Slashdot Mirror
Moving from Corporate IT to Science?
EdinBear asks: "I've been working as a SysAdmin in an increasingly corporate internet services company, which has been hit hard by the fallout from the .com bust. When I started some years ago, I felt I was helping small and interesting companies get benefit from the burgeoning Internet through useful and attractive web services. However, since the Internet became 'normal', the focus has been purely commercial - and instead of helping an enterprise get exposure in an interesting way, it's all about money and finance. I now feel I want to move into Science to use my skills in a productive, 'big picture' kind of way, rather than just helping a client get more rich through financial services. I'm interested to hear if other people have found themselves in a similar position; is the transfer to Science/Research/Academia difficult? Is the grass greener on the other side? The money is less, but is the job satisfaction more?"
I spent four years in IT, burned out after a couple of dot-com blowups, and went back to school to get a degree in biology. Of course, I did a little consulting along the way, setting up networks and fixing PCs. Next month I'm starting a full-time lab research job. I have no regrets.
Might be tougher than you think.
One major pitfal to be wary of if you aim to return to Academia is the politics. The life of a new professor is not an easy one, and the climb toward respect is a long one.
Common sense is what tells you the world is flat.
SO basically you've been pedaling bullshit for a few years and now you want to be an authority.
I have BS degrees in computer science and physics, and have played both sides of the fence.
Slashdotters who find political situations in the work place difficult, will find much of the same in academia.
They are actually quite similar. Those 'greedy' clients chasing dollar bills will for the most part just be replaced with 'fame greedy' co-authors who want to make a name for themselves. In science it's all about your reputation, and it's managed in the much the same way porfolios are in the business world.
This isn't true of everyone of course, but in my opinion the grass is pretty brown on both sides of the fence.
As a molecular biologist (with a BS) who's worked in several academic and industrial labs, I say steer very clear of doing wetlab work - it is boring and repetitive, and most of the day you are not really using your mind.
Basically, I prep DNA, ligate DNA, do PCR reactions and transform bacteria. Run the gels, digest DNA, yadayadayada. It doesn't pay well, and is not galmorous. No scientist that I know really enjoys doing that crap. After decades of work, you might be lucky do direct your own group of minions to do this crap so you can analyze results and think of new experiments all day long (the fun parts).
Go into a field that mixes computers and science. Like say bioinformatics or molecular modeling. I'm fairly ignorant on these subjects, but they seem much more interesting to do on a day to day basis. So that's where I'm trying to head.
I trained in biology & moved to IT due to academic politics. I'm the IT director of a pissy law firm and I feel _lucky_ to have escaped the academic politics. And breaking test tubes just sucked, anyhow...
Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult. -Whitton
Politics in academia can be a nightmare. Also, if you think you are escaping the bean counter mentality, it depends on where you end up.
Was it Slashdot that linked a story a couple of days ago on some Canadian University inking a deal with Microsoft and in return all CS/EE majors would need a class in C# to graduate?
And the link between corporate money and University research is something else you need to be wary of. Heaven forbid your project funding is cut because it won't be "marketable".
Still, it can certainly be more rewarding at times.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
is that my oldest brother went from finishing his master in biology, and being offered to be PAID to do his PHd, to managing corporate networks..
any help?
You might also find a more comfortable fit doing building/maintaining infrastructure for a university or college. Gives you a chance to experiment, and worry about something other than financial services for a change. You get a chance to work with the students in most cases, and there is always something interesting going on. I thought about moving toward science, and instead ended up very happy doing the things I love working for a University. It's a wonderful change from the corporate grind.
Those willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security.
It's hard to become a professor. There are typically hundreds of applicants for every opening. Unless you're really hot stuff, it's not much of a career plan -- only a few notches above "win the lottery," actually. And it takes years to get the degree.
OTOH, There are plenty of places to sysadmin besides ISPs. You might find that supporting intelligent, educated researchers was more gratifying than supported clueless dialup lusers.
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
It has its ups and its downs.
On the one hand, most research scientists are not money-motivated people at their core - they are interested in ideas and in the development of knowledge. If you relate to those goals, which it sounds like you do, you will relate well to the academic community. The scientific operations I've worked in are also less hierarchical than most business, and you get a strong team spirit from those you work with - you're working together on the same quest, rather than battling each other for approval.
Academic organizations, despite being filled with free-thinking people, are incredibly staid - both in terms of being set in their ways, and in terms of not making the wrong kinds of waves. It makes straightforward negotiating about things rather difficult. This is a nuisance when it comes to doing things like introducing new software or migrating a server. A professor in my dept (I'm a grad student) still writes C and PostScript to make plots, and nobody can or will convince him otherwise. Furthermore, many scientists fancy themselves quite the computer expert by virtue of having written a model in FORTRAN or some such.
Overall it's not a bad place to work, but the pace of things is very different from the corporate world.
So sorry to inform you, we reviewed your qualifications, and you are not the right candidate. People who are in science are there because they love science. Nearly all knew at a young age that they were destined for science, and applied themselves accordingly throughout their lives and careers.
Those who want to jump into science because they lost their "job" in IT aren't the kind of people who belong in science.
Your ambition to contribute is great but realize that you will more than likely find yourself involved in a 'little picture' kind of way.
That's what I saw when I was getting my Ph.D. from a prestigious technical university (it's name begins with Georiga Tech).
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
I am a professional IT guy, and was an amateur astronomer. Tired of my federal government SA job I pined to do the same work at, say the Keck 'scope, down on the Big Island. I was told that astronomers hire young, starving astronomers to do whatever else needs do be done. What they wanted was an amateur SA, not an amateur astronomer.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
Follow your dreams; you can reach your goals!
I'm living proof. Beefcake. BEEFCAKE!
What I encountered were a lot of very egocentric political schemers who were far more interested in self promotion than in the advancement of science, or in what we might call 'saving the planet'.
None of the people to whom I was answerable had any knowledge of how to manage IT people and projects (I am not over-generalizing, really). Their demands were unrealistic. My hours were as insane as ever (with no over time). The pressure and deadlines were just as gruelling.
Also, as you mention, the pay sucks in the academy (although, the benefits can be very decent).
Now, I'm back in the private sector doing more interesting work with more interesting people for more money.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
--
Socrates was asked where he was from. He replied not "Athens," but "The world."
I make about half I would make as a programmer in the corporate world, but you know what? I CAN'T be fired. As long as I meet the requirements of my job, I CAN'T be fired, and I will never be downsized! The job security is the best feature of higher ed. Plus, it's a slower pace than the hectic, found out about it last week, programmed it this week, put it in production next week world of corporate (sometimes it seems like that here though). Oh yeah, I only work 40 hours a week, all major holidays, 24 days of vacation a year, etc. No after-hours crap I don't get paid for. So, I guess if you subtract all the overtime I would be working in corporate, my salary @ 40 hours IS the equivalent of a corporate salary!
Plus, I'm working on my Masters in the meantime. PhD here I come! Never get that outta corporate.
If your heart is in the "how, why and how to tweak, how to improve, etc.", the grass (but not the money) is definitely greener, and the satisfaction immensely more lush, on the Science side.
Now I'm back in Science, but still involved in Internet technology in less *corporate* ways. And the reason is not the money, but the satisfaction.
Just my 2 cents.
During the day, I code. At night, I take classes at MIT and Harvard... mostly evolutionary biology, but a few physics classes thrown in for good measure.
I don't plan on making either of those my career, but I do intend on trying to contribute something in the form of peer reviewed papers.
See, the money is in IT/coding... but the chance ot really make a difference is in science. So I make my money coding, and make a difference via science. (Well, hopefully...)
You will find many of the same pressures, personalities, and conflicts in the non-profit sector. Do not kid yourself for a moment that job satisfaction is instantly had by working for the right cause.
That said, why am I working for a non-profit? Well actually all of the tech companies I have ever worked for were running at a loss, so perhaps I should say 501c3 organization..
But I digress. I work at the Museum for one simple reason: I am a shark in the guppy tank. The Alpha geek. When something needs to be done, they ask me how to do it.
In 4 years I have redesigned the network, switched the datacenter to Linux, and introduced new concepts like Workorders, and Inventory Control. I can't think of a place in the world that would let me change so much in so little time.
Alright who am I kidding. I really took the job sysadmining at the Science Museum because they have 2 T1 lines, 3 class C subnets worth of IP addresses, a toplevel domain I can spell over the phone, and a window overlooking my apartment from whence I use 802.11 wireless to suck down bandwidth like a dwarf on a firehose!!!
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I think you're going to get a lot of people giving you the Kissinger line: "Academic politics are so vicious precisely because so little is at stake". I have a different take.
Last week I had lunch with a friend in the academic fold, to which I'm poised to return myself, and she complained with some rancour about the abundance of talentless hacks that cop credit and brown-nose their way to the top.
After four years with a VC startup (now being lowered into the earth) it all sounded quaint to me. I'd rather have talentless hacks stealing my work for a few years than watch the PHB lie his ass off to the board quarter after quarter without even a concept of shame, while the entire ill-conceived edifice crumbles around us all.
That is to say, go for it. Your reasons are exactly the ones I'd give, extrapolated a bit: I'd rather contribute in some infinitesimal way to the progress of science, however political or tedious the realities of research (who said "most of science is about as glamorous as ditch-digging", was it Asimov?), than help one more heinous moron pay off his SUV.
As for the money, I bet I'm not the only one here prepared for noble poverty, if such a thing still exists under the sun. Go, don't look back!
I'm not sure I really understand what you want to do. Let me explain.
Presently, you're a SysAdmin in a Web services company. And you want to change job, to get something less "commercial" and more "big picture", like Science/Research/Academia.
Are you aiming a SysAdmin job in that kind of environment (by opposition to where you are presently), or are you looking forward to do some science/research in a Academia environment? IE, is your target a teacher's or reasearcher's job, or a SysAdmin's job?
