The Windmills of Academia
After reading Kuhn, visiting the ICP and talking to friends, one thing became clear to me: From an individual point of view, science is often slow, frustrating and not at all like childhood thoughts and popmedia depictions. This is a problem for two kinds of people: Those who started out as idealists but ended up cynical, seeing science as just a job, and those who are about to choose their path and who have second thoughts. I am in the latter camp and I feel like I have ample company. What’s one to do in this situation?
You know the situation. Someone is presenting his research, PowerPoint slides up, room slightly darkened, and what you understand best is what he communicates nonverbally: “I don’t care either. I know that the question my research answers is not the kind of question that keeps me from falling asleep at night, but hey, it’s not as if that’s what I’m living for.” — at the same time, he goes on talking about the effects of auditory priming on the calcium ion concentration in parvocellular neurons of the chimpanzee lateral geniculate nucleus. If you were thinking in words, your thoughts would be along these lines:
“I want to learn about the world, but this does not feel right. It’s not the fact that what’s presented is a minuscule piece of detail — I care about details. But the reason I care about details is because they are necessary to piece together the larger picture. I want to find answers to the big questions. To study, to travel, to get to know people and to exchange ideas sounds perfect, but then I see those who call themselves ’scientists’ and, most of the time, I don’t want to live their lives.”
“I don’t want to spend two years working on a project where the result is a 2% improvement of efficiency in some manufacturing procedure and a journal article. At the same time, I don’t want to deceive myself by pretending to tackle the big questions while all I’m engaged in is philosophical word games. I don’t want to solve puzzles for the sake of puzzle-solving. Enjoyment from puzzle-solving has never been my primary motivation for doing science. It may be part of my motivation, but a necessary condition for me to enjoy what I do is to feel that it is significant. I want to believe in choosing science, but reality always gets in the way.”
So, do you choose an academic career, hoping that things will be different for you, or that, by then, you have changed enough not to notice anymore?
“Academia” is a name for a set of standard solutions to standard problems. You don’t have to accept all of them, or any of them, to do science. It’s just the most convenient way. It appears to me that, if you don’t want to, you do not need to make any choices in life — there is always a most convenient way. Once you start out (and you did not have a say in that decision), there is a default answer to almost every question life poses, conditioned on how well you perform at certain tests and on what you state as your interests.
If ‘knowledge’ is high on your list of interests, here’s what to do: Finish high school, get a bachelor’s degree and don’t forget to take some jobs at your university (you want experience in teaching!), write your bachelor’s thesis about a topic that’s somewhat familiar to you (even if it’s not the thing you really want to do — after all, it’s only three months of your life) and get a bachelor’s degree. Next step, join a master’s program, internship included, during which you publish a few papers (research experience is crucial!). Your master’s thesis ends up using knowledge you already have from working on your bachelor’s thesis (because there is not enough time to start from scratch) and luckily you manage to suppress any thoughts about how your research is taking more and more directions that are not truly yours, for the sole reason that that’s what you’re an expert in. By the time you are working on your PhD thesis, you’re thinking that you are probably the only person that understands why one would spend years working on the problem you are trying to solve, and sometimes you are close to admitting that you do not understand it yourself, but rationalization goes a long way. By then, a significant portion of the possibility that once lay before you and that you didn’t appreciate at that time is already gone.
You can deviate from the most convenient way, of course, but only a small minority does. The sad thing about the whole situation is that there are people who want to do science but for whom the most convenient way is soul-crushing, while alternative choices are not an option (think money, acceptance, etc.). Therefore, they either don’t end up in science (despite their interest and motivation) or they do choose academia and suffer from the restrictions it imposes, fighting against the windmills of institutionalization that, like Dementors, suck out any sense of purpose until it’s just a job, fight over, next generation please.
(This is a gloomy way of seeing things, but to me it’s a real problem in search of a solution — not necessarily or primarily for personal reasons, but because, for some people, academia does not live up to its promise, the primacy of the pursuit of knowledge. I believe that it could and should, since they tend to be the kinds of people that would make good scientists.)
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Maybe the future of research isn’t academia, but commercial research. One of the things scientists are always short of is money. Corporations like Google have an ample amount of this ressource. Also, the bigger the science department of global corporations, the smaller the restrictions placed on individual researchers. By encouraging lateral and creative thinking among their scientists and by letting them try out new and different paths of research, the corps ensure that innovative and profitable ideas come from their research departments.
From the deepest grounds of my heart.
@Simon: That’s not future of research. Undoubtedly, we already have that status.
