
Leaving Academia (2013) - msvan
http://jakobegger.at/2013/leaving-academia.html
======
tensor
The value in academia is not in the political benefits that it gives in
getting a job or being recognized. If you are in it for fame and fortune, you
are a fool.

I was in academia. Not just a grad student, but achieved the phd and did a
post doc. I don't regret any of it. It taught me many invaluable lessons, all
of which have been useful in industry starting a company.

My impression of industry so far: they don't get progress. They don't get
innovation. They have problems, but they they don't understand them and are
unable to commit resources to the procedures that are needed to solve them.

Only the very biggest of tech companies like Google, Palintir, Apple,
Facebook, are able to tackle the really hard problem. These are the problems
that you can not make an estimate for in terms of completion. The majority of
industry will not even entertain this class of problem.

Academia, too, has a lot of problems. I left because of the publish or perish
mentality. I liked to work on hard problems, and had some successes, but
overall it is the numbers that matter not the difficulty. There are an equal
number of politics in academia as in industry, though they are different in
academia.

In industry, politics often involves a lot of incompetent people in high
places following paper work procedures that do not support their supposed
cause, while in academia it is more a lot of infighting over government grants
and insultingly simple metrics like the number of papers published.

In short, the author of this post is full of ignorance, and I am only slightly
less full of ignorance in that I haven't achieved tenure in academia, and only
have several years in industry helping to run a company. None the less, what I
learned in academia in terms of the science of computing, it was invaluable.

~~~
jostmey
> If you are in it for fame and fortune, you are a fool.

I think that sums up why so many people hate being in academia. They go into
it for the wrong reasons. I've seen many people make this mistake.

~~~
jseliger
To be fair, I doubt most people are in it for "fame and fortune." That being
said, most of us interested in such matters need to balance the need to eat
and lead a reasonably normal material life with our interests in ideas,
research, and teaching. Desiring a reasonably normal material life is not
unreasonable.

If you go into contemporary academia with the expectation that you _will not
get a TT job, or a TT job in a desirable place to live_ , at the end, then
perhaps you are doing it right.

Right now there are simply far more PhDs than TT jobs. That means a large
number of PhDs cannot get the jobs for which they are being trained. People
entering should know that. Knowing that is not equivalent to pursuing academia
for "fame and fortune."

I wrote about this in a humanities context here:
[http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-
befor...](http://jakeseliger.com/2012/05/22/what-you-should-know-before-you-
start-grad-school-in-english-literature-the-economic-financial-and-
opportunity-costs)

~~~
michaelochurch
_Desiring a reasonably normal material life is not unreasonable._

Amen. It's kind of amazing what academics put up with.

Take relocation. I'm 31 and while I'm at the top in terms of talent, I've made
some mistakes and I'm probably only upper-middle in terms of tech career
success, and I would simply not take a job, with a cross-country move, that
didn't offer a full relocation package. Yet academics who are at much higher
quantiles of success in their industry (just to have a TT job is 85th or
higher, these days) are happy just to have a salary, because their low self-
confidence ("impostor syndrome") is used against them to the point where they
think it's egregious just to ask for basically decent treatment.

------
dgmdoug
Isn't part of the problem that we place this artificial wall between academia
and industry? I often found myself confused in this respect. I attained my PhD
a number of years ago, and found this an invaluable experience, which has no
doubt helped me to excel in industry, however I still meet people (developers
and senior level executives especially) who think academia is about locking
yourself in a room and writing stuff without building anything useful.
Ironically, these are the same people who build products and code without
surveying the field, understanding what is already out there and building on
top of existing solutions. Their naivity and ignorance is such that they
believe they are building something truly unique, and will get it right first
time, every time.

It seems to me that we should stop standing on each side of the fence and
looking down on each other, and start working together. We might actually
achieve something great it if we do that.

Regards the OP, if it was the right time for him/her to leave, that's great.
Nobody should continue on a path that they do not find fulfilling. It says
nothing about academia, or industry though. It only reveals the feelings of
the author.

The true travesty here, is that he/she will find it extremely difficult to
pick up that work again and find a place in a university if they change their
mind in the future. Our system in the UK is broken, since you only get a
single shot at academia -- unless of course you are independently wealthy.

Perhaps this is the cause of the divide. You are either in, or you are out --
and once you make your choice there is no going back.

------
navait
>Maybe a handful, I said. And then I realized that there was no way I could
work on that problem. Success in academia is measured in the number of
citations your paper receives. What point is there in writing a paper that is
only interesting to such a small audience?

I wanted to say at first that if he was in it for the sake of being a
successful, high-impact researcher, he was in science for the wrong reasons.
But really, unless you are one of those high-impact people, you aren't getting
tenure. I don't feel like tenure is asking for much if you're a hard worker
who's produced some novel results. I get that science is supposed to be about
passion, but you can't support a family on passion alone.

> A career in academia would just require even more proving my
> worthiness...I'd constantly be evaluated. That's not what I was looking for.

He's in for a rude awakening. You're only as good as your last envelope.

