So you left academia to become an HFT programmer because you thought academia was too unproductive in the context of larger society? That's one hell of a scathing critique of academia and, er, um, I can't help but wonder if the money might have had something to do with it?
Actually, the money wasn't a major factor. It's piling up, but I literally have no idea what to spend it on.
Here are my opinions from when I was an academic (I've only been working in HFT since March 2010, full time since May 2010):
My opinion from 347 days ago: universities have vastly more problems than that. They are huge bloated organizations structured around funneling money to employees (from both students and the government) rather than educating students. The main reason people still go is for status signaling purposes, otherwise they would have been replaced long ago.
From 406 days ago: a $10 million grant; my university will take about $5 million off the top in "overhead" (to be spent on overpaid administrators, student stress counselors, the latino student center, and maybe even education).
(This was roughly the period when I decided to leave academia.)
From 469 days ago: The job description of "professor" is certainly a strange beast: teacher/scientist. It makes about as much sense as actor/programmer...The perverse incentives this creates are massive. Universities hire scientists rather than teachers in order to get their hands on half the scientist's grants. Scientists waste their time masquerading as teachers... This is harmful both to science (I'm not doing research in class) and students...Actual teachers are squeezed out, since there is no room for them.
From 999 days ago: Another part of the problem is that there is no incentive for cost control in the university...I'm currently teaching a "Quantitative Reasoning" class right now. Basically, take Weeks 1-2 of Prob&Stat and expand it to fill a whole semester (half a semester, due to poor planning and miscommunication). Some of this is my fault, some of it not...Plus, my students are all art/history/literature majors, and just don't need it. Everyone in the room would be better off keeping their $4,000 and not sitting through my class.
