academic career advice

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Originally Posted by uk elephant

Like you said, Salsa, Wales is stunningly beautiful. But would I like to live there? It is pretty remote. No big towns for shopping or symphony concerts. But then again, I now live only an hour from London and I've been there three half days in the three years I've lived here but always complained about the lack of hiking around here. Hmmm....perhaps Wales would be good.

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I know--I would be thinking all those thoughts too. Shopping I don't know about. Arts, the university might provide, or other towns that aren't too far away from this town. And the job sounds pretty exciting actually. So, given that you may not KNOW FOR SURE right now whether it's what you'd want for the long haul, if it sounds interesting/promising/like an adventure you'd like to try, then that may be as good as your conclusions can get right now. Then you'd just be making a leap and seeing what happens...

Wow what a great thread for advice, could have used this 25 years ago when I was floundering around for career choice. I guess it wouldn't have helped me because I didn't know myself at 21. Had I understood myself better, I would have realized that I could not thrive in the business world because I had no interest in its primary function: the making of money. And key point is - the kind of personalities business attracts are not the kind of personalities inhabiting academia.

Do you want to be around business people? Are you a more practical personality interested in the here and now rather than what was, what might be what could have been?

If you like ideas, new ideas and the exchange of ideas, academia is where it resides. Given the financial turmoil of recent times, financial gain in business is offset by layoffs and uncertainty as great as grant seeking.

Finally, in academia, there's teaching. It can be really rewarding if you have a good pool of people.

I think I have come to the conclusion that I will take the offer and give Wales a try. There are a few details to sort out, but assuming all goes well, we'll be moving in a couple of months. Interesting times ahead!

In the future I think it would be interesting to teach. I don't know about operating a lab but there are a few instances that you can get out of that.

Congrats on the job offer. For what it's worth I love Wales.