Sayonara academia, I get a life.

"Goodbye academia, I get a life." This was the title of a blog post a friend forwarded to me last week. I could immediately relate to most of what the author wrote, and so I had a look at the comments, too (which I rarely ever bother to do). I was quite surprised by the overall quality of the comments. As it turns out, there are many, many people who are in a similar situation as I am now, and have similar doubts and feelings.

My favorite quote from this blog post sums it up very aptly:

"When I found that academia was not working for me, I got immediately depressed -my whole worldview was crumbling."

So I decided that it might be time to elaborate a little on what exactly my doubts and feelings are. I already hinted at some of this in my birthday post, but obviously, there's a lot more to say about the topic. Important note, however: this post mainly deals with what I have decided to leave behind... and not with where I might go in the future. As such, it is probably not the most constructive of posts. But it may well serve as a reminder to my future self, similar to the letter published in the QuidQuid QuidQuid blog.

So what are the reasons for leaving academia behind? Here's a list - in no particular order, and not necessarily complete:

• Competition for funding and positions
• Job insecurity
• Location insecurity
  
• Sabotage
• Plagiarism
  
• Playing it safe
• Unwavering determination and self-confidence required
  
• Publication bias
• Selective reporting
• Publish or perish
• Military applications
• Loss of meaning

Competition for funding and positions

 

This problem has been described in many articles I've read, for example the blog post at devicerandom, an article in the Economist, and a very recent article in Nature. An excellent graphical illustration can be found over at PhD Comics: the Profzi Scheme.

Basically, what the articles say is that a cheap army of PhD students and post-docs do most of the research work while working on one temporary contract after the other (if they're lucky). In the end, however, there are very few permanent positions available. A harsh competition ensues, in which of course only "the best" can hope to win (more on how you determine who "the best" is further down).

Job Insecurity

 

This competition leads to the situation that you can never be certain if you will still have a job when the current contract ends. Grants might not be renewed, or the job might be given to someone better. In addition, once you are out of a job, finding a new one may prove very difficult due to the competition, again.

Do I need to elaborate why this type of insecurity is bad? Maybe just one aspect: Try getting a loan while on a temporary contract! Buying property is thus virtually impossible for all those people in academia who have not obtained a permanent position - which is the vast majority!

Location insecurity

 

Job insecurity basically leads to people feeling pressured to accept any job offered to them. This job may be located in the middle of nowhere, at the other end of the world, or somewhere in between. The important point is: you have virtually no influence over it!

I believe this problem exists in virtually all academic fields. For mathematics, have a look at the Mostly Maths blog. For biophysics, see in singulo.

Sabotage

 

According to the blog entry at devicerandom and the comments there, sabotage seems to be frighteningly common in some research fields. Luckily, I haven't had to experience this so far. But you can easily see how people would be tempted to hamper their competition's progress if they have the chance.

Plagiarism

 

I've seen my fair share of plagiarism in the past years, mostly when reviewing potential publications for journals or conferences, but also in student papers or theses. In every single case, I couldn't help but feel personally insulted. As a reviewer, you put in a lot of effort to understand a paper and gauge if it's worth to be published. As a teacher, you put in an equal amount of work to read and grade the student's work. If, at some point in this process, you find out that it is plagiarism, you feel like somebody purposely decided to waste your time and insult your knowledge of the field by believing they can get away with plagiarism. In some cases, people even copied from my own papers - a double insult: first they steal from you and then try to sell it back as new.

I'm not sure if the problem of plagiarism is getting worse or not, but I'm very sure that it already is bad enough right now. And as an honest person, I'm pretty fed up with having to deal with impostors, thieves, or liars.

Playing it safe

 

This has been discussed in the article at devicerandom, and also corresponds to my own experience. Instead of taking the risk and pursuing a radically new or different idea, many researchers decide not to endanger their career and play it safe. The result? Tons of tiny, incremental improvements to their own previous work. And research projects that are designed to make tiny, incremental improvements.

Considering how funding works and how grant applications are accepted or rejected, however, this behavior is not surprising at all. How does funding work? Just consider the competition again. There are many (many) researchers in any given field. Money will of course be given to the applicant who can demonstrate the most experience or excellence in the field. And how do you demonstrate experience and excellence? Many publications, of course! Which brings us straight back to playing it safe.

Determination and self-confidence

 

Another of my favorite quotes from the devicerandom blog entry:

"this means working 24/7, basically leaving behind everything in your life, without any doubt on your skills and abilities and most importantly on your project, while fencing off a competition of equally tough, confident and skilled guys."

I believe this pretty much nails it down: this is what you face in academia. But who really has this determination, this unwavering confidence in their own abilities, this absolute conviction that their project is the best, most worthwhile and most promising project there is? I don't think I do.

Publication bias

 

Publication bias is a problem in the scientific publishing system, very nicely described in this article in the New Yorker. The problem is that publishers very much prefer to publish positive results. If some research yields negative or null results (saying that something could not be proven, or that a specific effect was not observed in the results), it is much less likely to be accepted for publication.

