I think there is also a social structure in place in academia, people who have so much in common with you, that is hard to leave as well. Academics have betrayed their trust by allowing the administration to run universities and colleges primarily on the backs of vastly underpaid mostly women adjuncts, who numerically overwhelmingly outstrip tenured professors. This is slave labor and disgraceful. Tenured professors know this when they take you into their programs but they don’t care because they have got what they need. Higher education will pay for this betrayal because soon, sooner than they think, the internet will replace them all and brick and mortar institutions of higher education will shut down in favor of content based exams to verify the acquisition of the required knowledge to obtain degrees. It is coming-trust me.

why do these people never tell you what the fuck they studied

Look at the production quality here! The writing, production: everything is phenomenal!!

Very insightful and beautifully presented. I love the way you've thought about the whole thing and how the other person might feel. I love the analogies that help break down the topic. Fantastic. Criminally undersubscribed.

Comment for algorithm. Well thought out. Thanks. Minor disagreement: your boss could be selling your work at market rate too; they don't have to be selling it "above what it's worth" although they definitely could be. As long as there's enough money in it your boss may still be making a killing.

Very well thought out, thanks. Commenting for algorithm.

Isn’t it extremely relevant information for you to state the field you got your PhD in and the rank of the department? Because prospects-in academia and industry-will vary stupendously based on those two.

tenure-track AP in top 30 Univerisities here in USA. 1. It is great to pursue a phd. Tbh, Postdoc is also fun. 2. Being a AP is not a good idea anymore. Whatever you envision about research, is no longer there.

Non-Tenure Track folks made a serious life-error. "you'll get a job" - without research suggests you are a maroon.

The point of academia-the reality of how to have a good environment there-is when tat environment enrolls only a small, very small, number of students. This is especially the case with graduate school academia. (In undergraduate years, most of the student's time is spent in learning the fundamentals and basics of their subjects. Not in doing any kind of individual research, around a topic all of whose dimensions are left up to the student.) Every sustainable, maintainable graduate program in academia depends on those enrolled being not only top students already (in their undergraduate years), but sufficiently disciplined and assertive to both do the necessary research in one or the other topic on their own, and to dialogue with their advisers regularly about what has already been done on or written on their topic, and how they might make their own contribution to a body of research. Mediocre students, or those without much of a work-ethic or those vague on what they might do in a specific line of research are no use to either themselves or their advisers, and should as soon as possible be swerved off and out of the department. Secondly, there must be the same commitment by the students' advisers and faculty regarding enabling that student to not only begin good quality research, but to continue it to completion of their academic work at that university or college. The department must have as small a number of attending graduate students as possible to enable a maximal contact between student and professor.

Wonderful inspiration

The academic system does not have enough money, resources, or infrastructure to support its own weight. It has become essentially exploitative and a Ponzi scheme.

90% of all jobs are dispensable. The only essential ones are farming, energy industry and water supply. Why not then employ everyone else in academia?

When I saw the thumbnail for this video I thought to myself "Why is Jeff Winger talking about academia?"

I’d like to learn AI & Machine Learning. However, all the layoffs that happens are hinderances to me. I don’t want to learn a new skill, putting so much of my time and effort into something and then have a hard time getting a job for a newbie. It’s a bit intimidating. What are your thoughts or advice on getting a job and keeping it for someone brand new to learning AI & Machine Learning? Thanks

Hi Chris, its great to have found your channel and thanks for the awesome content, I've subscribed! In this video, you spoke about the Shaper app which helped you to connect with potential employers but you didn't leave a link to the app. I'll appreciate this link if the app still exists? And if it doesn't, are there alternatives? Thanks much!

Thanks for your video. I am a Neurobiologist (MSc x 2 and PhD) I worked in a prestigious Cancer lab at Upenn and neurobiology at Rutgers in the US; Now I am back in Colombia and I just finished my phd here (long story) but as expected the prospect for academia are null here so, and I am done with academia; I am eager for a industry position (anywhere in North America or Europe) as Data Analyst / Scientist in fields related with Pharma and tech and / or as Scientific/ medical writer. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks.

