> My biggest takeaway from the article is that you'd have to be an absolute sucker to work in academia
The first thing I thought as well. When you read all these horror stories about burned out phd students, why is anyone doing this?
If a woman in STEM wants to combine family and work (or a man or anyone else really) there are many jobs in the industry that are actually relatively 9-5, and pay really well.
I don't understand academia at all. It sounds like a combination of paperwork, flying to conferences, endless networking, publishing papers for publishing's sake. It's like a Kafka novel.
You can also be working on stuff that has no impact whatsoever. There are a lot of physics PHDs working in cosmology trying to figure what's going on on the other side of the universe. Sure they are doing some interesting engineering setting up experiments, but if they find the answer to their scientific question they have to find something new to research and get grants for which is a big hassle.
I think the joy of pure research is that you only have to engage in occasional bullshit academic politics and otherwise have a completely pure existence in a monastery of scientific spiritual ideological purity of sorts. This is probably why some of the most sought after jobs under communism were non-political professorships at Universities, like being a math professor. Many of the post-soviet oligarchs were professors at universities during the soviet union times.
Being a professor in USSR gave one not only a rather high state-mandated salary, but also an opportunity to be bribed for passing an exam when a student would otherwise flunk it.
> I don't understand academia at all. It sounds like a combination of paperwork, flying to conferences, endless networking, publishing papers for publishing's sake. It's like a Kafka novel.
As an academic, your description is rather accurate regarding the research part of academia (you left out the teaching).
Some of us put up with all that because we love the science, the sense of discovery, of doing what no one has done before, advancing human knowledge, the feeling of working for public good and not for some profit-driven corporation. Flexible hours is also a plus (although also a double-edged sword).
(I confess I do like the "flying to conferences" part as well, though).
The first thing I thought as well. When you read all these horror stories about burned out phd students, why is anyone doing this?
If a woman in STEM wants to combine family and work (or a man or anyone else really) there are many jobs in the industry that are actually relatively 9-5, and pay really well.
I don't understand academia at all. It sounds like a combination of paperwork, flying to conferences, endless networking, publishing papers for publishing's sake. It's like a Kafka novel.