Misperceptions of academia

So I got a comment from someone thinking about making the academia to industry move, and two other people emailed me a couple weeks ago asking about industry. So, since I have free time because spending time with extended family gets tiresome, I thought I'd write about my decision. I was planning on writing about my industry job search later on, too, since I started this blog about my academia search. 

Science_seeker posted a comment with a link on someone else's experience with the academia-industry-academia lifestyles. The link is here if you're interested: http://www.the-aps.org/mm/Careers/Mentor/Career-Choices-and-Planning/Early-Career-Professional/Considering-a-change-in-career-/Transitions-Between-Academia-and-Industry

At the end of the article the author had a set of questions related to the article to get you thinking about which path you'd like more. I thought I'd write the article around the questions to explain my thought process on jumping to academia; then add a little tidbit at the end:

1. What type of environment do you thrive in?
   I thrive in a fun environment.  And, trust me, I have fun in every environment, but I have far more fun when given freedom.  The freedom is the biggest part.  I have a lot of freedom in my current work, but ultimately, the projects I propose and am put in charge of must be aligned with the company goals.  I decided to work for my particular company because they work on the physiologic system I specialized in, although a completely different part of it.  So I'm still intellectually constipated because I can't branch as much.  My company is a very large one, so I can move to different divisions, but again, I'd be stuck in the types of products that will make money right now and focused on one type of pathology.
   1. Do you like to work independently or as part of a team?
      Why do these have to be mutually exclusive?  As an advisor, aren't you just the captain of a team of very 'green' scientists/engineers?  In industry, I'm surrounded with people more on my level.  This seems like a good point to go off topic: I started off in a standard R&D job, and moved up every 6-12 months 1-2 levels per promotion.  I am currently, the lead engineering scientist for two project of the six of my company's medical product pipeline.  We do a lot of clinically directed science and use clinical need to guide medical device design.  My budget is ~$2 million per year, nonsalary...so just supplies, since salary comes out of a different cost structure.  The products my group come out with are estimated to be responsible for 80% of the company's billion dollar earnings. This is nice because while there's no grant writing, I still have to go to customers, shareholders, and leadership to pitch ideas and get money. And pitching ideas and arguing is something I get off on.  Similar to grants, just less competition, but still a ton of politics.  My experience differs from the article's experience in that I don't only see a small part of the project.  I primarily focus on specialized parts, but I see everything, and reap the benefits or consequences of substandard work (which there isn't much of, but it's still there).  The team approach is definitely there, but I had it in grad school...just different.  Talking to academics, they seemed to agree, in that it's up to your advising strategy whether to instigate a team-based problem-solving environment.  Even in grad school, I worked primarily on my stuff, with some team input from collaborators, undergrads, and even other grad students.  I'll throw in tidbits from my current position throughout the post.
   2. Do you want to run your own lab and be the decision maker or would you prefer to have a boss who directs the research?
      I want to make the calls.  I get to make a lot of calls currently, then pitch said decisions to different internal boards, but they're still my decisions.  The difference is in the freedom of what I can explore.  I have ideas outside of the core specialty of my company (we're a market leader) that I want to pursue.  When other people are directing the research, I often disagree with direction, and because I'm in a position of semi-leadership, a mis-step by management and subsequent medical device market failure will hurt me immensely.  If I fail, I want to own it.  But moreso, I have a ton of ideas and would love to work on them. 
2. Do you want to work on a particular biological system or question? If you could no longer work on this system, would you be happy?
   I'm sure I could be happy.  I got into my field because I love the work.  But I have waaaaaay more fun when I get to work on what I want. I'm sure our non-biology brother and sister scientists have corollaries to their specializations, as well, that they'd prefer to keep focus on. 
3. Do you want to write grants?
   My lab in grad school was dirt-poor at first.  I wrote fellowship grant applications to several agencies and luckily was able to self-fund myself AND my research throughout my 4.5 years.  For these fellowships, they went through typical grant cycles: 8-12 pages with tons of supporting documents, submitted through sponsored projects, multiple reviewers, scored or streamlined, managed budgets, etc.  Simultaneous to all of this, my advisor had me doing all kinds of experiments and writing sections of grants he submitted.  We had good and bad success, but when I left the lab he had more money than he knew what to do with (4 NIH grants, 2 NSF, 3 private sources): polar opposite of how it was when I joined the lab (1 expiring NSF grant).  I learned early on not to take comments personally, and how to hob-nob with those that score the grants, and how to modify grants to get the funding you want.  Writing the grants was actually fun, too, because it forced us to organize thoughts on experiment and direction.  It's a skill that I was pissed about picking up at first, but I'm glad I learned it.  Especially since I USE IT NOW (GASP!).  I still have to get money, I just have a different target audience.  As you move up in industry, the blinders are pulled away and even I, an engineering scientist, have to focus on getting money to do my work.  Again, the key difference is I would rather write about my passions, not 'random' industrial work.  I actually had fun working on my Research Statement for my faculty apps.  And that was very similar to a grant, with aims, experiments, and outcomes.
4. How much importance do you place on publications?
   A ton.  I published into the double digits as a first author in grad school.  I have thrice that in first-author abstracts for conferences.  Publications define the furthest extent of the cumulative amount of human knowledge (see http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/), and this is where one should go if they want to see ground-breaking science.  My current products go into publication (with me as a 2nd-8th author) in the form of a physician publishing their success with the products.  When I do any science or R&D, we keep it on the DL so another company can't scoop us and make their shareholders rich instead of ours'.  I'm far more proud of my publications than patents (8 patents issued, 4 in review).  The application and translational research is something I'll miss, however, my proposed research has a strong translational focus, and I'm only applying to schools with a great relationship with start-ups and the medical school.  There's room for publication and profit. And I want to find it. Although it's a little more difficult when most of your work is device, rather than core-science, focused. 
5. Do you enjoy teaching and interacting with students?
   This is one of the things I miss the most.  Some student suck, but the amount of joy I would get from watching a student mature into a semi-competant researcher, or understand a concept they previously didn't, far outweighs all the other students that suck. My industrial mentor tells me that being around younger, vibrant people all the time, keeps you young, but I think it also keeps you smarter since you have to keep reiterating the topics.