Needless to say that this is bad because it makes it very hard to publicly disprove previously published results that turn out to be false. The LiquidPub project may be an approach to alleviate this problem in the long term, but right now publication bias is unfortunately very much alive.

Selective reporting

 

Another fundamental problem: it has been shown that a researcher's beliefs and expectations significantly affect the outcome of the research. This is often done without malicious intent - just "subtle omissions and unconscious misperceptions" when recording data, according to the New Yorker.

But it can also be much more conscious: for example, some people omit specific data from plots because the data cannot be explained or do not show the desired effect. In my opinion though, this borders on forgery. A big problem in this context is that of replication: many research results in my field cannot be reproduced from the published information alone. Almost all authors omit crucial information regarding their models or experimental setups. Therefore, there is no way for the scientific community to find out about such manipulations because nobody can replicate the experiments.

Another issue that fits the heading of selective reporting is my feeling that people do not tell you everything in their publications. They write just enough so that their work looks good, but carefully hide all that would hint at the disadvantages of their work. And if you try to be honest and discuss all aspects of your work in a publication - surprise, surprise, publication bias at work again - you're not getting published!

Publish or perish

 

What "publish or perish" means is, either you publish lots and lots of papers, or you will perish in academia (i.e. not get a permanent position).
The root of this problem is again the amount of competition for permanent positions. Back in the day (not sure when this was... but for argument's sake, let's assume there was such a day), when there were at most a handful of applicants for any given position, the merit of each candidate, and the quality of their research, could be evaluated carefully and individually. Nowadays, with dozens of applications for any position, a quicker method for assessing research quality had to be found. Enter metrics such as the ominous "impact factor" or the "number of journal publications".
So, in effect, in order to successfully compete for a position in academia, you need to maximize your performance in terms of these metrics - and not in terms of research quality! More often than not, this means having lots of publications. And this, of course, leads to people publishing a new paper for every tiny increment they make in their work. And it provides another incentive to tweak research results so they will get published.

Military applications

 

Military applications are an ethical problem I have that actually concerns both of the research areas I have been working in. One of the fields has many applications besides the military ones (but is still strongly funded by the military). In the other field, however, I'm quite convinced that the civilian applications have been invented pretty much only to keep the pacifists quiet.

Of course, I am aware that military research has led to great civilian applications in the past (the Internet, anyone?). The question I ask myself, however, is whether I really want to take part in this? Do I want to contribute to people being killed as a result of my research? Or to make waging war more efficient? To provide another incentive for war as it becomes "less risky" for the soldiers involved?

The only answer I can come up with is a crystal clear "NO!" The answer becomes even clearer when I look at the number of pointless and unjustified wars that are being fought today. Call me a hopeless pacifist, but I believe that the only thing achieved in war is the suffering of civilian population. I will not support this!

Loss of meaning

 

This is probably the most important point of them all. I don't see meaning in my research anymore. It all seems so arbitrary to me - like you make a hammer to drive a very specific nail. Only that you made that nail yourself just a minute ago. And then you arbitrarily modify the nail. And adapt your hammer to the new nail. And continue like this for all eternity (or until funding runs out).

The purpose of all this? Surely, I see one purpose: getting papers published - in order to get ahead of your competition in the academic race to the top of the Profzi Scheme. But unfortunately, this is about the only purpose I see. And it is just not enough for me.

What I want instead is a more meaningful occupation. Where people or society can actually benefit from what I do. Where I might make a real impact instead of just publishing papers for the sake of having published papers.

Where to now?

 

I do not know where I will go from here. I do not have a plan. I think I need to rediscover what I enjoy doing. Maybe take a major break. Maybe volunteer. But most definitely: quit pressuring myself.

I am considering all kinds of options right now. I am considering being a writer, a photographer, or a teacher. I am considering working for an NGO, a company whose products I love, or starting my own business. I am considering moving to another continent.

The world is my playground. And I think I'll take my time to figure out what, and where, I'd like most to play. For nobody really benefits if we work without the passion we have when we play.

Some (more) links

Just one last thing I want to share: a few links to the blogs and articles that I have read prior to writing this. All of these have inspired this article in one way or another.
blog.devicerandom - "Goodbye academia, I get a life."
QuidQuid QuidQuid - "why I decided to leave grad school in Classics"
Economist - "The disposable academic"
Nature - "Give postdocs a career, not empty promises"
PhD Comics - The Profzi Scheme
Mostly Maths - "Future in Mathematics"
in singulo - "In Silico"
New Yorker - "The Truth Wears Off - Is there something wrong with the scientific method?"
Escape the Tower - entire blog about what's broken in academia
Matt Welsh - left Harvard professorship for job at Google
Worst Professor Ever - how to get a job after grad school
blog.devicerandom - "Goodbye academia: The aftermath."
Times Higher Education - things to consider before doing a postdoc
Leaving Academia - a blog with resources for people wanting to leave academia
Science 2.0 - this guy likes being in academia but gives a hint why people should quit and when