You're not asking about actual day to day job differences, just salary and job satisfaction, so I'm inclined to think that you want to remain a SysAdmin, but a confirmation from you could help us better answer your questions.
Of course that was yesterday's news in the dot-coma era. You may do well to call your local library or museum and see if they need a seasoned tech for cheap.
By the by, Educated Researchers are every bit as clueless as any other clientelle. A few gems out there think that a doctorate in physics qualifies them to tell you how lousy they think their computer is.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Speaking as an academic, I can say that I find the bulk of my work infinitely more satisfying than work I did previously in private industry. I am fortunate to work for a college which emphasizes teaching over research, as this is where I derive the greatest satisfaction.
Yes there are politics, and yes they pay is less, but I sleep well and as trite as this may sound, I feel I am making a positive contribution to the world.
Plus tenure and summers off! Woohoo!
Just yesterday on oprah they had a story about a whistleblower at a pharmacutical company.
.com boom love to remind me of how i'm out of work now. I love to remind them that I have to charge them now VS fixing their computers for free. It's funny to watch their faces turn white when I tell them $50@hour
Basically what was happening was Doctors were recieving kickbacks from the pharmacutical company for prescribing their pills. These kicksbacks ranged from vcr's and tv's all the way up to exotic trips to lavish resorts.
It didn't just stop at bribary either. The phamacutical company went as far as to show doctors how to overcharge medicare and keep the difference..
Unless you're digging ditches or pushing a lawn mower, most corporations are devoid of morals. Bottom line is to make investors happy, screw the employees and customers.
My best advice, do whatever the hell makes you happy and keeps your interest. Yeah times are hard now on all of us computer geeks. My friends that worked construction during the
I speak as a teacher who briefly dabbled in IT. I got Microsoft and Novell certifications, did consulting, was a Network Administrator. I am currently a teacher and tech resource for a math department.
The academic world can be a cold place, and there are a lot of people who come from business to fail miserably in the classroom. It looks harder than it is. The first time you want to talk about business experiences, people figure you are one of those jerks who is always talking about return on investment and telling other people how to do their jobs.
Be warned that it takes a long time to work up the ladder in an academic institution, and sometimes the politics are such that you will never make full professor or master teacher, etc.
Having said all this, I enjoy working with students, and while I still do some consulting to supplement my income, I won't go back to the server room full time.
YMMV
Do you want to be an IT person in a science setting or do you want to be a scientist. I have done both, scientist, programmer and system adminstrator, i.e. research vs IT work.
All have positives and negatives.
IT pay better, and has flexibility in job locations. But the content chages much more quickly that in science. In lets say 1980, one learned fortran, vax assembly, for programming languages. In 10 years, this is obsolete. In physics, one learned quantum mechanics, relativity and optics. Most of this hasn't changed drastically.
To be a scientific researcher, the Ph.D is mandatory and so are years of post-doc research. And the jobs are very specialized.
WhatMeWorry!
I worked for a ground water research institute at a university for 3 years after getting my MS. I was involved in ground water modeling, some system administration work, some project management, and various other things. I left that job about 4.5 years ago for a job at a large corporation and do not regret it at all. I work fewer hours and enjoy my new job a lot more than the one I had at the University.
;)
Academia, in many ways, it not a lot different than the corporate world.... if you work at a state univeristy you are always having to deal with funding issues and your raises and promotions are always at the whim of the legislature or the board of regents... when things get tight, higher education is almost always (unfortunately) one the things that gets cut. I doubt if things at private universities are much better. If you want to do research, you've got to get funding. Writing research proposals to get money from corporate sponsors and government agencies or private foundations can be extremely frustrating. I've seen it take years for people to get proposals funded and then years to get their results published in journals. The academic world is just as cut-throat as the corporate world.
That said...The work you do can be rewarding but in my experience it's no more or less rewarding than the work I do now. For me, a rewarding job/career is one that allows me to continue to learn new things and improve my skills. Though I had that opportunity at my univeristy job, I've found I've grown a lot more within my current environment.
Many people have very rewarding careers in academia, but you'll find that many of the people you will have to deal with will be just as unpleasant as the ones you deal with in the corporate world. You just have to find something that makes you happy and helps you to achieve your personal goals. For me, that's been a career in the corporate world- not academia.
(please forgive the typos... i am tired
Why not try sys admining at one of those interesting little companies? They're not all out of business.
Our little company got started just as the dot-com boom busted, ergo no debt. Our sys admin is a key person, no doubt about it. Doubt he would have thought of coming here under different circumstances, but we're glad he did.
I too have been at a dot com for about two years now, and it seems that every day a new "revenue stream" is thought up. As the head sys admin working with a skeleton IT team the responsibility is much greater while job satisfaction has tanked. Not that I cringe at a hard days work, but more and more of what I do is in support of the latest crazy scheme to generate another dollar. Lately I have been yearning of the pre dot com days I spent at an ivy league university where my pay was half what it is now, but the cutting edge technology and technical challenges were teeming. Now, what's it all for? Making my 30 something CE0 rich is not the mark I want to leave on society.
> I think you're going to get a lot of people giving you the Kissinger line: "Academic politics are so vicious precisely because so little is at stake"
I think Kissinger might have actually been right about, say, being an English professor and having to defend your Marxist interpretation of some obscure Middle English poem against a rival's Feminist interpretation, but in the natural sciences it seems to be possible to actually do some constructive work.
That's not to say there aren't disputes, office politics, turf battles, administrators on their own agendas, etc., but at least Kissinger's accusation of intrinsic pettiness in the subject matter seems to be off base.
EdinBear may want to visit a library and browse the journals of his chosen field to see what kind of stuff is being published. That should give some idea of how politicized/trivialized/etc the basic subject matter of the field is. The office politics is probably an invariant, whether in academia, industry, politics, or any other field where people are brought together into an organization.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Thisisnotintendedtobeatrollorflame,butisingeneral, thesadtruthaboutScience.Youdidn'tlistyourcurrentcr edentialsoryourcareerplans,soIwillputthisinplainea sy-to-readEnglish.Iwilltellyouexactlythesameadvice myundergraduatechemistryadvisortoldme.DONOTEVENTHI NKofgettingaPh.D.inScienceunlessyouaregraduatingfr omatop-notchgraduateprogram.TheworldisfullofPh.D's workingatMcDonald'sflippingburgersandstockingshelv esatWalmart.ThesadfactistherearenotenoughPh.D.jobs togoaroundforeveryPh.D.ThePh.D.isaterminaldegree,t hereisnodegreehigherthanthat.EvenanM.D.isloweronth eeducationscalethanaPh.D.IfyougetaPh.D.,youwillbei nthesamearenaasyourpeersgraduatingfromIvyLeaguesch ools,andjudgedaccordingly;thesamework/researchperf ormancewillbeexpectedofyou.Andbelieveme,youwillnot beabletodothatkindofworkbecausetheprogramyougradua tedfromdidn'ttrainyouandputyouthroughtherigorsnece ssaryforthatkindofwork.Ofcourse,weallknowthattheIv yLeagueschoolsselectthebeststudentsourgenepoolhast ooffer.Thereputationoftheschoolyougraduatefromwill likelycarryyoufurtherthanthedegreealone,assumingyo ubrown-noseyouradvisororhelphimorherwinthenobelpri ze.MyundergraduateadvisoralsowarnedmethatifthePh.D .isallthatyouareconcernedaboutgetting(fromanyavera ge-JoePh.D.program),bepreparedtospendtherestofyour lifeinpovertypostdocingaroundthecountrymaking$20k/ year.Youwillnothavemedicalbenefits,youwillnothaver etirementbenefits,youwillnothaveannualbonuses,YOUW ILLNOTLIVETHEAMERICANDREAM.Bythetimeyoufinallygeta roundtopayingoffyourstudentloans,andyouwillacquire studentloandebtingraduateschool,youwillbeverynearr etirement,stilldrivinganoldclunker,andneverowningy ourownhome.Unlessyou'realreadymarried,Icanthinkofn obetterwayofbeingchickREPELLANT.
I used to work as an aquatic biologist. Since I only have an M.S. it's possible that my experience is substancially different than those with PhD's. But I've been much happier as a geek.
Funding for primary research has pretty well dried up, and directed research systems tend to be very intense, short-sighted, and goal oriented -- not a good environment for good science. The primary research positions are underfunded, and staffed by the "old dogs" with twenty years of publications under their belt -- you won't get a shot there easily.
The scarcity of funding has led to other undersirable characterists: disposable labor and fraudulent research. Basically, many programs are hiring staff as they need 'em, working them like dogs, then letting them go when they quit working 70 hour weeks. There have also been many disturbing rumors of falsified research, and of course almost nobody is wasting time reproducing other's work.
In addition, unlike the science of the last few decades, information is no longer freely distributed among researchers -- the push is to make money by patenting every little discovery. In short, the ivory tower has crumbled, and what's left is a dirty little sweatshop pursuing the almighty dollar with the same intensity as the most callous prostitute. I've been in IT for a number of years now, but work extensively with large numbers of scientists and engineers. They envy me, and I daresay rightly so, which is unfortunate -- science was my first love.
Having only worked for a short period in the commercial side of IT (ISP that covered good portion of the state), and having worked for about 5 years in the academic IT field, my views are somewhat skewed. None-the-less, there is a reason that I've worked in the academic side. I've find that it's more relaxed, less heirarchy or bowing to bosses. This is not to say that there's not politics to deal with (all too much) or that there aren't ego's to stroke and massage (plenty abound), but the IT here side is much less stressful then the IT side in business or commercial. Budgets tend to be small, yes, but you also have the chance to put newer technology in place sooner than a business might. Who knows if this addresses your question completely, but it's an attempt.
I'm of a mind to give them a piece of my mind, but I seem to have lost my mind.