Regarding free time: this is part of what turned me off of academia originally, the other parts were grants and pubs, but I've come to not mind these...although I experienced these in a different type of role.  My advisor would tell me that he works 80 hours, but whenever he wants.  This includes service, teaching, and research.  A co-advisor said he works 50 hours a week, and a prof at a separate university said he puts in 20-80 depending on what's going on.  What every single one of them said was, "to be given the ability to teach and do your own research, the service is a small sacrifice."  They all said it was worth the crap.  The latter professor has a very similar background (and personality) to me.  He worked for two years at a separate division of my company before turning to academia, and he said, "if you're a workaholic in academia, you're probably going to be one in industry, and vice versa".  If you love your work it doesn't seem like work, and then you find ways to fit in your time off.  My advisor took about 6 weeks of vacation, and regularly skipped out to spend time with family.  Currently, I put in between 30-80 hours a week depending on what's happening.  And then I have to travel once a month all over the world.  My boss consistently works 60-80 hours/week, and his boss puts in 80-100 not including travel.

All of this depends on how you are as a person, how fast you work, what type of position you're in, how your boss is, and the growth of your company, or how many grants or pubs you need.  I find the average is that industry people have more free time that the average academic.  But the academics seem to have more job satisfaction on average.  It's an interesting phenomenon.  I have a spouse and dog, and there are no plans to start a family.  And since I only sleep 4-6 hours a night, I have plenty of free time, as I did in grad school.  Most companies encourage the work-life balance, but I know plenty of people that don't take advantage.

Regarding stress, my friends in academia say that the first 5 years in academia are unbelievably more stressful that the first 5 in industry, but they tell me there's a switch after tenure.  But each person will be different.  I don't usually get stressed from anything.  My spouse says I'm a robot. During my qualifying exams my committee said I seemed too relaxed, and they would try to make me stress. They didn't. 

One final point is about money.  Professor salaries are mostly public, so you can look those up on your own. My industry offers ranged from $130k to $190k.  My current salary is more than that, but I'm beginning to hit the ceiling for science/engineering pay grades, and I'm not about to move into strict-managerial role.  The benefits are crazy good.  I'm still surprised about the benefits, discounts, and bonuses (from $10k-$40k), but working on problems that I am passionate about is very important, and academic salaries are still good.  

I think from my answers and the questions and interviews with people I know in academics, I'm currently better suited for academia, but each person is different, and I won't know until I try! If only future Phindustry could tell me if I'm doing the correct thing. 

Letter solicitation

"Solicitation isn't good because it will land you in jail"

That's the quote I got from a friend when mentioning that my referrers (referees?) have been getting solicited for letters of recommendation. 

I applied to a crapload of schools. I mean, a lot, a shitton...a bunch. I did this to hedge my bets.  In industry (and probably other places) we call it 'minimizing risk'.  I figured a small portion would be contacting me, so I needed to apply to a ton to maximize my chances. It turns out that when several schools are interested in you, they will all email those on your List of References. And those references have to tailor the letter to each school. I'd imagine it's time-consuming so I feel kind of bad. Should I feel bad? My spouse says no because these people want to see me succeed. But I know I would be peeved if I was getting new requests every week to put out letters of recommendation.  When I write letters for people it is time-consuming, and getting ten requests from different schools would tax every last bit of patience have.  And I'm not sure if they're going to get more.  The applications were due three weeks ago, and I thought letter requests wouldn't go out until December at the earliest.  I have no idea about timescale for these things.

