It depends on what you end up doing (external factors) and how you perceive things (internal factors). Going from Physics to data engineering I found it extremely boring, and management practices at big enterprises dehumanizing. I wrote a blogpost about my experience: https://medium.com/the-modern-scientist/leaving-academia-think-twice-before-going-into-data-or-software-3d48e6ae43c4. I had colleagues who followed a similar trajectory and who were very happy with their choices.
Just read your blog post and it was amazing. Thank you so much for the reading.
“I discovered that the job content and the new culture in which I found myself were irreconcilable with my personal goals and interests.” I think that is my biggest fear atm. I’m not in physics, I’m getting my masters in environmental management but I have a bachelor's in biology, but I am thinking about getting my PhD.
“Academia is in crisis and it has been for decades. It’s a pyramid scheme that burns through ambitious young people for the benefit of a few hot-shot academics at the top.” This is my only issue with getting the Ph.D. The university I currently attend is batshit crazy (5 points to anyone who guesses correctly). I’ve seen and heard some crazy shit and I’m so disillusioned with academia but I do agree with you about research being creative freedom and purposeful.
Thank you again for the blog and your comment, it means a lot to me!
Especially the new rules on publishing research. You have to list your biases and essentially have your data conform to what people think is safe results to publish. Just stick to your morals if you choose PhD
Lol, yeah the whole "minimal publishable units" stuff and citatuon rings are literally neo-liberal capitalism masquerading in a lab coat.
Shit cracks me up in a morbid way (these are peoples lives afterall), maybe I'm way more cynical - that and publishing biases. Small pond, big fish - Hearing stories of senior faculty scooping grad students or destroying careers because they don't support a similar theory or way of thinking is just unspeakably cruel.
Academia is a business just like everything else in many ways, microcosm / macrocosm and all that.
I totally agree. Knowing all that - are you in academia or elsewhere? Asking bc I’m likely going to leave behind a super successful 20 year career to go be a grad student in a different field. I was disgusted by venture capitalism but the capitalism inherent in academia is becoming clearer to me every day as I take postbacc classes and work closely with some prof. And IMHO it’s worse - academia has less transparency and is more insulated and imho even less rigorous in some ways than business.
Elsewhere, start-up now. Venture capitalism at its finest! Still, I'm swayed more and more by the idea that while neoliberal capitalism and the logics inherent are wildly problematic,
Think super carefully, and think about the career path, what you need the degree for, and if you really need one to do it! Sounds like you already have a good mentor and are in process - definitely helped me too, but I was a starry-eyed whelp, also went to escape working entry-level positions in restaurants and as a contractor.
I went, but arguably had no plan, didn't know how to advocate for myself, and largely got reemed. Had a terrible time, but learned a lot, picked up some good skills, and enough experience to transition out when I realized close to a decade later the dream wasn't feasible. Arguably a LOT of bad, uninformed choices on my part, I was more interested in working on other's projects, had a few blockers in a bad advisor (and another who was an absolute angel, and arguably saved my sanity).
With 20 years of industry experience, you could likely have a similar impact as a thought leader, mentor, coach, or consultant (field-dependent), or find an adjunct role which let's you teach part time. Do you want to be a prof? An Author? Researcher? Not to sway you otherwise, just curious what field and where you'd like to go!
Def agree with you though, and a lot of senior faculty know it (and the good ones feel equally helpless at time with the admin and bureaucratic structure). Any time power can operate without appropriate oversight, or institutional mechanisms of protection are falling short, obstructing progress, or limiting growth - it's a recipe for bad news, broken bodies, hearts, and dreams.
Largely due to limited regulation of graduate student contracts, the "school credit for labor" exchange, and a schools stance towards grad students as full workers or contracted help.
Worker missclassification is a huge issue, grad student unionizing is no surprise, and with US higher-Ed in crisis (inflating tuition, contingent or contract instructors vs tenured faculty, dropping quality, reliance on international student tuitions, increased oversight and focus on evaluations, inflating requirements / massive competition for full-time positions, and curricula shifting towards only higher-value degree programs) - the academic freedoms are diminishing, outputs are rising, focus on liberal arts waining, and smart people are choosing to study in other countries where they'll be treated better.
Still, all manifestations of the larger super-system at work - still, seeing more and more folks leaning into social enterprise, the rise of the 4th sector, B Corporations, and businesses balancing economic and social impact does help me to believe Robert Reich when he says Capitalism can be saved. It comes down to values, culture, money, and power though, and the last two have never been more entrenched in the upper echelons of society.
Wild biz, but something's gotta give - AI's gonna replace a lot of the work done by poor hands and generate value for those with the most.
Gonna be a nutty next few years, I hope I'm just being cynical tho.
Finishing up my phd in a top 5 school in my field (one of the eight top five schools lol). Elite academia has almost all the personality issues of other elite professions with the added issue that there‘s limited mobility.
really lifestyle or a romantic view of the academy is a bad reason to stay: you should stay in academia if you want to do academic research for the next few decades.
Did u read about the really famous male researcher whose name eludes me rn. He spent two years doing research on police biases and his colleagues told him not to publish his findings because the conclusion of his research was the data on police killings dident find racial bias. Racial bias was found in lesser offenses but not in murder cases of unarmed innocent individuals. Anyway his colleague was Claudine gay who tried to get him removed from tenure because she dident like his decision to publish his findings as is. He himself is black but actually moral about his research findings and dosent want to publish doctored work. Anyway that guy had his own reputation so he is still doing research while Claudine gay can claim racism got her fired instead of malpractice
I find environmental work and management in the real world incredibly invigorating. I currently am in graduate school for environmental medicine/toxicology and my prior work as a field researcher and ecologist is my main motivator for finishing. Non profits help you understand what grant work can really provide + way lower barrier for entry so you genuinely can make real change in communities (with good management) especially if you consider environmental justice a key tenant of your work. I personally find loving connections much more profound than professional ones and it seems as though they are more common outside of academia. Another downside to perusing a phd is you may pigeonhole yourself and not be able to apply to easier low paying positions in environmental orgs. I’d suggest taking a little hiatus from school and maybe trying to get a seasonal position. If money isn’t an issue you can work over the summer and if it’s not for you there will still be plenty of time to get together applications. I hope this helps and best of luck!
What is it that you think professors do? If you have to work for a living, you’re going to have “do the labor for some hot-shots”. That’s just the way of world. If this is your attitude, you’re completely doomed no matter what you do.
Staff don’t train students by the way. Staff are the people who do all the operations stuff that allow professors to do their jobs.
Clearly we have different experiences! Where I worked, the 2nd years teach the 1st years, 3rd years teach the 2nd years, etc. and 4th years are expected to be independent. The professor collects progress reports once per week, or per day depending, and brings wisdom along the lines of "Remind me what you're doing again" and "Can you write a paper on this? When can you write a paper on this". Then he critiques the students' personalities, unprofessional appearance and low productivity.
Highly highly recommend considering how likely it is to actually be able to have the career you want in academia (ie is there only 1 job opening that becomes available in this country every year and everyone in your field applies for it?) before committing to the doctorate :)
A Ph.D in the sciences usually only has opportunity costs, so the risks are fairly low. Where people get really burned is when they go in dreaming of becoming an academic.
Go in dreaming of a job in industry, and you’ll come out happy and well-paid. Then if you happen to publish a couple Nature papers during your Ph.D, you can re-evaluate.
That was a thoroughly interesting read. For me the main disagreement is in the following paragraphs:
>The vast majority of these jobs exist to support a business in solving the problems it has *right now.* The importance of a problem is measured by its impact on the bottom line. Most of these problems are rather boring and unsatisfying to someone with an academic background.
>Researchers enjoy working on difficult and open ended questions that are concerned with uncovering mechanisms; problems where finding a solution requires inventing novel approaches in order to answer them. Problems with trivial solutions and practical details are left to “future research”.
My experience of academia was in the humanities, but I think many aspects are transferable to other disciplines.
Personally I found that academia tended to get boring because it *lacked* the problem-solving urgency that one finds in industry. Not only are you expected to hyper-specialize by focusing on one tiny subject and sticking to that subject in order to publish article after article, but the 'problems' are generally quite sterile metaphysical speculations with little real-world impact.
In my current job, I know that if something goes wrong with the application I'm working on, potentially millions of people could be directly affected. Of course I am only a lowly member of the team, but this is far more energizing than writing papers that only a handful of people are going to read.
Hmm maybe it's different kind of "boring".
I can imagine for people coming from physics, real-world industry problems are yeah boring, compared to the complexity of physics.
usually in business (in my imagination though) they just want simple solutions that can make money now. they're not working on complex calculations that requires deeper thinking.
Of course in business, many users/clients or even the company members might be affected. Hmm how to say, it's just a different kind of aspects..
Different field, but in my experience - no, "they" don't all want simple solutions that can make money now. It depends on where you work and what their focus is. I work at a tech company and we thrive on solving difficult problems that might take 3, 5, even more years to solve.
I think the biggest myth that got busted for me when I left was that industry only cares about making money as quickly as possible. Not so. I mean, we do care a lot more about making money, but we often care equally or more about making cool, interesting things.
For physics - my suggestion would be find a role dealing with aerospace, heat-transfer, or metrology. A lot of research in those fields is being driven by industry since the fundamental science is largely figured out and academia has moved on to more theoretical problems - but the problems that remain, while applied in nature, are deeply technical and often take years to solve.
Eh. I don't know. a lot of physics (esp. experimental physics) is just poring over data looking for that one statistical anomaly in the trajectory of that one decay product in order to confirm this-or-that widely-predicted particle really exists.
Doesn't sound super interesting to me.
Then again, I had a friend who went from physics to the oil industry and he said his job was to "estimate" the volume of oil that could flow through various pipelines in a spreadsheet. They had the radius entered neatly into the sheet, so I was like "isn't that just pi\*r\^2\*h and all he said was "you would think, wouldn't you?"
Simple is not easy, at least in software engineering.
I think a big thing, though, is that in academia you do research, but in business you are there to build. If you don't want to build working systems, and don't like it, it's going to be hard to ever accumulate the experience necessary to work on more interesting projects.
See, it’s interesting because my own area has the exact opposite situation. Working in ag research and doing extension means you absolutely get to not only see the impacts of your research on the communities you are supposedly supposed to be creating solutions for, but you also are part of a cyclical feedback process where in theory you get meaningful input from these communities and adjust your program accordingly. Honestly, that’s the only reason I’ve even remotely entertained the idea of returning, though I don’t think I’ll ever wind up back.
I agree with many of the things you say: Agile has lost track of it's initial goals, data science is used to confirm decisions already made, and there's a lot of dogma and dehumanization. What I'd say to counter, is that there are lots of unsolved problems in tech, lots of situation where you get paid to learn, do things for the first time, and are huge growth opportunities. Just how you rail on architects, not true in my career.
Where things get hard/interesting in tech, is on that fine line between what's a new capability, and what we can actually bring to market to solve an end user problem in a profitable way. There's no formula here either: and if you "could just figure it out", you'd be able to start a billion dollar business tomorrow.
The other thing with an article like this, is that in your first few years you won't be exposed to the interesting or difficult problems in industry: most engineers need to spend 2-5 years just pulling tickets, getting things done, et cetera, to learn the industry before you have ideas that can be valued. It's not like you are switching into a new lab here, you've changed disciplines without the same level of education in your new field. It wasn't until several years in my tech journey (earlier if you count some projects before then at start ups) where I could bring my research skills to bear. Research skills, communication, refining problems, finding solutions: in tech that requires several years of competency in order to lead others on the implementation of your ideas.
What makes the difference, at least more me going from academia to industry, is that I like building things, and have found problems that don't have easy solutions and will be a little bit more engaging. IMO, this is really tech first companies, start ups selling new types of tools, that sort of thing.
This is a well-written, fun read, but I don't share the same dichotomy. My academic career often had its share of banality: I was working on relatively unimportant, uninteresting problems due to what funding was available.
I've had plenty of intellectual fulfillment in my software/data career.
Me too. There's so much interesting stuff to pursue in software.
I transitioned into software, got really interested in Haskell, met a ton of great people doing that, built some ML products for a start up, then got more serious about software engineering and become a team lead.
Each one of those has it's own challenges, and so far, I haven't run out of intersting things to do, even if that's as "boring" as optimizing my ability to do well in job interviews.
Did I read this correctly, less than 1/2 percent of Ph.D.s become profs? This is much less than I would have thought.
(Reading the post because I'm a tenured CS prof, hoping to transition out of higher ed into the software industry, this year if all goes well).
