academic career advice

[uk elephant]

I'm sat here trying to do some work, but my brain is going in circles so I thought I'd ask you all for advice. I have to decide whether to accept a job offer, which means deciding whether I want to go down the academic career route and also deciding whether I want to move to the end of the world (or very nearly...on the west coast of Wales..any opinion on the location would be appreciated too...).

So here's my question.....for those of you in academia (or not, but with some opinion of it)....why would you recommend a career as a lecturer/professor? or why would you not recommend such a career?

I suppose for the sake of balance, I should ask the same of those of you in a scientific career outside academia so any input from you would be greatly appreciated too.

And in case you are curious, my scientific field is biology, more specifically ecology and behaviour.

Thank you for any and all input!!! I'll be doing a lot of thinking this week-end...my head hurts already!

[Pax]

I don't much opinion one way or the other UKE, I just wanted to say congrats of the offer and share an outsiders view of a friends recent choice.

My friend just made the same decision you're facing and he went to work for Big Pharma instead of academia, his decision was based on freedom primarily. In academia he would be forced to spend and inordinate amount of time chasing ever dwindling grant funding to operate the lab he would oversee, as opposed to doing the research he loved. Going corporate offered him the freedom to remain in the lab and out of administration/funding. I don't know if the situation is the same in the UK?

[uk elephant]

Big pharma is not an option for me really. I don't know much about chem/biochem. The type of research I do, I would either be chasing grants in academia or chasing clients in industry. Don't know which is easier or better. At the moment I'm in academia chasing industry clients and finding it difficult, but much the same as when I was doing my phd chasing grants...

[Flur]

I would love an academic career. I've definitely considered going back to school to get my Ph.D. so that I could teach at a university. And with the consistent infusion of new thoughts, I can't imagine a better place to do research either.

[mayanorange]

DH and I are both scientists- DH is a professor, I am a research coordinator at a Med School- I'm not really in normal academia, it's closer to private sector. I think both can be good, depends on what you want.

Pros of Academia:
-More flexible schedule for doing things during business hours that are not work- popping home to walk dogs, etc
-Lots of variety in tasks
-Support for people in obscure and/or less applied fields (like ecology and animal muscle function)
-Researching your own ideas
-Tends to be a more community feeling
-In-class time is great
-Once you get tenure- job security

Cons of Academia:
-Longer hours in general
-Stresses of funding (the level of which depends on if it's a teaching college or a research university)
-Grading, students who expect you to reiterate lectures via email, etc.
-Having to be on committees
-Student evaluations (there's always one every semester that makes you feel like a toad)
-Having student evaluations and grant money brought in determine if you get tenured (I know you guys don't have 'tenure' per se, but whether you ever make professor vs staying at lecturer forever.)

Pros of Private Sector:
-Can pay lots better (depends on field- probably not in ecology, but could in behavior if it's medically related)
-9 to 5
-You don't directly worry about funding (depends on setup)
-Higher job security from the start- no tenure to attain, etc.
-Because of the funding, there's a bit less sink or swim- less requirements for publication usually and there's not as much background stress (of course depends on the company)

Cons of Private Sector:
-Often you are investigating what someone pays you to look at. Which can be fine, but there's less "Hey, I've got an idea, I'm going to check it out"
-Often the above makes you question whether it's still 'science'
-More 'job' feeling than academia. The academics are dreamers, constantly theorizing and fun to be around. Not that you don't get some in private, but the percentage is less.

Hope that might help a little. It is a job, which is usually a good thing. And there's nothing that says you have to stay in a job forever- you could always try it.

[ilima]

I have to say that being a professor has not been particularly rewarding for me. I'm an evolutionary biologist, so in your field. I think your department has a lot to do with how much you like your job. If you're in a shitty department at a shitty university it really stinks. And I speak from experience!

Remember that you'll be in a rigidly hierarchical system and not one strictly based on merit. Associate profs that barely made tenure and have had their brain turn to mush in the years since will be your 'superior' for many years, even if you are a much more productive researcher. Most of the senior faculty in my department seem to make an art of working as little as possible. Some, I won't see for weeks at a time and I'm in every day, door open. The undergraduate and graduate programs are decades out of date, so it's not like they were making contributions early on in their career.

It's a generally lonely profession. You're normally not part of a research team. Yes, you can have a lab with graduate students and other underlings, but it's not the same as government jobs I've had where you had colleagues on the same project that were your equal.

Professors have always been paid less than MDs and lawyers, but the gap increases every year. The shitty pay doesn't make up for the debt and most of all the time I spent getting my PhD. The health care and retirement benefits that used to assuage the low salaries are no longer guaranteed.

