Top Ten Reasons to Work in Academiaby
Or at least the illusion of intellectual freedom. Unfortunately, you still have to answer to those %&*#! grant reviewers who seem to expect your work to be immediately applicable. Why is it so hard to understand the value of finally proving that no two snowflakes are identical?
I know, I know, pyramid schemes usually generate money, and you don't fall into that category, but the principle is the same. So what if you produce grad students instead? It still feels as though you're getting away with something.
You are a professor! In your great white lab coat, you inspire awe in those around you with your mere presence and your unassailable nature.
You've spent your life, from grade school to college to grad school to postdoc, inside the protective environment of ivy covered walls. Why choose, at this late date, to wander into the unknown harshness of the real world?
Sure, student stipends are small, but that's a good thing. Your students will be too busy with the new projects you gave them to fill in the down time between the other eight projects for which they already have to worry about spending money. Money is just a distraction from their real goal, and you want to do all you can to help them achieve all they can.
Those poor slobs in industry may get paid well, but look at what they have to put up with! Academicians are fortunate that they are above being influenced or affected by workplace politics. An academic would never let politics influence a peer review of a scientific paper or grant application review.
You've been hearing about it from your advisor, or doing it yourself for so long now, that you can't imagine how else to live. Money worth having is money worth groveling for.
The whole grad school experience was so rewarding for you that you glory in subjecting someone else to it. (What was that theory of the abused becoming the abuser?)
After all, they have been so supportive and parental to you, how can you break their hearts by going into an alternate career? Besides, they always seem so happy and contented that it must be a good, stress-free life.
Your job is your life and your life is your job.
Linnea Hager is a developmental geneticist at Pfizer Inc.
Ross T. Smart is an artist and world traveler living in Michigan with his supergenius wife Jackie. When they are not busy avoiding pickpockets while traveling, they can be found taunting waterfowl in Ann Arbor.