~~~
noobermin
A much more accurate statement is you might not get tenure if you're not high-
impact, but you certainly won't if you aren't.

Also, of course you are evaluated in anything in life, from the desk to the
friendly get-together. The issue with academia has always been its ROI. You
invest a lot into the academic life, your time, your youth, your energy, your
mental state, all to graduate close to 30 make a salary some of the people you
tutor make fresh out of college? All while working 50-60 hour weeks...it isn't
quite the life.

Perhaps being in a start-up requires such dedication too, but that can be seen
a risk that can yield a great reward. For academe, there is no reward, save
the "academic points."

This [1] says it well. At least if you work hard and stress and have no life
in the "real world", you'd have the chance of monetary compensation. Really,
in academia, unless you are lucky enough to become a tenure prof, all you have
is your pride that you understand something no else cares to. That, and the
occasional free pizza and beer.

[1] [http://100rsns.blogspot.com/2010/10/25-academe-is-built-
on-p...](http://100rsns.blogspot.com/2010/10/25-academe-is-built-on-
pride.html)

~~~
NotOscarWilde
_> For academe, there is no reward, save the "academic points."_

I disagree. First of all, there is a rather high place in the societal ladder.
A university professor is still somebody who induces awe, plus the job has
this "uncorrupted by money" vibe which you cannot get as a
manager/entrepreneur. Furthermore, you have an extremely high position in the
local society, i.e. at the university.

But I think the real reward is not vain or materialistic -- the reward is
doing something you _adore_ , and something you find a lot of meaning in. Both
teaching and research are extremely fulfilling for me (as a PhD student).
Personally, I can think of other jobs in compsci/programming that would be
fulfilling, but they are likely as unavailable as the university position.

~~~
noobermin
I say in the second sentence in that paragraph that it is unless you become a
tenured professor that you have nothing but your pride. I recall a study once
that indentified a university, tenured professor as the lowest stress to pay
ratio job in existence. Of course, few in the academy can reach tenure-ship
given the over-supply, so you most likely will toil as a post-doc for a long
time in academia.

And no, the jobs you are thinking of are certainly not just as unavailable.
For fuck's sake man, the number of university positions in the US for my
field, physics, is in the single thousands...universities themselves have 3000
jobs in total[0]. That's total number...and this is with 1700 PhD's awarded
per year[1]. It looks a little better for you in compsci [2],[3], so may be
you have a right to be more optimistic than me.

Perhaps an important thing here is the area of study. Physics, IMO, is pretty
bleak, especially for theorists.

[0]
[http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes192012.htm](http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes192012.htm)

[1]
[http://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/rosters/ph...](http://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/rosters/physrost134.pdf)

[2]
[http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics4_611300.htm#15-0000](http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/naics4_611300.htm#15-0000)

