
Academia as an ‘anxiety machine’ - johndcook
http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2014/12/05/academia-as-an-anxiety-machine/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daniel-lemire%2Fatom+%28Daniel+Lemire%27s+blog%29
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chatmasta
My girlfriend is getting her PhD. We are planning a vacation right now. She
works in a lab as a researcher, which is not a "real job" since she's getting
her PhD. There are no specific regulations for vacation time, or anything for
that matter. However, she's unsure how long she can take for vacation, and
unsure whether she should ask her P.I. This is an example of the irony of
academia.

On one hand, the lack of clear policies and regulations governing academia is
one of its greatest advantages, because it gives your mind space to explore,
and expands creative freedom. If you want to work from 5pm - 3am, nobody will
stop you. Ultimately you work for your own advancement, set your own goals,
and plan your own schedule.

On the other hand, when other people are involved, especially those with
"seniority" like P.I.'s and advisors, it's no longer obvious what decisions
you should make. You need to consider more than just yourself, but the lack of
regulation creates ambiguity in the "politics" of academia. How do you balance
the expectations of those with some power over you, with the expectations you
have of yourself? I imagine this question is a source of pressure for many
academics, especially those who are extrinsically motivated.

~~~
angersock
Not to pick on your girlfriend but I've seen a variant of this phrase so often
that I'm kind of baffled:

 _" the lack of clear policies and regulations governing academia is one of
its greatest advantages, because it gives your mind space to explore, and
expands creative freedom."_

Are the folks in academia so creatively stunted that they can't find freedom
outside of the ivory tower?

It seems like such a silly argument.

~~~
chatmasta
Surely there are opportunities outside of academia that do not restrict you to
the 9-5 grind or subject you solely to the whims of "the man." But academia is
one of the only options where that kind of freedom comes safely packaged and
institutionalized. You get the advantages of prestige without the risk of
something like entrepreneurship, which may be another option for finding
creative freedom.

~~~
johndcook
Agreed. Academics put up with a lot of crap because they're extremely risk
adverse.

~~~
michaelochurch
Very true. The twisted irony is that the long term risks of academia are
devastating. We have a lot more short term job volatility in software, but
unless we work for some outlier asshole who torches our reputations, we can
usually get new jobs. Academics almost never get fired except at legible
points (e.g. tenure review) but when they do, it ruins their lives in a way
that most of us have never experienced.

------
cerrelio
I left in the middle of a PhD for mostly this reason. I was introduced to
politics of the department very quickly because I learned my advisor was not
popular with most of the rest of the faculty. Only two of them would
collaborate with her. She had a big fight with one of the more established
researchers over patent rights a few years back.

I had met her as an undergraduate five years prior to when I became her grad
student. She was pleasant, albeit a little pushy, but nothing offputting. She
had changed in the interim. She would yell at me (and her other students) in
her office for the slightest mistakes. During a meeting with other researchers
and my colleagues she accused me of not completing my work. It took all my
strength not to tell her to fuck off and walk out. Mind you, this woman gave
me a rare A+ in her course just a few years before because I did stellar work.

She's certainly infected by the anxiety of academia and she passes it on to
her students and subordinates. When I saw how being a university researcher
transformed her I decided to give up my chosen route. It didn't seem worth it
to me if there was a significant risk of becoming a bitter asshole.

I became a software engineer. So I probably make double what she does, I have
a fraction of the anxiety and I'm not a bitter asshole.

------
alevskaya
The worst consequence of this insecure, anxious, hypercompetitive culture is
the near-impossibility of sincere collaboration. I speak from my experience as
a very successful grad-student and postdoc in synthetic biology and
neuroscience. Unlike equity in a startup, the kudos credit for publishing a
high-impact paper is really only split between the first author and the lab
PI, removing any incentive for trainees and labs to work together on larger
projects. Of course, a great deal of noise is made in grants and PR about
academic collaborations, but they are always paper affairs of convenience in
securing funding, never truly incentivized joint missions, at least not in the
biological sciences. I can't count the number of attempted collaborations that
I've seen collapse in heated acrimony. As a result, most academic science is a
very lonely affair, and the ambition of what can be achieved today in
experimental biology is completely constrained by what one poorly-trained
young researcher can do in a few years of hard labor with only a modicum of
outside help and advice.

~~~
tjradcliffe
This is one of the things that struck me most about moving out of academia and
into various other things: how _collegial_ in the best sense of the word most
of the engineering teams I've worked on have been.

In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You try
to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your closest
colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openings in your field
this decade... there are limits on how collaborative you can be.

In the business world, if you're any good, you're a resource and people want
to work with you. It's pretty awesome, actually, although there are obviously
bad situations as well. They're just fewer and further between.

~~~
NotOscarWilde
_> In academia, if you're any good, you're a threat to other good people. You
try to be nice to each other, but when it's you and a few dozen of your
closest colleagues in pursuit of the one or two tenure-track openings in your
field this decade... there are limits on how collaborative you can be._

There are many "academias", but this is not my personal experience of it. Yes,
I think most of us PhDs realize the bleak situation we are in, but still, we
usually work together at the university as well as across universities.

Whenever I see a PhD student that has a better track record or just more
talent, I am very happy for him -- after all, he's got a bigger chance than me
for making it in academia.

There might be some politics and bickering among researchers/employees within
a university, but that's something that happens in every community.

------
Balgair
How to get the best out of people is a millennial long question. Egyptians
used whips and slaves, we have been using money and propaganda lately, but
everyone uses something that may or may not be the most optimal method. The
issue is that people are individual and respond differently each time you ask
them. My condolences on the loss of life (I too have felt like the world was
asking far too much of me and I had no way out) but suicide is rarely the
answer. Quitting your job, going to live in Montana for a while, having far
too many beers, considering that everyone around you is an asshole, those are
good options. And yes, I know it is real hard to climb out of those dark
mental holes and realize this, but damnit you have to try.