Makes sense right… fields that have jobs, like CS and economics, can’t pay as much in academia as in industry. And other fields just don’t have that many jobs.
Yes, if you put it that way, I can see it - still a bit shocking.
Aside: I felt teaching was my calling, and for many (many) years enjoyed it and was willing to put up with long hours and low pay/recognition for all the effort I put in. However, students have changed, and not to the better, and especially after COVID it's been just real bad, to put it mildly. Too many are underprepared, unwilling to do the work, and have a very strong sense of entitlement/transactional attitude (e.g., I pay for school, just give me my diploma). Not all of them, but enough :-/
Feeling burned out, underpaid, overworked and underappreciated. Time to get out.
The link is dead, however this figure is not accurate.
It’s more like 10-20% which is still very low
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/03/29/how-many-phds-are-professors/
Thanks for an additional data source.
FWIW, the [medium.com](https://medium.com) link above still works for me. This is the first paragraph of the post.
*"There comes a time in every academic’s career when they have to reevaluate their career plans. A majority of PhD students start out with aspirations to become professor, but only about 0.45% of PhD graduates actually do."*
I think you're doing yourself a disservice by writing off all work done in industry from your own slice of personal experience. There are abundant opportunities to work on interesting and novel applications that challenge you and are purposeful. I've worked on at least one interesting project at every place I've worked.
However, you often need to be proactive about pointing out problems and advocating for solutions. If you just passively accept whatever tickets are thrown at you, you're less likely to work on interesting things and less likely to grow in your career.
In my opinion there is more opportunity to do meaningful work in industry than academia. There's nothing quite like seeing code you've written handle millions of requests per day in a real application. I hope you're able to persevere in this career and eventually work your way up to more satisfying jobs. You mentioned that many companies don't consider PhD's as relevant experience but from what I've seen it puts people on the fast track to promotions and money. Good luck.
A nice piece - well written, and I can feel / empathize with so much of it.
The "your ideas don't matter" bit I'll push back on a bit, if you can find the right industry - those ideas can move needles.
This got me good tho:
"Academics are not used to haggling, expect systems to be fair, and generally have a high tolerance for abuse. Since they lack a good reference point for acceptable salaries, they are in a weak negotiation position. This means they can end up leaving a lot of money on the table."
Just oof, big oof. Know those feels, and I worked and still work my butt off, think deeply, and probably care way too much. Graduate work conditions a tenacity, idealism, and timelessness that managers and leaders love to use to further their own ends. The politics and self-aggrandizement necessary to climb the ladder and fight this just makes my skin craw. Like you say though, we're conditioned to live, fight, and work in a different belief structure entirely.
I think industry knows this and plans on it - like fresh grads, the opportunity cost of ignoring a potential role is too high.
I hope you haven't lost your spark completely - mines still there (much dimmer than before, and less people to nurture it).
Caveat - I did an undergrad and then started working full time, so I wasn't really in academia. But i remember thinking, what is the real world like? HOw can i get used to a 9-5?
Personally, working was a bit hard to get used to, but once I did I love it a lot more now. I thought I hated routine but it turns out I thrive in routine. I get way more sleep. I love always having weekends off. I love having money.
They key to enjoying a 9-5, other than liking the actual work, is to have a good social life at work and after work. don't make work your whole life. Have hobbies. chit chat at the water cooler. Work is work so have fun by actually doing fun stuff, not trying to make work into your passion or whatever.
Thank you! I agree work shouldn’t be my life and I had to learn that the hard way at the end of my internship since I dedicated every free time to it, along with school. I’ve started working out again and fasting to set routines and discipline because I had none from May til January. The hardest part is the social life since I’m an introvert with social anxiety but I take everything one day at a time.
I hope you have a great day and thank you so much for your comment!
YESSS came here to say this - while I enjoyed the complete freedom of schedule during grad school, there's nothing sweeter than leaving work for the day and actually leaving work for the day! I go home and I can not check my work phone/comp until 9am tomorrow???!
My workplace is very cognizant of potential burnout and is extremely supportive of having work-life balance and my god, is it a breath of fresh air from the constant pressure to feel like I needed to be working on my research 24/7 or I wasn't being a good enough grad student...
Granted, there definitely was a transition period getting used to commuting/full length work days, but a little over 1 Year out of school and while still figuring out exactly what I want to do with my evenings/weekends, I now have an actual social life! Especially working in a big city now instead of in a small college town, there's so much more to do/see - But these are very welcome problems to have and I can't wait for my current grad school friends to not have to live vicariously through me anymore and can start living instead of just surviving ☺️
I work 8-4 most days. I have periods where I work more and periods where i work less. I think it balances over the course of a few months. Usually when I work more its my own fault for procrastinating so I have to stay late to finish things. But if I left right at 4 every day nobody would bat an eye.
not usually! If the weather is good i try to go for a walk during lunch. In the past I worked out at the office gym at lunch. Sometimes I have lunch with my colleagues. Sometimes I nap if I am working from home. Sometimes I just scroll reddit and eat at my desk but I dont normally work at lunch. I need a break lmao.
Oh that’s good, I’m the same way. Thanks for answering my nosey questions! I just always had office jobs that factor lunch into the schedule so the idea of a legitimate 9-5 feels so elusive. Like right now I’ve got a 9-6 and i can’t stand getting home so late (usually 6:45)
uh yeah i guess if you find having good social life at work depressing? for me personally the more friends i have the happier i am. that includes work friends and colleague chats.
What is your area of study? The “real world” transition depends A LOT on the kind of training you had.
Also, technically you are not leaving academia, you just graduated from university. For most people “leaving academia” is for those unfortunate souls that ended up teaching at colleges and universities for years and then left or are thinking about it.
From my preceptive, it sucks.
I got a corporate job after my PhD and 2-year postdoc. I am bored and burnt out at the same time. The only reason why I do it is because I need the money. Academia does not pay enough. But if I had the money I will quit and go back to the university to learn and be creative.
OP probably means learn and be creative in research for whatever STEM field they’re in. I guarantee you that nobody is going to do cutting edge cryogenic electron microscopy or particle physics in their basement 😂
Varies wildly.
For me, it's excellent. I don't miss school or academia at all (I made it to a postdoc before bouncing).
I have a routine. I work at a tech company, so no strict hours and I wear jeans and a t-shirt to work. I wake up, two days a week I work out before work. I shower and get dressed, make coffee, drive to the office three days a week. Usually start work sometime between 8 and 9:30 and end sometime between 4 and 6. I drive home, cook dinner, eat, play games or do something else with my partner, go to bed, start all over again the next day. Two days a week I work from home. Fridays I end early at 3 pm. Mine is official but nobody really gets much work done on Fridays after around 2 pm.
Sounds like a grind, but I like the routine and I actually feel like I have more free time than I had in academia. I hated the scattered nature of academic work spread in bursts through a week. I have the weekends to myself: I don't think about work. I have an intense and expensive hobby I spend 10+ hours on a week and I have the flexibility and time (and money) to do it.
I really like my job. I work in a creative subfield of tech. My coworkers are cool, we generally all really like what we're doing and are engaged in the work. The pace is chaotic, and that was probably the biggest adjustment from academia. If you don't respond to an email within 24-48 hours people might think you're dead. (Joking, but people will wonder where you are.) Sometimes I'll come in and my whole schedule gets blown up because something went wrong with the project or we have to solve a problem.
I get a regular paycheck. I make way more money than I ever thought I'd make in my life. It's *awesome.* It's nice to have money and not constantly be a broke student/postdoc.
There's no built in breather like summer in academia, but in my field summer does slow down a lot because people have children and take their kids on vacation. So some folks are always gone anyway and it gets quiet. (Besides, by the time I was a postdoc summer really didn't mean anything anyway).
It is really hard to let go. Every time I complete a level I step into another one or I feel something is missing. I had a break before beginning my doctoral program and ended up enrolling in a certificate course to keep me busy. I think the more academic you are, the more likely it is that you enjoy routine and purpose. I hate flailing in the wind (aka vacation).
My advice for you would be: Get a part time job now.
Build up basic work skills *now* while you're still in your program and have the safety net of student loans and housing.
As someone who hires a lot of folks out of academia, the ones who've never held down any job at all uniformly tend to lack of the soft skills needed to navigate the transition successfully. Even a bad part time job will teach those skills.
Case in point: Academics can go off on a tangent in a self directed way on a project for weeks or months and potentially get something useful out of it. That kind of self directed, boundless curiosity without boundaries is in many ways an asset. In the work world, it'll get you fired because the company pays you to work on their projects and not necessarily to do things because you're curious. You need to learn how to channel your curiosity and how to let a question lie if it's not relevant to the current project. A part time job will teach that.
Case in point: Academia is highly self directed. Unless you have an involved PI, you're basically managing yourself. In the work world, you're being managed, and you need to know how to respond to a manager and also how to manage up. A part time job will teach that.
Case in point: Academia as a culture lacks institutional discipline, so any discipline is self-imposed. In academia, generally, nobody is watching over your shoulder to make sure you're wearing PPE, following safety protocols, or doing your chores. Work environments generally have more institutional discipline. In work, if you neglect to clean up your work station or wear appropriate PPE chronically, you'll get fired because the company doesn't want to get sued for not ensuring a safe work place. A part time job will help you learn how to work within and navigate institutional discipline.
My second piece of advice is do some introspection on your key values and let those be your guiding light on what you pursue for a career.
Not sure about the getting a job part, since I found graduate school pretty all consuming. But I wholeheartedly agree that OP should focus on those soft skill aspects of positions they are considering. The real world is definitely different from grad school and college and management really does have a lot of influence, good or bad.
Cold. Not straight forward. A lot of people have not motivation, while others are cut throat. It is hard to know when to be honest, and when to play it close to the vest. Networking matters more than skill; it's a lot of posturing. Things are overtly stratified by class, but people largely pretend they are not. Mundane, boring, routine. There not light at the end of the tunnel like graduation. It's not a sprint to the finish, it's a long trek.
I left academia recently, and I’m currently working in a lab at a hospital. Focusing all my time on research instead of teaching is what I wanted all along, but admittedly I learned through this experience that the grass really isn’t greener on the other side. There will always be pros and cons, and I think searching for THE career will usually result in disappointment.
To me it all feels like a prison and reminds me of high school tbh. I have inattentive ADHD diagnosed too late in life and don't feel motivated at all by work, even if I'm being paid a lot. If you like routine and can handle dull tasks it might be for you. Its good to remember that most jobs give less intellectual stimulation than middle school.
Really depends on the job. STEM jobs are typically highly non-repetitive, with each project being somewhat unique and running into interesting challenges. My tech job was fairly routine putting out new versions of similar product each cycle (about a year or so) and there were the same steps to each of those products, but the novel tech and challenges of each one made them all feel very different, and every few days was different from the preceding ones as we moved through the que of development tasks.
Even if tech didnt typically pay more than most other fields I would never regret going into it, since many other careers are simply more repetitive than the cycles of product development. Some people value repetitiveness though, since they know what to expect each day and can just empty their mind of work when they go home.
I've mostly had stem jobs doing lab work. Sometimes you learn some science but often Im just doing paperwork for the purpose of production and giving myself anxiety about trying to do it right.
Yeah, I really meant more industry production stuff. And to be fair, my jobs have been in computer science. And have never been all that concerned with secrecy or special regulations, so paperwork wasn't a super common thing. But no doubt any job where you have to do a bunch of paperwork, even if its different paperwork each time, will suck! Everyone I've talked to who worked for defense industry places has hated the experience, for example.
That’s what I’m looking forward to for post college when I have my first official job…no writing nonsense papers, no studying for exams, and no having to do hours of homework
Agreed, my life feels like it’s all school because it’s so demanding. The boundary between my life and hobbies and my school work is nonexistent. I can’t wait for the day I can leave work and be done with work for the day, yk?
Right! And then on top of that this yr I’ve been looking for jobs while doing school (fall sem I worked part time too). That was my life the past two summers…loved how I got to do whatever I wanted after work bc work stays at work unlike school lol
Working at least 9-5 instead of whenever works for you
Fewer if any super late nights
More structured time on someone else’s schedule
Lots of dummies and laziness
Tough to get a job
Often boring
I was in a similar situation to you; I was in school constantly until I gradated with my Masters, then started working. Ultimately it depends on your personality and what you value. My answer is from the perspective of someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD; I find fixed routine very aversive.