As the saying goes ``Academia has the worst politics, because the stakes are so low''. Sadly, all too true. And the pay sucks. You may find you like better the kind of work you get to do, though. Still, don't hope for too much: many scientists are so clueless about computers that you may find yourself replacing one kind of pointy-hairs for another, and for less $$$. Anyway, best of luck.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
I think you're going to get a lot of people giving you the Kissinger line: "Academic politics are so vicious precisely because so little is at stake". I have a different take.
I would highly recommend that you read The Lecturer's Tale by James Hynes for an entertaining, if dark, look at this academic politics thing taken to the nth degree. Mind you, I'm not saying that it's an accurate representation -- it is fiction. My experience with academia has been, largely, gratifying.
Tastes like burning! - Ralph Wiggum
You have to have a Ph.D. to get a Computer Science job in Academia.
If you just maintain a cyberspace for the University, then you are just doing it for money, once again.
Don't fool yourself.
Hmm, any chance you're in New Jersey?
I got my training in science and worked for a number of years supporting applications on industrial computers. What a joy it was to sit in a room full of industry specialist and PHD scientist solving problems intelligently. I must of learned something interesting every day. I was involved and challenged and being productive with productive people.
.com revolution and learned fast how much it sucked to work under people who had absolutely no knowledge of the industry they thought they were working in. The company taught me to love Dilbert and start the day with a Guinness. I kept a pint glass next to my workstation like some demented coffee cup waiting for some unlucky suit to make a deal of it. It never happened, Somebody must of told them "don't put your fingers near the programmers or you could loose them".
I left to join the
Now I work mostly with advertising agency types and I have learned to take every thing with a grain of salt. While sitting in on a "high level" meeting watching adults act like children arguing over slight changes to stupid advertisements I sit back and relax and keep this thought in my mind "Its only ink on paper. Thank God they are not building bridges"
The really sorry part is that each of these morons is making more money then their counterparts in science. (Same is true for trained seals, I mean pro sports players.) Prepare to take a cut in salary if you want to do anything really important. Irony?
Cheers,
-Saying Windows has security problems is like running into a burning theater and yelling fire.
Are you sick of doing the bidding of idiot PHBs, slaving away for nothing? I'm convinced that the answer is not, "More school." You'll just wind up in a different hamster cage or a non-corporate PHB structure, i.e. a university. The answer: Let's all move to Oregon and build a Yurt village! If you think I'm kidding, think again:
* Yurts are incredible! I've actually visited Pacific Yurts in Oregon. Too many benefits to list. Check out http://www.yurts.com/
* We can build our own wireless freaknet with cheap 802.11 gear, and bring the Internet (WAN) connection down from the skies. Hell, we may be able to get a cable modem connection.
* Organic gardening.
* Totally off grid: Solar, wind, hydro.
* Chicken tractors. Again, if you think I'm kidding, type "chicken tractor" into google.
* No mortgage!
* No PHBs for miles and miles!
* Once your show is set up, what will the costs be? Once you cut out the mortgage/rent and other allegedly essential BS, it's not that expensive to live.
Getting off the hamster wheel is NOT easy. We need bold action. This isn't thinking outside the box, it's saying, "I'm not playing this game anymore."
Now, clearly, this isn't for everyone, but I suspect that there are a bunch of potential off-grid yurt freaks lingering in the slashdot crowd. Hey, let's fire it up. Let me know!
-Kevin
I've been trying. I've got more than 30 years computing, IT, financial math, business, tax strategies, income recognition, statistics, data analysis, data management, all that stuff that deals with dollars by the billions analytically, etc. I made good money doing that, but guys who put the truth ahead of the company kind of top out their income potential early and wind up face-to-face with too many people who make me real nervous, face-to-face. I worked as a consultant for a while, but now the companies all want a company man whom they own or a big-name firm that will wallpaper over their flaws. Not for me any more. I'd like to do science, ie do some kind of useful work in medical or health care or education, or whatever. I'm willing to work for what someone with a degree and minimal experience might take, but I can't get anything. No medical system experience -- no jobs in healtcare field. No computer graphics and animation -- no educational software work. No advanced degree -- no research positions. Award winning software developer can't get a job teaching software development at the community college without the right pieces of paper. I guess everyone thinks I'll go back to honey-fugling when the economy turns again. I'd rather be a decent human being doing something I can be proud of with integrity, but that's looking to be an unattainable option for me anymore.
The past 2.5 years have been bliss as I've been able to develop really great working relationships with several research groups and have even participated in their research from a computing perspective. My boss let's me develop my own projects. A university's organization is a lot more flat, with greater flexibility in picking/choosing/developing the work you'll do. Industry just doesn't have the luxury of time that a university does. You can take months really doing a project right without having some PHB breathing down your neck wondering why your deadline is slipping. Besides, an academic setting is totally tailored to the development of new ideas and research...
Seriously, I've been a scientist (biologist/biochemist/cell biologist) for some time. I've also been programming for about 20 years both professionally and not. I've never tried the corporate thing, but was pretty close a couple years ago. Now I'm doing my own take on bioinformatics and loving it. I can tell you that its not for everybody. The relevant metric really is productivity. Publishing papers, generally having some sort of measurable impact on science. Other than that, you can do anything you want, and are in fact required to do so. For many people that prospect is daunting even if they are talented engineers and computer scientists. Even in people I hire for my projects who are ostensibly developers, I look for people who can work independently. I expect to help them with direction, design, architechture, even nasty bugs, but really they are expected to be fully motivated from within and figure out not only how to do something, but what to do in the first place. Usually these people are absolutely miserable in the corporate world, but not always so.
The other thing you have to be is very flexible. One day you're happily spewing Perl, the next you're stringing cable or attacking the server with a screw driver. Science labs are generally poorly staffed with IT specialists (systems, networks, databases, etc), so expect to perform some or all of these things for your various 'lab duties'. The great thing is that open source is de rigour, so this is one of the best ways to get paid for writing open source software.
There is a pay trade-off, but its no where near what it was 2-3 years ago. Most academic IT positions pay competitive salaries with industry norms these days. You don't get stock options, but if you come up with something you think you can sell, there are well-trod paths to form companies to do that. Unlike in a company, you actually get to own a piece of what you make, and generally there are resources you can tap to help you along. Universities generally encourage this sort of thing. The other things that make up for the pay trade-off non-financially are a great work environment, interesting people, and most importantly interesting work that actually matters.
If you're one of these people, science is definitely for you, and what's more can really use you. Especially biology-related computing fields these days.
If your interested in getting into a university setting, contact bclem@rice.edu
I'm looking for expert linux people. I need people who have at least 5 years professional experience with Linux(no home linux networks, please). If you have clustering experience that would be great extremely helpful in landing the job.
Brent Clements
I started out working in government R&D labs ('84 - '94.) After that I worked for a Fortune 500 Company. I far prefer working with the scientists at the lab.
Scientists are a totally different breed than commercial managers, in general. Scientists are usally interested in something particular -- either they want to understand something about nature, or they want to build something cool (like the robots we built.) Commercial managers seem to be interested in their personal success, in terms of power and money. They have no substantial core principles or beliefs, so there is really nothing to work with. Commercial managers tend to have a hidden agenda; they are inconsistent and very difficult to read. Once you understand the passion of a scientist or academic, you can address it directly -- to mutual advantage. The environment is much more authentically collaborative.
Scientists and Academics understand the value of general skill. Commercial managers assess suitability by listing exactly what items are to be used by a project, and requiring those, e.g. transaction management using Oracle backend, J2EE middleware under Solaris, J2SE client within IE 6.0. How many years experience do you have doing exactly that? The scientists ask what languages you have worked with, what big systems you have put together, and assess your overall skill as an architect.
Not much knowledge is needed to make c programs that will dump postscript... Your inference is amatuerish. ANy highschooler can make a basic program print this out:
%!PS
10 10 moveto
(SUck my nutz lozer) show
showpage
This is how it should have read...Sorry for the formatting problems of the original post (Mozilla's "pref.js" file had a corruption problem)...
This is not intended to be a troll or flame, but is in general, the sad truth about Science. You didn't list your current credentials or your career plans, so I will put this in plain easy-to-read English. I will tell you exactly the same advice my undergraduate chemistry advisor told me. DO NOT EVEN THINK of getting a Ph.D. in Science unless you are graduating from a top-notch graduate program. The world is full of Ph.D's working at McDonald's flipping burgers and stocking shelves at Walmart. The sad fact is there are not enough Ph.D. jobs to go around for every Ph.D. The Ph.D. is a terminal degree, there is no degree higher than that. Even an M.D. is lower on the education scale than a Ph.D. If you get a Ph.D., you will be in the same arena as your peers graduating from Ivy League schools, and judged accordingly; the same work/research performance will be expected of you. And believe me, you will not be able to do that kind of work because the program you graduated from didn't train you and put you through the rigors necessary for that kind of work. Of course, we all know that the Ivy League schools select the best students our gene pool has to offer. The reputation of the school you graduate from will likely carry you further than the degree alone, assuming you brown-nose your advisor or help him or her win the nobel prize. My undergraduate advisor also warned me that if the Ph.D. is all that you are concerned about getting (from any average-Joe Ph.D. program), be prepared to spend the rest of your life in poverty post docing around the country making $20k/year. You will not have medical benefits, you will not have retirement benefits, you will not have annual bonuses, YOU WILL NOT LIVE THE AMERICAN DREAM. By the time you finally get around to paying off your student loans, and you will acquire student loan debt in graduate school, you will be very near retirement, still driving an old clunker, and never owning your own home. Unless you're already married, I can think of no better way of being chick REPELLANT.
makes you happy... Seriously! If you're into the save the universe with my God-given skills type, then by all means go into acad/science... Maybe even consider charity work eg. helping children with IT-assisted learning, etc.
As for me, I'll go for money anytime... My family's gotta eat...