I'm not 100% sure of whether asking for letters is a good thing or just a formality, or what percentage of applicants get pushed to the letter stage, but I'm feeling optimistic. I don't want to get all bundled in a warm blanket of hope only to get it ripped away, leaving me exposed to the elements, but dang-it, I'm going to get excited!  Or maybe I won't. There's nothing I can do about this but sit on my butt, since my advisor said it's bad practice to email the committee just to check up on things. This is really different than the industry job search, where I cyber-stalked my way to multiple job offers.

The only thing now, is what's the best way to show my appreciation to my references for writing all these letters?

Working your own hours

I remember reading a quote once from a professor who said, "I love that I can make my own schedule in academics. I can work 80 hours a week, any time that I want."

I agree with this principle tremendously. Who cares when or how long you work as long as you get your work done?  Some cultures have a work-til-you drop mentality, where I'm supposed to spend 100 hours a week working, and you're put on a pedestal if you do so. Most medical device companies are like this. And I am not. 

When I'm on my death bed I'm 100% certain that I won't be wishing I spent more time at work. Or reminiscing about what I did while in the lab (except for the fun conversations and screwing around). Untimately, for most us, our impact will be mostly nothing: our work to sit in the Annals of Crazyfield or Society of Upturned Noses Letters getting cited every once in a while. My current work is sitting in patents and products that are actually saving peoples' lives, and making stockholders rich. The products will go down in history, but my name will be forgotten. Now, some scientists and engineers reach great heights, but to reach great heights in specialized fields causes great personal sacrifice. I can't imagine the sacrifice for the rock-stars like Bob Langer at MIT. However, as he's stated, it's a labor of love. A hobbie. I really really love spending all my time with friends and family and hobbies. And even though my work is awesomely fun, it's still not as fun as the things I do outside of work. 

My mentality might be grim, but life is way too short to spend all of it working. If that's what's fun for you, then fine, but I choose to be reminiscing with family and friends, instead of spending Thankgivukkah alone. When I accepted my industry position, my old advisor said something like, "you only get 10 days of vacation?!?".  The minimal vacation time is alright, but making my own hours is the thing I miss the most. If I feel like taking a long lunch to recharge my batteries before the afternoon then I should be able to. And for some reason, every single person that's overworked seems like a total douchebag, and not someone I strive to be. Even if they are leading the company. 

I brought this up with my former advisor and he said not to mention that in any interviews (haha, ME getting interviews), or it'll look like I'm lazy. I don't think it's possible, but there must be a way to prove that you don't have to be addicted to work to be successful. 

Writing style

Putting together my application documents, running them through some faculty member's edits, and working on next year's app if this year doesn't pan out has reminded me how academic writing is different. In my current industrial job I have to do writing. I write to my coworkers, bosses, doctors, and to the FDA.  No one ever has clarification questions, and I've never gotten complaints about my writing. 

The very first manuscript I produced went though 18 edits with my old advisor. 18!  That's crazy, considering the amount of time it took to go through each one. Although the time got less with each consecutive edit. The amount of edits went down to just a single edit by the time I got my final paper out. My advisor really helped me write more gooder :).  One comment I still got from him and reviewers was that my writing is "too simplified, and should be written more scientifically".

I have a dear friend that teaches technical writing for the government, companies, and various universities. He's written a book on how to best perform technical writing, and I have him regularly edit my documents. He reorganizes my sentences and changes word usage (English wasn't my first language), but has never said my writing isn't understandable. In fact, he says he understands most of the core concepts of my papers after reading them. This is something I take great pride in. I read scientific articles in my own field that regularly confuse me because they're too scientific. 

My bud always says his philosophy is that the point of writing is to let other people know your thoughts, results, etc. If you're not writing for clarity, then you're doing it wrong. Period. I mostly agree but with one caveat for scientific journals and presentations: the public is paying for you to do your work. You are lucky enough to be the recipient of tax funds, and as such, have an obligation to let the public know how you're spending their money. Just like in a company, I have a personal responsibility to let my employer know how I'm spending their money. When I was in academia, I tried my best to make sure everyone could understand my talks and papers. This was not just for reviewers and scientific writers, but to make sure that the public could at least understand the basics. It got on my nerves when a presenter at public forums my old university used to put on would present in a way where only the scientists in the room could understand. It is our duty and responsibility to the people who fund our research. And I'll keep writing and presenting in so-called "unprofessional" ways if the most important people, the tax-payers, understand it. 

Visiting the old lab

I had to perform a study at a hospital in the quaint city that houses my old run-of-the-mill R1 grad school. So I got to check out the old lab and see what they've been up to. Turns out: not so much. They've published once since I left. Once! 