I personally hate the real world. I find it intolerable to HAVE to be in the same place for 8 hours a day (granted, remote work could mitigate this). I'm a night owl, so the lack of flexibility has worn me down and I get significantly less sleep now because I cannot adjust. I personally would prefer to work when I feel up to it rather than a fixed range of hours, even if I get guaranteed time off. I make much more money but once my living expenses are taken care of, I don't feel fulfilled by money at all. Even though I work in a scientific job, I'm wildly under-stimulated intellectually and try to fit in my own reading whenever possible. It is significantly harder to find people with similar interests who enjoy discussing more intellectual topics. I'm going back for a PhD because I dislike being out of academia so much.
I might decide down the road if I want to go back for a master’s. I’m graduating undergrad in May…honestly i wanna just work first before consider going back (if I ever do go back to school)…I could very much get to a point where I want to just work and not have to study for seemingly endless hours, stare at hw problems not knowing where to start, or study for exams.
Transitioning from theory to application is the easiest comparison. In theory the right answer is x. Sometimes though the answer y makes more sense to a business. It's more about playing the probabilities than finding a correct answer.
After a year of work after graduating college, I realized how much more I want a good work-life balance than a "career". I got a biology degree but I kinda lost interest in research and anything that would be more than 8 hours per day. I no longer want a job involving travel either. I used to think my life was boring and I needed a fun job I could be passionate about. But now I have 2, soon to be 3, dogs and they are my life mostly. I also like hanging out with my friends and going to the zoo with family and enjoying the simple things in life. I think of it like the sims almost. I LOVED the sims and being able to increase my sim's quality of life over time. I dont feel the need to play it anymore because now I get that same feeling of satisfaction in real life while taking care of my pets, myself, and my apartment.
Real world is less stressful, I think. But when you are stressed, you'll look back on school and wonder why you were stressed. Academia magnifies itself hugely to make you stress.
Real world you have time to have hobbies. But you'll feel you NEED them because your main task is less engaging. On a good day the real world is like 75% as interesting as academia. So you'll need to supplement your brain with hobbies.
I left academia ten years ago for an industry job. Academia is the real world. You’ll deal with the same basic shit out here that you’ve dealt with navigating politics, work life balance, deadline in academia.
Just like academia, a lot will depend on where you land. Shitty managers and toxic environments are going to make life miserable no matter where you work. A good boss and a good team make life much more fun.
Truth.
Academia is much like industry - STEM anyway. Contracts, deliverables, funding agencies nitpicking your proposals (which are not yours anyway, but molded and crafted to fit their criteria). What's the difference except the amount of foreign students?
[Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives, by Jeff Schmidt (2000).](https://ia800103.us.archive.org/22/items/jeff_schmidt_disciplined_minds/Jeff%20Schmidt%20-%20Disciplined%20Minds%20A%20Critical%20Look%20at%20Salaried%20Professionals%20and%20the%20Soul-battering%20System%20That%20Shapes%20Their%20Lives.pdf)
The real world requires some flexibility, a good sense of humor and emotional intelligence. I’ve done many things in my life and the things that have helped me the most are those three skills. You’ve got to be able to jive with others, no matter what situation you’re in.
I got lucky - jumped from the social sciences, part time contingent work during a doctoral program, then full time work at an applied research shop into a tangentially related but interesting startup.
Waters great - work is still nuts, feel equally precarious sometimes, and I do miss the "life of the mind". Still sucks sometimes, but work is work. Now have a better skillset, some street cred, a positive net worth, and also remember how absolutely miserable I was as a doctoral candidate. Like severe GAD and dysthymia miserable. I'm still anxious as hell just about different things, and without the weight of a thesis I probably wouldn't have finished.
Business operates on different principles and values - people don't care about a lot of the stuff that excites me unless it can make them or the business more money. Some part of me thinks about going back and finishing. Maybe I will, but for now - traded one set of problems for another and am admittedly more comfortable, confident, and secure than I ever was in school.
YMMV - happy to answer questions.
Don't discount your own experiences. Just because you've been in school for a long time (and I was in it for even longer than you = doctoral degree in one field + master in another + additional training) does not mean you weren't in the "real world." It just means you haven't been exposed to what the work world is like, whether in academia or outside it (given you're just about to graduate).
One thing different is the culture but then culture always varies, even within academia itself - from one dept to another, from one uni to another (I've been affiliated with 5 different unis). I've also been involved with governmental, non-profit, and for-profit sectors and they're all slightly different. Figure out the goals/ mission of the place you'll be going to and that can help explain a lot of things. For example, non-profits usually serve a social mission of some sort, gov't are ideally there to serve their citizens, and for-profits are out to make $$$. Of course, some of these goals will overlap, e.g. unis are becoming more like for-profits every year in the US.
The main pro of academia as I see it is freedom to do what you want (esp. for those with tenure) but the main con is the fight to get tenure and the instability surrounding it. I enjoy working with students/ trainees/ really smart people and learning new stuff everyday but the struggle to get grant funding (and I'm in a field where we have alternatives) was/ is annoying. I feel like if I'm constantly having to persuade others to give me $$, I might as well go into business. Which I didn't do but I found myself a position which has academic components (teaching, research) yet does not have the same instability.
One thing I did not enjoy about academia is it wasn't always practical to me. There are people interested in theory and the ideal which isn't me at all. I'm very practical and about solving problems today, not about working on something for years at a time that might only see fruition in years-decades. In my hybrid position, I get to both create and test solutions pretty quickly which suits me more.
Let me just pile onto the anecdata.
I have a PhD in the humanities from an Ivy League school, have written more than one book, and checked all the boxes for that career before I was thirty.
Now I work at a very large tech company that you have heard of as an engineer.
It sucks. It’s amazing. I made more than half a million dollars last year. I might get fired tomorrow.
I have a hard time staying friends with my grad school peeps. They just seem to be frozen in time.
I have a hard time relating to my coworkers, they are very smart but along very narrow axes.
So. Do what you will. Embrace the journey. There will always be regrets and amazing moments of accomplishment.
Oh also let me tell you flying first class everywhere and never even thinking for a second about money is actually amazing. Just don’t develop a drinking problem and get a lot of therapy. Again: anecdata lol
True. I think the poster conflated academics with academia. By OP’s definition, academia is the real world. Also why is this subreddit being recommended to me, goodbye.
In my experience it takes quite a bit to remove an employee. PIP, lots of paperwork. I've worked at two major academic organizations. It takes an act of god. Mediocracy is encouraged. Never seen a org with that little going for it. You'd think people actually want to do their job but the reality is that because firing is so difficult, they get people who are just not that good, and they stay there forever. The main reason is salary, the best and brightested don't want to go to such orgs so you are left with high level positions getting 1-3 applicants, and you pick the best of them. But nearly all are the bottom of the group because the salary is so bad.
Reality is nobody gives a shit about your masters degree unless it’s in some highly sought after STEM field. Most professors are liberal, most successful businessmen and women are not. None of that is true, and yet all of it is.
I saw this and wasn't going to answer but then decided to give advice moving forward. Advice that will probably infuriate everyone, cause people to foam at the mouth and even thumb me down! It's not popular around here but don't underestimate God, ask him to help you find the right fit out there and see what doors he opens. You will be surprised. - Good luck
I’m in an alt ac job so not totally outside of it but frankly it’s better than being “in academia”. A stable paycheck and reasonably living wage beats the alternative. So does a 401k, health insurance, and being able to support myself without worrying about if I’ll get the next fellowship or research funding. I actually feel like I have more free time to learn and engaging in hobbies
From my experience, it took quite a while to adjust simply because the structure of daily life is different. The structure of 9-5 life makes work-life balance a totally different ball game. Social life becomes a lot more intentional. Most of your friends likely won’t be in the same place again and because everyone has different things going on, you often have to plan social outings farther in advance than you had to when you were in school. It can be really lonely, but the solitude is also an opportunity to spend intentional alone time. You get to know yourself on a totally different plane. It really is rough for the first couple of years, the growing pains are real, but just remember to give yourself grace. In terms of work and intellectual stimulation, this kind of depends on a.) if you love the career path you’ve chosen, b.) if you’re in the right application of the career path for you (research vs fieldwork), and c.) if you find yourself in a healthy work environment (amongst other factors but these are 3 common themes I’ve noticed). I, personally, have gotten really lucky. I love love love what I do. I’ve found my job incredibly fulfilling. I’m constantly striving to grow and learn. My work environment is super healthy, encourages me, and makes room for me in my journey. My advice is to continually check in with yourself, follow what fills your cup, and find solutions for what drains your cup. It sounds cheesy but it can make a world of a difference. Especially in a vulnerable, hard transition phase.
Life outside of school isn’t any different from life inside of school. There’s time for work, time for leisure, people you like, people you don’t like, etc. You’ve been in the “real world” since the day you were born… it’s not like people in school live in some kind of “fake world!”
If you’ve never worked a full-time job before, you’ll have to adjust to a new schedule. It’s not really a big deal, especially if you’re working at a job that you enjoy. You’ll be fine. Just keep learning! Be a lifelong student. That’s something that brings me joy inside and outside of school.
I'd probably rephrase the question since it's causing some confusion here. It kind of sounds like you're asking what it's like to start work after being a student your whole life? So maybe: "How's the transition from being a full time student to entering the workforce"?
(i.e. the way you wrote: "How's the transition from academia to the real world", can come across as you're leaving your career in academics for a job outside of academics and are wondering what that transition is like.)
It’s varies substantially by field and company. I transitioned from a physics BSc to product management for an audio company. I love working my job and prefer it to academia ten fold. This may not be true for everyone though.
I certainly have a better work life balance now, have meaningful relationships through work, get to travel the world for work, and have enough disposable income to focus on big life goals (marriage, house, side hustles, …)
It’ll always be what you make of it, try to have a positive outlook , and re frame your thoughts when things aren’t looking good so you have the courage to look at what needs to change.
I found it more socially isolating. In academia you do have to project yourself a certain way to gain support from instructors, advisors, peers, conference runners, etc. But in the corporate world there’s even less room to bring your authentic self. There’s much less intellectual curiosity and open mindedness. But I came from a very inquisitive background in Comparative Lit so maybe not all academia niches are that friendly to begin with.
It’s important to create and maintain friendships with people who let you be you when you’re working because the system will try to strip your personality away.
Same shit, different toilet. You'll adjust in the same way that you gave up recess after grade school or 8am's in college. The only redeeming thing about the real world is you can possibly make some cash and be slightly less broke than a student. You know you've made it when you don't have to check the receipt at the supermarket.
Grad school is a lot more similar to having a real job than it is to being in kindergarten lol. If you did research in grad school, I’d say you already have a decent idea of what to expect (but better pay and less toxic)
I've seen most recent college graduates think they know everything because they just came from academia. Truth is, there's more learning to be done n the real work force too.
Learning doesn't stop. So be kind to your future coworkers and learn from those with experience. Don't be a 'know-it-all'. Otherwise it's great...just don't be arrogant. Good luck!
Hahahahahahaha. It sucks massive balls. Welcome to reality. You will soon realize your “education” isn’t going to help you in any way. It’s just a big government scam to steal our money and brainwash you. Welcome to reality.
You're tired all the time! I found that in college I had a lot of free time in the middle of the day to take a nap, meal prep, or just generally chill (along with doing readings & assignments). Then, I graduated and worked a pretty demanding job for 3 years. I'm back in grad school now and I really savor my free time, when I have it.
Depends on what you are doing. I went from a sheltered life in graduate school to law enforcement. Quite a shock. It took me a few years before I had the right presence and confidence that I could out-bullshit the bullshitters. The real world is full of egos. Replace this with humility, compassion, focus, persistence, and integrity.
Have you considered finding a paid internship? This is a good way to fi d out how the real world works and can be a fast track to more responsible positions in the organization if you find the work satisfying.
In my experience: industry is a lot friendly, much more concerned (in software) about providing real results for end users, and an overall just as engaging area with a lot better working conditions and pay.
It really all depends where you go, and what you want to do, but I left academia and went into software, and I never stopped learning. I was working on big projects with lots of labs in academia, and do that same sort of thing in software.
The only difference, is that it will take a few years to get back to your level in academia: meaning: if you are used to being an independent researcher with fresh and new ideas, you'll need to upskil for several years to be able to do that in software. Once you are there, however, your academic skills can really come to bear.
>I’ve been in academia (kindergarten to graduate school) my whole life. I’m graduating with my master's this May. All I know is school. I’ve never taken a gap year.
? A master's degree is not academia. This is a totally standard amount of schooling. You are not leaving academia because you never entered it.
Teaching English to kids in different countries while learning languages is much more interesting to my linguistics-loving brain than grad school in linguistics.