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
I'm a software engineer working in science again after 10 years working for commercial network companies. I did work a long time at single companies, the companies did succeed in various degrees (well, the last folded early when the board realized there was no more IPO market). Still, although I am proud of the code I wrote in the private sector and it's still in use and widely deployed, many of the incidental things I did in science still had more romantic appeal. In science I watched Voyager approach neptune by daily grabbing Voyager images from JPL via DecNET, I was listed as coauthor on scientific papers, etc. But I think the main thing I like is the "big picture" aspect. There is a long term set of goals toward which progress will be made. The problems are unique.
Pay wise I'm making half of what I made previously (I've been here about a year), but more than when I was unemployed (little joke/joke there). It's not a happy happy world, there are some politics and aggravations because it's still just life. BUT: the goal is cooler, the value of long term thinking is stronger, and the resources are fantastic. Internet2 anyone?
Go to science if you can!
-pyrrho
This is the stupidest thing I've ever read. I drives me to the point of suicide just thinking abuot it. Everything in this country that gets popular is gets corperate. What planet have you been living on?
It's the internet, it's big, it's business, it's not science anymore. It hasn't been science since AOL showed up. Get the hell with it.
I think it is a worthy pursuit for a developer or sysadmin. Interestingly, at least as far as the bioinformatics side of things goes, folks like Tim O'Reilly agree with me. This from the June 2002 issue of Linux Magazine, page 24: "People don't want to do the same old same old...and bioinformatics is a field where people can really prove their chops...This is about status. What better way to get status than to show off that you're a real hard ass." As for myself, I am a biology undergraduate about to complete my degree, working as a Perl programmer and database analyst for a salmon genome project and while the biological background can only be an asset, the transition to the Gateway of computational biological sciences can be easy...DNA and protein can be reduced [at least for simple applications] to finite alphabets forming strings. Sequences can be defined as objects with methods for mutating them, aligning them with other sequence objects, and so forth. The more science you learn, the more your programs make sense to you, and the better you can interface with the people asking for applications that you have the computer savvy to provide. I say go for it. You will have to do some hardcore science reading and self-education sooner or later but that comes in time. Best regards.
I'm currently working at a lab that does just that. They process and store DNA samples. Right now i'm designing the programs to make the robotics grab various samples from different plates and transfer them to other plates in order to give/sell to other researchers.
And yeah, the robotics cost a lot of money. CRS makes the arm we use and Teacan makes the liquidhandler.
By now, you've read numerous people say that the grass is--as usual--not nearly as green in the scientific world. I am currently nearing the end of a research contract that was supposed to result in a PhD, but instead, I am more than likely going to be walking away with some valuable lessons and not much else.
In science, if you want to enter a research position, you better be damn certain that it is something that you love. You will be expected to put in long hours and really dedicate yourself to your subject. Research is not something that is to be entered into lightly.
This is closely tied with the fact that academia is rife with intense competition, back-stabbing and loads of other fun politics. In business, the bottom line is all that matters. In science, publishing your research is paramount, and you'll do what you have to to do that. And don't forget, at any one time, there are many other groups that are working on the exact same thing as you, so it's a race to see who can submit to the most prestigious journal first.
One thing they never tell you in school is how repetitive research is. I work in molecular biology, and I can honestly say that the mental process is a very small part of my day. Research is basically coming up with an idea, then repeating your experiments over and over again until you get the one result that supports your hypothesis. I have literally spent months getting a result that will take about 30 seconds to present to someone.
As far as long term employment is concerned, well, there isn't any. Unless you get tenure at a university--which isn't all that easy--you'll be living from grant to grant. If you advance to a lab head position, you'll spend most of your first couple years writing to people to get funding to do what you want to do.
I could go on for days, but I don't want to wallow in my bitterness too much. Suffice it to say, academia is rife with problems of its own. Enter with caution.
If the govt made all income tax exempt for Academics, then HELL YEAH!! bring it on!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Go into a field that mixes computers and science. Like say bioinformatics or molecular modeling. I'm fairly ignorant on these subjects, but they seem much more interesting to do on a day to day basis. So that's where I'm trying to head.
A year ago I left the programming and management world to go back to get my Master's. The university I'm attending just started offering an option in computational biology. Once I started the computational biology option, it's been tremendously exciting. I've been approached by biologists who want me to roll my thesis work into their efforts--data mining biology-related data, etc. I've also been told by the department that biotechnology companies are just throwing grant money towards bioinformatics like crazy. If I decide to get my Ph.D., I'm assured it will be paid for.
And the best part of all? Check out BioPerl and bioinformatics.org. Open Source is quite popular in this field. It's incredibly refreshing to be hacking away at problems that don't involve the same old corporate data warehouse.
Yeah!! how did you know!
I'm at GFDL, smoking crack, and writing thread-safe parallel magnetohydrodynamics solvers to model solar processes( on win2k of course, linux is for fags ).
People have brought-up the issue of personal politics, but your general political views are also important. I work at a university with my wife who is a member of the faculty.
People don't get hired if they don't have the right political views. I'm not kidding.
Now, if you are politically very left, thats okay. You shouldn't have a problem. But if you are not, don't let your true feelings come out. Don't lie, but don't give them anything that they'll use against you.
A popular technique I've seen is the casual lunch. "Oh, lets have lunch while you're here for the interview." Say something verboten like "I think vouchers are a good idea" (real-example) and you are out of there.
Like I said, if you can agree with their political positions, or can shut-up about your own, then okay.
Just warning you.
I don't know, I've done the corporate thing for a few years now, and the talentless ass-kissing hacks can be found there, too. Of course, these are bigger companies - in lean and mean companies I imagine that doesn't fly.
The market isn't doing THAT bad
It's like math. Getting a degree in math might help you to solve some problems, but you need knowledge of the problems you are trying to solve. If you learn only math, it won't be much use to anyone else (except as a math teacher). I think as time goes on we will find computer science is more of a tool to help solve problems rather than a solution in itself.
I have a degree in computer science. Right now I am working for a biochemistry research facility at WAZZU. Not knowing anything about biochemistry hinders my potential somewhat. Likewise, my supervisor not knowing anything about computer science hinders things as well.
Having said that I would like to point out that my experience working in non-profit is far more enjoyable than the corporate world. If you enjoy learning, as I do, I would recommend finding something in research. That's probably what your degree is for anyway.
A big plus is that I get to take classes for free. In two weeks I will be taking my first biochemistry class.
Programs like this previous Slashdot article From Gang Bangers to Web Developers? are what I am talking about. I know web dev jobs and IT in general is crap right now, but just finding a way to help decrease the "digital divide" for kids and adults in groups that have little to no access to technology would be rewarding.
If you found a partner with experience in running non-profit organizations I am sure you could get a boatload of grants and equipment donations to get things going.
Sometimes we focus so much on the cool new technology initiatives out there that we forget to look in the rear view mirror at the people watching us drive away glassy eyed and confused.
On the day I was made redundant from my (pretty good) commercial sysadmin job I saw an ad for a webmaster at a large astronomy research organisation. It took a lot of work to get this job, but I wouldn't want it any other way.
Although it means a 4 hour daily commute, I feel invigorated by an environment where most of my colleagues have a passion for learning and science rather than lining their pockets. Great conversations and interesting lectures to listen to. I may only be looking after the website, but I feel that at least I am helping people who are expanding humanity's knowledge. (And our research helped build your wireless networking cards).
Contrast this with a commercial job with a software development company which was also a 4 hours commute. At the end of each day I was dead tired from the travelling and stupidity of their marketing driving "strategies". Weekends were a write off I was that zonked. I felt like I was wasting 60 hours a week of my life in exchange for this intrisically worthless thing called money, which I was too tired to use.
I'm glad I had the opportunity to return to science. I hope I can stay here for a long time yet.
What is the inverse of the Matrix?
I to am a SysAdmin. My mind has been wandering though. I have often considered moving towards science. The pay is not my major concern more the need to be creative once again. Has anyone crossed from Computer Geek to Computer Artist and found it more fulfilling? I would like to enter a computer animation, photoshop, something-more-creative-field? Anyone have any insight into this?
http://www.kubuntu.org/
"helping a client get more rich..."
Yes, you are definitely a scientist.
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
If you wish to continue being a sysadmin, the academic world will be a touch more free-wheeling but with more bullshit politics (YMMV of course) and less money. That said, even at our relatively impoverished NY state institution, the fresh hardware rolls in on a daily basis. You may get paid shite but you'll have neat toys. Oh and BTW, we, the end users, still think you're a malicious asshole who thinks a MAC address means the location of a particular piece of Apple branded hardware.
If you want to move into bioinformatics (which is what all the cool kids are doing these days) you will need at least an advanced CS degree, preferably with an advanced biology degree (MS is usually fine) to go along with it. A friend of mine got hired on with a 6 figure salary at IBM-Watson to join their bioinformatics group with a tenuous grasp of FreeBSD as his only non Visual Basic programming experience simply because he had (most of) a PhD in Molecular/Cellular Biology. As you're no doubt aware, CS folk are unfortunately a dime a dozen these days. CS/Bio folk however are a rarer breed and are compensated as such. You may find it in your best interest to get an advanced Bio/Chem/Physics degree if this is the way you want to go.
All that said however, if I ever have to get a job outside of academia I think I'll kill myself. Welcome to the party. We have margaritas on the 7th floor every Friday afternoon. Come by if you get the chance.
E
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
"I have a BS in this..." "I have a BA in that..."
Admit it, IT is a dead industry and your degree is worthless (except for use as ass wipe).
Nope. He's not talking about English lit. CS and Bio professors spend just as much time on bittter politics ranging from whose office is bigger to how to make sure you never disagree with anyone who can keep you from getting tenure.
If you really think politics doesn't matter when you're trying to do something important, get an MD/PHD and try to get funding to compare whether generic drugs are just as effective as the newest, most expensive drug your department chair helped develop.
This isn't bitterness, it's life -- everyone gets political when they're worried you'll make them look bad.