I'd understand one pub if the lab was full of first- or second- year grad students and if there wasn't as much money rolling around. But there are several active big grants in their 2nd-4th years. A couple 2nd year grad students, a few 3rd year, a couple 5th year ready to defend, a masters student, a couple techs, and a couple post-docs. To be fair, one of the 5th years was writing a manuscript. So I was wondering what the problem was. Was it that my former advisor got tenure, so he slowed down? We're the kids in the program slow workers? Was it just a slump?

Then my old advisor asked me to talk with one of his students. The student (let's call him Second Year, or SY) has been stuck for 5 months. He's been building a device to make some crazy measurements but has not been able to get each subsystem working to 100%. Best he's been able to do is 50% on one of them. The rest hover around 10% operational. So I look at this, and begin to explain what I feel is going wrong.  He is unfamiliar with any of the concepts I'm referring to. These are very simple concepts that I know the average undergrad could pick up. It blew my mind. After I got SY's project back on the correct track, and helped a couple other students along the way, my old advisor wanted to go up to his office to chat.

He had miscellaneous papers piled up all over the place, and looked as though he's been stressed in trying to get the army of researchers he has to do the right things. So I found the answer: the researchers working for him suck. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I was part of a cohort of 3 PhD students that came in at the same time that as he says: "Changed the course of the lab."  The 3 of us implemented proper protocols, changed improper reagents, built new devices, etc.  My old advisor came straight out of grad school and did not have the breadth of experience required if you're going to start new types of projects. We added this experience and the lab started pulling in a crazy amount of money because of it. Since we came at the same time, we left at the same time. And we all thought the lab would have a couple issues, but it appears they're having major issues. So, who's to blame here? I polled my two former cohorts:

Cohort 1: Old advisor is at fault, he's recruiting the wrong students

Cohort 2: We did fine with little oversight. The students need to step it up

I took a different tactic: we didn't leave the lab in a good enough place where 'green' students couldn't keep up the pace. Part of this has to do with the fact that my old school isn't the most highly regarded (even though it is R1), so the students aren't as good. But we knew this, and should have helped the lab more instead of getting our letters and getting the fudge out of there. 

I'm certain my old advisor will be able to recover, but the core deficiencies are worrying me. I suspect he'll just have to do more babysitting. I hope he's not too attached to his hair...

Industrial perks

This is the last repost from my posts that were deleted.  Sorry for the reposts, but this should be it!  Everything from here-on-out will be fresh.

The medical device industry is booming. With an aging population and tons of people that don't take care of themselves, we're doing very well. Also, with the heavy lobbying in congress on behalf of the medical-industrial complex (more than oil and defense COMBINED), we've got more money than we know what to do with.

Because of this there are great perks in the form of compensation (healthcare, pension, retirement, discounts on everything, bonuses, salary, etc).  But I didn't really get into scingeering (scientific engineering) for the money. I like discovering new things, building stuff to help the world (research devices, medical devices), and playing with cool shit. 

I got reminded why I like industry today. I watched a show where they covered emerging tech, and they highlighted a very cool toy from a start-up in Canada. I immediately recognized the novelty of the product for its potential use in the medical device industry (something that none of the start-up's documentation would point to).  I brought this up my boss, and explained the potential novelty. He was on-board then told me to use my corporate card to pre-order 10 developer units, 10 completed units, and 5 developer kits. Total cost was $6000 on a whim for something that may not even pan out. My corporate card hovers around $100k each month with random things that usually don't pan out. And these are just purchases I make through my corporate card, there are many more purchases made through our PO system. This is, by far, the only thing I will miss when I make the jump to academia (I WILL MAKE THE JUMP). I get to do crazy stuff and play with the coolest toys, albeit in a field I'm not as interested in. Perks are nice, but the technology, science, education, and freedom are where it's at. 

A drunken conversation with an old labmate

I asked an old labmate to look over my application documents a little while back.  This person graduated a few months before I did and also accepted an industry position.  He/she isn't intending on heading into academia though.  When he/she called me about the docs we started to reminisce about grad school.  We had an unbelievable time.  And we still talk once a week.  For this conversation we decided to talk over a glass (or 9) or wine.  He/she isn't in the same city; this was done over the phone.  And I recorded and transcribed it.  This is not meant to offend anyone.  If you're not a fan of bad language or rude comments then stop reading right meow!  I have replaced the names to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent, and put my own current thoughts about the comments in parens.

