
Seeking an ‘exit plan’ for leaving academia amid coronavirus worries - zekrioca
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02029-6
======
mesozoic
Probably best to accept it now we need a reboot of the higher education system
(if not the entire one).

~~~
duckMuppet
Didn't they just fire a Michigan State University prof for having a different
opinion?

Honestly, just drain the system as much as you can.

~~~
throwawaysea
Yes. See [https://quillette.com/2020/07/01/on-steve-hsu-and-the-
campai...](https://quillette.com/2020/07/01/on-steve-hsu-and-the-campaign-to-
thwart-free-inquiry/). The professor’s own blog has links to many other
articles covering this absolutely unjust situation:
[https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2020/07/wall-street-journal-
mo...](https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2020/07/wall-street-journal-moral-panic-
at-msu.html?m=1)

He isn’t the only one either. A Princeton professor who wrote a paper about
protests is facing protests ([https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-
Protesting-of-a-Protes...](https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Protesting-
of-a-Protest/249129)). Now a large number of professors at Princeton, mostly
from the humanities, signed a petition asking for an end to academic freedom
and a committee to review every publication for “racist” content. The students
who signed onto a letter defending academic freedom are now being cyber
bullied ([https://www.thecollegefix.com/princeton-students-
cyberbullie...](https://www.thecollegefix.com/princeton-students-cyberbullied-
called-racist-for-their-open-letter-defending-academic-freedom/)).

Now crazed and radicalized students at Harvard are trying to cancel Steven
Pinker. Yes, that Steven Pinker ([https://www.thecollegefix.com/far-left-
scholar-activists-att...](https://www.thecollegefix.com/far-left-scholar-
activists-attempt-to-cancel-famed-harvard-professor-steven-pinker/)).

The entire higher education system in America has been turned into a
propaganda machine that radicalizes young minds and is hostile to any ideas
they don’t agree with. It is dangerous for society and completely incongruent
with fundamental academic principles. We need to defund it all and start over
with a much more decentralized system.

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alpineidyll3
Like looking for a plan to breathe! The vast majority of people are not
academics. Only someone who has truly been institutionalized should find it
terrifying to find meaning and hope without academia.

~~~
newen
After years of having been in academia, it really is pretty shitty outside of
academia.

~~~
nightowl_games
Can you elaborate on this? I've been inundated with stories of how shitty it
is in academia.

~~~
newen
No intellectual stimulation, no peers at your level. Academia is challenging,
fun, motivating, and you can always find interesting people to talk to. It’s
really boring in the real world.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
Without wanting to pass judgement I would expect that you are suffering from a
narrow sample size.

I have had _very_ different experiences outside academia, depending on factors
like the peers within the team, type of business, company size, city,
culture/country, etc.

In all of these, I found places that were a lot worse and depressing and
places a lot more interesting and motivating when comparing to academia. There
literally is a whole world out there, perhaps you just haven't found the right
place for you yet?

~~~
willis936
My experience in industry is primarily IEEE 802.3 meetings, which is industry
but all academic types. I currently work in academia. I can say that the
productivity focused nature of high end industry is focused, but suffers from
inefficiencies in administrative and ego-shaped overheads. In the sexy
research areas you don’t have to waste time on all of the things related to
scaling up that industry does.

To get back to the topic at hand: industry can have rooms with stimulating
conversations. Academia can have rooms devoid of interesting conversations.
I’d put my money on the organization that focuses on intellectual discovery to
be the one that garners more interesting discussions on average than the
organization that is driven by profit.*

* Academia is still certainly sick with money and corruption problems at all levels right now.

