to ask what people's impressions are of academics/the job role

[anotheracademic]

I see there are quite a few of us and also see from the recent money and salary threads how much people are earning, working conditions and qualifications .
Im wondering what non academics impressions are of what we do, what they think/thought we earn and what we are like.

MQ, I assumed Philosophy was one of the most important research areas, because all of the other disciplines are underpinned by Philosophy.

anotheracademic -me too :)
really though, I do wish I had the chutzpah of some of my colleagues (fewer of them than there once were) whose over-inflated sense of their own importance to 'scholarship' and 'knowledge' justified the kind of nonsense evident in the Judith Chalmers post...

The usual stereotype of academics is probably that they're from a monied background, are dreamy and out of touch with reality and - obviously - very bright but maybe without common sense. Since I've always worked in academic environments though, that's not my view. Most academics I know are very ambitious and work very very hard. The most successful ones are actually quite sharp and business-like. They have to be or they wouldn't be able to raise any serious research funding and get their name out there. But they usually love what they do which is more than can be said for most of us office drones.

A career in academia is something I've always dreamed of but I never felt I could afford it realistically with the low wages and short-term contracts until you're about 35/40, unless you're in a high-demand area of research. Most friends of mine who did go down the PhD route spent their 20s being broke in rented flatshares and are only just now getting permanent jobs as lecturers (early 30s) or have retrained out of academia completely.

I do work at a university in a non-academic role (better pay, better conditions, get to be around lots of smart, challenging boffins!) and would love to go back and do a PhD some day but have no illusions about the likelihood of that leading to any kind of academic career without years of anti-social hours and low pay. Still would love to do one though just to immerse myself back in the groves of academe for a few years...

DSIL has been an academic for most of her professional life and is now v.v. unhappy. Moved from a senior lectureship role in UK RG Uni 4 years ago, to Asst. Prof. role in 3rd rate Aussie Uni, to facilitate change of lifestyle with v. young kids.

Bitterly regrets move. DSIL is v. research focussed, and hates the politics and in-fighting in current job. Is useless at politicking TBH. NBG at admin/finance/management type stuff. Also lone female in totally male-dominated scientific discipline.

DSIL is actually looking to relocate back to UK, but would cost them every penny they have. Couldn't possibly maintain current lifestyle (big house, DB is SAHD, indie schools for DC) in UK. No jobs here either.

Re. the MC Ivory Tower stereotype - DSIL went to Uni at the age of 28 after working as a builder since leaving school at 16. She has the tattoos to prove it. Got herself a 1st in Pure Maths and stayed in academia ever since.

The career academics I have crossed paths with have been lovely people but to be honest, on occasion rather overly earnest. By this I mean liable to demand a higher level of evidence for throw away comments and pepper casual conversations with lengthy references and data to support their very carefully held views. Fair enough and all but my brain can't keep up and I end up staring vacantly at the wall above their heads and then changing the subject to kittens.

Earnings wise I believe it can be lucrative if you work like a dog and publish lots of papers and books, otherwise not so much. I get the impression you have to wait for people to die for vacancies to arise in some venerable institutions. This is all idle speculation :)

I did a Philosophy degree so have seen academic life from the other side, it did look appealing as a career but hard work.

"liable to demand a higher level of evidence for throw away comments and pepper casual conversations with lengthy references and data to support their very carefully held views."

OMG thats me

Just checked my emails and all of my team are on tonight. They seem to be sending er, witty emails and geeky clever comments around in a round robin . Oh dear

AprilSunshine
Well i just wish I was a modeler. Seriously, if you can model shit then go into biology and you'll be snapped up, get paid loads and all of them I know are barely in the office.

Not my DH experience - and yes he has worked in the biological modelling field and has papers published. He's desperately trying to get a permanent lectureship post. He does work from home on occasions - mainly as it less distracting and he starts very early works late and works weekends. We are also facing prospect of him having to work away from us during week - when he does get a permanent job as its likely to be for a fixed term and we have DC is school. So far one post he was offered was not enough money to afford to live like that.