I've been working in various university labs in the last couple years (as an undergrad and now starting my Master's), and competent sysadmins are prized people there. Especially when you don't have any sysadmin at all (let alone a competent one). I've seen this especially in biology-related lab.
Successful profs will have pretty large amounts of money under their disposal, and a part of that goes on computers. But profs don't necessarily know anything about computers, and networks there have a tendency to grow by evolving rather than being organized.
Unfortunately, lots of them don't realize the value of a good sysadmin. They're afraid of spending the money there and don't realize how much of a difference it can make.
Of course, if you have an interest in biology and are not bad at programming/algorithms, a job with a bio-informatics component can be a blast (I'm biassed there, that's what I'm going into).
Even an ability to analyze the packages that exist out there and helping them decide what is relevant/useful for them. Then you can look at the algorithms used and see the pros/cons in each.
Of course, the pay is probably not that high there, and other people have posted a bit more about the work environment and such, but if you want to make a difference, that's one pretty good place.
And if you want to try science and stay in the corporate world, there are a bunch of scientific companies out there too, like pharmaceutical companies, that have big IT staffs there.
Yep, after the third employer in a row either laid off of huge amounts of staff or went tits-up, I decided to go back to school for chemistry. (I was a network engineer previously)
I only had a year of college credits under my belt before, so I still have a ways to go before I finish my degree. I'm living off of loans and an 8.50/hr work study job in the chem lab. It's a far cry from the 70k salary I'm used to, but I don't live every day wondering if I'll have a job the next day and I don't have to carry a fucking pager/cell phone anymore. And I'm loving what I'm doing.
By the time I finish school now, I'll be able to get a job doing anything from pharmaceutical research to law enforcement. (minoring in Criminal Justice)
So, basically, if you can stand being poor again for a while, enjoy being free for a couple years while you get a degree in one of the sciences, and then enjoy your intellectual pursuits. It beats being on-call.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
I left Academia - trippled my salary in 3 years, in 7 I have enough to retire, but keep going to see how far the rabbit hole goes.
The good: ton of money for 1/3 of the brain effort. The formula goes like this: if J is what you do, then the amount you get paid, S, is calculated as S=1/J.
The bad: The morons, I taught Calc to, are still around, figuratively speaking, and still don't get it.
You got laid off too, huh?
-72
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
'Stay in computing. I rue the day I left IT. Sure, chemistry is interesting, but money's what feathers the nest.'
He had got himself quite a decent salary by academic standards, but it was still two fifths of mine, a developer with less than three years full time experience. So me? My plan is, head towards academia, but only part time, feather that nest, because there are some real soft feathers around. After another degree then decide what is important.
Expect to deal with alot of academic politics
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Noble poverty is fine when you start from the beginning...when you have a LONG time career under your belt, with wife, kids and mortgage, and a retirement plan that is now empty, it's hard to tell your kids they can't go to the same school anymore because daddy can't afford the neighborhood anymore.
When you see everything you've worked for, everything you've saved up become depleted, it's ok if it's only YOU.When you are responsible for 3 people, the stress can be unreal. I can't get an acedemic job because I dont have a masters...I can't get a corporate job because the Nation of Pakistan has taken all the jobs....oops..gotta go..I have my nightly cab route to do....
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Theres politics in every field, the corperate world has just as many politics.
Learn to either avoid opening yourself up to attack, or to attack other people who become threats.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I've spent 12+ years working as a full-time staff programmer/sys admin in academia (on both coasts and across the country) and nearly as long in the private sector (including some pretty large corporations) and now I am happily working for a not-for-profit organization. In that time I've seen the gamut of working conditions at both types of environments - some pretty sorry (the overblown egos and incompetent diehards exist in both places). I'm sure the original poster knows that the real answer as to which is a better environment to work in now - academia or the private sector - is "it depends". It depends on what you are willing to tolerate along with the local working conditions for a particular position. My general impression of academia is that it tends to be a lot more low-key and you often get a lot of leeway for managing your own time/work - it is also neat that you often can see that your work is appreciated and/or you are contributing to useful research (not always the case, but ideally). The trade-off is that salaries are much lower in academia (often substantially so) and not very reliable if you are being paid out of "soft" (research) money. And don't expect more than 2-4% annual salary increases and certainly forget about "bonuses". Also good luck trying to find any type of desirable academia computer job - there never are all that many openings and most such positions go to former (or current) students - hence the low pay (it helps if you have some contacts in academia both as sources of reliable insider information and as references). It has been my experience that business executive/manager types do tend to look down upon academic work experience as not being as relevant/valuable to the private sector corporate world. To some degree that is probably true as my impression of most corporate IT work is that it focuses upon task-oriented and regimented processes, you are often more of a cog that a true contributer. Some people seemed to like that or are willing to put up with such work for the money ...
http://www.binghamtonreview.com/archives/wtd.html
I went from writing home productivity software to writing embedded control software and analysis tools for a company bringing to market a new design of mass spectrometer.
:-)
There's all the usual teething pains of any startup, but it's the most use I've gotten from my degree in Physics *ever*. And it's a lot of fun watching people when you tell them not to touch the circuitry because the high voltage could make the joints in their arms explode.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Note: for most academic positions in the sciences, you will be expected to go through at least one postdoctoral appointment (i.e. like grad school, but more pressure to create your own results in a very short time, somewhat better pay) before you are considered for tenure-track positions in academia.
Especially in the biological sciences, postdocs have become cheap labor, and multiple postdoc appointments are not rare. In physics (my field), multiple postdocs are a kiss of death: they mean you weren't good enough in your first postdoc to get some permanent or tenure track appointment, but in biology, what I hear is that there is a need for skilled laboratory ability (read: glorified technicians) and supervisors for large groups.
Even after a postdoc appointment, you'll aim for a tenure-track position, meaning you will have to work even harder for five to seven years, creating a research group from scratch, having to generate funding, while teaching the classes the senior profs don't feel like teaching. Then, if you've demonstrated an ability to bring research funding into the department, you might get tenure. Or, if you are turned down for tenure at a major research university, you might get offered tenure at a lower-ranked or four-year institution.
The tenure track is extremely stressful. Marriages are often destroyed in the process.
If you really want to be an academic in the sciences, it requires a great deal of sacrifice. Sure, there are theoretically other rewards. But it isn't easy to really find scientific problems that are simultaneously tractable, truly useful, haven't been done already, and can get funding. In theory, you can research whatever you want. In practice, if you can't get someone (government) to fund you, you aren't going to get very far.
Perhaps I'm biased because my Ph.D. thesis advisor went into the private sector (and is much happier there).
I recommend you read the book "A Ph.D. is not Enough!" for some insight into what is really required for success in academia.
After my previous employer went belly up, I was totally fed up with making totally unappreciative and uncomprehending PHBs rich. At first I tried doing independent consulting, but an opportunity opened up to work as the "Information Processing Consultant" at a university-run research facility. They seem to be quite well-funded, judging from the hardware they're giving me for my desk [brand-new 18" flat-panel display for starters], and seem to have a generally laid-back atmosphere, judging from my nearly full-day interview I had with the director and several researchers.
Wish me luck, I start Monday.
In a nutshell, unless you are getting into a highly theoretical area of science (possibly bio-informatics/structural modelling areas?) then you will regret moving. Contrary to popular ideas, science requires no intelligence 99.9% of the time. It is simply repeating mindless experiments, which don't even work, ad infinitum. It is tedious, depressing and unsatisfying.
Theoretical physics or pure maths - maybe that's an enjoyable area. But if you're thinking of the biological sciences, forget it, my friend. Run a mile!
btw- if you think I'm just unlucky and prejudiced by my own personal experience, then print out this message and paste it on your wall, and in ten years time read this:
Don't say I didn't warn you!!
Speaking as an academic who just wishes he was a geek, I would say that, if you want to do the Science thing (and I do worry about people who capitalize the "S"), the most important thing is that you consider the context of where you work. Depending on the school you end up at, your experiences are likely to vary. If you start looking for a university job, you need to investigate the institutional culture of the schools to which you apply. At my undergrad alma mater, I have several extremely competent IT buddies (sysadmins for the email system that serves 40K plus users, etc). who could be quite rich by now, but for the fact that they could not be dragged away from their academic jobs. Part of it is that they just like Athens, GA., but part of it is that, among the staff at least (and some faculty, too), there was a can-do attitude....a willingness to cooperate toward a higher purpose. Some of that came from the fact that the state government committed lots of money to IT in the higher education system..so folks weren't quarreling over scarce resources. But some of it was simply culture.
If you end up in a specific academic department, you may be overqualified....especially if it is social science, not hard science. Some (but not all) professors are going to be jerks to you and many of your tasks may be menial (I hope you like hardware upgrades). The important thing is that you can serve them...even contribute to what they are doing, while having the rest of the staff and the cool profs. as a lifeline. If see an institution where there aren't lots of cross-departmental friendships and relationships, and a large number of people treat their job as a personal fiefdom, head the other way. These are things you can find out by keeping your eyes open while job hunting. When you interview, I encourage you to talk to as many profs. and staff members as they will allow you to. This is the best way to collect intelligence.
Good luck.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard Feynman
I came to the conclusion that for all but the true geniuses and egomaniacle sub-geniouses (the majority) happiness and job satisfaction were rare in the scientific community. Of course this is a gross generalization and I've gotten over it for the most part sence then but there is an element of truth to it.
Here's two references to give you a clue as to how I got so cynical about this.
Ziolkowski, T. (1990). The Ph.D. Squid. The American Scholar, 59(2), 177-195.
Imposters in the Temple, by Anderson, Martin
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
But the reality of university academic life is nothing like that, unless you're either exceptionally lucky or brilliant, (and I mean the sort of brilliant that universities will bend over backwards just to have you join their ranks, that is, seriously world-class level).