And open curtain!
*I am sitting at my dining room table, computer in front of me, in my male/female underwear since it's really hot*
*Ring-ring*
*Ring-ring*
*I look at my phone and see my dog, ahhhhhhhhhh*

Me: What's happening, Lady?
Lady: Hey Person, what's going on?
Me: Nothing really, just really hot, and about to pour some wine.
Lady: I looked at your docs.
Me: How'd they look?
Lady: Horrible, but I'm sure you'll get a job.
Me: Awesome, can you send me it with track changes?
Lady: No worries.  What's been in your life lately?
Me: I went to a beach this morning, and you're not going to believe this, but Tina emailed me for a job reference

(Tina is an old labmate of ours.  One year behind us, and one of the personal, not professional, favorites of our old advisor.  He let her get away with anything: ditching work, not getting anything done, etc)

Lady: Really? How's she been?
Me: Meh, she's getting ready for graduation.  I like her, so I'm helping her out.
Lady: Our lab was the craziest! And she wasn't part of it at all.  She was too stuck up, along with John.  Then never wanted to play around or drink in the office.
Me: It's not like she's mean though.
Lady: Remember when I went into their office and tossed confetti everywhere?  Then you switched all of their computers.  She was so mad!
Me: Yeah, why did we do that?
Lady: Because her and John (Tina's office mate) never showed up and never got in trouble.  We always got busted!
Me: Do you think we were secretly jealous?
Lady: Yeah, I'm jealous that they're still stuck in grad school while we are inundated with awesome. (sarcasm)
Me: Do you wish that you could have gotten a PhD without really trying, like they do?
Lady: Oh! Would you rather spend 1 year in a men's federal penitentiary or 10 years in the mountains of Korea with a bunch of monks, living a they do: pure, no entertainment, no sex, etc.
Me: 10 years in the mountains!  I've heard guy prisons are rough!
Lady: I would do the prison, that's a lot of life lost!
Me: But the rape, stabbings, sodomy!
Lady: It's not that bad, let me Google.

*click-clacking of a keyboard*

Lady: Holy shit! This guy was raped every day for a year, and when he told the guards about it, they said, "you liked it," and never addressed the issue.  He was...
Me: I don't want to hear that stuff!
Lady: Too bad!

(He proceeds to give me absolutely horrible details, which I will not type here.)

Me: That's disgusting!
Lady: Man, I'm not going to attack my enemies when it's time for justice.  I'm just going to frame them for a federal crime.
Me: Here's the thing: 10 years in the mountains as a monk, you'll be brilliant and have the best body you've ever had.  And you'll still have all of your body parts.
Lady: You've never been more correct.
Me: Well, I have to get going, will be you playing video games later?
Lady: Yeah, remember how dumb Tina and John were?
Me: Oh gosh, remember when someone asked you if you helped John out?
Lady: No...
Me: You yelled, "What the fuck am I supposed to be doing? Cup his nuts while taking his notes!"  The whole lab was there!
Lady: Oh yeah, that was hilarious!
Me: Seriously, I have to go.
Lady: Next time we get together, we have to drink 50 beers!
Me: YES!  I love you!  And I will pay!
Lady: You better, because I fucking love you!  I'm going to glue my pubes to your face!
Me: Suddenly, I'm glad I moved away.
Lady: Hugs and kisses!
Me: Love you, I'll talk to you later!
Lady: BBBBYYYYYYEEEEEE!!!!!!

*hanging up the phone, and taking a sip of wine*

This got me thinking about these two students we were talking about.  Our old advisor clearly allowed these two to do anything.  They did inferior work, and were practically useless for the entire lab.  We were definitely jealous of their freedom.  We had a ton of projects with tight deadlines and lofty expectations.  Our research was self-funded, John and Tina were allowed to syphon off of other projects.

This got me thinking that we shouldn't be jealous.  We should be grateful we worked like dogs.  We got a breadth of knowledge, learned how to be independent, and we're both in great jobs now.  Is an advisor being selfish and hurting his students when he places all of his responsibility on a few select students, while the others are led to the thought that they may be good students, but are actually quite horrible.  I talked to Tina about this and she said she's not going to have problems finding a job because she's a woman (that comment REALLY pissed me off), but John will have issues because he's not as talented, plus he's a white guy.  I really feel like our advisor should have realized this and evened out the treatment.  I ask anyone that reads this: as an advisor, do you believe in birth-order sociological research?  Are these younger students expected to do less, and therefore are less prepared for the professional world, as is what sometimes happens with siblings?  What should our advisor have done different?

Regarding the comment that pissed me off: I think there should be initiatives to get women and minorities into STEM fields.  And that's where it should stop.  Job searches should not have any relevance to age, sex, creed, religion, favorite Harry Potter movie.  That's just my personal thought, since it provides a crutch to students, and the system produces potentially inferior science if the best candidate is not getting the job.  My gender is ____________, and my race is ____________.  The only thing I'll say is that I'm not the typical scientist/engineer/attractive human being.  The most qualified person deserves the job.  End of story.  If that means I don't get the job, then that's fine.  I think it's the sportsperson in me: if I lost, I deserve it.  I just have to try harder next time!

Finding an industrial mentor

I work in a very small team. Just a few (<5) engineers and scientists, and we're the best darn team in the world of medical devices. Not an understatement if you look at what we've come up with and patents, profits, and lives saved from the products that just a few people came up with. 