So Andreas has just found out that it is not easy to do what you want (in life/and live).
Maybe thats why I consider doing a second bachelor’s degree in physics or even something entirely different (like systems engineering)
In short, I’m going to become an expert in staying flexible. Like a child.
[...] The Windmills of Academia [...]
Right. But academia is not the only path.
After years and years of experience, I think it comes down to two main issues:
1) A Ph.D. is not enough. There is a book out with this title. Read it.
2) Academia is very good at getting you recognition. It looks good to say that you are a university professor or to say that you have a Ph.D.
3) Companies are very good at giving you money. More than you can spend, at some point.
4) Looking good or being rich is nice. Alas, it is a trap. Money, recognition, power… all these things are traps. Avoid them. I am serious. If you can learn to avoid power and recognition… if you can learn to lay low and yet be smart and ambitious, you’ll have incredible freedom.
@Simon:
Replacing science by commercial research is not a solution, either. Commercial research is naturally motivated by money. I see two major problems:
Firstly, the strong emphasis on product-oriented research. Although usefulness is important, we cannot do without the idealists addressing the questions which do not look economically promising at first sight.
Secondly, the primary goal of science should be to serve society and humanity, not economy only. Commercial research might simply leave out (or manipulate) questions it does not like (e.g. ecology).
True scientists must have a motivation beyond money and reputation. All in all I am glad, that they do NOT earn a lot of money.
@Andreas
Well written, I could not have made it more explicit and I am glad to see that I am not the only one who is worried about this.
I really entered university with the goal of staying there for the rest of my life. However, comparing my idealistic picture of science to the reality of some academics, it is hard to look forward without any doubts. On the other hand, there ARE professors I still admire for loving their job and doing the things that matter. It is not, that it was not possible.
I think it is not only common for scientists to do a job which is actually boring them. Think of your teachers, politicians, your hairdresser, whoever. Next time you go to the supermarket look in the face of your shop assistants. If you do it more often, you will soon notice who enjoys her job and who does not. You will see it in their eyes, most of them do not, but - fascinatingly - there are some who do, really!
What distinguishes them? Is it because they do the job of their childhood dreams? Probably not. Is it because they do not know about other jobs most likely being more exciting? Probably not. I think, the secret of most of those people is that they are just pleased with the things they do. When they are with their family, they put all their love into their family. When they meet their friends, all the energy is reserved for them. When they are at work, they work hard, they put all the effort into their job. Whatever they do, they do it with passion. That is why they love their job and are successful.
And indeed, what they do IS significant, they know they are a part of society and they contribute to it - although it is clear that they are not the only one contributing and probably also not the one who is contributing most. But a satisfied shop assistant might contribute more than a dissatisfied scientist. Doing all the things with love and care, I believe, will ensure that we contribute as much as we can.
I will continue to work on caring about the things I do. And therefore I am confident of finding my way.
@Daniel Lemire
What were the two things you initially thought about?
This is not about money or high recognition. This is about doing what you really like without getting stuck to one particular chair because people throw problems at you which fit your abilities but are not what you really wanted.
Yes, I could need money, but I also have turned down job offers as programmer for our university’s catastrophic course management system. Should have been within my area of expertise but I did not want it to become even more so.
Sorry, the two things slipped my mind.
Simon: In addition to what has been said, it appears to me that most companies do require their scientists to have gone through the BSc/MSc/PhD procedure. Even if companies could provide an ideal working environment, that would solve only half the problem.
Daniel: I agree. “There’s no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” — anonymous*. But there are other things besides getting you recognition for which academia is useful, e.g. getting you together with like-minded people, therefore it may make sense to go the traditional route even if you don’t care about recognition.
Michael: If I have the choice between a) becoming passionate about an activity I currently do (and don’t like) and b) replacing the activity by something I’m passionate about, I choose the latter. If there was a drug that made me feel like working on an assembly line was the most significant thing in the world, this would not make it into the most significant thing. Therefore I wouldn’t take the drug. For me, dissatisfaction is mostly an indicator to move on, not to change myself.
Thorben: I agree. In academia, you first learn a set of methods and then get to solve those problems where your particular set of methods fits best. I’d rather pick those problems that matter most to me and then learn about any methods I need to solve them.
I am in the first lot.
Started doing my PhD in nuclear physics thinking high and optimistic, although have seen how things have been! My PhD studies were taking place in Geneva - next to CERN - so kind of had high hopes.
Well the result..not really! Became a kind of a cynic with cutting edge and enormous negative bias.