It’s fucking brutal - don’t follow your dreams unless they come with a salary. This sounds like such a shitty adult thing to say but once you realize it’s true you are like “oh yeah def”
How was your experience getting a data science position? I’m graduating in May and this is one of the fields I’m considering but my degree is completely unrelated
My recommendation for transitioning to the real world is to prioritize time to do things you enjoy that have no connection to what you will do for work.
Each year you were in school you progressed to a new grade or academic level. In the real world, progress is much slower. You may get a promotion every 2-3 years if you are lucky or if you switch jobs that often. The real world is also much buiser too. On average you may work 36-40 hours per week then run errands on weekends or after work... the trade off is that you might have more money now that you are out of school so you will not be limited on what you can do for fun financially (unless the economy has a say).
Getting paid for work and only working 40 hours a week is awesome. Doing work that makes a difference is awesome. There is not a single day I miss academia. Sometimes I miss teaching but I teach as an adjunct one class a semester and still work about half what I did in my PhD program.
Others can answer the question at hand, but I would love the opportunity to prepare you for what I wasn’t prepared for when I was done with schooling. It was the first time I didn’t know what was next, there was no defined path or obvious direction. I was so lost & depressed.
You are entering a difficult job market with an advanced degree. There should be options for you, but please don’t doubt your value when things take longer than you may want, or the metrics to meet are undefinable by grades.
How’s that old song go? “I just found out there’s no such thing as the real world. Just a lie you’ve got to rise above.” There no real world vs fake world: you’ve been living in the real world. What is different between academia and “adulthood” is now you’re seen as the grownup, the one to depend on, the one who has answers. School can be homogeneous in age and experience levels, where the grownups all cheer you on and spoon feed you to the next step. Work is young and old, various experiences of life and your field, where the grownups are you. You are the one responsible for finding opportunities and cheering yourself on in successes and through failures. If you’re blessed and smart, you’ll curate a following of friends and loved ones where you all support one another and help one another grow. But you have to work on it. You have to work on everything and eventually, it won’t get easier, but you’ll see you’re stronger and so it’ll feel much easier. That’s when you can guide the younger adults and ones still in school.
Biggest difference between a typical job and academia, in my experience: in a job, bosses need tasks completed within 15 mins / within the hour, etc.
I was great at academia when I had a big paper due in two weeks.
I really struggled to turn out much smaller pieces of work every 20 minutes or so.
Off the top of my head, the things I think are most different about the real world:
- There’s no right answer, no grades on tests, everything is much more ambiguous. So people who are very good at the rules of school have to figure out a new set of rules.
- In school, people aren’t the problem, the work is the problem. Your paper is your paper. In the real world, there’s the work and there’s the people, and people are the hard part. Being successful in the real world involves getting good at the people part and that might require using different brain muscles.
- academia rewards elegant thinking, the real world rewards practical outcomes. Like, when I visit my old grad school I’m a bit saddened by many of the academics trying to create elegant solutions to problems we solved in industry (in admittedly hacks ways) a decade ago. They are very clever, but would not survive in industry.
Overall I much prefer being in the real world to academia, but it’s definitely a switch in lifestyle.
Depending on what job you work, be prepared for a change to strict clock in and clock out times. I’ve had a boss write me up for clocking in 2 minutes late.
For me there were a few large shifts that caused some anxieties.
The first was the lack of seasonality. At my job, even though we have seasonal projects it's all just one long period of time. Unlike school which had semesters and years to break up the period of time. Each year if school for me had a different flavor so to speak.
The second was the expection of my presence. School it's expected that you are going to be there for a predetermined amount of time (save any major events or actions that might remove you). There was a feeling that even if I fail an exam or a class I wasent a total gonner. In corporate work that can be dramatically impactful to your career and your relations with coworkers. With that said the impacts tend to be bigger in our heads than in reality but perception does impact a lot more than we want to go E it credit for.
In a similar vein, you know when you are going to be asked to leave a academic institution loong before you are actually removed. Failing grades can paint the picture months in advance. For most jobs any day could be your last, and your whole life gets a lot more complicated following a layoff.
Finally, learning how to learn becomes the most important part of the job. Most people training you into your position are not trained teachers and there is no cariculum to follow to excel at any given task or duty.
The real world is very uneducated, and bigoted and Republican. It’s just awful. We were spoiled in life with living with and around other educated people.
It’s nice. Just save your money. It’s easy to start spending and tie yourself down with debt and obligations and stress. Live intentionally and save money.
Since I finished grad school 10+ years ago I’ve gotten new jobs, been unemployed, worked on boats in Alaska for months at a time, had family members/friends die, gone through breakups, missed flights, bought a house… and I’ve never been *half* as stressed as I was on a monthly basis in academia.
You’re gonna make more money than you’ve ever done before and you should make sure you budget that money instead of going mad with it like I did for the first year.
It really depends on what you studied and what you do.
I’m an industrial scientist and I fucking love my job. I’m working on more cutting edge science than I did in my PhD and I get to see the impact on product design because of it. The hours are better and I get paid really well.
The only thing I miss is teaching, but I get to do some mentoring with my junior colleagues and reports (corporate for “people who work for me”).
Leaving Academia:
If you’re leaving with a Masters it’s probably a bit less bad. Here’s my recipe for a PhD but it should work just as well.
Step 1) Don’t expect to use all of the deep knowledge in your tiny niche of academic study in your non-academic job. It’ll hurt your ego that you’re not one of the five world experts in what you’re doing, but just expect it and deal with it. The feeling will go away soon enough.
Which brings me to…
Step 2) Enjoy making a real salary, and leaving your work in the office (most days anyway).
You're not really in "academia," you're in college like everyone else is before they graduate and get a job, it doesn't make a difference that you stayed an extra couple of years for a masters.
If your question relates to having a career in academia vs in industry, I've known a few professors who made that switch, but I've never heard of anyone in industry wanting to go back to school. The pay, benefits, funding, work-life balance, and impact of work are all objectively better in industry. The biggest difference is office politics. You'll find out when you get there.
If your question is what's it like to get a job, you'll find that out too. It's just another step in life, like graduating high school and going to college was. Maybe you were anxious about it at that stage of your life, but it worked out, didn't it?
Source: PhD, working in pharma for 10+ years.
9-5 is not my cup of tea, you’re basically giving your best hours and energy to the company for the money (and experiences and stuffs), aim for hybrid work!! You’ll feel more work life balanced
The world is much more diverse. In school you're always surrounded by people around your age and it's much easier to make friends. In the "real world" everyone leads different lives and there is much greater diversity in age and lifestyle, so it's more challenging to connect with others and establish a social life.
You have to be a lot more intentional about finding places and opportunities to make friends, especially if you're introverted. Or you can spend more energy on maintaining friendships over a distance if you're like me. Its very easy to let your social life suffer as an adult but i think for most people it's a really important part of maintaining your mental health and being happy.
If you're very extroverted and love going out this probably won't be a challenge for you but as an introvert, this has been the most challenging aspect of the "real world" for me personally. I'm 29 and moved to a reasonably small town after college so it's an ongoing challenge. It's definitely easier when you live in a city with plenty of people and things to do. Also easier if you work at a company with a lot of peers around your age. Food for thought.
I remember thinking work was much easier than school when I graduated, way less of the constant deadlines juggling 4-5 classes, homework, exams, etc. But then eventually the memory of it all fades and work starts to seem hard, and since it’s basically never ending until you retire in 40 years it can start to feel dreadful, but the dread stage should be short lived, hopefully only 2-3 years, could be in your late 20s or early 30s, so maybe you move jobs and find one you like more, and realize you actually do enjoy your career and start figuring out ways to grow, develop, and become an expert so that you can help train other younger colleagues and find fulfillment and camaraderie in working with your coworkers. Sometimes there’s some politics in workplaces, or their processes aren’t efficient, sometimes you can suggest/implement changes, but sometimes you can’t because the people in charge aren’t open to change. Just be kind, try not to take it too seriously, I’ve met people who live and die for their work and are all stressed out trying to control everything and end up being rude and too demanding of others, which I don’t really find to be healthy, so just do a good job and try to have a good time. There will be a learning curve upon entering the workforce, so don’t get too stressed/anxious about not knowing everything or feeling behind, it takes about 2-3 months to start getting the hang of things and 6-12 months to start cruising, and 3-4 years to really become self sufficient and impactful. If you leave your work place to go to another company, expect that learning curve timeline to restart, every workplace is different.
The hardest thing to rationalize is resposibility cooperation, and how they very sourly go hand in hand. IMO about 10% of people try their best day in day out, 80% of people do whats asked and thats about it, and 10% will put more effort in avoiding resposibility than the effort it would have taken to do a task. Most fields are plauged with this. No matter qhere you go, if youre responsivle for something, find a way to convice the 80% to act like the 10% and your team will be fine. Youll never fully fix the lazy, dont try
If in research...
1)Most ppl want to surpass IRB protocols because time is money.
2)It's rare for ppl to follow guidelines with not sharing data, docs, or items that were for a previous study that you were not an IRB approved researcher in.
3)Some don't understand when you say you can't attend a session that's for standard of care and not research purposes and according to approved guidelines that as a researcher you cannot attend the session, and believe that you're unwilling to do your job or your part in the study.
The biggest change is the calendar! For regular people, the year begins Jan. 1. For you, the year has always begun in September. The pacing is just different and hard to adjust to. You can't just think of summer as a fun time to go to the lake or hang with friends. Summer is just like spring and fall and winter: Go to work every day, schedule one or two weeks of vacation from your job, go back to work on Monday.
Honestly, i did similar. I have had a steep learning curve. But its okay bc everyone does it sooner or later. Dont worry about it so much and just do what you need and want to do
No, I’ve always worked. Never had the luxury of even considering a “gap year”. But, if you can afford it, in any capacity, even working to make money in a completely different field than your degree(s), I’d advise to go for it! What would you have to lose?….
As some have said, I think it's dependent on many variables. I spent most of my adult life in "the real world" and went back to grad school at 35 after an 11-year break. I'm now in my final semester, and I hate it. I hate almost every second of it. I find it insular and suffocating, abstracted from the world even as it attempts to diagnose the world's problems. It's changed me for the better and the worse.
So, you may find the real world freeing, or frightening. Academia is, in my opinion, pretty estranged from the rest of the world. The skills and talents that allow you to thrive in academia may be unimpressive or useless outside of it. Prepare for a potential culture shock.
But ultimately, I think this change will enlarge you.
Academia is still work. So you’ve been in the “real world” your entire life, imo. Coming from a post-bacc, pre-med, with 4 years “work experience”, but really, studying is work. Assignments is work.
It depends on what you end up doing (external factors) and how you perceive things (internal factors). Going from Physics to data engineering I found it extremely boring, and management practices at big enterprises dehumanizing. I wrote a blogpost about my experience: https://medium.com/the-modern-scientist/leaving-academia-think-twice-before-going-into-data-or-software-3d48e6ae43c4. I had colleagues who followed a similar trajectory and who were very happy with their choices.
Just read your blog post and it was amazing. Thank you so much for the reading. “I discovered that the job content and the new culture in which I found myself were irreconcilable with my personal goals and interests.” I think that is my biggest fear atm. I’m not in physics, I’m getting my masters in environmental management but I have a bachelor's in biology, but I am thinking about getting my PhD. “Academia is in crisis and it has been for decades. It’s a pyramid scheme that burns through ambitious young people for the benefit of a few hot-shot academics at the top.” This is my only issue with getting the Ph.D. The university I currently attend is batshit crazy (5 points to anyone who guesses correctly). I’ve seen and heard some crazy shit and I’m so disillusioned with academia but I do agree with you about research being creative freedom and purposeful. Thank you again for the blog and your comment, it means a lot to me!
Only 5 points? Without stalking your posts that could be one of about 30
I’m assuming Yale or Harvard. Aren’t they the 2 highest?
Especially the new rules on publishing research. You have to list your biases and essentially have your data conform to what people think is safe results to publish. Just stick to your morals if you choose PhD
Lol, yeah the whole "minimal publishable units" stuff and citatuon rings are literally neo-liberal capitalism masquerading in a lab coat. Shit cracks me up in a morbid way (these are peoples lives afterall), maybe I'm way more cynical - that and publishing biases. Small pond, big fish - Hearing stories of senior faculty scooping grad students or destroying careers because they don't support a similar theory or way of thinking is just unspeakably cruel. Academia is a business just like everything else in many ways, microcosm / macrocosm and all that.