And grant funding is getting tighter and tighter. Things might not be as bad in the UK has here in the US, though. Politicians will routinely decry studies they know nothing about. Bad (ignorant) press can cascade into reduced funding for research. Bill Clinton blasted research on 'plant stress' back in the 90s thinking it was some new-agey research where people were sitting around giving psychological treatment to plants. Uh, no, it's about plants growing in stressful environments and the research is fundamental to things such as growing crops, you know--food!

One of our presidential candidates, John McCain, has been decrying earmarks for projects like studying the genetics of grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies. He's to ignorant to realize that the work is necessary to indirectly assess the population sizes pursuant to laws like the Endangered Species Act and National Forest Management Act. Trying to determine the population sizes directly would be much more disruptive to the bears and much, much more costly.

Uh, off my soapbox. If I had to do it over, I'd have become a scientist for the government, where I'd probably be making about $40K more than I am now. Or become an architect or landscape architect.

[TsPoet]

Uh, off my soapbox. If I had to do it over, I'd have become a scientist for the government, where I'd probably be making about $40K more than I am now.

I work for the Gov't. I'm a biologist turned toxicologist turned pharmacokineticist. I probably make a little more money than you, but not as much as you think. I still have to bring in my own funding (like academia), but I don't have to teach. I have layer upon layer upon layer of regulations to deal with. I can't work with 3H because the gov't thinks tritium = plutonium and there is no way to explain to a rational human being that that isn't the case, for example. My charge out rate, if you want me to do some work for you, is ~>$220/hr ( ), which means I have a hard time doing a lot of the work I'd like to because I'm to expensive to support myself!
I don't work for the EPA or any other pure Gov't agency, though - those folks can make less and they don't (usually) have to bring in their own money, but they also have many of the same detriments as industrial folks, they work on what they are told to work on.
I suspect academia here/in the UK must be rather different. Most people I know aren't in academia because those jobs are few and far between. The good universities that are hiring entry level profs do so at the new person's peril. Many give 2-5 years to bring in your own funding, or you are out on your ear. Mayanorange's list is dead on for the most part, but I'd not the last bullet ONCE you get tenure. It's not easy to get tenure in many cases.
The problem with all research, whether it be studying the genetics of grizzly bears, or the toxicity of pesticides (my emphasis), or the effectiveness of a new emulsifier... is who is funding it at why. Which research is more important for ecology or human health, and which is more important, ecology or human health, or are they really that different...? The industrial research is, in a money-grubbing sort of way, easier - if it makes the company $, then it's worth funding. So many gray areas and so little funding to be split amongst those areas. I suspect the politicians understand more than you think - but they have to think of the bottom line and the bottom line is $.

To add to Mayanorange's list
Pros of Gov't
-You don't directly worry about funding (depends on setup, I do)
-Higher job security from the start- no tenure to attain, etc.
-Because of the funding, there's a bit less sink or swim
-Work times can be somewhat flexible, and most don't put in really long hours
-within boundaries, researching some of your own ideas

Cons of Gov't:
-Often you are investigating what you are told to. Often the investigations are paperwork, lab work is not as prevalent in gov't.
- You often have no choice who you work with, be it lab techs or management.
-You always have to worry about the politics
-More 'job' feeling than academia, but perhaps less than in industry.

[mayanorange]

So have we concluded they all suck in their own ways? I think the statement that academic jobs are few and far between is super true in both UK and US. DH is a Brit btw and we have friends on both sides of the pond in both academic and industry/govt jobs. Most of us scientists would relish a non-academic job because of the high stress to publish like a mad fool and make your students happy all to maybe not get tenure after 6 yrs of working your a$$ off. There are so many universities that intentionally hire 2-3 people for each potential tenure track. The results are bloody and horrible. But the freedom academia brings is wonderful, so if you can tough out those 6 yrs, you get to be the snob and can do what you please after that. We have friends struggling in both countries in that pre-stability position and it wreaks havoc on families. And unfortunately, UK funding is way worse than US and both are getting worse by the minute, especially for non-applied (and largely non-human) research. I'd love to be in pure science (biomechanics of gait and stability), but funding would never happen for my ideas unless I can make it work in humans, which isn't always feasible.

I hear ya on the gov't jobs too. I collaborate with NASA and it makes academic bureaucracy look like a cakewalk. They're constantly rearranging groups, can't make a decision to save their lives because too many committees have to review, etc. And as you were saying, it all depends who's president too! We'd love to milk the current state of W's let's go back to the moon thing, but at the pace NASA implements research, etc. it's going to be too late and we'll have a new pres who shifts the focus back off NASA. Ah well. I have fun while I can and our lab will move on to other applications, but it would be disappointing if our work didn't go to the moon as planned- because how cool would that be??

