Need to relinquish all motivation and aspiration. Tell me the WORST things about being an academic

[CareersDontGetEuologies]

Five years, almost to the day, since my PhD viva, and today was my fiftieth or so (though I forced myself to lose count) postdoc interview failure. I've had a few pieces of casual work and one very short FTC and have LOVED it all, but with every failure causing me exponentially more distress: clearly, I need to accept my limits and stop applying, if only for the sake of my MH.

So tell me, what is TERRIBLE about being an academic? What do you HATE??

[Fondip]

pensions. Used to be one of the positive aspects compared to the much higher salaries in the international market, now every year we need to protest to keep our right to a decent pension.

[TupilaLilium]

From my vantage point, the good days of academia are over. We are a two-academic household actively discouraging our kids from getting PhDs. We no longer have any illusion that our jobs are secure. My uni has had huge redundancies several times past five years. Next year some new management consultant could decide our entire school needs to close. This is dangerous, because academia is a process of continued narrowing. When lifelong academics in their 50s lose jobs, it is hard for them to find places to go, even if they could uproot their families. Most unis would rather hire precarious 30 year olds on cheap, short term contracts. We are under increasing pressure to achieve for REF, for impact, for NSS, and yet there is less admin support to help us manage. At a recent meeting someone asked how we can keep going without admin support. The response was to recruit and teach more and you can have your admin support back. This is explicit to me: I know we must recruit 40 students on my postgrad course, or we will lose a precarious staff member and I will have 2x the workload. The expectations for me to do research and impact will not decrease if I have to increase my teaching. Now we don't even have an office. I have to do my work with my family in the background with my own dodgy wifi. The uni reminds me I am not commuting, they don't care that I selected the kids school to be near my office so we are commuting, double the trips each day.

There is some freedom, which is nice. I can go for a walk in the middle of the day. That is the only perk left. The rest is total shit. The students are consumers, the management is exploitive, and the tedium of doing it all from home is profound.

[SocraticCat]

Think I agree with lekkerkroketje here. You do this 4 month contract and then what? If it links into some longer term plan (eg tiding you over until a longer contract you really want to do, an extra publication that will make the difference, giving you the space to decide what to do next) then go for it. But if it's just putting off the inevitable for 4 months maybe it's time to quit now.

4 months isn't long - are you going to end up with a half-written paper that you feel obliged to finish writing up afterwards unpaid just so it wasn't all for nothing? If you go for a fellowship, there's probably a good year until it would start - how are you going to fill that extra 8 months?

I think your head has realised it doesn't want to be doing this anymore, but your heart hasn't quite caught up with it - it's still hoping. I recognise this - I keep thinking I've given up on academia and am ready to walk away, but I just keep coming back. I should take my own advice...

[lekkerkroketje]

Based on my (not particularly positive experience) I wouldn't take it unless you've got no other choice. I've done very short contracts, but only when there has been a very logical reason: one time the next contract elsewhere was guaranteed but needed paperwork finishing, and another time when I needed 3 months somewhere to finish up some personal life stuff before moving. Both of those were really just charity from the PIs, with no expectation of results. You're just adding 4 months to the inevitable, so the only reason to take it is as an alternative to the dole, where you apply full time for anything and everything during the contract.

[coffeemonster28]

How will you cope with four more months of insecurity and further rejections?

[CareersDontGetEuologies]

I'm so glad this thread struck such a chord with so many. I'm returning only now because, only weeks after starting the thread, I was actually offered a job 😲 (is my PI on MN?!) albeit only on a fixed-term non-extendable 4 month contract. The team seems to somehow like my work and are encouraging me to apply for to the relevant research council (apologies for vagueness) for a fellowship grant.

I am feeling so conflicted. On the one hand, I love the actual research work - but everything which surrounds it that this thread has well dissected, not. And I find rejection harder to cope with each time I am rejected, and I don't know whether my MH can handle it. And I value my MH more than my career, I do.

Should I try? Shouldn't it?

[Darkmatterduck]

I’m another that has moved from academia to professional services and never looked back. Job security, less stress, better hours, and a mostly interesting role. I really love the mix of people I work with, with all sorts of interesting backgrounds leading to great conversations. I do some freelance science writing but to be honest as my time away from academia has passed I have less inclination to do this. I still keep up to date with my old field just out of interest, and find it more enjoyable without the pressure of it being my career.