No, the reality for most academics is one of
politics,
jealousy,
slim budgets,
disaffected students who don't really give a stuff about what you're trying to lecture to them; they just want to graduate with a degree so they can get the sort of job you hate; you'll be training the students to do something you don't agree with,
universities, who, just like most profit-driven organisations, don't give two hoots about "the big picture" and just want to make bucks by pushing as many students through the production line as they can,
loads of unpaid overtime, marking essays, exams, etc
and somewhere between all this, trying to find time to do your own research.
So it's really just like any other job, not cushy at all like many people think.
Ask yourself this: do you really care about "the big picture", or are you just trying to escape a workstyle you don't like? If it's the second reason, then you won't find much sanctuary in academic life. Sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear, but it's pretty much the truth.
I made $20,000 per year or less for the first 32 years of my life. Last year, I got my PhD & now feel rich making over 40k/year as an astronomy postdoc, and yes I love my job. Most real working people are blown away when I tell them what I do for a living. They don't think its possible. Then they a sad look like "gee I wish I enjoyed my job that much." Luckilly I don't have any expensive habits like cars & TV.
The Academic environment provides a lot more freedom...just look at what D. Toresky has been able to do...(any Verizon employees want to try that on company time?). But yes there are ruts... if you aren't really excited about the kind of science you are doing, might as well to back to the corporate world.
WHO you work with is just as important as what you are doing. In most fields of science (especially the not-even-remotely-profitable ones like mine) you are expected to work hard, but if the results do not turn out as expected, or hoped, well that's part of the discovery process. This contrasts with the business world, where if expectations are not met, it is mandadory to find someone to blame.
PhD was required for my job, as with many, but there are some "loopholes" out there: for example part IT/admin and part research jobs which can evolve more in the research direction. These aren't easy to find, but you skip the 5 years+ of grad school...
academic used to be respected, and decently funded. now, academics are doing more administration work than teaching or research, they're forced into co-operative arrangements with corporations to get funding, and they're now getting harassed by students 24 hours a day (thanks, email).
satisfaction is slowly slipping away. there are plenty of research opportunities in the corporate world. don't be lulled into the idea of a world where people listen to and respect your ideas. they'll more than likely just steal them.
Natural sciences overcompensated inferiority complex, classic example of. In actual fact, academic politics is much much worse in the natural sciences departments (though real-world political differences are usually less). The reason for this is that you are completely wrong; two interpretations of a poem are usually complementary, but natural sciences require expensive equipment, putting the academics in direct competition with one another for funding.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I worked in the industry for about 4 years after my MS before I decided to go back to do my Ph.D. At 27, a lot of my friends thought I was nuts, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to chase my dreams.
.. however I wasn't getting to set my own agenda, which is what I'm hoping to be able to do at a research job in another 4 years after I get my ph.d. .. if not I'm f****d :-)
I was doing fun stuff in the real world, and I learnt a lot
I work in the money services area, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of it.
.COM busts and corporate greed, and their life savings or retirement is up to 100% gone. We help then secure what they can scrape together or still have away from equities. From customer testimonials, endless positive feedback, and awesome customer services, I am proud of and to work for my company.
Unlike what you have described, our services are not designed to make people rich, rather than to secure their assets. Many people have been brutally slaughtered by
I too am of a strong science background, and I still get to apply disciplined software engineering principles in practice. So you could say, I have immense satisfaction. Good pay, respect, appreciation, intellectually stimulating, and a good warm fuzzy feeling of helping fellow human beings.
Moreover, I wouldn't trade it for all the world.
Consider the following:
By and large, people tend to optimise their behaviour to be appropriate to the environment that they are working in - in the commercial world this means making someone money (shareholders hoefully and maybe even yourself). In academia I got the impression that the underlying goals were pretty similar, people wanted their careers to advance, get promotion (and away from evil short term contracts that are very popular here in the UK) and this is almost purely done through publications. If you are an actual academic (rather than support staff) then maximising pulication output is usually the only goal. I observed that as publications were linked to people (the authors) there was was no 'team effort' - it really was everyone out for themselves. In this respect, the academic environment has actually made the various commerical environments I have worked in look relatively tame when it came to politics (and I have been on the board of a company that eventually IPO'ed [to no great effect]).
In reality, as various other posters have alluded to, it comes down to the academic environment being good at some things: it really is an easier life (modulo politics), working environments can be fun and you can get more space to do your own stuff. Pay is not a strong point, but is often not that bad if you stick around long enough.
I wouldn't go back myself, but I'm glad that I was there for a while and if you go into it with your eyes open and with some goals of your own then you can have some fun. Plan to get out and back to the RealWorld though (handy tip: if you want to drive academics insane with rage through references to the RealWorld into your conversation - its cruel to tease the poor things but amusing and as a taxpayer I feel I have to get value for money somehow).
...to Swedish academia, and I must say that there's an awful lot that I miss about being in industry. I actually had many of the same feelings, going in, as "EdinBear" voices, and I have, in fact, gotten the opportunity to participate in some fairly interesting research. The problem for me is that research moves at a different pace than industry, and has different goals. Here, a researcher picks a problem and works on it for years, and if they get good results that's nice, but if they get bad results it's still acceptable. That's as it should be in research, but personally I miss those moments of "damn, that didn't work and the customer needs this thing by tomorrow -- let's try something else, quick!" There's a dynamicism about corporate life that is absent from academic life. Also, the budgets in academia are a lot more fixed, so even if you wanted to suddenly change direction, you usually can't. I've enjoyed the experience, but I'm really thinking about moving back into industry.
Good luck to you.
The best academia is to be the guy that mops the floors in the math department at night. That way, in your spare time while the floor dries, you can solve the unsolvable equation left for the students on the chalk board. Maybe you will get to meet Robin Williams.
Software Wars
I had a similar experience: I used to work as a programmer at a small company, but found the actual job I was doing quite different to what I signed up for (due to financial pressures I was shipped offsite and used as a tester, doing monkey work, or I spent a lot of time writing training courses). The level of pay and training I was getting were less than I was promised. I was going nowhere.
I've been studying for a PhD for two years now. Although I get a hell of a lot less money (about 1/3 of my old salary), I'm a lot happier. The academic environment is very supportive and enabling, I'm always learning, I have complete freedom to work as and when I want/need. The people I work with are enlightened, intelligent and socially-aware people, versus the moneygrabbing, selfish and stupid people one often encounters in industry. Assuming I'm lucky enough to be able to make a career in academia, there's no way I'd go back to industry.
That said, although I'm researching a topic that has direct impact on a significant public health issue, I don't feel like I am achieving something amazing. Science is about a whole bunch of people doing quality research in a methodical way, and then every once in a while a 'genius'-type coming along and drawing lots of research together and marking a milestone in the field. The important thing in science is to contribute, and not to worry too much if you are not that genius.
If you need to see the fruits of your labour, then maybe science isn't for you.
But working in an academic environment is far nicer than working in an industrial one (in my experience).
"The noble art of losing face will one day save the human race"---Hans Blix
I moved to the UK this year and switched from helping to create a startup telco to working at my wife's University. I've loved the switch to research and would have to think very hard about moving back. Some posters have already commented on the politics but I have to say that compared to a startup they are not bad at all. The pace of work is much better and incredibly more interesting.
Computational Biology is so much more fun! Pics of my new workspace and co-workers are at:Yes, I misspelled Academia. But I meant to. You'll end up working with a bunch of PhD's who "know it all" and don't know the first thing about process.
I ended up at a research group in Austin, TX bored out of my skull, stuck in an iterative programming process with a bunch of people who "knew they were right".
"We are not tolerant people. We prefer drastically effective solutions"
I worked as an analytical chemist for 6 years, went to IT for the 'portability' of the skills, now I think I will try to get back to some sort of chemistry oriented work. I mostly miss working with intelligent people, as many of the people in IT are just 'dummies' who can pass cert tests. My degree is in chemistry, so I don't know what I was thinking by switching to IT.
Well, I went from .com to academia, and have never been happier. I was fortunate to have gotten a small raise in the process, but the benefits here outweigh anything I've seem anywhere else. Lots of vacation, holidays, good insurance quite cheap, pension, etc. Any I get to spend lots of time at home with my kids -- no more 80 hour weeks! Work hard at work, then go home and NOT work. No question what's on my list this thanksgiving!
There seems to be the assumption that working is pure sciences is equivalent to working for an academic institution. That is simply not the case. I have worked for two different companies for the last seven years that both specialize in research and pure science. My current employer specialized in artificial intelligence research. There are no politics involved in my job, just science. If you are interested in science, don't just look to academia, there are some truly interesting scientific organization out there that do not suffer from the same problems that academia does. (politics, pay, respect, etc.) p.s. My company has been in the black every year since I started.
Jens Wessling
I work for a state environmental protection agency. The information we track includes both bureaucratic regulatory information (who owns what facility and what are they allowed to do there) and scientific (how many millegrams of blue uck-437 per liter of discharge are they allowed to spew into the trout stream).
This data is SO complex that after 11 years I'm still not bored. Plus, we're providing a real benefit to society by protecting the environment.
The political infighting gets a little old, and that, but the job itself is a lot of fun.
And, for a state agency, the money isn't that bad, because the powers that be are finally convinced that you can't have state-of-the-art IT systems without top-quality staff.
We're using XML, ORacle 8i and 9i, ColdFusion, GIS systems, chemistry, geology, GPS, field systems, Oracle on laptops, all kinds of stuff the average Gov't drone will never see.
So, yes, there are other choices than straight commercial work where you can still earn a living.
You could volunteer for a non-governmental organization to help them with their research (World Wildlife Foundation, Sierra Club, etc) on the side, if you still need the big commercial bucks but want to feel like you are contributing to something besides the bottom line.