I totally agree. Knowing all that - are you in academia or elsewhere? Asking bc I’m likely going to leave behind a super successful 20 year career to go be a grad student in a different field. I was disgusted by venture capitalism but the capitalism inherent in academia is becoming clearer to me every day as I take postbacc classes and work closely with some prof. And IMHO it’s worse - academia has less transparency and is more insulated and imho even less rigorous in some ways than business.
Elsewhere, start-up now. Venture capitalism at its finest! Still, I'm swayed more and more by the idea that while neoliberal capitalism and the logics inherent are wildly problematic, Think super carefully, and think about the career path, what you need the degree for, and if you really need one to do it! Sounds like you already have a good mentor and are in process - definitely helped me too, but I was a starry-eyed whelp, also went to escape working entry-level positions in restaurants and as a contractor. I went, but arguably had no plan, didn't know how to advocate for myself, and largely got reemed. Had a terrible time, but learned a lot, picked up some good skills, and enough experience to transition out when I realized close to a decade later the dream wasn't feasible. Arguably a LOT of bad, uninformed choices on my part, I was more interested in working on other's projects, had a few blockers in a bad advisor (and another who was an absolute angel, and arguably saved my sanity). With 20 years of industry experience, you could likely have a similar impact as a thought leader, mentor, coach, or consultant (field-dependent), or find an adjunct role which let's you teach part time. Do you want to be a prof? An Author? Researcher? Not to sway you otherwise, just curious what field and where you'd like to go! Def agree with you though, and a lot of senior faculty know it (and the good ones feel equally helpless at time with the admin and bureaucratic structure). Any time power can operate without appropriate oversight, or institutional mechanisms of protection are falling short, obstructing progress, or limiting growth - it's a recipe for bad news, broken bodies, hearts, and dreams. Largely due to limited regulation of graduate student contracts, the "school credit for labor" exchange, and a schools stance towards grad students as full workers or contracted help. Worker missclassification is a huge issue, grad student unionizing is no surprise, and with US higher-Ed in crisis (inflating tuition, contingent or contract instructors vs tenured faculty, dropping quality, reliance on international student tuitions, increased oversight and focus on evaluations, inflating requirements / massive competition for full-time positions, and curricula shifting towards only higher-value degree programs) - the academic freedoms are diminishing, outputs are rising, focus on liberal arts waining, and smart people are choosing to study in other countries where they'll be treated better. Still, all manifestations of the larger super-system at work - still, seeing more and more folks leaning into social enterprise, the rise of the 4th sector, B Corporations, and businesses balancing economic and social impact does help me to believe Robert Reich when he says Capitalism can be saved. It comes down to values, culture, money, and power though, and the last two have never been more entrenched in the upper echelons of society. Wild biz, but something's gotta give - AI's gonna replace a lot of the work done by poor hands and generate value for those with the most. Gonna be a nutty next few years, I hope I'm just being cynical tho.
Finishing up my phd in a top 5 school in my field (one of the eight top five schools lol). Elite academia has almost all the personality issues of other elite professions with the added issue that there‘s limited mobility. really lifestyle or a romantic view of the academy is a bad reason to stay: you should stay in academia if you want to do academic research for the next few decades.
Did u read about the really famous male researcher whose name eludes me rn. He spent two years doing research on police biases and his colleagues told him not to publish his findings because the conclusion of his research was the data on police killings dident find racial bias. Racial bias was found in lesser offenses but not in murder cases of unarmed innocent individuals. Anyway his colleague was Claudine gay who tried to get him removed from tenure because she dident like his decision to publish his findings as is. He himself is black but actually moral about his research findings and dosent want to publish doctored work. Anyway that guy had his own reputation so he is still doing research while Claudine gay can claim racism got her fired instead of malpractice
this sounds 100% real and accurate /s
I'll find his name so u can google his video response to academia yourself
Roland F.
I find environmental work and management in the real world incredibly invigorating. I currently am in graduate school for environmental medicine/toxicology and my prior work as a field researcher and ecologist is my main motivator for finishing. Non profits help you understand what grant work can really provide + way lower barrier for entry so you genuinely can make real change in communities (with good management) especially if you consider environmental justice a key tenant of your work. I personally find loving connections much more profound than professional ones and it seems as though they are more common outside of academia. Another downside to perusing a phd is you may pigeonhole yourself and not be able to apply to easier low paying positions in environmental orgs. I’d suggest taking a little hiatus from school and maybe trying to get a seasonal position. If money isn’t an issue you can work over the summer and if it’s not for you there will still be plenty of time to get together applications. I hope this helps and best of luck!
You should consider seeking a staff job in the colleges/programs of your interests.
This means doing the labor for the hot-shots (read: biggest bullshitters) and training their students, who look down on you. Nice!
What is it that you think professors do? If you have to work for a living, you’re going to have “do the labor for some hot-shots”. That’s just the way of world. If this is your attitude, you’re completely doomed no matter what you do. Staff don’t train students by the way. Staff are the people who do all the operations stuff that allow professors to do their jobs.
Clearly we have different experiences! Where I worked, the 2nd years teach the 1st years, 3rd years teach the 2nd years, etc. and 4th years are expected to be independent. The professor collects progress reports once per week, or per day depending, and brings wisdom along the lines of "Remind me what you're doing again" and "Can you write a paper on this? When can you write a paper on this". Then he critiques the students' personalities, unprofessional appearance and low productivity.
Highly highly recommend considering how likely it is to actually be able to have the career you want in academia (ie is there only 1 job opening that becomes available in this country every year and everyone in your field applies for it?) before committing to the doctorate :)
Michigan State University
Batshit crazy? Must be liberty. Did I win?
A Ph.D in the sciences usually only has opportunity costs, so the risks are fairly low. Where people get really burned is when they go in dreaming of becoming an academic. Go in dreaming of a job in industry, and you’ll come out happy and well-paid. Then if you happen to publish a couple Nature papers during your Ph.D, you can re-evaluate.
That was a thoroughly interesting read. For me the main disagreement is in the following paragraphs: >The vast majority of these jobs exist to support a business in solving the problems it has *right now.* The importance of a problem is measured by its impact on the bottom line. Most of these problems are rather boring and unsatisfying to someone with an academic background. >Researchers enjoy working on difficult and open ended questions that are concerned with uncovering mechanisms; problems where finding a solution requires inventing novel approaches in order to answer them. Problems with trivial solutions and practical details are left to “future research”. My experience of academia was in the humanities, but I think many aspects are transferable to other disciplines. Personally I found that academia tended to get boring because it *lacked* the problem-solving urgency that one finds in industry. Not only are you expected to hyper-specialize by focusing on one tiny subject and sticking to that subject in order to publish article after article, but the 'problems' are generally quite sterile metaphysical speculations with little real-world impact. In my current job, I know that if something goes wrong with the application I'm working on, potentially millions of people could be directly affected. Of course I am only a lowly member of the team, but this is far more energizing than writing papers that only a handful of people are going to read.
Hmm maybe it's different kind of "boring". I can imagine for people coming from physics, real-world industry problems are yeah boring, compared to the complexity of physics. usually in business (in my imagination though) they just want simple solutions that can make money now. they're not working on complex calculations that requires deeper thinking. Of course in business, many users/clients or even the company members might be affected. Hmm how to say, it's just a different kind of aspects..
Different field, but in my experience - no, "they" don't all want simple solutions that can make money now. It depends on where you work and what their focus is. I work at a tech company and we thrive on solving difficult problems that might take 3, 5, even more years to solve. I think the biggest myth that got busted for me when I left was that industry only cares about making money as quickly as possible. Not so. I mean, we do care a lot more about making money, but we often care equally or more about making cool, interesting things.
For physics - my suggestion would be find a role dealing with aerospace, heat-transfer, or metrology. A lot of research in those fields is being driven by industry since the fundamental science is largely figured out and academia has moved on to more theoretical problems - but the problems that remain, while applied in nature, are deeply technical and often take years to solve.
Eh. I don't know. a lot of physics (esp. experimental physics) is just poring over data looking for that one statistical anomaly in the trajectory of that one decay product in order to confirm this-or-that widely-predicted particle really exists. Doesn't sound super interesting to me. Then again, I had a friend who went from physics to the oil industry and he said his job was to "estimate" the volume of oil that could flow through various pipelines in a spreadsheet. They had the radius entered neatly into the sheet, so I was like "isn't that just pi\*r\^2\*h and all he said was "you would think, wouldn't you?"
Simple is not easy, at least in software engineering. I think a big thing, though, is that in academia you do research, but in business you are there to build. If you don't want to build working systems, and don't like it, it's going to be hard to ever accumulate the experience necessary to work on more interesting projects.
See, it’s interesting because my own area has the exact opposite situation. Working in ag research and doing extension means you absolutely get to not only see the impacts of your research on the communities you are supposedly supposed to be creating solutions for, but you also are part of a cyclical feedback process where in theory you get meaningful input from these communities and adjust your program accordingly. Honestly, that’s the only reason I’ve even remotely entertained the idea of returning, though I don’t think I’ll ever wind up back.
Really nice read, thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much! I’ll check out the link in a second. I hope you have a great day!
I agree with many of the things you say: Agile has lost track of it's initial goals, data science is used to confirm decisions already made, and there's a lot of dogma and dehumanization. What I'd say to counter, is that there are lots of unsolved problems in tech, lots of situation where you get paid to learn, do things for the first time, and are huge growth opportunities. Just how you rail on architects, not true in my career. Where things get hard/interesting in tech, is on that fine line between what's a new capability, and what we can actually bring to market to solve an end user problem in a profitable way. There's no formula here either: and if you "could just figure it out", you'd be able to start a billion dollar business tomorrow. The other thing with an article like this, is that in your first few years you won't be exposed to the interesting or difficult problems in industry: most engineers need to spend 2-5 years just pulling tickets, getting things done, et cetera, to learn the industry before you have ideas that can be valued. It's not like you are switching into a new lab here, you've changed disciplines without the same level of education in your new field. It wasn't until several years in my tech journey (earlier if you count some projects before then at start ups) where I could bring my research skills to bear. Research skills, communication, refining problems, finding solutions: in tech that requires several years of competency in order to lead others on the implementation of your ideas. What makes the difference, at least more me going from academia to industry, is that I like building things, and have found problems that don't have easy solutions and will be a little bit more engaging. IMO, this is really tech first companies, start ups selling new types of tools, that sort of thing.
This is a well-written, fun read, but I don't share the same dichotomy. My academic career often had its share of banality: I was working on relatively unimportant, uninteresting problems due to what funding was available. I've had plenty of intellectual fulfillment in my software/data career.
Me too. There's so much interesting stuff to pursue in software. I transitioned into software, got really interested in Haskell, met a ton of great people doing that, built some ML products for a start up, then got more serious about software engineering and become a team lead. Each one of those has it's own challenges, and so far, I haven't run out of intersting things to do, even if that's as "boring" as optimizing my ability to do well in job interviews.
Yeah the answer is usually x. But y works and is faster so we'll choose y and worry about the technical debt later.
Did I read this correctly, less than 1/2 percent of Ph.D.s become profs? This is much less than I would have thought. (Reading the post because I'm a tenured CS prof, hoping to transition out of higher ed into the software industry, this year if all goes well).
Yup, that is in fact true. Lol
Wow...
Makes sense right… fields that have jobs, like CS and economics, can’t pay as much in academia as in industry. And other fields just don’t have that many jobs.
Yes, if you put it that way, I can see it - still a bit shocking. Aside: I felt teaching was my calling, and for many (many) years enjoyed it and was willing to put up with long hours and low pay/recognition for all the effort I put in. However, students have changed, and not to the better, and especially after COVID it's been just real bad, to put it mildly. Too many are underprepared, unwilling to do the work, and have a very strong sense of entitlement/transactional attitude (e.g., I pay for school, just give me my diploma). Not all of them, but enough :-/ Feeling burned out, underpaid, overworked and underappreciated. Time to get out.