[Duck on Wheels]

I'm not in biology. You know that, of course, since I'm your mom. You also know that I've been in a contract research firm and now at a university. Pros of contract research were an immediate permanent contract (but lately we've been seeing that the word "permanent" doesn't count for much because if the funding runs dry they restructure and drop whoever they think won't bring in funding in the new field they've decided to focus on. Pro 2: the wages were higher. But that also meant we had to "underbid" ourseves to compete for projects and were always either doing quick-and-dirty work or unpaid overtime to make our deadlines within budget. Now that I have university tenure, I still have to chase grant money, but it's for my grad students and not so much for me. I only need to cover extra expenses, like field work costs and some "pocket money" to attend conferences and such. I also enjoy teaching, even though it has its down sides as well. And now that I've finally made full professor, I'm earning pretty well. Universities can be lousy at personnel management, though. I've been in one downright poisonous department a few years back. So what impression did you have of folks at the dep. that's offered you a job? In a sense, you were interviewing them as well as the other way around.

Bear in mind that I didn't choose my initial contract research job because I thought I'd like it better than teaching, or because I liked the department, or because I was happy with the contract details. I "chose" it because it was the one job offer I had in the same city as your Dad was working. When I started to feel burnt out, I changed jobs. By then I had enough publications and so on to compete for a 3-year grant or a tenured teaching job or ... whatever. In other words, you're not making a life-long choice; you're making a choice that will open up some options down the line, but maybe help less on others. I think the job offer involves lots of teaching but not much time for research ...? Then too, it's a 1-year job. Well, for 1 year you can afford to miss out on field work because you still have things you can publsh from your PhD, given a bit of writing time. So you're not likely to close off the research option, but you can strengthen your teaching option. A big question is -- When do you have to answer? I.e. Do you have to answer already before you know if BF is being offered a job in the same place? That does seem likely, right? And if so, it's a pretty rare situation, that two early career academics both find jobs on the same campus.

But you know all this. Talk it over with BF, and then go with your gut feeling. Whatever you decide, just don't look back. You'll have made the right decision for you. Have faith in your own judgement and keep looking forward.

[salsabike]

I think enough has been said on the pros and cons of academia and those points all make sense, so I won't add to them. I HAVE seen the west coast of Wales and it is absolutely stunningly gorgeous, just fyi.

[Aquila]

I teach English at a US regional university, so take what I have to say with a large block of salt.

The make or break for me would be teaching. I enjoy teaching a lot. If I didn't, I'd have left in grad school (because there's no point to getting a PhD in Shakespeare stuff if you don't like to teach, since Bill Gates doesn't seem to keep a staff full around) before the degree.

The pleasures of teaching are big for me, as is the flexibility. The committee work is only meaningful if you care about teaching and making the community work. The research is pleasureable sometimes, but always a struggle, especially for those of us rather in the boonies.

Good luck with your decision, and congrats on the job offer!!

[chicago]

do whatever your heart is telling... because you will ultimately end up there anyway...

[salsabike]

This is what the west coast of Wales looks like:

[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.

As for the job, I waver between panic and excitement about it. I didn't get a good look around the departement when I was there because I was only there for a half hour interview and a half hour talk, but what little I saw was good. The few people I did meet seemed nice and the facilities good. And they are getting huge influx of funding for a new building and a restructuring of the entire curriculum which would give me as the teacher of animal behaviour a lot of freedom to design those courses. It is only a one year post to start with with focus on teaching that first year, but they want this to then merge into a more traditional lectureship post with a mix of teaching and research and from the dept heads description of the situation, what mix of research and teaching I would get after that first year was largely dependent on what I wanted. I think if I decide I want a job in academia, this would be a very good opportunity. But is that what I want? and is Wales what I want? Who knows?!

[mayanorange]

If it's a one year post, I say go try it. If you don't like it, you can move on at the end of the year. If you like it, it sounds like a very flexible option to continue has been offered, which is rare. Is this more career advancing than where you are now? Do you have any other irons in the fire that you're waiting to hear from? I imagine there's not a ton of Unis in western Wales, so if being in the same place as BF is dire, then that's an important consideration. DH and I ended up in Boston partly by accident, but it's really the only area we could depend on finding 2 posts. Of course we did transcontinental long distance for 3-4 yrs before it all came together. If it's going to open doors later, then it's worth the sacrifice. It seems like starting out in academia they want people who have been lecturers (asst. prof over here) already, but how do you get that first job then? Maybe 2 years there to establish your foot in the door, then you can be more competitive elsewhere. Or by then you'll be desperate to find a non-academic post.