Prior to joining the corporate world, I enjoyed working for a University in a network administration capacity. The agency that I worked for was very well funded by Federal grants, so we always had the latest hardware and software to work with. I fear that had our budget been limited like 90% of other academic programs, I would not have enjoyed my work so much. I would have been driven away long ago by political environment. The prior comments are correct, the pay is less (much less) and the politics can be brutal. But working for an Institution that has very good funding can be very rewarding, technically speaking.
I have both a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering. I chose to stay on after my degrees to do sysadmin work at the university because I liked the area, but there were few jobs available. I'm close to family and the atmosphere is fairly relaxed, but it is definitely not for everyone.
Advantages:
- Work completely independently.
- Get to do everything: Hardware, Solaris, Linux, Novell, Windows, MAC, Apache, Perl, PHP, (and on and on)...
- Chance to teach an occasional course
- Good job security
Disadvantages:
- Work completely independently (nobody to back you up or fill in when you're sick -- everything piles up)
- Get to do everything: Never completely master one thing
- Chance to teach an occasional course (and the headaches associated with it)
- NO BUDGET (must train yourself, no paying for tech support calls, use the cheapest solutions possible -- even if they cost much of your time...)
- Salary (not usually up to industry standards and often put in a salaried position that is overtime exempt)
This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but is basically accurate for our environment. All in all, I enjoy my job and my co-workers. We are fortunate to have many quality individuals in our department. Many of the advantages are a double-edged sword, but I enjoy most of them. Environment makes up for much!
Wanting to improve the "big picture" for many people, rather than just earn bucks for your employer, is an admirable goal. But you might be dissatisfied with a job in science/academia because very often the objectives are arcane and specialized and do not have any obvious "big picture" payoff.
Think about what you could do to help a government agency, charity, church, organization achieve their goals via IT. There's a lot of unexploited opportunities for computers and the web in these realms. Many of these organizations are technologically backwards, which means two things:
- There are many opportunities to do obvious things. You may end up viewed as a technological savior just for coming in with
relatively basic skills and knowing how to
apply them.
- But there will be some (or much) organizational inertia
against taking advantage of these opportunities.
This can lead to frustration.
Good luck!Isn't "Job Satisfaction" an oxymoron ?
After earning a PhD in psychology in 1998 [perception & psychophysics research] I started working for the military in a post-doc position.....well, good old Bubba Clinton decided we didn't need military research anymore and closed tha base I was working on........since I did all my research on M$ and *NIX machines, I was able to land a quick job in the IT field without having a degree in it! {ahhh the good old days). I figured that I could do it for a couple of months until I could get back into academia.
Well.....here is is 4 years later and I am just getting back into academia! The past 4 years were HOT! Huge contracts with HUGE rates and frills meant easy student loan payoffs, houses, cars, etc. Then the other shoe dropped.......everyone was getting cut, contracts dried up, pay scales slid like so much California property into the ocean.......I was actually out of work for 3 months! LUCKILY....I grabbed and stashed all the dough I could when I was making it and managed never to buy any stock or take any options ["These days if you own anything but land, you own a popcorn fart!" Rodney Dangerfield, Caddyshack]......so I sold some stuff off and started looking. Here is what I found:
Infrastructure support seems to have gone the way of the dodo.....there is no need to double staff when you have competent programmers who can also provide support [if they want a job, they will!]. Contracting agencies are more like pimps then anything these days and we lowly contractors are their techno whores....they know we are stuck and they take advantage of us to the hilt.....
Once this realization hit...I started looking HARD at academia.....obviously the degree helped, but I was lucky enough to land a position at a VERY small libral arts college teaching stats software [SPSS] to undergraduate psychology students and support the psych dept M$ and MAC boxes........the position isn't faculty nor is it tenure-tract and the pay is A LOT lower then the contracting gigs but, it is PERMANENT and the benefits are HUGE. I work 9-4 [I am the work-a-holic of the department] and enjoy every July off.
I don't think we will ever see another BOOM in IT again: the golden age is over, a 12 year old can become a MCSE now and he market is flooded with "certified" people willing to work for 1/2 of what you are.....so I am staying here for the rest of my life.
If you can get into it.....I highly reccomend it. Try to stay out of administration, too many politics and too much stress......work with students, it is very rewarding and a lot more fun.
~insert tech sarcasm here~
I think, from reading all the answers so far, that the real answer is just go do what you think might be interesting and fun. (Usually that's the same thing.) Folk who look for what they want to DO, vice what they want to BE, usually find it while they are doing it. If anyone had ever asked me, during my 30 year IT career, what I thought I would be doing 5 years in the future, any guess I might have made, along the way, would have been wrong. I could give you all kinds of advice about balance of work and family, blah, blah, but life is for learning and loving. Have fun.
Yea, I felt the same way about summer vacation. In the REAL world, there is no summer vacation
Anyway, if you can identify a field you have great undying interest in, and can narrow it down to a particular area within that field, I'd say "Go for it!" There's certainly nothing great happening in IT that you need to stick around for.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
He's tired of working for the man.. he wants to work for ... the man in science?
Yes. This is something most people going into academics aren't aware of. Academics is extrordinarily political.
There is one thing that distinguishes academia from industry, though, and that's the freedom. Academics might be highly political, but it's also relatively unstructured: people are generally more lax about hours, when things are done, what's being done, and so forth.
Of course, I say "generally" because it's not always true. But usually.
My previous just was a lead software engineer for a small custom software company. After working for a whilte I decidced to return to grad school. About the time I needed to start looking for a job near or at the university, the company I worked for went under. As it turns out, I was hired on campus as a system analyst (big change after spening a year designing and developing softare).
I work for two departments. One is absoultly a pleasure (I just got buying a nice cluster and I'm working on web based classrooms), the other is pretty boring (mostly just user support BS). Basicly, my point is, it will be hit or miss. If you end up in a position where your superiors are willing to let you run and do some cool projects it can be great fun. The budget isn't always big, but you might get to play with technology or projects that wouldn't be deemed profit capable in the private sector.
Actually the smallish budgets make it more interesting in my opinion. They add a new deminsion. You have to be creative. You can't just go to "Joes Internet Learning" and buy a solution. You have to assemble and invent your own.
Spell check? Why bother. That is what grammer/spelling Nazi freaks who waiste band width posting "spell right" are for.
Try to work at something like the MIT media lab (an academic program that devotes itself to researching and developing prototypes that demonstrate interesting technology). There are similar institutions around, but they're hard jobs to land, don't pay well, and you often have to work there as a student/prof before you can become a non-school-related employee.
If that doesn't work out, I suggest trying a job in a corporate setting that is simply more interesting. System Administration is not the end of the road. If you want to get into science, get yourself a Ph. D. or Masters (if you don't have it) and then join a big company with a an R&D dept (or a startup working on a future tech idea). There's a big difference between computer science and computer engineering in the corporate world.
That said, academia and government lab work is a good idea too. It's not my cup of tea, and you'll have to learn to live with the fact that 50% of you work will be battling to do your work, but hey, at least it's the hard science and non of the mushy sysadmin stuff.
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I ran into the same kind of thing during the dot-bomb, and luckily got recruited into a non-profit foundation. Things have never been better. Not only do I get to geek out on cool technology but my skills get used to support an organization which's bottom line is making a difference in the world, and not, say, making the phone company more money! The satisfaction level is worth the pay cut, and this sector is in dire need of technology experts of all kinds.
my $0.02
I must whole heartedly agree with this. I have an MS in Chemistry (I was on track to get a PhD, but found I didn't really want to, so I left as soon I a got my masters).
I am now working as a sys-admin for a company that make cancer treatment equipment. While it's not as pure helping as the above, I get to do my sys-admin stuff to help people find a better cure for cancer. Yes, we're also in it for the money, but it's a step closer to doing pure good than most jobs.
If you follow through with shoppa's suggestion, you'd be going one step further than I would.
Good luck.
Ok, I give up, why you?
I have an MS in computer engineering and worked as a software engineer for 6 years in the "real world" before deciding that I wanted to change the world. My solution was law. I'm going into my second year in law school and just finished a summer working as a patent agent (to make some money for school). I'm so glad I made the move.
Once I graduate I'm planning to do EFF type stuff.
Wood
"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." --Erica Jong
Come up with your own product/company, then let those in the corporate world feed off you and those in academia have wet dreams of you.
After working for a large computer/consulting firm and later doing independent consulting, I can happily say that the academic route is far more rewarding. I work in a proteomics lab where I write software used in cancer research. I don't get paid near as much (-20%) but I don't grind my teeth every day and haven't daydreamed about killing any of my co-workers in a long time. I come and go as I please, I run a counter-strike server AND a neverwinter nights server, and yes, the women here are amazing. I am just happy not to be working for someone who thinks that 'thinking out of the box' means 'programming without direction, design, or planning'. (the dot-com hack-and-slash method of [never] getting things done)... I am sane again! and contributing to a better good!
After working for MS for 4 years, I looked into switching jobs to something with a bit more job satisfaction. I found a job programming Neural Networks for better ventillators. The only trouble was, it was a 50% pay cut. My other competition was someone who had a CS doctorate. I was offered the job, but had to turn it down. But it struck me that even if I finally get my own doctorate, I might be competing with ex Microsofties for jobs paying the equivalent of $15 an hour.
although i am not yet graduating, i find that the academic environment is pretty much better than the corporate life.
:)
:)
i am planning to be a teacher someday.
i think if you are considering going back to the academic life, you should be motivated because you want to teach students - share your own talents to them. the best achievement is one day, the students will be successful and you are just sitting on the sofa seeing them - it's because you are able to make them better people.
at the same time, you might think of engaging in your own company, come on! why go behind your boss when you can be the boss yourself. but i think you should look at it from the perspective of improving and helping others instead of earning money. believe me, money just flows in and i don't think about it. (i am doing part time consulting work.)
i can't contribute much but you must find what your heart is looking for.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
"I now feel I want to move into Science to use my skills in a productive"
What do you mean? Are you talking about working for a tech company or a university as a sysadmin? Or working in a scientific research group (univ. or corporate) as the computer tech? Or do you want to return to school and get your M.S. or Ph.D. to start a whole new career in scientfic research, or even pursue a faculty position?