If there was 2 things I wish the whole world could know, truly know deep down,
they would be that you personally are worth all the stars in the heavens, all
the grain in the fields, all the water in the oceans, and that everyone else
is worth exactly the same amount; that we are all priceless.

~~~
kleer001
"Best" is a pretty hairy topic. Does it mean "Most fulfilling existance", does
it mean "Most benefit to humanity", does it mean "Most benefit to this
country/children/etc..." There's no right answer. I submit that "Letting
people expressing their freedom in a way that maximally lets others express
the same." is more useful/enlightening/profitable than "Getting the best". But
that's pedantic and hair splittery, like the rest of my comment. People aren't
priceless. If we were industry would grind to a halt. There has to be a
reasonable price on human life or there would be no calculating the impact of
1, 10, or 100 deaths, and then to upper limit on the $ spent on safety. The
value of a human life is around 50-100K$/year to 100$K-10$Million Total,
depending on the application.

~~~
noobermin
Continuing this pedantry, one could argue s/he isn't claiming that what people
_do_ be worth all the stars in the heaven, etc. This guy "getting a house in
Montana" is him specifically rejecting that his worth is only his salary or
position or career...even his pride. His sanity at least was worth it somewhat
for him to take a sabbath to regain it.

I guess the next question then is what is it we value in ourselves and how do
wee determine it? That's a harder question.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
The question is wrongly phrased: it's not that we value things _in_ people.
People are terminally valuable.

------
freshhawk
"There is no trace of evidence that you can get the best out of people at
high-level tasks through pressure and competition. The opposite is true.
Worried people get dumber. They may be faster at carrying rocks… but they do
not get smarter."

That last sentence is a great turn of phrase.

~~~
scott_karana
You reminded me of a fantastic video about positive and negative motivation,
especially with how they relate to blue-collar vs white-collar work:

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc))

------
jsnk
Going into academia seems like the dumbest thing only smartest people do.

Jump into a job market where you compete against the bright and ambitious
individuals who will do everything to out-work you to fight for a small prize
pool.

The ending will most likely not be a happy one.

~~~
Loughla
"Jump into a job market where you compete against the bright and ambitious
individuals who will do everything to out-work you to fight for a small prize
pool."

Isn't that sort of just defining finding a job in the general market? You're
competing against other folks who are either more or less qualified than you
are for a small prize pool.

That's the same thing.

------
eli_gottlieb
> This is not, I shouldn't have to say, how academia works. Peter Higgs, of
> Higgs Boson fame, said that there was 'no Eureka moment' to his work, and he
> only has 4 papers listed on Google Scholar: but what papers! Science rarely
> has a Eureka moment: it's rather a series of careful, thoughtful
> developments of work done by one's forebears and peers. A management which
> demands a Eureka a day is one which doesn't just not 'get' academia, it's a
> management which contradicts the academic method and it's one which has
> forgotten that it's meant to serve the needs of science, the arts, students
> and researchers, not the insatiable maw of attention seeking 'Leaders'
> (that's the word they use now) and the PR office. It's also a management
> that kills.

 _slow applause_

------
davidmerriman
Life is an 'anxiety machine.'

Claiming academia killed this specific man is in extremely bad taste. And if
we're speaking in generalities, I'd need to see evidence that academic
positions correlate with higher rates of suicide.

~~~
aaronem
Come now! Surely you can defend your sacred cow more vigorously than that.
You're not starting to entertain second thoughts of your own, are you?

------
mathattack
"One of the reasons academic infighting is so vicious is that the stakes are
so small" \- Kissinger

~~~
saraid216
He's not wrong, but he's not right either. The stakes aren't so much small as
they're impossible to wrap your head around. They tend to be something like,
"understanding something we don't even know exists yet". Compared to something
like global politics, where a stake is often at least quantifiable ("1
country", "500 million children", etc.), it does help explain the viciousness:
it's not clear what's lost when there's a casualty.

~~~
mathattack
I've seen academics fight harder for a new filing cabinet than bankers for a
500K bonus.

------
mdcpepper
I didn't stay in formal education beyond high school so I can't really
comment, but from that article:

"Unfortunately, some of his colleagues felt that he did not secure
sufficiently large research grants. So he was to be fired."

However, Imperial College' statement on his passing claims otherwise:

"Contrary to claims appearing on the internet, Professor Grimm’s work was not
under formal review nor had he been given any notice of dismissal."

[http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcolleg...](http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_4-12-2014-18-0-17)

~~~
Chinjut
More fully:

"Contrary to claims appearing on the internet, Professor Grimm’s work was not
under formal review nor had he been given any notice of dismissal. It is
standard practice at Imperial to conduct both informal and formal performance
management. Professor Grimm’s line manager met with him on a number of
occasions to see how the College could help him to develop more competitive
grant applications, for example through internal peer-review, collaborations
and letters of support. Discussions included talking about the best place for
him to do his science, both inside Imperial and outside, and, with Professor
Grimm’s permission, his line manager made enquiries about opportunities on his
behalf."

So this may still be a situation of pressure being brought to bear, just in
some manner other than via formal review.

~~~
kghose
A line manager for academics. We're not in Kansas anymore.

------
svedlin
Professor Grimm's death is a horrible tragedy and a major blow to the
community. He will be greatly missed by those who were fortunate enough to
know him.

Perhaps institutions that issue grants should require that the receiving
organization ban "quotas" from their internal policies.

Condolences to Prof. Grimm's family and friends.

------
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8687714)