There's one other PhD on the team.  He worked in an academic-type field for a decade before selling his soul to industry, and I've decided that he would be my mentor. I feel very strongly that everyone in every field needs to have a mentor. My old academic advisor even had a senior faculty advisor. My mentor (let's call him old mentor, OM) is a very vocal person. If something doesn't jive with OM, OM will let everyone know about. OM will yell, and never let up whether it's related to work or not. We were talking about academia (OM's the only person that can relate to academia in my group) and OM mentioned how the freedom is the thing most missed. The freedoms to run around campus to catch any random seminar, try crazy things in the lab, and OM is convinced that teaching at a university keeps you young and vibrant since you're around younger people all day (I'm the youngest on my team, and I just turned 30).  OM regularly tells me that he/she missed the academic boat as it was leaving port as OM was getting older. OM's biggest regret is not pursuing the academic route earlier, and constantly tells me that I should get out and do it.  

I haven't told OM about my current academic pursuit, but I feel OM could potentially help me out by offering sage advice (as OM has been doing throughout my industrial work) and looking over documents and presentations. I don't want to show him for secrecy reasons. After all, he sold his soul. Is it normal to keep stuff from your mentors?  I feel like I'm not utilizing the proper personnel around me given that there is an experienced professional one office down. OM is pretty open with me, and I think would keep my secrets safe, but I'm a little nervous. I know OM would be ecstatic for me if I get a faculty post, but I really don't know. 

The price of freedom

For some reason some of my old posts got relegated. I'm reposting the ones I find in the next few days. Sorry if you already read these...

I was conversing with my spouse about the places to which I applied. One thing that came up was cost-of-living. Right now I make significantly more than my spouse (6x). My salary will most likely be halved if I manage the make the switch. I hope it will still be worth it. A lot of academics I talk to tell me I've made the correct call in going to industry (they don't know that I took this job to get experience to bring to academia). They say the money is worth not working on exactly what you want to, also they say having a boss (and the other crappy things that come with industry) is a minor inconvenience given the higher cashflow. But here's the thing: they don't know since most of them have been in academia their whole lives. Just like I can't speak to academia other than from a grad student's perspective. They think that grant writing and teaching will stop in industry. It doesn't. I write to a different audience begging for money and I play politics all the time. Except I get screamed at when something goes wrong

This brings me to my point: what's the price of (research) freedom?  For me, it will be a cut in my salary by 50%. Moving from a high-level position for a major medical device company is a big move. So I made a pros and cons list. I won't share it unless you want it, but industry won just in pure amount of things on the list. But, when I weighed things (1-10) scale on importance, academia won big-time. The people in academia telling me that I should stay see the $$$, but I'm certain they would get tired of the grind very quickly. But when some douche is monitoring their hours, and telling them not to pursue something interesting because there really isn't a market for it, they'll realize how lucky they are. 

I suspect this is a "grass is greener..." situation since academics have their own crappy stuff to deal with, but the things I hold most dear (not money and patents) are not in industry, so maybe I'm correct.  And should invest in a lawn mower. 

Time spent on applications

I was thinking about how stressful the job search has been, and I remember the industry search being far less stressful.  During my industry job search I had already finished my dissertation and was just touching up my defense slides.  So I got to wake up, work on applications, not worry about traveling for interviews, with any schedule I wanted.  The past few months I've been putting in my usual 40-70 hours a week at my job, and working on my application materials (research statement, teaching philosophy, cover letter, CV) in my time off at home.  This includes trying to spend time with my wonderfully supportive spouse, my cute dog, keeping my body fit, house duties, etc.  And this has sucked!

I feel like I'm going to be at a competitive disadvantage to my PhD sisters and brothers because, from what I've seen post-docs do, they have more time than I do, since they work on their faculty applications while in their current jobs. Those PIs out there: don't kid yourselves. They're doing it. In industry, you would be fired instantly for working on your apps for your next job while on the clock in your current job. So, this means they've had far more time than me to develop ideas, write then up, and even try it in the lab. I'm hoping that my experience on the translational medicine side (after all, my products have to into people quickly if we're going to make a profit) will offset any weaknesses in my application, such as no preliminary data. If I got that data in my current lab, I would be fired in an instant. 

When I look at total time on my application materials, it's around 80 hours. This is spaced over a couple months, but I can't help but think about how much better the application could have been if I had more time to fine tune the documents and collect some data to support my hypotheses. Looking at my post-doc friends, they all still have the grad school experience (freedom, work hours, interesting work, relaxed work environment) and they could be better positioning themselves for faculty jobs than me. My salary might be almost 4x their's, but if it ultimately leads to the demise of my academic dreams, then what's the point. But that's totally a first-world issue. Unless I was a working in Zambia, then it'd be a third-world issue. 

