It's not just overwork, it's also about how society treats your lifework. The science is a collective effort of millions of people, of many generations. But here we have a situation where dickheads like Musk, who don't even have science degree, come and claim all the credits, suck enormous amount of attention and resources, like a black hole, and use them for pleasuring their own ego (while shitting on everyone else). It's nonsense.
Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
61–70 of 155 posts
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. We can also surmise that lack of hard work is guaranteed to not work. So if you need to grow hard work seems like the better option.
Lack of hard work definitely isn't an hindrance for grow. Having the right family name, pleasant facial structure or just being very likeable and sociable are all possible replacements for hard work.
If you already have everything you want in life, I can't sell you on hard work.
If you aren't happy with what you have, and you aren't working hard to change it, you are guaranteed stuck. That's all.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I mean Einstein, Netwon, Maxwell, and Galileo were probably more valuable to advancing our understanding of physics than every one of their contemporaries combined. The funny part is that Einstein wasn't even in academia until after he was famous. If anything this speaks to me that we want only those people in the field who would do it even if there was no reward for they will be the ones who produce earth shatt…
> The funny part is that Einstein wasn't even in academia until after he was famous No...he was doing his PhD when he published the special relativity and other papers that made him famous.
But wasn't he working at a patent office? I was under the impression that working on a PhD at that time and place would not have been considered "in academia", in that he was not teaching or assisting.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#64The 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…
> "I am at level X, I can dial it back"
I am 100% certain that this rug is going to be pulled out from under any academic who is currently under the age of 45 or so. Tenure and seniority aren't going to mean much when budgets are tight and the admin is run by professional managers instead of senior-academics-on-admin-rotation.
Painful for anyone who's currently an Asst or Assoc Prof and was planning on retiring-in-place in academia, but I think it's a net good for academic culture in the long term.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
If academia had a better effort/reward ratio pre-“X-level”, wouldn’t society reap the benefits of increased interest in those careers?
Well I mean Einstein, Netwon, Maxwell, and Galileo were probably more valuable to advancing our understanding of physics than every one of their contemporaries combined. The funny part is that Einstein wasn't even in academia until after he was famous. If anything this speaks to me that we want only those people in the field who would do it even if there was no reward for they will be the ones who produce earth shatt…
Well not "earth shattering" by any means, but I did all of my research
and published with MIT while entirely outside the university system.
Everything I achieved was despite, not because of the university
system, which having previously encountered I knew would only obstruct
my work. What really helped was the internet, patiently emailing other
researchers and kindly being sent papers. Without that generosity and
the fact that in 2005 people in my field (DSP) kept personal websites,
it would not have been possible. Fortunately in many areas of
computing research, you don't need much equipment, or it is cheap or
even free to get your hands on. I fee sorry for people who work in
physics or fields that need expensive specialist facilities for their
work.
This is why I vehemently support SciHub and hope other budding researchers get the same breaks that I did, without having to kill themselves in dead institutions.
Having had one foot back in academia for 10 more years now I am absolutely convinced it is doomed. The death spiral of efficient self-cannibalism is reaching a frenzy. Outside a handful of top tier institutions they are not even fit places for teaching and learning, never mind original research. It is so sad what "ideology" can do to great institutions and nations.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#66Back when I was in grad school there was a whole set of research people who just lived at the university - but I noticed, they'd didn't really do a whole lot of work. They were just always there, always on hand when the tenured PI showed up to be noticed, and so on. They'd mastered the art of appearing to be dogged 24-7 nose-to-the-grindstone researchers, but it was really just a relaxed little club. Most of their en…
Plenty of research doesn't need millions to do. If you're a mathematician or almost any kind of theoretician or computational scientist you need a laptop maybe the odd bit of cloud time on a bigger blob of compute, in the case of mathematicians you might need chalk. The millions you do need to spend though are on private per-paper viewing of literature, thats the real mind killer. If universities just had alumni acce…
Do you not have access to Sci-Hub somehow? Or have I misunderstood the problem here?
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#67Back when I was in grad school there was a whole set of research people who just lived at the university - but I noticed, they'd didn't really do a whole lot of work. They were just always there, always on hand when the tenured PI showed up to be noticed, and so on. They'd mastered the art of appearing to be dogged 24-7 nose-to-the-grindstone researchers, but it was really just a relaxed little club. Most of their en…
Plenty of research doesn't need millions to do. If you're a mathematician or almost any kind of theoretician or computational scientist you need a laptop maybe the odd bit of cloud time on a bigger blob of compute, in the case of mathematicians you might need chalk. The millions you do need to spend though are on private per-paper viewing of literature, thats the real mind killer. If universities just had alumni acce…
It depends on the field, but I don't think access to papers is such a big deal anymore. Preprints and open access mandates have become popular enough that relevant papers are usually available for free through legitimate channels. When I'm working from home, I rarely bother starting a VPN to access a paper, because it's usually not worth the effort.
A bigger issue that affects independent researchers (and academics who are the only ones working on some topic in their department) is the social context of doing research. Even if you are a big name in your field, your ideas are probably not that special, and neither is your ability to execute them. For most researchers, the real value comes from having regular discussions with other experts.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> rather than into doing groundbreaking innovative research. We probably should first acknowledge that the vast majority of research is incremental and not groundbreaking. > not many people seem to end up making money doing something they really care about Depending on your interest, this may be a case of expectation management. We should expect that the idea that one can eat your cake and have it too is a rare case.…
> We should expect that the idea that one can eat your cake and have it too is a rare case. But you’re not eating it, salaries suck in STEM academia compared to private jobs. If you don’t have freedom either, what’s the point?
It’s a colloquialism about trade-offs and not meant to be taken so literally.
Again, autonomy is another aspect that you may need to consider as part of that tradeoff. If you want to maximize autonomy, great, but it’s unlikely you’ll also maximize pay (as a general rule).
Most jobs are like this, I don’t see why academia should be any different. I also don’t think it’s coincidence that pay in academia has stagnated as the number of PhDs ballon.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plenty of research doesn't need millions to do. If you're a mathematician or almost any kind of theoretician or computational scientist you need a laptop maybe the odd bit of cloud time on a bigger blob of compute, in the case of mathematicians you might need chalk. The millions you do need to spend though are on private per-paper viewing of literature, thats the real mind killer. If universities just had alumni acce…
Do you not have access to Sci-Hub somehow? Or have I misunderstood the problem here?
Sci-hub has become significantly less useful because all new uploads are paused pending resolution of a court case in India. That includes anything published in the last year. A large portion of a working academic's reading load will be keeping up with recently published literature.
Re: Academia’s culture of overwork almost broke me, so I’m working to undo it
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The funny part is that Einstein wasn't even in academia until after he was famous No...he was doing his PhD when he published the special relativity and other papers that made him famous.
But wasn't he working at a patent office? I was under the impression that working on a PhD at that time and place would not have been considered "in academia", in that he was not teaching or assisting.
He was but I guess definitions vary and I'd consider working on your PhD makes you definitely be in academia.