[3]
[http://cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/crndocs/2013-Taul...](http://cra.org/uploads/documents/resources/crndocs/2013-Taulbee-
Survey.pdf)

~~~
NotOscarWilde
_> And no, the jobs you are thinking of are certainly not just as
unavailable._

It really depends on what you can see yourself doing. My closest compsci
friends are all employed by either big companies working on their backend or
by "young hip" companies doing web solutions for the local tobacco companies
and the like.

Anything that I would like to do would have to (subjectively) help humanity as
much as research/teaching; and getting jobs like these either requires a whole
lot of dedication (leaving your family behind, moving to Asia/Africa) or a lot
of connections (governmental public good jobs are rare for compsci people).

------
sktrdie
I find myself in the exact opposite situation. Been working for industry since
I was 18 and am 28 now. Never got a degree. I'm tired of working in a consumer
setting where everything has to be faster, better, more pleasing for the
client. I've now moved to academia because I want to work on things that are
foundation for other work and not always things that are immediately useful to
people. However I see how he had enough of that always being examined
environment, but in Industry you'll also get examined, this time by a cranky
costumer that wants a button a little more to the left, and who doesn't have
the professional skills to examine your work.

~~~
noname123
I think it's because OP never had the xp of working in industry and think
grass is greener on the other side. I also made the switch from consumer web
to academia.

However I understand from his perspective which is from someone who wants stay
on research, go from PhD to post-doc to to fellow to principal investigator to
whatever. Competition is intense and everyone along the way is selected for
people who are so interested in their work that they might be very unbalanced
in other area's.

It's all about trade-off's. I personally would rather trade for working on
things that I find interesting and technical than A/B testing. But I can
understand someone who is tired of academia and wants to live in the "real
world" for a change. I can also understand people who are very happy doing
things that they think are very engaging/fun/important in consumer web and
respect that.

~~~
hessenwolf
So interested in their work? Nah, it is luck and politics. Sadly, most of the
selections are not for hard-core research chops.

The whole grant and annual weighing scales approach nowadays strongly dis-
incentivizes risk-taking. Without risk-taking with great big brass genitalia,
research results are pretty pedestrian.

~~~
kefka
Not really.

There's tons of low-hanging fruit that could be worthy of some serious papers
/ prestige if the work was done for them.

1\. Biology : Repetitive Strain Injury calculations via Neural Load

2\. Computational Photography : Low Cost, Quick Photogrammetry Calculations
via GPS/9DoF metadata

3\. Biometric Security : MS Kinect Biometric Security via RGBD and 3D Sound

------
cs702
This is _terrible_ in my view:

 _" As a PhD student you get to choose some interesting problem and work on
that, right? That's what I naively imagined before I started at the institute.
Some day at lunch I told my supervisor about this idea I had. We could take
his fluid simulation method from computer graphics and apply it to a problem
related to molten polymers. There was this experiment by a group of applied
physicists that would fit nicely. He asked me how many people would be
interested in the problem. Maybe a handful, I said. And then I realized that
there was no way I could work on that problem. Success in academia is measured
in the number of citations your paper receives. What point is there in writing
a paper that is only interesting to such a small audience? To be successful
you need to target a large audience, and not just pursue whatever obscure
problem takes your fancy."_

As a society, don't we _want_ our young academics to be able to pursue their
intellectual passions, no matter how obscure? A lot of original research is
produced in areas that others have overlooked or considered unimportant. Do we
really want a "citation market" to determine whether researchers can pursue
their passions?

~~~
noelwelsh
For a number of reasons, no, we don't want PhD students to research whatever
random topics pop into their head.

For a start, PhD students don't know how to do research. That's one reason one
does a PhD: to learn how to do research. That means listening to your
supervisor and working on problems they suggest, at least in the early part of
your PhD. I have seen many PhD students, including myself, arrive with half-
baked ideas that go nowhere. Learning to formulate a useful research problem
is a part of what you are taught.

The second reason is that resources are finite. You don't get to piss around
with other people's money anymore than other adults do.

~~~
thekingofspain
But at the same time, if the supervisor thinks your idea is good in all ways
except for likely citation count, then why should you be prevented from
researching that?

------
nilkn
This is probably a very naive question, but could somebody explain how
education is becoming so expensive in the United States and yet there seem to
be so few tenure-track positions available? I understand that the number of
Ph.D.s has grown quite significantly in the last few decades, but so has the
cost of attendance of almost all colleges. The number of tenure-track
positions, meanwhile, hasn't caught up at all.