[DrGilbertson]

@lekkerkroketje all sounds quite positive to me, except for the not hearing bit which is horrid. Next steps all sound quite positive too really. Having lived in a different country to DH for 3 years until we married I really liked it when we started living together.

[lekkerkroketje]

Well, I think my career is over. It's a bizarre feeling. 6 weeks since the closing date for the last ditch attempt to save it and not heard from them. I've turned down an interesting postdoc (first time I've ever said no!) in a very nice but completely impractical city and told my collaborators so no backing out now. So now it's just waiting my contract out. Planning to disappear on holiday over the summer, so I've got 3 months to tie up the loose ends and 2 conferences to survive. Zeros motivation, obviously!

But I'm going home!!! I'll be able to get a job with more than a two year contract, that doesn't force me to move and where I have a pension. I'm not sure if I'm excited or terrified. I'm going to have to live with DH full time too. That's going to take some getting used to...

[sonjadog]

Incredible lack of professional behaviour at meetings. Really jaw-dropping stuff.

The back-biting and gossip. Academia can be a very lonely place.

There are many, many more people who want to be academics than there are jobs. It is soul-destroying for many people trying to get a job. If it is making you bitter, give it up. Getting a job is more about luck than talent, so don't feel bad about yourself if you are getting rejection after rejection.

Being creative and self-motivated day in and out gets tiring. Sometimes I wish I had a job where I just turned up and someone else told me what to do.

[CaraDuneRedux]

7 years as a junior academic, followed by 20 years outside academia, but still doing science R&D. Still in an environment where I get to do research (and there's an expectation on me to publish).

Things I do not miss:

• Long hours culture
  
• Thinly veiled sexism (under a veneer of "but we can't be sexist, we're nice lefty intellectuals, we even have a 'this is what a feminist looks like' t-shirt kicking around somewhere.")
  
• Being dumped with the highest teaching load in the department, then sacked the year (against the odds) I got 5 papers into print! (The sacking being due to wanting to make the books balance because of an economic crisis in an entirely separate department!)
  
• Marking
  
• The esoteric pursuit of the latest academic fashion even if it's pointless (I get a great deal of job satisfaction from thinking the work I do now doesn't just lead to papers, it leads to applications which make a big positive impact on people's day-to-day lives).
  
• The insane back-stabbing competitiveness of academia (and the sheer nastiness of some academics.
  
• Not having an employer whose default setting is "shit on your employees from a great height." (My experience was horrible - and I have heard equally bad horror stories from other universities - including one Russell league university where a man with Parkinsons got a visit from someone from HR every sodding day asking him when he was going to take early retirement! )
  
  The thing I miss:
  
• Teaching. There's something about seeing a class of students' faces light up when they "get" something difficult, or taking a student who's really been struggling with something and helping them to understand.
  
  Walk away with your head held high, OP. There are intellectually challenging, interesting careers outside academia which will make you much happier.

[murmuration]

Oh, jabba, sorry you're so concerned! I know a fair number of academics who have moved into professional services and are very happy there - so at least it ought to be better than the purpose of this thread :)

I think no one knows where people are going to be working - even the higher-ups. You probably hit the sore spot in many Uni workers that the general public assumes we "do nothing" in the summer, and in many parts of professional services summer is the busiest part of the year - new systems made and trailed and all the things you can't do while students are actually using them, and only a short period before they're back for resits and everything needs to be working smoothly. Is the friend at the Uni you're going to be working at? We've got an online community within the Uni all about dealing with the remote computer-stuff - perhaps ask if there is something like that when you arrive? It's got the people who run the systems to answer questions about them, and also peer-to-peer support as people figure things out.

[jabbathebutt]

Not an academic but about to work in the higher education sector for the first time, albeit in professional services. fixed term 9m contract, with a 6 month probation.

I've always wanted to make the move into HE and I see this is a foot in the door. Plus close friend kept banging on about how good it was in HE compared to the public sector org I was in before.

Now that I'm asking friend lots of questions about what to expect, I'm finding said friend rather patronising and almost like she's mocking my lack of knowledge and experience.

I start next week and I'm very nervous about how I will adapt to using Moodle for example and figuring out how to record via Zoom and do transcripts via Zoom (rather than just doing a meeting request). All of a sudden I feel really thick and scared when previously I felt excited.