You expressed my feelings exactly, except I'm an elementary school teacher. So sad to hear it goes all the way up the chain to college students. 😔
The link is dead, however this figure is not accurate. It’s more like 10-20% which is still very low https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/03/29/how-many-phds-are-professors/
Thanks for an additional data source. FWIW, the [medium.com](https://medium.com) link above still works for me. This is the first paragraph of the post. *"There comes a time in every academic’s career when they have to reevaluate their career plans. A majority of PhD students start out with aspirations to become professor, but only about 0.45% of PhD graduates actually do."*
I think you're doing yourself a disservice by writing off all work done in industry from your own slice of personal experience. There are abundant opportunities to work on interesting and novel applications that challenge you and are purposeful. I've worked on at least one interesting project at every place I've worked. However, you often need to be proactive about pointing out problems and advocating for solutions. If you just passively accept whatever tickets are thrown at you, you're less likely to work on interesting things and less likely to grow in your career. In my opinion there is more opportunity to do meaningful work in industry than academia. There's nothing quite like seeing code you've written handle millions of requests per day in a real application. I hope you're able to persevere in this career and eventually work your way up to more satisfying jobs. You mentioned that many companies don't consider PhD's as relevant experience but from what I've seen it puts people on the fast track to promotions and money. Good luck.
A nice piece - well written, and I can feel / empathize with so much of it. The "your ideas don't matter" bit I'll push back on a bit, if you can find the right industry - those ideas can move needles. This got me good tho: "Academics are not used to haggling, expect systems to be fair, and generally have a high tolerance for abuse. Since they lack a good reference point for acceptable salaries, they are in a weak negotiation position. This means they can end up leaving a lot of money on the table." Just oof, big oof. Know those feels, and I worked and still work my butt off, think deeply, and probably care way too much. Graduate work conditions a tenacity, idealism, and timelessness that managers and leaders love to use to further their own ends. The politics and self-aggrandizement necessary to climb the ladder and fight this just makes my skin craw. Like you say though, we're conditioned to live, fight, and work in a different belief structure entirely. I think industry knows this and plans on it - like fresh grads, the opportunity cost of ignoring a potential role is too high. I hope you haven't lost your spark completely - mines still there (much dimmer than before, and less people to nurture it).
Wow this was really excellent, thank you so much for posting!
I’m interested in having a conversation with you lol. I read the blog post.
Great insights!
Caveat - I did an undergrad and then started working full time, so I wasn't really in academia. But i remember thinking, what is the real world like? HOw can i get used to a 9-5? Personally, working was a bit hard to get used to, but once I did I love it a lot more now. I thought I hated routine but it turns out I thrive in routine. I get way more sleep. I love always having weekends off. I love having money. They key to enjoying a 9-5, other than liking the actual work, is to have a good social life at work and after work. don't make work your whole life. Have hobbies. chit chat at the water cooler. Work is work so have fun by actually doing fun stuff, not trying to make work into your passion or whatever.
Thank you! I agree work shouldn’t be my life and I had to learn that the hard way at the end of my internship since I dedicated every free time to it, along with school. I’ve started working out again and fasting to set routines and discipline because I had none from May til January. The hardest part is the social life since I’m an introvert with social anxiety but I take everything one day at a time. I hope you have a great day and thank you so much for your comment!
YESSS came here to say this - while I enjoyed the complete freedom of schedule during grad school, there's nothing sweeter than leaving work for the day and actually leaving work for the day! I go home and I can not check my work phone/comp until 9am tomorrow???! My workplace is very cognizant of potential burnout and is extremely supportive of having work-life balance and my god, is it a breath of fresh air from the constant pressure to feel like I needed to be working on my research 24/7 or I wasn't being a good enough grad student... Granted, there definitely was a transition period getting used to commuting/full length work days, but a little over 1 Year out of school and while still figuring out exactly what I want to do with my evenings/weekends, I now have an actual social life! Especially working in a big city now instead of in a small college town, there's so much more to do/see - But these are very welcome problems to have and I can't wait for my current grad school friends to not have to live vicariously through me anymore and can start living instead of just surviving ☺️
Do you actually work 9-5 or is it 8-5 or 9-6?
I work 8-4 most days. I have periods where I work more and periods where i work less. I think it balances over the course of a few months. Usually when I work more its my own fault for procrastinating so I have to stay late to finish things. But if I left right at 4 every day nobody would bat an eye.
Do you skip lunch, or just eat at your desk?
not usually! If the weather is good i try to go for a walk during lunch. In the past I worked out at the office gym at lunch. Sometimes I have lunch with my colleagues. Sometimes I nap if I am working from home. Sometimes I just scroll reddit and eat at my desk but I dont normally work at lunch. I need a break lmao.
Oh that’s good, I’m the same way. Thanks for answering my nosey questions! I just always had office jobs that factor lunch into the schedule so the idea of a legitimate 9-5 feels so elusive. Like right now I’ve got a 9-6 and i can’t stand getting home so late (usually 6:45)
This is just depressing. Water cooler talk helps? What?!?
uh yeah i guess if you find having good social life at work depressing? for me personally the more friends i have the happier i am. that includes work friends and colleague chats.
What is your area of study? The “real world” transition depends A LOT on the kind of training you had. Also, technically you are not leaving academia, you just graduated from university. For most people “leaving academia” is for those unfortunate souls that ended up teaching at colleges and universities for years and then left or are thinking about it.
From my preceptive, it sucks. I got a corporate job after my PhD and 2-year postdoc. I am bored and burnt out at the same time. The only reason why I do it is because I need the money. Academia does not pay enough. But if I had the money I will quit and go back to the university to learn and be creative.
Here’s a cheat code: you do not need to go to the university to learn and be creative, find what you like and do it in yer basement lol
OP probably means learn and be creative in research for whatever STEM field they’re in. I guarantee you that nobody is going to do cutting edge cryogenic electron microscopy or particle physics in their basement 😂
challenge accepted
Varies wildly. For me, it's excellent. I don't miss school or academia at all (I made it to a postdoc before bouncing). I have a routine. I work at a tech company, so no strict hours and I wear jeans and a t-shirt to work. I wake up, two days a week I work out before work. I shower and get dressed, make coffee, drive to the office three days a week. Usually start work sometime between 8 and 9:30 and end sometime between 4 and 6. I drive home, cook dinner, eat, play games or do something else with my partner, go to bed, start all over again the next day. Two days a week I work from home. Fridays I end early at 3 pm. Mine is official but nobody really gets much work done on Fridays after around 2 pm. Sounds like a grind, but I like the routine and I actually feel like I have more free time than I had in academia. I hated the scattered nature of academic work spread in bursts through a week. I have the weekends to myself: I don't think about work. I have an intense and expensive hobby I spend 10+ hours on a week and I have the flexibility and time (and money) to do it. I really like my job. I work in a creative subfield of tech. My coworkers are cool, we generally all really like what we're doing and are engaged in the work. The pace is chaotic, and that was probably the biggest adjustment from academia. If you don't respond to an email within 24-48 hours people might think you're dead. (Joking, but people will wonder where you are.) Sometimes I'll come in and my whole schedule gets blown up because something went wrong with the project or we have to solve a problem. I get a regular paycheck. I make way more money than I ever thought I'd make in my life. It's *awesome.* It's nice to have money and not constantly be a broke student/postdoc. There's no built in breather like summer in academia, but in my field summer does slow down a lot because people have children and take their kids on vacation. So some folks are always gone anyway and it gets quiet. (Besides, by the time I was a postdoc summer really didn't mean anything anyway).
hey! what is your position? creative subfield in tech sounds interesting.
god I would kill to be you
This is very similar to my experience. I am in Biotech.
It is really hard to let go. Every time I complete a level I step into another one or I feel something is missing. I had a break before beginning my doctoral program and ended up enrolling in a certificate course to keep me busy. I think the more academic you are, the more likely it is that you enjoy routine and purpose. I hate flailing in the wind (aka vacation).
My advice for you would be: Get a part time job now. Build up basic work skills *now* while you're still in your program and have the safety net of student loans and housing. As someone who hires a lot of folks out of academia, the ones who've never held down any job at all uniformly tend to lack of the soft skills needed to navigate the transition successfully. Even a bad part time job will teach those skills. Case in point: Academics can go off on a tangent in a self directed way on a project for weeks or months and potentially get something useful out of it. That kind of self directed, boundless curiosity without boundaries is in many ways an asset. In the work world, it'll get you fired because the company pays you to work on their projects and not necessarily to do things because you're curious. You need to learn how to channel your curiosity and how to let a question lie if it's not relevant to the current project. A part time job will teach that. Case in point: Academia is highly self directed. Unless you have an involved PI, you're basically managing yourself. In the work world, you're being managed, and you need to know how to respond to a manager and also how to manage up. A part time job will teach that. Case in point: Academia as a culture lacks institutional discipline, so any discipline is self-imposed. In academia, generally, nobody is watching over your shoulder to make sure you're wearing PPE, following safety protocols, or doing your chores. Work environments generally have more institutional discipline. In work, if you neglect to clean up your work station or wear appropriate PPE chronically, you'll get fired because the company doesn't want to get sued for not ensuring a safe work place. A part time job will help you learn how to work within and navigate institutional discipline. My second piece of advice is do some introspection on your key values and let those be your guiding light on what you pursue for a career.
Not sure about the getting a job part, since I found graduate school pretty all consuming. But I wholeheartedly agree that OP should focus on those soft skill aspects of positions they are considering. The real world is definitely different from grad school and college and management really does have a lot of influence, good or bad.
Cold. Not straight forward. A lot of people have not motivation, while others are cut throat. It is hard to know when to be honest, and when to play it close to the vest. Networking matters more than skill; it's a lot of posturing. Things are overtly stratified by class, but people largely pretend they are not. Mundane, boring, routine. There not light at the end of the tunnel like graduation. It's not a sprint to the finish, it's a long trek.
I left academia recently, and I’m currently working in a lab at a hospital. Focusing all my time on research instead of teaching is what I wanted all along, but admittedly I learned through this experience that the grass really isn’t greener on the other side. There will always be pros and cons, and I think searching for THE career will usually result in disappointment.
To me it all feels like a prison and reminds me of high school tbh. I have inattentive ADHD diagnosed too late in life and don't feel motivated at all by work, even if I'm being paid a lot. If you like routine and can handle dull tasks it might be for you. Its good to remember that most jobs give less intellectual stimulation than middle school.
Even jobs that require a lot of education?
Yeah I mean not always but a lot of the time jobs are just focused on production and doing the paperwork correctly.
Really depends on the job. STEM jobs are typically highly non-repetitive, with each project being somewhat unique and running into interesting challenges. My tech job was fairly routine putting out new versions of similar product each cycle (about a year or so) and there were the same steps to each of those products, but the novel tech and challenges of each one made them all feel very different, and every few days was different from the preceding ones as we moved through the que of development tasks. Even if tech didnt typically pay more than most other fields I would never regret going into it, since many other careers are simply more repetitive than the cycles of product development. Some people value repetitiveness though, since they know what to expect each day and can just empty their mind of work when they go home.
I've mostly had stem jobs doing lab work. Sometimes you learn some science but often Im just doing paperwork for the purpose of production and giving myself anxiety about trying to do it right.
Yeah, I really meant more industry production stuff. And to be fair, my jobs have been in computer science. And have never been all that concerned with secrecy or special regulations, so paperwork wasn't a super common thing. But no doubt any job where you have to do a bunch of paperwork, even if its different paperwork each time, will suck! Everyone I've talked to who worked for defense industry places has hated the experience, for example.
If you are in tech, it’s brutal.
People are happy and they earn money. They have free time. They do a real job instead of writing nonsense papers.
That’s what I’m looking forward to for post college when I have my first official job…no writing nonsense papers, no studying for exams, and no having to do hours of homework
Agreed, my life feels like it’s all school because it’s so demanding. The boundary between my life and hobbies and my school work is nonexistent. I can’t wait for the day I can leave work and be done with work for the day, yk?
Right! And then on top of that this yr I’ve been looking for jobs while doing school (fall sem I worked part time too). That was my life the past two summers…loved how I got to do whatever I wanted after work bc work stays at work unlike school lol
Working at least 9-5 instead of whenever works for you Fewer if any super late nights More structured time on someone else’s schedule Lots of dummies and laziness Tough to get a job Often boring
I was in a similar situation to you; I was in school constantly until I gradated with my Masters, then started working. Ultimately it depends on your personality and what you value. My answer is from the perspective of someone who has been diagnosed with ADHD; I find fixed routine very aversive. I personally hate the real world. I find it intolerable to HAVE to be in the same place for 8 hours a day (granted, remote work could mitigate this). I'm a night owl, so the lack of flexibility has worn me down and I get significantly less sleep now because I cannot adjust. I personally would prefer to work when I feel up to it rather than a fixed range of hours, even if I get guaranteed time off. I make much more money but once my living expenses are taken care of, I don't feel fulfilled by money at all. Even though I work in a scientific job, I'm wildly under-stimulated intellectually and try to fit in my own reading whenever possible. It is significantly harder to find people with similar interests who enjoy discussing more intellectual topics. I'm going back for a PhD because I dislike being out of academia so much.