Having just finished my Ph.D. in Optics, my impression is that there is good and interesting work for "techs" with a B.S. or M.S. You can be a critical part of a research group, you get your name on published articles, and you can have the schedule flexibility academics offers. Of course people are people, politics are in everything, and "science" isn't necessarily any more noble than working in industry.
Again, the answer to your question greatly depends on what you're asking. Which is what again?
ShoutingMan.com
There is a reason corporations make money through the web--they are offering a service that has value to the customer. If you could see that your efforts help deliver that value to the customer, instead of grousing about the source of your income, you'd be happier.
If you go to gov't work, you'll find just as much to gripe about, and you'll be stifled as you are forced to wait, wait, wait to move up the ladder to the point where your ideas are considered worthy of pursuit.
That's just my prejudiced opinion...
Just press on, stick it out. Once you get to the upper division stuff you'll see that it was all worth it.
It was a good time, and then the bubble burst. I was left scrambling for a job, like so many others. Through some dice searching, I managed to land a science gig with reasonable pay, back in my home state. Sounded good to me.
No, here's the problem: I forgot how eduational institutions operate. As a student, you are insulated froma lot of the political BS that flys around at higher levels in academia.Being technical staff for a bunch of scientists is no fun at all, especially if they have degrees in computer science (!!).
Now, I'm a system administrator, not a programmer, so my perspective might be a little different. All I can say is, be careful before making the jumpp back into the academic/science world - you might be in for some frustration. There is little in the IT world that can rival the ego of a PI (Principal Investigator) on a project. Be ready to have your opinions ignored, and get ready to do some crackheaded stuff in the name of keeping the researchers happy.
Just my $0.02.
(Seriously though, the university setting is not a bad perquisite).
My other first post is car post.
Wine and Cheese Symposiums... yeah baby!!
What! Do I look like a people person?
I used to be production Slave ^H^H^H^H^H Support, and it blew, overtime up the wazoo, but working 70 + hours a week. I've since moved to a devlopment lab and work 4x10's by choice with Mondays off, and I turn off my cell phone after 6:00 pm every day. There are nice corporate positions but it took me 10 years to get here.
The key is to have a wide variety of skills. I've worked mainframe - VM, MVS, DOS/VSE, minicomputer support - SUN, AIX, and NCR/Teradata, Tandem, Unisys, and VMS, as well as network router ops. There are lots of people out there that know as much as I do about any one thing but I got my job by doing many things. Oh and BTW 6 weeks vacation is a very possible thing if you negotiate well...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I double majored in CS and music by accident. I knew I wanted to be a music major; I wound up taking CS to fulfill the distribution requirements, and liked it enough that I finished the major. The first big mistake I made was taking a web-related job. I can't get away from it now.
So these are my choices: continue doing this webmaster BS and playing corporate politics, where the *best case scenario* is that they'll promote me to manager, and I don't use anything I learned after the first year; apply for another job in this market and with primarily web-related experience on my resume, hoping against hope that whatever I find has nothing to do with HTTP; or go back to school, get a PhD, and claw my way into the ivory tower, which is what I should have done in the first place.
The commonly-accepted stats are that newly-minted PhDs can't find jobs, that for every 1 job there are 100 applicants. The way I see it is this: that's at least a 1% shot at doing something I *know* I'll love, which is a good deal better than what I'm doing here. Sure, I'll work my ass off. Sure, the pay will be low. Sure, there will be politics. But I'd rather work my ass off for something I truly love than spend the rest of my days coding CGIs to keep the marketroids happy. The pay is something I'll just have to face; so I'll buy used cars and think twice about that Special Edition DVD. And politics? Hah. The politics *here* are bitter and venal, and they're all about things I don't much care about. Academia can only be an improvement.
If you don't already have a Ph.D. in C.S., you might find that fun and there is a real shortage of good porfessors in C.S. If you think you would enjoy teaching you would have a lot of options. Most academic areas are oversupplied, but definitely not C.S.!
It is only working in the tech-industry that starves us of getting some. Now my buds who work in the advertising, marketing, human resource, and sales areas, especailly if they travel alot, are having a regular old fuck fest every time they hit the road.
I started in tech ages ago when I started college, using a timeshare system to write analytical hacks in BASIC for undergraduate courses I was taking. I got good, and became the Biology dept tech guru at about age 20. Technolgy has dogged me ever since, and I have been a tech leader (of sorts) at University in academia, for University field research (ugh), in public education (urf), at an education non-profit think tank (bleh), and now a startup (er..several actually). I am now 43 yo. Frankly, I found the middle part of that journey the most tedious. Pure academia was, well, pure. The politics were minimal, the work was open-ended and interesting, but the pay was total crap. But everyone loved me! Research work may end up perverting you as it is rather corrupt now. Nonprofits can be groovy, think tanks however combine the very worst of University and private sector. Never again! And so, at this late stage, I like startups. Startups are, well, starting up. Politics are minimal, the work is open-ended and interesting, and yet the pay is pretty good. It is the hours and the stress that are crap! Does everyone love me still? A few people fear me, some turn to me for leadership. Either way it's love of a sort. Would I go back to academia? Someday I will, but not for the money. I will teach and terrorize the students "Paper Chase"-style. It's really the work of the moment for old nerds like me.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Hate to break it to you, but this is one of the greatest failures of open source: documentation. Most open source contributors are so taken with their "skill" at coding, that they can't be bothered to do the difficult job of documenting what they've done.
Hastily written manual==worse than useless documentation. One's work isn't complete unless someone else can figure out what the hell it is that you actually did.
Welcome to the Real World. Now you have a choice: work to ensure your and your family's (or future family's) future or to move into an ivory tower where you can pretend money is an evil that should be ignore.
Chose wisely.
Hint: in 30 years the current ivory tower view will likely have been discarded for yet another unworkable view. Anyone who tells you that money doesn't matter is full of crap.
Have fun.
Sincerely, Jerry
P.S. 15 years in my current engineering position and two kids, 1-1/2 and 3-1/4. When you look at your kids you will know what matters. They are the only things I'd die for. And if I'm willing to do that only for them, where is everything else on the scale? There's so much bullshit spread by those having no touch with reality. Look into your kid's trusting eyes for reality.
> There are many opportunities to do obvious things.
Yeah, easy changes (from our point of view) can make a big difference from the organisation's point of view.
I spent maybe an hour putting together a nice wordprocessor letterhead template file for an organisation once and they were like "Wow, thanks, we could never have done that."
Sometimes it doesn't take much to make a difference, and you get to feel good about it too.
One had to spend much more time 'documenting' and chasing every last stylistic 'error' in the document than doing the actual work. viz. it seemed that one spent more time writing up papers and working and working and working on them than doing the actual research behind the paper..
for me, clarity of expression == clarity of tought.
when I make 'stylistic errors' , this usually means my modelling of the problem and solution is either too simplistic, or otherwize flawed.
In this respect, writing is actually an integral part of the scientific "work" itself, not only the comunicative part.
Working for necessity's mother.
Perhaps someday, you'll truly find out what the "Real World" is, and you won't need to talk to others about it with such a condescending tone.
Everyone is different. Some people make perfectly valid lives for themselves whilst engaged in academia. Some are asses. The same is true for every line job, kitchen worker, CEO position, and mailrooom clerk post in the world.
Your circumstances do not dictate you. Your job doesn't make you. Your money? It's only useful if you think it is. You apparently do, but that's not a universal opinion. Nor is the only choice offered to go work an "Honest Job" or ascend into an ivory tower.
Perhaps it isn't that money is evil, but just that it isn't everything? Perhaps other people have things that *they* see as important to them in the same way you perceive your children?
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
The school in question was the University of Waterloo --- you know, the guys that gave us watfour, watfive fortran, etc. In other words, Microsoft went after one of the big guns. IMHO, this is nothing more than part of their attack against Linux and the GNU. No, fortran isn't GNU, but it is what many schools used in the dark ages. Fortran in particular was fundamental to most of the engineering research that took place in the 70s and 80s, and while it may not have been free as in speech, many university departments used it like it was free as in beer. Remember that BSD came from a university setting (Berkeley) and was the beginning of the free software movement.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
Well, I just moved from a big chip company
to a national laboratory. My field was EE, I was
an IC designer. Something very important to consider is that nowadays in some cutting edge fields, industry is far ahead academia. My lab is still designing chips like my previous company did 10 years ago ! My lab (in Europe) is living on
european fundings so I spend all my time writing buzzwords filled reports to try selling our "technology" and get the money..and almost no more time doing actual design..
Also these organizations seems to have an heavy hierarchy, you get as high as you can, very slowly but systematically, until you've reach
your incompetence level.
So I don't consider I did a good move..
Thanks to everyone that commented - very enlightening...
I'll clarify a few points about myself:
I see myself remaining in SysAdmin - it's a skill that can be applied to just about any field, though having a knowledge/interest in that field will always be useful.
The main field that come up is bioinformatics (sp?) - there is a lot of movement in this over here (Scotland) but I don't have any background in it...
The second main theme has been Astronomy - Woof! - I'm jealous of those who have been involved in JPL and NASA - it might not have been perfect, but the challenge and the interest... I'm doing an Astronomy course with the Open University (not a degree, just a sequence of open courses) to fill the science in to what has been a lay interest up till now.
Money is not a prime concern - I'm fortunate that I can live reasonably well on much less than what corporate IT pays - so I'm looking for a role that pays just enough but has that added extra - satisfaction.
I'm 35 now, and I've learned enough about myself to know what I'm good at, and how I learn new things. I *like* enabling other people do good stuff - science, research, learning; whatever - I work best as part of the engine of support, letting other people do the hard stuff!
Anyway, thanks again - it's an interesting read!
Regards all,
Seumas.