Nonsense? Is that about my post? Not sure what you mean. It's what she did, for sure. And why not? She didn't have an over-inflated sense of importance. As I said, she worked bloody hard for years, with small children, in a male-dominated environment and did her job well. The reward was an active research group, for which she was rather good at securing funding, and a nice side line is overseas travel. Hats off to her!

Annie - I think I must have misunderstood what you were saying (or perhaps the tone of it?) - if so, apologies - but I do know some individuals who do exploit the autonomous nature of much of the work to the detriment of the rest of the profession. I'm sure that, externally, exotic locations get people's backs up, although in my experience even very senior academics have very modest expectations of hospitality. I'm also sure this is common in other professions (politics, anyone?) and that it is nowhere near as much fun as it looks.

I'm sure the Shangri-La Beach Hotel was indeed very modest

It annoyed me a bit when I was trying to send her chapters and she kept disappearing off to foreign climes. And I know it drove the other lecturers wild with envy, but then they could have applied for the job. It was a job - she was recruiting overseas students.

Biological/mathematical modelling is what I do - not sure it really leads to high pay etc, if I wanted that I should have stayed in banking! As far as I know it's not that much different from other areas of biological research in that respect - though I'd be happy to be wrong of course!

Really interesting thread, I am dating an academic, think he is lovely
He is very bright, really interesting, and travels all over the place as his expertise in his field is in demand atm.

I, on the other hand am a lowly management consultant doing strategy research for healthcare companies. Think I earn more, but his job is more interesting.

PS i also wear jeans to the office but dont tell the clients

Yeah I was wrong with get paid loads part, don't know why I wrote that. I think from my pov it's much easier to publish if you're a modeler (don't necessarily need to collect your own data for one thing!) and therefore you can publish more and reach higher positions faster.

But do I think this area of biology is much more in demand than other areas, ecology especially seems very theoretical at the moment.

I am a full-time oxbridge research academic postdoc. A weekend without going in to work is unusual. I now leave at 5 to pick up the children and this is seen as not taking my work seriously (and they wonder why female scientists drop out at a certain age). I don't get paid overtime and in Jan/Feb/March was working until 1am every morning. Nursery fees take pretty much my entire salary. Contracts are short term until the length of a grant and there is no job guarantee. Lectureships are like gold-dust and bear no relationship to lecturing ability but are only granted to those who have already brought in external cash ie got their own grant, and even then it has usually been decided who the post will go to before the post is advertised (someone who they want to keep). There is probably more job flexibility than most jobs (although you pay for it later) and there is the fun of finding stuff out which is what drives everyone still doing it. But other than that it is not really to be recommended...

51weeks your experience simply proves my hunch that working conditions are far worse in some ways than in humanities, and considerably less family friendly (having said that, when someone from science in my university reviewed my area, he was genuinely shocked at the amounts of teaching and basic admin we do). Whether this is cause or effect in relation to the proportion of women in each, I don't know

I notice though many comments are made from PhD students and postdocs, who generally have slightly different viewpoints to academics. Without wanted to offend, but, for PhD students and postdocs, the most important thing is their individual project. They have the luxury of not worrying about many of the mundane details of academia and I know some of my research group think the money which I generate to keep my lab afloat magically appears on trees and is actually not a result of many hard spent weeks of writting grants (each grant takes around 1 month full time to write and has around 10% chance of being funded). Yes, some full time academics (not postgrads or postdocs) may not go into the lab often and whield a pipette, but that is because they are too busy doing other stuff such as generating funding which allows the PhD students and postdocs to do their work! There is slightly more to being an academic than nerdying around on your favourite topic whilst being paid for it.

