<p>I have always wondered why a lot of PhD scientist stick to the post-doc route looking for the golden faculty position instead of searching for a position in industry. Is it because of the desire to teach? The problem is that both in Industry and academia you would be both conducting research so I really dont understand why a lot of scientists are picky. I know you dont get the amount of freedom in industry as you get in academia and you have to do what the company tells you. But in principle does industry pay more than the academia route? Just interested</p>
<p>Depends what the person’s priorities are. There are actually people out there who would take freedom of research over money.</p>
<p>I think the main issue is that it’s a one-way door. It’s relatively easy to go from academia to industry, and nearly impossible to go the other way. So most people can only make the transition once. What’s more, successful academics have historically been able to get a lot of industry pay into their pockets (although this may be getting harder now, with stricter conflict-of-interest rules), so that the financial advantage of working in industry is muted. And the longer you spend in academia – up to a point, at least – the more valuable you will be when you finally cross the street to industry.</p>
<p>So it often makes economic sense for young researchers to defer the moment when they cash in their chips and move to the private sector.</p>
<p>JHS is exactly right. And if you end up in an industry job that does not allow you to publish the results of your research (or if you don’t simply because you don’t have to), you risk falling into a black hole of anonymity. My husband successfully went from academia to industry and back to academia only because he 1. started out in academia and 2. never stopped publishing. Many of his industry colleagues tried to get into academia after a decade or more of commercial research and failed.</p>
<p>As for looking for the $$$, there are few things more financially valuable than the job security of tenure and few things more emotionally rewarding than the ability to pursue one’s own line of research.</p>
<p>In the sciences, industry will pay significantly better than an entry-level academic position. No university will offer $100k/year for a fresh Ph.D. However, if you’re a smart guy who is commercializing your research, academia is the place to be. Even Georgia Tech, which I consider to have a relatively unfavorable licensing agreement for intellectual property, gives 1/3 of the royalties/licensing money to the inventors. By contrast, Intel gives you a $1500 bonus (lol).</p>
<p>I think what it comes down to is that if you’re brilliant, academia is the place to be. If you’re an average Ph.D graduate, though, you benefit much more from an industry job.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I’m gunning for an industry job :P.</p>
<p>^ I dig. Money makes the world go round</p>
<p>Its just that I have met many postdocs who stick to their job no matter the low pay. They really must love research and I admire them. I was just checking out the alternatives (cough cough)</p>
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<p>Anyone else feel this is a bit of a shame? Many of the best professors I’ve had spent a good number of years in their early career in industry, and their teaching really benefited since they had real world examples of applying theory to practice. It just gave a better perspective on everything compared to professors that had spent their entire lives in an ivory tower.</p>
<p>^ you must be an engineer- I have noticed that industry experts are the best for teaching engineering, while research experts are good for the pure sciences</p>
<p>@RacinReaver
It depends on what they’re doing for the University. Being a professor is not just about teaching, it’s also about conducting state-of-the-art research that bolsters the school’s reputation, or at least for the sciences and engineering. Even if they’d make good teachers, that’s only half their job.
They could become lecturers or non-tenure track professors, but, in my opinion, those options don’t really lead to anything.</p>
<p>while it used to be true that the door from academia to industry was one way, this is no longer the case. Many junior and prominent researchers now travel between both worlds (at least in the biomedical sciences).</p>
<p>Why do a post-doc? Because good industry positions are as difficult if not more difficult to obtain than tenure track academia positions. In addition, while the up front pay is generally higher in industry, there is lower job security. Therefore, it is usually advised that you keep 1 year’s salary saved in the bank so that you have the time to search for new positions when your division is suddenly closed with 2 weeks or less notice!</p>
<p>Academia also includes more than just university positions. It is also considered to include non-profit research institutes with few to no students. Here teaching is definitely not the focus. Instead pure research is the focus. These positions are generally “soft” money positions in which the researcher must raise 100% of his salary from grants. At universities, often much of the faculty salary is provided by the university in return for teaching in classrooms and mentoring students in faculty labs.</p>
<p>To clarify one point made above, a productive post-doc is a pre-requisite to obtain a higher level industry position</p>
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<p>Really? I work in the hard sciences/engineering and that is unheard of. Even the good positions prefer fresh Ph.D’s. They probably do that in the biosciences simply because they can.</p>
<p>Two seperate issues: 1. academia vs industry, 2.post-docs.</p>
<p>Academia and industry each have seperate advantages and disadvantages. Academia offers tenure, freedom of research, and the possibility of greater profit (if there is any to be had) from your own research, but has lower base salaries, is harder to get into, requires 5-6 years before tenure, and often requires more of your time and effort even when you get it. Industry offers higher base salaries and perks and has lower standards, but also has lower job security, very little research freedom, a significantly reduced ability to profit from your own creations.</p>
<p>Post-docs vary a lot between fields - in some fields they are all but mandatory, in other fields they are scarce. A post-doc primarily serves as a resume boost for those who are interested in academia but are not competitive due to a lackluster doctoral experience. This may not be their fault - some advisors don’t really give their students a “faculty-prep” kind of program. During a post-doc you can crank out some publications, supervise some grad students, and possibly do more of “your” research (since your thesis is generally heavily steered by your advisor). </p>
<p>Oh, one last thing - teaching is almost never a priority for professors. I had a couple of them admit this during interviews, that they considered themselves researchers and that teaching was a necessary evil to be avoided as much as possble. At most schools, teaching ranks far below research when doling out tenure and promotions, and many programs allow professors to use grant money to pay for instructors to handle their teaching obligations. I have even heard of certain “best instructor” awards as being the kiss of death for career aspirations in academia - it is believed that anyone that good at teaching must be neglecting their research.</p>
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<p>I guess I should have mentioned the ones I worked with also tended to run more cohesive labs and treat their job as more like that of a manager with organized group meetings, trying to get students to network, and other things like that. They’ve also tended to be a lot more organized and punctual, actually getting things done when they’ve said they would. Heck, I know my advisor (academic 100% of his career) still thinks it’s relatively easy for new PhDs to find a tenure-track position right out of grad school, and we should all be able to do it without much help from him.</p>
<p>This entire thread is pretty scary to me. I’ve done work in the startup industry and I feel that after some time I would like to go back and get a doctorate in neuroscience to do research in emerging technologies surrounding HCI. However, if I’m reading this correctly, you are saying that unless I get back on the academia track NOW, the door may forever be closed to me?</p>
<p>I have a client who teaches at the University of Miami, in biotech, or something like that</p>
<p>He says they make no money</p>
<p>The answer is simple:</p>
<p>Look at how many new PhD graduates there are per year. Now look at how many professors are retiring per year. My point is *if *you can stay in academia after your post-doc, then it is clearly the way to go and you are one of the lucky few. Who wouldn’t want a steady job and laid back environment?</p>