I'm still amazed to consider that the college I attended, had I not received
scholarships, would have cost me $50,000/year to attend in total. Yet I can't
actually think of a single faculty member in the department I majored in who
attained tenure while I was there. I do remember somebody joining with a Ph.D.
from Harvard, having studied under a renowned mentor, for a non-tenure-track
and low-paying "lecturer" post. This greatly talented person, naturally, is
now gone, presumably at some other transient and low-paying post elsewhere. I
just looked up one of my professors, who was a brilliant topologist and knot
theorist doing a postdoc, and was surprised to find she's abandoned academia
and is working as an analyst in oil & gas now.

------
nicklaf
Footnote: this story is oddly similar to the top story on the first
archive.org snapshot of SN:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

------
tspiteri
The title "Leaving Academia" made me expect the author to have been in
academia for some time, and not as a student, and to have decided to move on
to something else. The article is not about leaving academia, but about not
joining academia.

~~~
jakobegger
This attitude is exactly what made me leave. I've spent more than seven years
at university, three of them paid to do research, and then I get told 'you're
not really part of the club yet, you're just a student'.

~~~
tspiteri
I had not read your article properly, and I got the impression that you were
still considering whether to join the PhD programme. Now I have reread it and
you said you had already started the programme, so you are right, apologies.

But then why do you imply, in the conclusion, that leaving academia is like
stopping educating yourself? If what you were doing was mainly educating
yourself (which was not the case), then you would have been exactly "just a
student".

------
berbc
> A career in academia would just require even more proving my worthiness.

I do not think the industry will accept you without you regularly proving your
worthiness. Of course, a PhD is something special so I understand anybody
would not want that, but not for the reasons given in the article. Same for
crazy ideas and being educated. I believe someone could have given roughly the
same reasons for "Leaving X" because she's tired of doing the things that X
requires. At least we learn about what doing a PhD entitles you to do, but as
others have pointed out, this is quite a rude awakening.

~~~
fluxquanta
>I do not think the industry will accept you without you regularly proving
your worthiness.

Exactly. I left a physics PhD program after my first year because I couldn't
stand the environment anymore, and went into software development for an
established company. I'm still given "homework" and "exams", still judged on
merit of my work, still proving my worthiness of my paycheck everyday. Luckily
I had to work throughout undergrad and grad school to afford it, so I already
had that knowledge going into my career, but it really sounds like the author
of this article did not.

------
keredson
I also left my PhD program shortly after passing quals. I think it's a great
time to bail. There are too many great classes you'll have to pass on if
you're only long enough to get a masters, and you haven't yet burned a ton of
dissertation hours. (Assuming you do it right - I remember my advisor being
quite miffed that I wouldn't stop signing up for a full load each semester.)
Grad classes really are the best learning bang for the buck/hour I've ever
experienced. Just make sure you fill out the paperwork so you do get that MS
along the way...

------
jcfrei
Doing PhD has crossed my mind as well. From reading quite a slew of articles
(most of them talking about abandoning academia, few of them happen to be
positive), I would cynically summarize: Do a PhD if you are either a) doing it
for the prestigious degree or b) because the subject really interests you.
Don't do a PhD if a) you are hoping for a tenure or b) expect to earn more. I
don't think there's anything inherently "noble" in doing a PhD, so I think the
outcome of the decision should entirely depend on how realistic your
expectations are.

~~~
WhitneyLand
There is nobility in it. It still may not be the right tradeoff for people but
expanding the sum of human knowledge is a great contribution.

------
gradstudent
I remember this article the first time it was posted here. I remember I was
not impressed. My opinion in in the interim has not improved. For a start,
this should really be titled "Why I dropped out" as you cannot leave an
institution to which you do not yet belong. Moreover, the article, then as
now, seems as vapid as the comments it inspires; i.e. tall poppy bullshit.

