Comment on PhD Grads

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circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Interesting observations. Intent here is not to offer disagreements but just comparisons to my experience:

  1. Yes, industry pays much better. The wage gap in academia is a huge deal and one which will not get attention until the general issue with low wages in the US is handled. That said, I make about twice as much in industry as I would have as a tenured professor in my field had I started at the same time.

  2. This resonates with me in that I have heard it a lot. I think every person is different, but academia has a habit of supporting a kind of pretentiousness that is not conducive to pragmatic work. I would suggest this is highly field dependent, though.

  3. Industry experience trumps academic, 100% of the time.

I came at it from a different path than you. I wanted to be a professor, through and through. The tenured professorship is generally unattainable, since the number of positions is nothing compared to minted PhDs. For that reason, I explored switching to industry. I ended up in a good space, but I am not at all suggesting that someone should get a PhD to go into industry.

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