I made the mistake of asking friend what the university is like in the summer vs term and she replied "FFS we will still be working". Well, yeah I knew that but I was thinking Covid wise, how things would change etc and wondering if staff would be still WFH.

So in terms of motivation, mines has gone before I've even started and I feel really nervous! I have been lurking on academics corner to help me prepare for my new HE career. I hope I'm welcome!

[SuperHansBag]

I hate academia with a passion because:

• There is no space for critical debate and reasoning.
• It's woke as fuck to the point of weirdness.
• Men in academia are very sexist while trying to pretend to be 'an ally'.
• A lot of senior women in academic have very sharp elbows which makes it hard to find genuinely supportive women mentors.
• Workload is unmanageable.
• Email traffic is out of control.
• Students are increasingly consumers and, as such, increasingly rude and demanding.
• Meetings are largely pointless.
• Promotion criteria are vague and easily manipulated.
• 'Emeritus' professors create unrealistic expectations of what a career can/should look.
• 'Emeritus' professors take up space that should be given to ECRs because they refuse to just fuck off and retire.

I'm 35 and a senior lecturer at an RG university. I am doing another 10 years in this sector which will give me a health chunk of savings. Then I'm done. I will walk away one day and never ever ever look back.

[Butterfly44]

I came out years ago but at the time it was:

• How your contract is tied to grant funding
• Fixed term after fixed term and not much salary progression
• How you need a substantial number of publications, preferably in high impact journals
• Hours and hours in the lab, failed experiments to repeat....
• The egos

[JollyGreenGiantess]

Married to an early career academic. Christ if you had told me the impact the job would have on our lives at all levels I don’t think I would have gone through with the wedding. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every senior lecturer DW has ever worked with has been divorced.

Oh and the pensions have been destroyed.

(Sorry. Hope it’s ok to post a spouse perspective. 💐 to all you lovely academics keeping the ship afloat these past few months)

[DuesToTheDirt]

Too many short term contracts. Too much networking required (not my thing), too much self-promotion necessary (really not my thing....)

I only did research, not teaching, and many years ago I was at a union meeting discussing the prevalence of short contracts and their effect on staff. There was a suggestion that some unis might give people permanent jobs after 10 years (can you even imagine a 10 year probation period for a private company?!) There was some resistance to this on the basis that unis needed to be able to get rid of academic staff if they weren't performing well - these staff being some of the most highly educated people on the country. What an insult!

[changedmynameforChristmas]

Partner's daughter is an academic. Never worked even though she was 7 years at Uni. Had everything paid for by him knowing he struggled to help her. Let him pay for holidays, cars. white goods, driving lessons car insurance etc etc..
Finally got to where the education ended and the real world started and she had a baby to a randomer; but the real crime here was all she ever talked about was herself - her degree, her health, her life.

[DragonOnFire]

Thanks for both your suggestions, they are both things I have looked into and are relevant to me. I appreciate your advice.
My DH is not as mobile in his career as me, and we are very settled in our home with our DS so moving again is not on our agenda (have moved to work in four big cities together so far, so we are fine with staying put for now). I've come to terms with leaving academia but I still think it's such s waste of money to train people for so long then make them redundant just to train more PhD students (no problem with PhD students, just that the pyramid structure of academic careers is ridiculously wasteful).

[Spindelina]

Or look at NHS clinical scientist roles if you are bio-sciences or physics/engineering. Might be a pay cut / pause for a bit, but it's really interesting (I think) and you can get promoted quickly, especially if you are mobile.

[Teenageromance]

DragononFire - it sounds like you are lab based? Move into Pharma/technology companies. It’s booming at the minute and some really interesting jobs

[DragonOnFire]

I really needed this thread today.
I'm ten years post-PhD and have had three post-doc positions at three universities. Haven't managed to get promoted out of the grade 6 /technical/early years post-doc pay bracket. Have undertaken so much training and competent in so many techniques and teaching - but I will likely get made redundant in 6 months time.
My current supervisor promised me a career path with a fellowship in mind for me at this point in proceedings. Now he is telling me he is too busy to do much academic work (he is a clinician) and he is waiting for me to "turn into a pumpkin" next summer.
Covid-19 has turned the funding world upside down and there will be a huge shedding of talented, experienced scientists over the next year or so. Leaving a huge hole in the early-career talent pool of Universities.

[Wildswim]

You wouldn't even be qualified to teach in a school.