Letters of recommendation

For most jobs in industry there are no letters of recommendation. Just references that HR will call or send emails to with generic question with 1-10 ratings. For my current position, I had to list eight (!) people willing to fill out the questionnaires on me. Tough to find eight, but that's how it is. 

For the academic positions, the universities requested between 3-5 references. None were required to send letters. Then, about a week later, my references emailed me saying they've been solicited for the letters from a few of the schools. One of my old advisors (the one I learned most of my knowledge from) told me it's a great thing because I made it past stage 1. Are letters really that big a deal? I've written a decent amount of recommendation letters and they all say roughly the same thing. Should committees really be using these to do further filtering? Was my old co-advisor correct that I've moved up? Does this mean that the schools that didn't solicit my recommendations are not considering me any more?  This is so nerve-abliterating.  Part of this is also that if this doesn't work out, I know I'll be stuck here for another year, not working on things I have a deep passion for.  Ugh.  I'm going to try my darnedest to forget about this and get on with my life. Maybe I'll go shopping. Or hunting. Or better yet, praying. 

Oh gosh, I'm thinking of it again.  I wonder if there's a sale on hair dye to cover up the gray hairs I'm getting...

Dressing like a doctor*

I started this blog at the perfect time since my butt has been sitting in a plane-seat a lot, and there's only so much work and sleep one can do. At my most recent trip to a hospital for a study, I wore casual attire since I normally dress in scrubs. It turns out the study had been cancelled, but this allowed me to talk with the doc about future projects and direction. A very useful talk; except for the end. He mentioned, "You should be mindful of your attire when talking with customers and colleagues."

I'm no style guru, but I dress quite nicely in and out of work. My parents always said, "Don't ever be the least dressed person in a room."  They're referring to formality, not nakedness, although I guess it could apply to nakedness, as well. In academia I dressed like I do in the outside world. Hair done, clean, wrinkle-free casual but formal-enough. On a scale of 1-10 where 10 is what the Obama's wear to the ball, and 1 is a tank and underwear (both with holes), I hover around a 6. At work, I'm slightly higher than business casual (8). Everyone's at a 7 at work, and outside they're usually at a 5 (jeans and a T). But I wonder, if everyone was their own boss (ala academia) would they constantly be rocking the 5 or less?  

That's one thing I dislike about industry. I feel like I'm judged a lot on the way I look, whereas I've regularly seen asst profs wearing shorts. And they still maintain success. What's funny about the industrial attire, too, is my 8 is always covered by a lab coat! I could be naked and no one would notice. Maybe that's what I'll do on my last day here. My friend always calls this the "monkey suit". He/she typically rocks the 3, so they're ultra upset about the industry attire.  They made an interesting point, too, non-PhDs have less freedoms in attire. After this was mentioned I noticed this, as well. Does this mean, as PhDs, we're punished? The salary is higher, but the managerial responsibility is relatively low. Why should we have to dress like business-men/women?

In my introductory posting I should have also wrote that I want to enter the ivory tower because I can dress a little more casual when I feel like it instead of the company "allowing" me to do it on Fridays.  Unless we have a visitor, then 8, here I come. 

Waiting: A tragedy of MASSIVE proportions

I was trying to think of a movie to make an analogy of the post-applying waiting process to (yay! Ending a sentence with a preposition...although is it still ended in a preposition if I have this long parened statement afterword?).  I couldn't think of any film where you spend the whole movie wondering "what am I doing here" then you get an incredibly happy or crushing ending.  So, I just threw up Waiting.  I didn't like this film at all, so it's similar to my search process.  And during the movie, I remember getting a little anxious about when it would end because I just wanted out.  Some faculty from other colleges have told me the earliest I'll hear back is mid-December, and the waiting is killing me.

When I was applying for industrial jobs, I went through a similar process.  Getting my cover letter and resume, submitting them online, and waiting.  The core difference is that I was able to keep applying to keep my mind off of the applications that I first submitted.  Industrial positions come up all the time regardless of the academic cycle.  Academic application cycles all end late-fall, and from what I've heard, committees don't look at it until the end of the semester.  For my industry search, I typically forgot about most of the positions since I was constantly applying.  Even during my interview stage, I kept applying, which also helped me forget about the waiting.

Right now, the application season for the universities I'm interested in has ended (28 schools...I know, if I was this selective with mates, I would have been married A LOT sooner).  All the apps are submitted and there are no more I can apply for.  This also makes the academic application process stressful since if it doesn't work this year, then there's a whole another year of waiting for the next application cycle.  More waiting.  And who knows if there will be just as many, or fewer, positions open for people like me.

Nothing ever bothers me.  The worst reviewer comments, my parents horrible comments, getting yelled at at work, nothing gets to me...except waiting.  I'm insanely impatient, and I want satisfaction now.  So here's what I've been doing since I can't occupy myself with applying for more jobs:

1.  Two new video games have come out these past couple of weeks
2.  Reading a couple new books
3.  Working a little extra
4.  Drinking
5.  Petting my incredible dog
6.  Thinking about next year.