Bah humbug.

~~~
dalke
Many people, and I am one, regard grad school as a professional position.
Nominally you are there to do your own research and make your own decisions,
under advisement of a professor. (I can see some exceptions for a new graduate
student who is still doing coursework, but in this case the student had passed
the qualifying examination.)

As such, grad students don't really "drop out", just like employees don't
really "drop out" of a job when they quit, nor unpaid elected officials don't
"drop out" of office when they resign, nor volunteers drop out when they stop
doing volunteer work.

Personally I think there was a mistake in the logic. Success as an academic
may by related to the number of citations one gets, but it's not a factor
which affects one's graduate career. Only the handful of people in your
graduation committee needs to be convinced about the work, and once you have
the PhD there's no continue on that topic, or stay in academia.

------
ins0m
A conclusion I am starting to see at the horizon for myself. Especially as a
CS major the academic reality hits you hard - realizing this is probably not
the direction you should bet your best years on. Taking the risk can be more
fulfilling.

I would by quit interested in your next steps and way down the road.

------
jmcmahon443
You are an expert in computer graphics and you think that the entertainment
industry is the only one for you?

Go work for Autodesk, SolidWorks, Flux.io, PlanGrid, or one of the other
companies making CAD software. WE NEED YOU GUYS.

~~~
WhitneyLand
Autodesk is a massive part of entertainment industry software depending on the
products. The deadlines and stress aren't much different either. However if
you are into CG there is a lot of opportunity implementing cutting edge
research and some room for publishing still in the right role.

------
noelwelsh
_What point is there in writing a paper that is only interesting to such a
small audience?_

Substitute "writing a paper" with "building a product" and you're well on your
way to being an entrepreneur.

~~~
noobermin
One (might) pay off and benefit the world, or it may flop and you have to move
onto your next one.

One (might) be influential, or it may be relegated to the annals of some
obscure journal, never to read or cared about.

Still, there might be a pay off for one (monetary). The other buys your
"academia points". The pay-off is a little more suspect on the academic's
side, I think.

------
arca_vorago
"Success in academia is measured in the number of citations your paper
receives."

Which is why the quality of papers (among other reasons) has gone downhill. I
knew a particularly brilliant scientist who would do basic work at a reduced
rate in a corporate setting as long as the people actually writing the paper
included him in the author list. He shows up on over 1000 papers, many of
which are of dubious scientific merit, but because of those kinds of numbers,
more and more people flock to him for similar work, without realizing it.

------
noobermin
I'm curious what this fellow's experience after leaving was.

~~~
jakobegger
I'm now an independent software developer. I already had a side project that
was doing pretty well (Mac App), and I started to work on a second Mac app
that I released last summer. I wrote a bit about it on
[https://eggerapps.at/blog/](https://eggerapps.at/blog/)

Another reason for leaving that I didn't mention in the text was the birth of
my first son. I saw how colleagues had little time to spend with their
newborns. Now that I'm on my own I can choose myself how much time to spend
with my kids.

~~~
NotOscarWilde
_> I'm now an independent software developer. I already had a side project
that was doing pretty well_

Is it bringing enough money for you to pay half of your family's bills?

Forgive me for being so direct, but "independent software developer" is a very
broad label, and it contains both the successful and the struggling
programmers.

Not that being dependent on a family is a bad thing; the only downside is that
it is not something that everyone can do.

~~~
WhitneyLand
Why did you move so far away from your research?

~~~
jakobegger
My research involved a lot of programming, and I enjoyed making pretty GUIs
for the code I wrote. So I already knew how to make Mac Apps.

I made database apps because I saw an opportunity. I had been thinking about
doing something more related to my area of study (physics & computer
graphics). However, all I came up with were some vague ideas for games, and
games seemed too risky for me.

I do miss some parts of my research (especially maths), but for the most part
I'm happy with what I do now.

------
Hermel
PhDs in IT do not pay off, at least salary-wise. The time is takes to complete
them is much better invested in a regular job, gaining practical experience.

~~~
eob
The repayment with respect to industry work is in credentialed autonomy, not
money. And for many, that's worth it.

~~~
danieldk
Indeed. I moved academia -> short industry adventure -> academia.

I like both. Industry is more pleasing because you work on products that are
directly used and you are judged (at least in a small company) on tangible
results. The downside is that work is mostly driven by the most urgent needs
or cash flow, so there is far less time to explore certain things deeper.

In academia on the other times, you are judged on getting grants (which is
definitely process that is to a large extend out of your hands, and tends to
favor people who were already successful in getting grants). On the other
hand, you have far more time to explore, try, fail, and try again (as long as
you are not a professor).

One should also realize that graduate studies highly differ per country. E.g.
I did my PhD in The Netherlands, and there are no tests, or anything alike. I
basically got funding for four years to do research, a small amount of
teaching and to write my thesis. There was only one serious sanity check after
the first year to filter out PhD candidates who were very unlikely to complete
a thesis in four years.

