having described his fear of facing such uncertainty in NIH funding, the author mentions that he left academia to co-found a startup making software for life scientists.
Wait a minute — don't small software startups have equally poor success rates? (e.g. http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-truth-behind-9-out-of-10-st...)
If uncertainty of success was his major concern, hasn't the author chosen a pretty poor next step in life?
Re: Goodbye Academia
#7On the one hand, it is sad that good, forward-looking academics are being denied funding.
On the other hand, during my time as a PhD student doing research for a top tier university, I saw quite a few projects where I was disturbed by the fact that we were contributing any taxpayer dollars to the project at all.
I think the existing academic model is unfair to both professors and especially to undergraduate student. Allowing the very top professors to focus on research, while making the rest take teaching seriously could remedy the situation.
Re: Goodbye Academia
#8Indeed, I left academia for a startup. Securing funding for ZappyLab is by no means easy (http://anothersb.blogspot.com/2014/03/hello-startup-sequel-t...) But as hard as it is, there are many VCs, angels, and there is crowd funding (we are running a Kickstarter campaign now). Certainly not easy, but there are more options. You run a genetics lab and lose your NIH grant - where do you go?
Re: Goodbye Academia
#9This is almost exactly my story as well.
One point he doesn't mention is that there are many interesting problems in the "real world". Lots of academics just point to industry in general and say, "no freedom, no thanks." I've held a few jobs and all of them presented with unique, interesting, and challenging problems. I've had the freedom to choose my own approach to solving problems and met up with other academic-minded people to have good lab-meeting style discussions about how to tackle a project. Industry positions can be pretty attractive.
Re: Goodbye Academia
#10This is a really thoughtful post highlighting many of the deeply-rooted problems in securing funding as an early-stage academic. It's depressing for bright young scientists to be looking forward to lives as assistant professors submitting grant after grant with an expected ~10% success rate. But what surprised me most was that at the end of the essay, after having described his fear of facing such uncertainty in NIH…
Indeed, I left academia for a startup. Securing funding for ZappyLab is by no means easy (http://anothersb.blogspot.com/2014/03/hello-startup-sequel-t...) But as hard as it is, there are many VCs, angels, and there is crowd funding (we are running a Kickstarter campaign now). Certainly not easy, but there are more options. You run a genetics lab and lose your NIH grant - where do you go?