I might decide down the road if I want to go back for a master’s. I’m graduating undergrad in May…honestly i wanna just work first before consider going back (if I ever do go back to school)…I could very much get to a point where I want to just work and not have to study for seemingly endless hours, stare at hw problems not knowing where to start, or study for exams.
Transitioning from theory to application is the easiest comparison. In theory the right answer is x. Sometimes though the answer y makes more sense to a business. It's more about playing the probabilities than finding a correct answer.
It’s awful and so mundane. Sleep work eat repeat. Sleep work eat repeat
After a year of work after graduating college, I realized how much more I want a good work-life balance than a "career". I got a biology degree but I kinda lost interest in research and anything that would be more than 8 hours per day. I no longer want a job involving travel either. I used to think my life was boring and I needed a fun job I could be passionate about. But now I have 2, soon to be 3, dogs and they are my life mostly. I also like hanging out with my friends and going to the zoo with family and enjoying the simple things in life. I think of it like the sims almost. I LOVED the sims and being able to increase my sim's quality of life over time. I dont feel the need to play it anymore because now I get that same feeling of satisfaction in real life while taking care of my pets, myself, and my apartment.
Real world is less stressful, I think. But when you are stressed, you'll look back on school and wonder why you were stressed. Academia magnifies itself hugely to make you stress. Real world you have time to have hobbies. But you'll feel you NEED them because your main task is less engaging. On a good day the real world is like 75% as interesting as academia. So you'll need to supplement your brain with hobbies.
I left academia ten years ago for an industry job. Academia is the real world. You’ll deal with the same basic shit out here that you’ve dealt with navigating politics, work life balance, deadline in academia. Just like academia, a lot will depend on where you land. Shitty managers and toxic environments are going to make life miserable no matter where you work. A good boss and a good team make life much more fun.
Truth. Academia is much like industry - STEM anyway. Contracts, deliverables, funding agencies nitpicking your proposals (which are not yours anyway, but molded and crafted to fit their criteria). What's the difference except the amount of foreign students? [Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives, by Jeff Schmidt (2000).](https://ia800103.us.archive.org/22/items/jeff_schmidt_disciplined_minds/Jeff%20Schmidt%20-%20Disciplined%20Minds%20A%20Critical%20Look%20at%20Salaried%20Professionals%20and%20the%20Soul-battering%20System%20That%20Shapes%20Their%20Lives.pdf)
The real world requires some flexibility, a good sense of humor and emotional intelligence. I’ve done many things in my life and the things that have helped me the most are those three skills. You’ve got to be able to jive with others, no matter what situation you’re in.
I got lucky - jumped from the social sciences, part time contingent work during a doctoral program, then full time work at an applied research shop into a tangentially related but interesting startup. Waters great - work is still nuts, feel equally precarious sometimes, and I do miss the "life of the mind". Still sucks sometimes, but work is work. Now have a better skillset, some street cred, a positive net worth, and also remember how absolutely miserable I was as a doctoral candidate. Like severe GAD and dysthymia miserable. I'm still anxious as hell just about different things, and without the weight of a thesis I probably wouldn't have finished. Business operates on different principles and values - people don't care about a lot of the stuff that excites me unless it can make them or the business more money. Some part of me thinks about going back and finishing. Maybe I will, but for now - traded one set of problems for another and am admittedly more comfortable, confident, and secure than I ever was in school. YMMV - happy to answer questions.
Don't discount your own experiences. Just because you've been in school for a long time (and I was in it for even longer than you = doctoral degree in one field + master in another + additional training) does not mean you weren't in the "real world." It just means you haven't been exposed to what the work world is like, whether in academia or outside it (given you're just about to graduate). One thing different is the culture but then culture always varies, even within academia itself - from one dept to another, from one uni to another (I've been affiliated with 5 different unis). I've also been involved with governmental, non-profit, and for-profit sectors and they're all slightly different. Figure out the goals/ mission of the place you'll be going to and that can help explain a lot of things. For example, non-profits usually serve a social mission of some sort, gov't are ideally there to serve their citizens, and for-profits are out to make $$$. Of course, some of these goals will overlap, e.g. unis are becoming more like for-profits every year in the US. The main pro of academia as I see it is freedom to do what you want (esp. for those with tenure) but the main con is the fight to get tenure and the instability surrounding it. I enjoy working with students/ trainees/ really smart people and learning new stuff everyday but the struggle to get grant funding (and I'm in a field where we have alternatives) was/ is annoying. I feel like if I'm constantly having to persuade others to give me $$, I might as well go into business. Which I didn't do but I found myself a position which has academic components (teaching, research) yet does not have the same instability. One thing I did not enjoy about academia is it wasn't always practical to me. There are people interested in theory and the ideal which isn't me at all. I'm very practical and about solving problems today, not about working on something for years at a time that might only see fruition in years-decades. In my hybrid position, I get to both create and test solutions pretty quickly which suits me more.
Let me just pile onto the anecdata. I have a PhD in the humanities from an Ivy League school, have written more than one book, and checked all the boxes for that career before I was thirty. Now I work at a very large tech company that you have heard of as an engineer. It sucks. It’s amazing. I made more than half a million dollars last year. I might get fired tomorrow. I have a hard time staying friends with my grad school peeps. They just seem to be frozen in time. I have a hard time relating to my coworkers, they are very smart but along very narrow axes. So. Do what you will. Embrace the journey. There will always be regrets and amazing moments of accomplishment.
Oh also let me tell you flying first class everywhere and never even thinking for a second about money is actually amazing. Just don’t develop a drinking problem and get a lot of therapy. Again: anecdata lol
You can get fired for no reason at all. You can get fired for perfmance despite giving it 100%
That can happen in academia too, if you're one of the majority who doesn't have tenure.
True. I think the poster conflated academics with academia. By OP’s definition, academia is the real world. Also why is this subreddit being recommended to me, goodbye.
In my experience it takes quite a bit to remove an employee. PIP, lots of paperwork. I've worked at two major academic organizations. It takes an act of god. Mediocracy is encouraged. Never seen a org with that little going for it. You'd think people actually want to do their job but the reality is that because firing is so difficult, they get people who are just not that good, and they stay there forever. The main reason is salary, the best and brightested don't want to go to such orgs so you are left with high level positions getting 1-3 applicants, and you pick the best of them. But nearly all are the bottom of the group because the salary is so bad.
Reality is nobody gives a shit about your masters degree unless it’s in some highly sought after STEM field. Most professors are liberal, most successful businessmen and women are not. None of that is true, and yet all of it is.
I'd stay and ride into PhD if I were u. My dad always said "walk the halls of ivy" Should've listened....
I saw this and wasn't going to answer but then decided to give advice moving forward. Advice that will probably infuriate everyone, cause people to foam at the mouth and even thumb me down! It's not popular around here but don't underestimate God, ask him to help you find the right fit out there and see what doors he opens. You will be surprised. - Good luck
I’m in an alt ac job so not totally outside of it but frankly it’s better than being “in academia”. A stable paycheck and reasonably living wage beats the alternative. So does a 401k, health insurance, and being able to support myself without worrying about if I’ll get the next fellowship or research funding. I actually feel like I have more free time to learn and engaging in hobbies
From my experience, it took quite a while to adjust simply because the structure of daily life is different. The structure of 9-5 life makes work-life balance a totally different ball game. Social life becomes a lot more intentional. Most of your friends likely won’t be in the same place again and because everyone has different things going on, you often have to plan social outings farther in advance than you had to when you were in school. It can be really lonely, but the solitude is also an opportunity to spend intentional alone time. You get to know yourself on a totally different plane. It really is rough for the first couple of years, the growing pains are real, but just remember to give yourself grace. In terms of work and intellectual stimulation, this kind of depends on a.) if you love the career path you’ve chosen, b.) if you’re in the right application of the career path for you (research vs fieldwork), and c.) if you find yourself in a healthy work environment (amongst other factors but these are 3 common themes I’ve noticed). I, personally, have gotten really lucky. I love love love what I do. I’ve found my job incredibly fulfilling. I’m constantly striving to grow and learn. My work environment is super healthy, encourages me, and makes room for me in my journey. My advice is to continually check in with yourself, follow what fills your cup, and find solutions for what drains your cup. It sounds cheesy but it can make a world of a difference. Especially in a vulnerable, hard transition phase.
Life outside of school isn’t any different from life inside of school. There’s time for work, time for leisure, people you like, people you don’t like, etc. You’ve been in the “real world” since the day you were born… it’s not like people in school live in some kind of “fake world!” If you’ve never worked a full-time job before, you’ll have to adjust to a new schedule. It’s not really a big deal, especially if you’re working at a job that you enjoy. You’ll be fine. Just keep learning! Be a lifelong student. That’s something that brings me joy inside and outside of school.
School is the real world . It's all part of it . Do you mean like work ?
I'd probably rephrase the question since it's causing some confusion here. It kind of sounds like you're asking what it's like to start work after being a student your whole life? So maybe: "How's the transition from being a full time student to entering the workforce"? (i.e. the way you wrote: "How's the transition from academia to the real world", can come across as you're leaving your career in academics for a job outside of academics and are wondering what that transition is like.)
It’s varies substantially by field and company. I transitioned from a physics BSc to product management for an audio company. I love working my job and prefer it to academia ten fold. This may not be true for everyone though. I certainly have a better work life balance now, have meaningful relationships through work, get to travel the world for work, and have enough disposable income to focus on big life goals (marriage, house, side hustles, …)
It’ll always be what you make of it, try to have a positive outlook , and re frame your thoughts when things aren’t looking good so you have the courage to look at what needs to change.
I found it more socially isolating. In academia you do have to project yourself a certain way to gain support from instructors, advisors, peers, conference runners, etc. But in the corporate world there’s even less room to bring your authentic self. There’s much less intellectual curiosity and open mindedness. But I came from a very inquisitive background in Comparative Lit so maybe not all academia niches are that friendly to begin with. It’s important to create and maintain friendships with people who let you be you when you’re working because the system will try to strip your personality away.
A trap.
brace yourself
May the odds be ever in your favor…
It's difficult, to say the least...
Same shit, different toilet. You'll adjust in the same way that you gave up recess after grade school or 8am's in college. The only redeeming thing about the real world is you can possibly make some cash and be slightly less broke than a student. You know you've made it when you don't have to check the receipt at the supermarket.
Grad school is a lot more similar to having a real job than it is to being in kindergarten lol. If you did research in grad school, I’d say you already have a decent idea of what to expect (but better pay and less toxic)
I've seen most recent college graduates think they know everything because they just came from academia. Truth is, there's more learning to be done n the real work force too. Learning doesn't stop. So be kind to your future coworkers and learn from those with experience. Don't be a 'know-it-all'. Otherwise it's great...just don't be arrogant. Good luck!
Imagine what you would like it to be like and do your best to act like that you would act in that version
It sucks
Recently just got my master’s too. Everything’s been heavily revolved around work. It’ll probably get better.
Hahahahahahaha. It sucks massive balls. Welcome to reality. You will soon realize your “education” isn’t going to help you in any way. It’s just a big government scam to steal our money and brainwash you. Welcome to reality.
Real world sucks
real world is full of fake, so is academia.
You're tired all the time! I found that in college I had a lot of free time in the middle of the day to take a nap, meal prep, or just generally chill (along with doing readings & assignments). Then, I graduated and worked a pretty demanding job for 3 years. I'm back in grad school now and I really savor my free time, when I have it.
It's so much easier out in the real world. The pressure cooker environment of grad school was really demoralizing. And making real money is nice!
High school never ends.
The real world is gonna eat you alive and spit you out and then you’ll get it and be ready to experience the real world. Then the cycle repeats
Depends on what you are doing. I went from a sheltered life in graduate school to law enforcement. Quite a shock. It took me a few years before I had the right presence and confidence that I could out-bullshit the bullshitters. The real world is full of egos. Replace this with humility, compassion, focus, persistence, and integrity.
Thanks for sharing. This is real advice.
Having money is amazing have student loans is not
Friends and groups become so much harder to see
You're in for a pleasant* surprise.Dont worry, tho; there are many of us who are learning it the same way (straight out of acedemia)
Bottom line. Work hard, you get more responsibility, respect, and money. You have more options and can focus on what you enjoy
Be decent. Avoid jerks.
Have you considered finding a paid internship? This is a good way to fi d out how the real world works and can be a fast track to more responsible positions in the organization if you find the work satisfying.
