
Academic transitions are one-way only: Reflecting on my first Reddit AMA - JohnHammersley
http://johnhammersley.com/?p=381
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chriskanan
I agree with his advice, and it feels like I'm giving that advice on a weekly
basis to first and second year PhD students that think they can go to industry
for 3-5 years and then get a professorship. Some students have told me it
works that way in China, but it definitely isn't true in the United States.
Unless you can publish prolifically at your company (Microsoft Research, FAIR,
Google Research, etc.) or work at a government laboratory, your CV will
quickly lose its competitive edge after you leave the university.

As an aside, just managing to be competitive for professorships after one's
PhD or postdoc is an enormous challenge due to the scarcity of positions and
the qualifications of competitors. Based on some limited analysis I did
previously, the number of publications required to get an interview is often
in the range of 10-30 [1,2].

[1] [http://www.chriskanan.com/statistics-on-ucsds-computer-
scien...](http://www.chriskanan.com/statistics-on-ucsds-computer-science-
faculty-candidates/)

[2] [http://www.chriskanan.com/planning-for-life-after-your-
phd/](http://www.chriskanan.com/planning-for-life-after-your-phd/)

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pgbovine
That's 1000% correct. As someone who came from industry (Google) back to
academia 3 years ago, and who has been involved in faculty hiring for the past
2 years, the odds are totally against traditional industry applicants unless
they've been in a publication-oriented lab such as MSR for computer science
(or unless they've won some really notable international award).

[Edit: also, the longer it's been since your Ph.D., the higher the bar
implicitly is for you. so if you haven't published much since finishing your
Ph.D., with each year you wait, there will be a new crop of fresh Ph.D.
graduates who look more competitive on the market.]

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unixhero
Why does the World need to be like this?

That edit there is soul destroying stuff.

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jgamman
caveat: it's hard to get back into academia _and get paid_. if you are
sufficiently motivated you can join a research group gratis and just pitch in
and do research - most PIs i've met don't mind other people generating results
for them. it really is a gig though, maybe something you do when you don't
need cash.

~~~
pgbovine
That sounds good in theory but is unlikely to yield satisfactory results since
you're not on their _critical path_. PIs are busy people; they will turn most
of their attention on grant-funded critical-path projects. It's a similar
instance of this problem: [http://pgbovine.net/fellowship-
warnings.htm](http://pgbovine.net/fellowship-warnings.htm)

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tzs
Suppose you go to industry with a Masters rather than a PhD, and then come
back to get a PhD. Will you be on an even footing with other new PhDs for an
academic career, or will that break after your Masters cause problems?

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JohnHammersley
The problem some friends (who did this) found with this route is that by the
time you've finished your PhD after working in industry, you have other
commitments (usually family), which makes the relocation & relatively low pay
of post-doc positions difficult to cope with. It's not impossible to continue
in academia this way, but it is harder than when going straight to PhD from
masters, and my friends who went this route ended up back in industry after
their PhDs.

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shade23
Would this also be true for a Master's program?Would it be harder to get back
to academia after having spent 4 years in the industry which was more product
oriented than research oriented?

~~~
chriskanan
If your question is, "can I get into a PhD program after I do my MS and then
work in industry a few years?" Then the answer is that's fine. But pay will be
really low. We are talking about going from $90k+ in computer science to
$20-30k for 4-7 years. For many people a MS doesn't help them graduate with
their PhD faster for a variety of reasons (this was the situation I was in).