~~~
thirdtruck
> I did my PhD in The Netherlands ...

I think this is a point that deserves more emphasis. It's easy to forget the
degree to which US education is uncommonly expensive, among other things that
skew its ROI.

Makes me wonder if I could afford a CS education abroad (being self-taught),
without taking loans.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
You usually don't have to pay tuition for a phd, especially in the sciences.
The USA also tends to have decent stipends, more than or competitive with
Europe.

~~~
_delirium
The U.S. stipend is competitive with a lot of European countries, but less so
the rich northern European countries (excepting the UK, which is very US-like
in its educational system). A typical CS PhD-student salary in the Netherlands
is around $35-40k plus pension contribution, and in Denmark it's around $50k
plus pension contribution. Partly because these two countries consider PhD
students to be salaried MSc-qualified researchers on 3- or 4-year contracts,
vaguely like a junior form of postdoc. US stipends are more often in the range
of $20-25k with no pension contribution. Although you can also go directly to
a PhD from a BSc in the US, whereas you need an MSc first in most of Europe,
which complicates the comparison.

~~~
danieldk
Indeed. And there are additional advantages to being an employee as opposed to
getting a stipend. E.g. I now work in Germany as a researcher (roughly the
equivalent of assistant professor) and my four years as a PhD are counted
towards my working experience. My wife and some colleagues who were on a
stipend did not get any PhD years counted towards working experience, since to
the system 'stipend' means 'student' means 'no real working experience'.

So, income-wise it also gives you an advantage of four years.

------
sgnelson
I'm currently in graduate school. I'm constantly asking myself why I'm there.
It's certainly not for my future job prospects (though in my particular field,
they do get better with a Master's degree), and it's not because I want to go
into academia (Academia, at least for the social sciences, is slowly dying in
my view).

But I do know why I'm there. I'm there to continue to learn new things, to
interact with others who are like minded, and to work on problems that I may
not get to explore in a paid position for a private company who seeks profits
above all.

I could probably write an entire book on what is wrong with academia (the
short answer: a lot). But at the same time, I have a freedom to explore that I
wouldn't have at even the most liberal companies (unless it was as a pure
researcher, which quite frankly are rare positions, especially for a non-PhD).

All this being said, it seems obvious to me that the author made the right
decision in his case, however, I think he misunderstood the reasons for going
into academia. That might sound naive from my point of view (and to some
degree, it absolutely is, but I won't get into that now.), but I also think
that it was naive in the author's case to think that the only reason to go
into academia is to further his career prospects.

Jumping through all the hoops of academia sucks. I was supposed to graduate in
two weeks. Let's just say I won't be. It was quite the punch to the gut when I
finally came to realize that I was going to miss the deadline to turn in my
thesis. I made the comment to my advisor just two days ago: "I hate this
system, as if officially turning in what we've talked about for the past two
years means that I will have learned any more than I already do, but if I
don't do it, I don't have a piece of paper that certifies me as somewhat
knowledgeable in a specific field." Which is pretty normal for almost anyone
to note about this academic system. But I know that for many jobs, I need that
piece of paper. So it goes. But I didn't go back to school for a job, I went
for an education, which I have received.

Academia isn't for everyone of course, but if you go into it just for a better
career, I feel many people will be sorely disappointed. If you go into it
trying to see how much you can learn and realize that you get out of it, what
you put in, you'll still have a lot to complain about, but hopefully it won't
be a waste of time.

------
miochat
Sadly, most of the people I care about also care about degrees, so I'm still
struggling for a PhD title..

~~~
carl-j
May I ask what your relation to these people is? Is it friends and family or
prospective employers?

------
serve_yay
You will never stop qualifying yourself to other humans for as long as you
live, never. It's true that you can choose whether to seek certain of those
qualifications, as is shown here. But it never really stops.

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panjaro
How can I vote down this link?