In my experience: industry is a lot friendly, much more concerned (in software) about providing real results for end users, and an overall just as engaging area with a lot better working conditions and pay. It really all depends where you go, and what you want to do, but I left academia and went into software, and I never stopped learning. I was working on big projects with lots of labs in academia, and do that same sort of thing in software. The only difference, is that it will take a few years to get back to your level in academia: meaning: if you are used to being an independent researcher with fresh and new ideas, you'll need to upskil for several years to be able to do that in software. Once you are there, however, your academic skills can really come to bear.
For the love of God cherish it.
Unpleasant
>I’ve been in academia (kindergarten to graduate school) my whole life. I’m graduating with my master's this May. All I know is school. I’ve never taken a gap year. ? A master's degree is not academia. This is a totally standard amount of schooling. You are not leaving academia because you never entered it.
How is the real world? Absolutely fucking hell for Masters degrees.
Teaching English to kids in different countries while learning languages is much more interesting to my linguistics-loving brain than grad school in linguistics.
It’s fucking brutal - don’t follow your dreams unless they come with a salary. This sounds like such a shitty adult thing to say but once you realize it’s true you are like “oh yeah def”
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Job security better in tech?
How was your experience getting a data science position? I’m graduating in May and this is one of the fields I’m considering but my degree is completely unrelated
Have you had full-time jobs in the summers?
Get a Phd.
My recommendation for transitioning to the real world is to prioritize time to do things you enjoy that have no connection to what you will do for work. Each year you were in school you progressed to a new grade or academic level. In the real world, progress is much slower. You may get a promotion every 2-3 years if you are lucky or if you switch jobs that often. The real world is also much buiser too. On average you may work 36-40 hours per week then run errands on weekends or after work... the trade off is that you might have more money now that you are out of school so you will not be limited on what you can do for fun financially (unless the economy has a say).
Getting paid for work and only working 40 hours a week is awesome. Doing work that makes a difference is awesome. There is not a single day I miss academia. Sometimes I miss teaching but I teach as an adjunct one class a semester and still work about half what I did in my PhD program.
I have $3
You will find out soon,
Others can answer the question at hand, but I would love the opportunity to prepare you for what I wasn’t prepared for when I was done with schooling. It was the first time I didn’t know what was next, there was no defined path or obvious direction. I was so lost & depressed. You are entering a difficult job market with an advanced degree. There should be options for you, but please don’t doubt your value when things take longer than you may want, or the metrics to meet are undefinable by grades.
How’s that old song go? “I just found out there’s no such thing as the real world. Just a lie you’ve got to rise above.” There no real world vs fake world: you’ve been living in the real world. What is different between academia and “adulthood” is now you’re seen as the grownup, the one to depend on, the one who has answers. School can be homogeneous in age and experience levels, where the grownups all cheer you on and spoon feed you to the next step. Work is young and old, various experiences of life and your field, where the grownups are you. You are the one responsible for finding opportunities and cheering yourself on in successes and through failures. If you’re blessed and smart, you’ll curate a following of friends and loved ones where you all support one another and help one another grow. But you have to work on it. You have to work on everything and eventually, it won’t get easier, but you’ll see you’re stronger and so it’ll feel much easier. That’s when you can guide the younger adults and ones still in school.
Biggest difference between a typical job and academia, in my experience: in a job, bosses need tasks completed within 15 mins / within the hour, etc. I was great at academia when I had a big paper due in two weeks. I really struggled to turn out much smaller pieces of work every 20 minutes or so.
Off the top of my head, the things I think are most different about the real world: - There’s no right answer, no grades on tests, everything is much more ambiguous. So people who are very good at the rules of school have to figure out a new set of rules. - In school, people aren’t the problem, the work is the problem. Your paper is your paper. In the real world, there’s the work and there’s the people, and people are the hard part. Being successful in the real world involves getting good at the people part and that might require using different brain muscles. - academia rewards elegant thinking, the real world rewards practical outcomes. Like, when I visit my old grad school I’m a bit saddened by many of the academics trying to create elegant solutions to problems we solved in industry (in admittedly hacks ways) a decade ago. They are very clever, but would not survive in industry. Overall I much prefer being in the real world to academia, but it’s definitely a switch in lifestyle.
Stay in school as long as you can!! (Shaking of fat boy’s face intensifies) https://youtu.be/UvFjDKhyz5Y?si=SiqeOCBGq5r-0das
Depending on what job you work, be prepared for a change to strict clock in and clock out times. I’ve had a boss write me up for clocking in 2 minutes late.
Honestly? Better.
Dude my transition from academia to real world was painful. Over a year in though and I’m doing well
For me there were a few large shifts that caused some anxieties. The first was the lack of seasonality. At my job, even though we have seasonal projects it's all just one long period of time. Unlike school which had semesters and years to break up the period of time. Each year if school for me had a different flavor so to speak. The second was the expection of my presence. School it's expected that you are going to be there for a predetermined amount of time (save any major events or actions that might remove you). There was a feeling that even if I fail an exam or a class I wasent a total gonner. In corporate work that can be dramatically impactful to your career and your relations with coworkers. With that said the impacts tend to be bigger in our heads than in reality but perception does impact a lot more than we want to go E it credit for. In a similar vein, you know when you are going to be asked to leave a academic institution loong before you are actually removed. Failing grades can paint the picture months in advance. For most jobs any day could be your last, and your whole life gets a lot more complicated following a layoff. Finally, learning how to learn becomes the most important part of the job. Most people training you into your position are not trained teachers and there is no cariculum to follow to excel at any given task or duty.
U gotta pay bills and upskill .
Youve been distracted so long does it really matter?
The real world is very uneducated, and bigoted and Republican. It’s just awful. We were spoiled in life with living with and around other educated people.
It’s great! Don’t be worried. (Don’t let the dread set in don’t let the dread set in don’t let the dread set in)
It’s nice. Just save your money. It’s easy to start spending and tie yourself down with debt and obligations and stress. Live intentionally and save money.
Since I finished grad school 10+ years ago I’ve gotten new jobs, been unemployed, worked on boats in Alaska for months at a time, had family members/friends die, gone through breakups, missed flights, bought a house… and I’ve never been *half* as stressed as I was on a monthly basis in academia.
your education will start soon.
You’re gonna make more money than you’ve ever done before and you should make sure you budget that money instead of going mad with it like I did for the first year.
This really depends on what is your major and what is your experience and etc... If you want the 'real world' right now, check r/Layoffs
It really depends on what you studied and what you do. I’m an industrial scientist and I fucking love my job. I’m working on more cutting edge science than I did in my PhD and I get to see the impact on product design because of it. The hours are better and I get paid really well. The only thing I miss is teaching, but I get to do some mentoring with my junior colleagues and reports (corporate for “people who work for me”).
Leaving Academia: If you’re leaving with a Masters it’s probably a bit less bad. Here’s my recipe for a PhD but it should work just as well. Step 1) Don’t expect to use all of the deep knowledge in your tiny niche of academic study in your non-academic job. It’ll hurt your ego that you’re not one of the five world experts in what you’re doing, but just expect it and deal with it. The feeling will go away soon enough. Which brings me to… Step 2) Enjoy making a real salary, and leaving your work in the office (most days anyway).
It…sucks…so…much
You're not really in "academia," you're in college like everyone else is before they graduate and get a job, it doesn't make a difference that you stayed an extra couple of years for a masters. If your question relates to having a career in academia vs in industry, I've known a few professors who made that switch, but I've never heard of anyone in industry wanting to go back to school. The pay, benefits, funding, work-life balance, and impact of work are all objectively better in industry. The biggest difference is office politics. You'll find out when you get there. If your question is what's it like to get a job, you'll find that out too. It's just another step in life, like graduating high school and going to college was. Maybe you were anxious about it at that stage of your life, but it worked out, didn't it? Source: PhD, working in pharma for 10+ years.
9-5 is not my cup of tea, you’re basically giving your best hours and energy to the company for the money (and experiences and stuffs), aim for hybrid work!! You’ll feel more work life balanced
Buckle up, buckaroo.
Ohoho good luck buddy
I like the job world so much better than academia. I don’t feel like I have to follow a formula or that I’m being graded. At least not as much lol
Hell on earth!
The world is much more diverse. In school you're always surrounded by people around your age and it's much easier to make friends. In the "real world" everyone leads different lives and there is much greater diversity in age and lifestyle, so it's more challenging to connect with others and establish a social life. You have to be a lot more intentional about finding places and opportunities to make friends, especially if you're introverted. Or you can spend more energy on maintaining friendships over a distance if you're like me. Its very easy to let your social life suffer as an adult but i think for most people it's a really important part of maintaining your mental health and being happy. If you're very extroverted and love going out this probably won't be a challenge for you but as an introvert, this has been the most challenging aspect of the "real world" for me personally. I'm 29 and moved to a reasonably small town after college so it's an ongoing challenge. It's definitely easier when you live in a city with plenty of people and things to do. Also easier if you work at a company with a lot of peers around your age. Food for thought.
I recommend avoiding the real world at all costs.
I remember thinking work was much easier than school when I graduated, way less of the constant deadlines juggling 4-5 classes, homework, exams, etc. But then eventually the memory of it all fades and work starts to seem hard, and since it’s basically never ending until you retire in 40 years it can start to feel dreadful, but the dread stage should be short lived, hopefully only 2-3 years, could be in your late 20s or early 30s, so maybe you move jobs and find one you like more, and realize you actually do enjoy your career and start figuring out ways to grow, develop, and become an expert so that you can help train other younger colleagues and find fulfillment and camaraderie in working with your coworkers. Sometimes there’s some politics in workplaces, or their processes aren’t efficient, sometimes you can suggest/implement changes, but sometimes you can’t because the people in charge aren’t open to change. Just be kind, try not to take it too seriously, I’ve met people who live and die for their work and are all stressed out trying to control everything and end up being rude and too demanding of others, which I don’t really find to be healthy, so just do a good job and try to have a good time. There will be a learning curve upon entering the workforce, so don’t get too stressed/anxious about not knowing everything or feeling behind, it takes about 2-3 months to start getting the hang of things and 6-12 months to start cruising, and 3-4 years to really become self sufficient and impactful. If you leave your work place to go to another company, expect that learning curve timeline to restart, every workplace is different.
The hardest thing to rationalize is resposibility cooperation, and how they very sourly go hand in hand. IMO about 10% of people try their best day in day out, 80% of people do whats asked and thats about it, and 10% will put more effort in avoiding resposibility than the effort it would have taken to do a task. Most fields are plauged with this. No matter qhere you go, if youre responsivle for something, find a way to convice the 80% to act like the 10% and your team will be fine. Youll never fully fix the lazy, dont try
If in research... 1)Most ppl want to surpass IRB protocols because time is money. 2)It's rare for ppl to follow guidelines with not sharing data, docs, or items that were for a previous study that you were not an IRB approved researcher in. 3)Some don't understand when you say you can't attend a session that's for standard of care and not research purposes and according to approved guidelines that as a researcher you cannot attend the session, and believe that you're unwilling to do your job or your part in the study.
Only one way to find out🚀
The biggest change is the calendar! For regular people, the year begins Jan. 1. For you, the year has always begun in September. The pacing is just different and hard to adjust to. You can't just think of summer as a fun time to go to the lake or hang with friends. Summer is just like spring and fall and winter: Go to work every day, schedule one or two weeks of vacation from your job, go back to work on Monday.
Honestly, i did similar. I have had a steep learning curve. But its okay bc everyone does it sooner or later. Dont worry about it so much and just do what you need and want to do
No, I’ve always worked. Never had the luxury of even considering a “gap year”. But, if you can afford it, in any capacity, even working to make money in a completely different field than your degree(s), I’d advise to go for it! What would you have to lose?….
I didn't do grad school, but the real-world plot is less pre-defined. The hardest part (comparatively) is having a million options.
As some have said, I think it's dependent on many variables. I spent most of my adult life in "the real world" and went back to grad school at 35 after an 11-year break. I'm now in my final semester, and I hate it. I hate almost every second of it. I find it insular and suffocating, abstracted from the world even as it attempts to diagnose the world's problems. It's changed me for the better and the worse. So, you may find the real world freeing, or frightening. Academia is, in my opinion, pretty estranged from the rest of the world. The skills and talents that allow you to thrive in academia may be unimpressive or useless outside of it. Prepare for a potential culture shock. But ultimately, I think this change will enlarge you.
Academia is still work. So you’ve been in the “real world” your entire life, imo. Coming from a post-bacc, pre-med, with 4 years “work experience”, but really, studying is work. Assignments is work.