I mention the last comment because I didn't have as much time as I would have wanted during this application cycle.  I feel it looks pretty strong, and have been told so from other people, but there are things I wish I could have done.  So I'm actually rewriting portions of my statements.  It's going to be bittersweet if I get a job offer.  Maybe I should just keep to the Xbox/PS3 and not focus on next year...and staring angrily at the slow-boiling water on the stove.

Edit 11/11/13: My old advisor is very confident I will get interviews so he told me to add #7 to the list: prepare job talks. :P

Touching bases with the former advisor

My first task was to talk to former mentors and make sure they were good with writing letters of recommendation. Ultimately, this led to my former advisor asking me what my project ideas are for my research statement. Those unfamiliar with getting academics jobs, you need a few crucial documents:

1. Cover letter: explain why you would fit into their department

2. Teaching statement: explain what your philosophies are. Ultimately, you're a teacher. 

3. List of references and CV (side note-how weird is the CV? What other document besides legal ones are you encouraged to put in every last excruciating detail? And just like legal docs, no one reads the whole thing.)

4. Research statement: basically an overview of your specialities, ideas, and (in a way) grant writing abilities.

Now, my advisor wanted to know for one primary reason: so we wouldn't compete. It's apparently frowned upon to be in the same direct field as the guy upstairs (not God...I'm sure God would be fine with me trying to be similar to him). So my old boss had a few comments. On two of my research ideas there wasn't really overlap but he used the comment "I may work on that in the future". I bit my tongue and took it out of my ideas, but that was a serious dick move. 

My relationship with my former advisor is interesting. I really hated him in grad school. I mean, I seriously wanted to hit him at times, and I am far from a violent person. On top of this, I was his best student, by far.  I published a ton, was his local subject expert on a ton of concepts.  The lab mates called me the golden child. But my success caused him to really start using me. Hence the hatred. When I left he started to treat me as a colleague instead of a condom (use me and not realize how important I am). He offered to give any help he could to get me into academia. If someone was received as evil and you hate him, what does it take to get back on your good side? I feel myself actually liking him, but I remember how much I hate him and now I'm conflicted. That's all a long tangent though...

So I wrote my statements and letter and sent it his way. He gave me some very good comments and I think my application packet looks strong. My biggest weakness is my pedigree. I went to two non-great state schools. I feel like I've made up for it with double-digit manuscripts in decent journals and real world experience.  

With this packet I've applied to my first slew of schools. All are R1 looking for faculty with my expertises, and each took a freaking hour to change my app ever so slightly, overcome technical issues, and apply for the positions. I actually feel kind of stressed over this, which is weird because I already have a great job, but I am SO FREAKING PUMPED ABOUT WORKING ON THESE PROJECTS I'M PROPOSING!!!

While I'm waiting on responses from the academic elite I'll write on some other experiences post-PhD. 

Saying 'hello' to my soul again

Sooooo, I finished my PhD a couple of years ago in a bioengineering-type field. I had always been industry-focused because I wanted the real-world relevance. I even took a break between my undergrad and grad educations to get a few years of industry experience.

About a year from graduation I started to apply for industry positions in the medical field. I lined up an offer very quickly for one of the most publically reputable companies in the world in a fast-paced laboratory. It was my dream job. Was. About 6 months before graduation a lot of my results came together and I learned more about academia and I realized I made a huge mistake. I wanted to enter academia. I wanted the freedom, the mentorship and teaching of students, the core search for good, expanding my knowledge-base beyond what is needed for profits, and working with people who are genuinely brilliant. I don't mind the politicking and endless committees and egos because I'm going to have that stuff anywhere. I had all these good things in graduate school (self-funded through my own research grants) and I didn't realize how much I liked it until too late. I ultimately decided to continue on the industry track because I knew it would give me experience beyond what a typical post-doc would have. And the pay. I am easily making 2x my old advisor. 

I've already developed a couple products in my industrial R&D lab and feel like I've gotten all the real-world experience I want. To be honest, I feel like I'm getting dumber in industry. I'm learning a lot about one little field and how to think like an evil business man, but I don't have exposure to anything else. I've been reading all I can, but there's only so much time. The academics out there are thinking "duh. Of course we're smarter". And I would say "you're not all smarter, but you're definitely less evil than industry scientists." I'm looking at you, Monsanto. 

With that, I'm going to make the shift to academia. So far, I have applied for 20 R1 universities and will talk about the hardship of the transition and my application process if it happens this year. If it doesn't I'll just continue on the journey to next year's application season. So I've been kissing a lot of butt, and trying my hardest to switch mindsets to creating an academic application package those already in the ivory tower will like. Here's to a year of depression in an overpaid job if I don't get any offers!