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Faculty To Grad Students: Go Work 80-Hour Weeks!
New submitter Ian Paul Freeley writes "Controversy has erupted after a departmental email from faculty to astrophysics graduate students was leaked. Key tips for success in grad school include: 'However, if you informally canvass the faculty (those people for whose jobs you came here to train), most will tell you that they worked 80-100 hours/week in graduate school. No one told us to work those hours, but we enjoyed what we were doing enough to want to do so...If you find yourself thinking about astronomy and wanting to work on your research most of your waking hours, then academic research may in fact be the best career choice for you.' Reactions from astronomy blogs has ranged from disappointment to concern for the mental health of the students. It also seems that such a culture, coupled with the poor job prospects for academics, is continuing to drive talent away from the field. This has been recognized as a problem for over 15 years in the astronomy community, but little seems to have changed. Any tips for those of us looking to instigate culture change and promote healthy work-life balance?"
I think you mean cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. He was the dude who passed along stuff he heard from the Archangel Gabriel, who was Allah's PR guy.
I thought they were all already mentally ill to begin with.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
The difference is that the concern about doctor shifts wasn't concern for the doctor's work-life balance, it was concern for the safety of patients being treated by doctors who hadn't slept recently.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Not a binary decision. Work the $150K job for 6 years or until downsized, bank the whole thing, go back to academia for your $20K/yr 80 hr/wk job, withdraw money from the bank account to hire a clone of yourself willing to work for $20K/yr at only 40 hours, then give him half your workload and both of you coast along at 40 hrs? At zero interest rate, 150 * 6 / 20 is still 45 years...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
There is a difference between enjoying it and needing to do it in order to be successful.
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but the amount of hours you work have little bearing on how successful you are.This is especially true in any area where you are reporting to a boss. If you run your own business, the time you spend on it is time you pay yourself, and time you spend advancing your own career. Anywhere else, a large chunk of success depends on the whims of management and the competence of the executive team.
I'll be happy to check back with you in a few years and see whether you think that that overtime was worth it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
As a PhD student I was a TA to several courses. Most of the time there were 140-180 students in the class. I needed to organize 4 tutorial sessions. We had 3 exams (2 mid, 1 final) and 3 assignments.
I would say the most destructive thing in regard to my PhD research progress was the huge amount of work I supposed to do. I officially was supposed to work 9 hours/week but it was many times more than that.