I did indeed big up my supervisor for bringing in the dosh! I was not unappreciative at all. And she did get to write the proposals and applications on the beach

Writing proposals from the beach is really not the norm (unless, as with my own PhD supervisor, you are so successful you reach the level of never taking a family holiday and holidays become something tacked on the end of conferences, whilst working at the same time). Btw, my university does not have a travel budget for conferences, in which case, a conference visit is either organised with payment from the conference organisers (i.e. you are a big enough "name" to be worthwhile paying to come to the conference), or from your own research budget. Conferences, in spite of the (occassionally, but often not), exotic location are actually very, very hard work usually involving working round the clock by enertaining potential funders etc etc etc. Most of this is not seen by PhD students, for whom a conference is a paid holiday/jolly .

I think UAM makes a good point - the pressure to keep the lab afloat and the postdocs employed is very overwhelming.

I wanted to be an academic when I was a teenager - I wanted to work in scientific research, did a BSc and MSc but then I had to stop due to depression. I came from a very atypical background for a scientist - council estate, ethnic minority, and I was plagued by self-doubt throughout my time at university, which I realise now was completely unfounded.

I still feel a pang of regret when I read about others who have pursued it as a career and I think it's the kind of work that would have suited the way my brain works, but sadly not my social or lifestyle needs. I would hate the whole postdoc system and the office politics involved.

I have continued with academic interests though but in a more diverse way, doing HE courses in different subjects like maths, art history and creative writing - I have done a BA and am part way through another. I don't get any career satisfaction from it but it means I can learn about my own interests and I can still enjoy being in an academic environment.

I know a number of academics through my DH. He did a PhD in Theoretical Physics and while he went on to become a partner in a hedge fund, the majority of his friends (now mid 30s) continued in academia as theoretical physicists or mathematicians. I find them all very well adjusted. A bit nerdy, very intelligent, ambitious and highly competitive ... much like my DH in fact!

His friends at US universities (MIT/Princeton/Harvard) are Associate Prof. and seem reasonably well paid (£100k+) and are well treated/respected. They don't spend too much time on teaching (their juniors/post docs do that) and can focus on research.

The UK equivalents are far less lucky. They are Readers at Oxbridge or equiv universities. While they get some decent benefits (good pensions/bursaries etc) their base salary is poor (£55k+). Even worse they seem bogged down with undergraduate teaching and college admin rather than research.

Last year my DH helped interview candidates for trading jobs at his old investment bank. They hired a Math undergrad from Cambridge on a starting salary of £50k. The undergrad's tutor was one of his old friends who currently earns about £60k! I don't understand how the UK can value a Reader at possibly the best Math/Physics department in the world so poorly.

I admit that my experience is that many degrees from UK universities are not really worth the paper they are printed on, and thus that many UK academic institutions are not really worthy of the name university. I'm thus pretty skeptical about many the value of their academic staff. However, the UK really needs to place more value on it's elite academic institutions and their staff, both financially and in terms of their working conditions.

Mmmm siasl, and there you go touching the raw nerve of centralisation of funding toward elite institutions....

I actually think £50k is ok - as long as job security is ensured and some academic freedom is retained, which is sadly not the case anymore.

It was another job UnseenAM. Not conferences. Recruiting. And I know it isn't the norm. I said so. Nice job if you can get it though. Sadly for me, the big conference in my field while I was a student was held in Sheffield

A few years back I was offered a junior fellowship in English at an Oxford college on the strength of my novels, theses and a few journals I've had published, in the agreement that I would complete a PHD in the mean time. It was inspiring, but stressful; I ended up working incredibly long hours, and when a senior fellow fell ill I took over his lecturing duties for four months. I think I was promoted too quickly; I was the youngest holder of a fellowship in any college ever, and the expectation got to me. I left after completing the PHD so that I could get back to doing what I enjoyed, and actually have the time to think. The pay was average, but one doesn't become an Oxford fellow for money. Nonetheless, it was a wonderful experience and I certainly don't feel disenchanted by academia; I may return to lecturing later in life when I feel better equipped to do so.