My disillusionment with academia

 I was good at teaching, or so my friends said in college. Both my parents are professors. So when I decided to pursue PhD, people naturally thought I was following their path. I kind of was. Although I was open to all possibilities, in the back of my mind, being a professor was always an option.

PhD was great. It equipped me with a scientific aptitude, strengthened my knowledge of the field and also gave me a taste of failure which helped immensely later on. I loved research. But I also wanted to do hands-on work. Reading hundreds of research papers, coming up with an idea and writing my own papers was fine. I wanted to go further by actually implementing and proving that the idea works. PhD in India unfortunately did not offer that opportunity.

I came to Germany as a Postdoc, to a university that gave me that opportunity. I worked on a new topic, implemented my algorithms on actual hardware and demonstrated it in a project symposium. It later spawned two student theses. In spite of that, I was missing one crucial thing-- publications. I struggled to publish my research in reputed journals. I will be honest, the research results were not groundbreaking. But the idea had potential. Like many others, I could write conceptual papers on that. But I just did not enjoy it. The thought of spending days, months even, in writing papers proposing hypothetical architectures was not satisfactory. Where does this end? Even if I manage to publish, it will, at best, bring in money for the next project. I would then do the same thing in that project. Then what's the next step? Rise through academic ranks and become a professor? Based on what, my tenacity? Disillusionment seeped in.

So I decided to change gears and landed up in industry. The last one-and-a-half year has been a dream. I got the hands-on work I wanted, I got even deeper knowledge than what PhD offered. There is still so much to learn. I am working with smart, driven people in a collaborative environment like never before. It has introduced me to new challenges and made me a better person in many aspects. Most important of all, I can see my everyday work culminating in a useful product. I couldn't ask for more.

This experience has shattered the rosy picture of academia I had in my mind, in more than one ways.

I have now come to believe that staying in academia for longer duration is detrimental to personal growth, if you are not already moderately successful. Everything in academia revolves around essentially one thing-- publications. What is the metric of success? Publications. How is an individual valued? Publications. How do you make your mark, how do your peers start noticing you? Publications. No matter what your strengths are-- being hard-working, having sound knowledge, being a team player (team, what team?), leadership skills, coding skills-- if you do not have a respectable amount of publications or citations, you do not have a standing in the academic community. There is always a shadow of judgement following you. Forget rising through the ranks, it's hard even to secure your existing position.

As a result, professional validation either never comes or takes unreasonably long. I have seen many friends struggling with self-doubt just as I was. Your supervisor may guide you in technical matters, the journal reviews (which take months and range from meaningful to random) may give technical insight, but how do you know if you are acquiring the correct skills needed later in the professional life? Academia only acknowledges the outcomes, not the process.

I want to make it clear that this is not a criticism of academic research. I understand how research works. After thousand nondescript publications, one emerges with an idea that can change the world. Also, it takes years, sometimes decades, to see the fruits of the research work. I immensely respect people who are willing to play that long game. This is however a criticism of an academic system that offers nothing substantial in the way of growth to individuals who put in the same amount of work but without "success". 

For many, academia means a stable job. But there is a high entry barrier to get there and even if you do get across, I wonder if job satisfaction and personal growth are part of the definition.