This page is meant to be a quasi-serious, quasi-ridiculous examination of academic life versus the business world. For those of us slogging our way through a 5-year PhD program, this can be an all-too-pertinent question. As I begin my 2nd year, days away from beginning the fall semester, I wonder what the perks and the minuses are of my chosen career. Is it worth it, overall, to earn $18K a year for the foreseeable future (and this is a generous package, believe me)? Or, would I be better off if I had stayed in my cubicle, in marketing? For all of those business-types out there who think that they’ve always wanted to go back to school, or that we academics have it easy, perhaps this page will have you ‘thinking again’.
I encourage everyone to comment and put their two cents in. Which is better? Which is worse? Why? Are summers off worth the pressure to publish and low salaries? Is the pressure to achieve the same in both arenas? Will both slowly drive us all insane?
Lately I have been asking to myself that same question in a very personal way and I’d like to share mi insights. Probably you could comment something enlightening. Just a few add-ons: I just finished my master degree in philosophy and I did it in Mexico (I won’t be able to make thouse 18k pro year any time soon south here and earning a PhD doesn’t guarantee that either, not even a stable academic position). I also obtained a degree, a license as we call it, in law (which is an academic degree a little bit higher than Bachelor and just below than a Master degree considering the mexican system). So the dilemma is kind of natural to me. I have been one month giving two lectures in the state university of Zacatecas, one of the worst payed universities in the whole region, but one of the fewest with a philosophy program. And so could go the story.
After a few months trying to find a life path, a criterion to take that decision, the thing for me ended up like this: what is the whole point in a long term scale, of pursuing profesionally one or the other career? It seems to me a little bit fatuous to stick in the philosophy career alone in a context such as the mexican. And it seems a little bit boring in the long term to get along only to a career as a lawyer or even like a politician.
If there is no sufficient information or psychological certainty, hold the decision there. I’m still planning to combine them in some fortunate way. Right now I cannot fully and clearly conceive the manner but I am working on it. My answer up to now seems compeling, I feel that I need to do both. In countries such as Mexico that is kind of a conspicuous thing (there is some much to do, so much problems to overcome practically every level of social life). I don’t know if in the U.S. or some regions of Europe that kind of answer seems at first sight the best to accomplish, but I could bet that with further analysis and information it is. The criterion of the quantity or quality of the effort and its rewards is pointless if you really have a doubt… what do you think…?
(Nice website… I reached it through Google with the sequence “sexy philosopher” and I really have nothing to complain…. that could be an apparent oxymoron…)
I would love to do both, but I feel like you have to choose. People in academia don’t really love it when you do other “paid” work, it’s somehow cheating. I don’t think so. I don’t see any reason not to publish popular books at the same time that you are writing academic articles. I just think that it’s hard to do, that most people can’t do it, and that’s why it’s discouraged.
For now, I, too, am going to try to do both.
Philosophy and law sounds like an interesting combination. . . . I wish you luck in trying to figure out a way to make both work.
You don’t necessarily have to choose, I don’t think, speaking at least from my own experience; it’s just that it takes such an enormous amount of energy to live both lifestyles. You’re definitely right, though, Ms. McPhail, in saying that “people in academia don’t really love it when you do other ‘paid’ work.” That insularity is one of the things I hated most about it — indeed, would no longer, after a point, tolerate.
Thus, I’ve spent the last decade or more bartending, while at the same time pursuing, on my own, the literary and philosophic interests that I love. As much of a grind as this lifestyle undoubtedly becomes, when I compare myself to my friends and acquaintances who chose the academic rout, it’s clear that I’m at least more free and, to a some considerable extent, more productive. This is no small thing to me. To say nothing of the fact that my work (such as it is) is not suffused with academic subject matter and mores. But what you say is also true that there is a definite trade-off: I mean, who in his or her right mind sets the goal of being a bartender at mid-thirty, working with twenty-year-old college students? Still, I’m not complaining. And I’ve never wavered in my conviction that to be truly successful in whatever you love, you must give up a hell of a lot to that thing.
I think the key is to make sure what you choose works for you, and sometimes that leads to a place that is not strictly in either camp. I was in the corporate world and doing well, but I didn’t like it — it wasn’t where I belonged. I started graduate school part time, while still working in the corporate world, but found that it wasn’t taking me where I wanted to go. (I wanted to write, but as one professor wrote on a paper I did, “The skills that make a great writer do not always make a great scholar.” So clearly, academe wasn’t the right place.)
So I bailed out completely. I went to Australia for six months, to shake myself free of both the corporate world and graduate school, and then came home and became a writer. I didn’t make a lot of money at first, and it wasn’t easy, but it worked for me. Today, my career is kind of a corporate/academic blend. I’m self-employed, with my writing divided between writing textbooks and educational materials (readers and online materials) for large educational publishers (primarily in the subject areas of history, geography, and English literature) and “fun” writing — food and travel.
It wouldn’t work for everyone, but that’s the point. You don’t want to pick what pays the most or what has the most perks or what other people think is a good career trajectory. Figure out what works for you and pursue that. Fulfillment is the goal — personal satisfaction with what you are doing.
there is an error in your first sentence ; )
within a comment. dont worry:D
The academic life is clearly preferred (I’ve had both: 8 years in my cubicle.. and 7 in a small college). This time of year is estacy (just finished teaching my last class of the term, and now I have 5 months to write papers, read,.. and go for my long runs in the woods). Now I can waste my time surfing the web (still not sure how I ended up on this web site????)
Academic life (with tenure): almost complete autonomy. respect from family and neighbours. opportunity to use one’s creativity.
Cubicle: no respect, following my bosses orders, and little chance to follow one’s own interests/passions.
It is not a question of which is preferred.. but: the challenge is to complete your PhD, publish a few papers, and land that tenure track job.
Looking at your website, you appear to be bright,.. creative,.. and naked???
Your students might like that.. but not administration..
good luck,.. beautiful
Don
The academic life is much better. Although you have to often deal with lame deans, dull students, middle-class “respectibilty” norms and lots of tedious grading, you get to read what you want, converse with bright collagues and long Summer breaks.
Just thought you’d like to know that academicsatire.com is back online and linked to this blog if that’s allowable.
What an interesting site. I have just left my cubicle job and am looking to waitress my way through Graduate school to teach secondary education-history, political science, etc. Most people think I have lost my mind but in reality it is what I set out to do in the first place. I merely got derailed by money and the endless need of paying the bills. There is no question about if one is better than the other; corporate success is to some what summers off are to me. The question is- do you love one enough to put up with the other? Never fear, once you find the tightrope, walking it is easy.
I would like to say that I think that academic life and studies at the bottom line are a waste of time in many aspects..dull teachers and extremists in a respect drowned within their academic research papers discussing the particulate matter substance with quantum phenomena impacts..etc etc etc..who the bummer really cares? In reality the fact is that everyday life as we have it now its made through tough hard working class people in practical professions such as engineers, builders etc..I dont want to say that academia are utterly useless, but at the bottom line even publishing 1000 articles means nothing except personal accomplishment while at the same time writing theories that have never been to the test..just nonsense….oh and something else..do you thing that these papers are read from anyone else other than academics? I dont think so..if they had a point perhaps..shoot them all
(no just kidding..I might even become one to laugh at myself..at least I will be amused)