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When I was a postdoc at Stanford i simply stopped showing up at the department after 9 months. The chairman later told me that i was the first one in the entire history of the department to have done that. By the way there was absolutely no pressure; they kept paying me and in fact by mistake they raised my salary to $10,000 a month. Then they called me from the payroll office to ask if I would voluntarily return it…
I especially like the point made about toxic grad schools being worse than other toxic jobs. Post docs are slightly better that way, with shorter time commitments but I suppose it adds to career uncertainty.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you fail during your postdoc you are left with basically nothing. Can't you go into industry? You'll have a PhD + more papers done along the way in your postdoc.
Yes, of course one can do that and it’s probably the most reasonable strategy (as opposed to another postdoc, for example). But then, what was the point of the postdoc? I’d rather move earlier into industry. It’s ultimately a gamble.
Fair enough - a lot of the time people have to take bad jobs. If you can't move due to family, if the economy is bad or if you have no leads for some reason you have to take what you can get.
But if you can pick, pick something you actually want to do, if that leads to great things - wonderful. If it doesn't three years of your life isn't up the chute.
These may be the last three years of your life. Remember that.
First the positives: academia has some amazing qualities. If you "make it" (or, alternatively, until you "fail" and drop out) you'll spend most of your time working on problems that you are truly passionate about. The kind of problems that you can't stop grinding over in the back of your head anyway. You get peace and quiet and a paycheck to sit and work on those all day. To me, doing this for life is an absolute dream!! Maybe a student two help you out. And then you get to travel the world and speak to other people who are equally passionate about this or similar problems.
Yes there's teaching too. But unless you hate that, it's not a big downside. I for one enjoyed it. I've heard horror stories of the american teaching burden though, so maybe it's different if there's too much of it. And yes there's grant application pressure. Maybe I speak from too European a perspective, but I absolutely loved almost every week (every day would be an overstatement) of my 4 years as a postdoc. Every day I miss it.
But the instability was killing me. I had the kindest most wonderful boss who shielded me from most of it, and in the end gave me 4 years of peace and quiet, and would have helped me go anywhere next. But I couldn't take the repeated uprooting. I wasn't good enough for a permanent position yet, or rather - not good enough for one in a place I could possibly imagine living - and forced uprootings crush my mental state.
So I gave up.
I don't wanna sound bitter. Hats off to those who make it. Truly! But the system has become so selective for a few "types" that I worry about its health:
- Incredibly bright people. This is obviously good.
- Incredibly hard working people. This is good, to a point. Not if the norm becomes giving up your life.
- People who'll accept any terms. Not good, this is a slow march towards serfdom.
- People who are fine with complete instability. I think academia is missing out on a lot by selecting for these.
Rant over :-(
I mean, isn't it clear, ever since the bulk creation / funding of so many colleges (and faculty positions) pre + post WW2, the US faculty job market has been on a decline ever since -- (that is, from the average postdoc's point of view of success % when seeking a faculty position). It is structurally not a growing, dynamic market where you're going to have an easy time. I would call it stagnant, or in the worst case,…
(Excluding fields with a good route to industry, of course, since there's plenty of "sterile" industry positions where the researcher is no longer spawning new researchers).
People continue to do it because of the ownership of the work, the nearly unlimited potential upside from discovery, and the ability to build on serendipitous discoveries into your own portfolio.
The downside is being stuck in a bad situation in academia can be psychologically damaging and difficult to recover from.
Postgraduate student depression and suicidality is at horrifying proportions. The universities don't care. No one cares. Academia is super fucked and super fucked up, and it just keeps marching onward with blindfold on and fingers in ears, yelling "LA LA LA LA" as loud as possible. Academic positions are basically gone. Whatever didn't vanish completely after the 2009 recession is definitely gone now. Universities co…
On a personal level, I feel empathy for you and your struggling peers. You should not hate your life that severely, no matter what your line of work is. And it's not right to be lied to by people who should be looking for out for you. But to be honest - as someone who was born and raised working class and has a perspective colored by that - I can't for the life of me understand why you do this to yourself. Why don't…
The situation is actually very similar to what I've read from folks in game-dev. Almost one-to-one. And like you suggest, these sorts of situations probably all have their root in the supply/demand of labor imbalance from people choosing the career out of passion and being willing to sacrifice on many fronts for the opportunity to do it.
Serious question: Why don’t they leave? I’m not saying that they should, or that conditions shouldn’t improve, but if academia is that stressful to you, why stick with it? The only potential outcomes sticking with it are that you will fail later on, or you will fill a role with an increasing amount of stressors.
Postgraduate student depression and suicidality is at horrifying proportions. The universities don't care. No one cares. Academia is super fucked and super fucked up, and it just keeps marching onward with blindfold on and fingers in ears, yelling "LA LA LA LA" as loud as possible. Academic positions are basically gone. Whatever didn't vanish completely after the 2009 recession is definitely gone now. Universities co…
I can easily agree with part of what you are saying, but the fatalistic exaggerated tone of your claims makes it rather hard to start a constructive discussion and definitely does not prompt people to discuss how things can improve.
I hope you'll forgive me ranting, but it's almost exactly a year ago since I left academia (was a postdoc), and I'm feeling very down about it and need to let out some thoughts. First the positives: academia has some amazing qualities. If you "make it" (or, alternatively, until you "fail" and drop out) you'll spend most of your time working on problems that you are truly passionate about. The kind of problems that yo…
One (tenured) professor I knew left to go and work for his spin-out full time in industry. He told me that his belief was that academia was so bloody awful because it was a luxury: society wants you to continue to justify your existence sitting around and thinking every few years, whereas in a company, the $/€/£ is all the justification needed. I'm not sure to what extent I agree with that, but it's definitely plausible.