Hindsight is 20/20!

I feel like I have a unique perspective about this that I hope will help someone here. I’m in my mid thirties and decided to go back to school about 4 years ago. The journey has been difficult and during exam weeks I begin to question my decision lol. But prior to this I was a massage therapist for 11 years. Eventually I burned out and took a long break to do real estate. I soon realized that I was a healer when I went on a mission trip. It was the greatest moment of clarity for me and helped me solidify what my purpose was I soon decided to go to school and focus on becoming a doctor. I’m on my way and it has been very challenging but I know I am doing what I was made for. I used to tell my clients that when I was older I would go back to school and become a doctor. Well here I am, older and on my way! It wasn’t until I got a word from God that I was able to have some clarity. I hope if you are reading this you also get inspiration to go after God and follow your calling. Her made you for a reason and you have a gift. If that means being an educator, then find a new way to use your education. We need people like you running things!

Funny how KZbin is recommending these videos to me as I am trying to apply to faculty positions. Like many of you, I had had very negative experiences in academia, but industry has not been good to me. I finally got an entry-level engineering job in manufacturing after years for applying to jobs. It was not what I hoped. I suspect they simply hired me because of my PhD and nothing else. Some people make such a big deal about my Ph.D. that I feel others think I am some sort of snob. I thought it was good that engineers wore many hats here, because you do that in academia and it doesn’t get boring. The problem is they rotate you on a as needed basis or just get your training hours on the books. As someone starting at the very bottom, it’s hard to learn what I need to do to move up. Last week I was told in a meeting to do better because I am a PhD not a button pusher. Since it’s hard for me to land interviews and now I have a non-compete barring me from the aerospace industry for two years. I am going back.

Can I use your video on my page? Pls confirm if it is copyrighted

Useless people without meaningful contribution

Obviously there are big differences between the US and UK in terms of this 'tenure track' thing, but the casualisation of academic contracts here in the UK has completely demotivated me. Doing research as an independent I can see myself doing, but I've always found teaching incredibly difficult but kept plodding along.The students are great and I get great teaching scores, but it's just not worth my mental and physical health to keep placing myself in a position I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with. I just hate teaching.

Very good video thank you! Do you see more people going back and forth initially, than you did in the past?

I'm incredibly grateful to my younger self that I chose not to pursue this path. I considered it -- and rejected it, and it has made all the difference. I'm now a software developer and I have the flexibility to live anywhere and work a high-paying job. I even get to avoid the politics (for the most part, as much as you can these days) because I work remote.

Sh t-ademia.

When you are done, you start working for chinese "university", refugee integration and social equality. Basically good person working for the very bad people, maybe unknowingly betraying your own country. There are 3 types of people: 1. Very good and happy to make the world better (you), 2. Greedy who works for money and ask no questions, 3. Sinister ones (reprobates in bible).

I worked in industry and there is so much corruption. There is also corruption in academia, too. But I could sleep well at night.

I’m black and have a PhD in molecular biology. A large part of the reason I left academia was the blatant, unmitigated racism I dealt with. I’ve had a labmate regularly call me the n-word unprompted because he thought it was funny and my advisor not do anything about it because he felt like he needed that postdoc for the lab to survive. When I left the department, I left a statement to the committee on diversity and inclusion that they read in a zoom meeting describing the stuff I went through. The sheer alienation I endured in academia was baffling in retrospect. I’m in industry now and kind of in shock that everyone around me gives me basic respect without struggle.

Everyone who glorifies academia is a loser. Go to school, get good grades, get a job, only then you realize you've been scammed?

Chris, the bottom line is that you were not good enough as a researcher. This is not the academia's fault.

My (otherwise excellent) supervisor urges me to keep applying for postdocs because "there aren't many good people left" - I'm two years out of my PhD and I'm surviving on benefits. Zero postdocs. My mental health was very poor for the 10 years of grad school and I was tooo entrenched in the idea that leaving the PhD was failure to ever leave. I'm so exhausted. Thanks so much for telling it like it is. 😢❤ I'm out. Would rather work in a shop or as a receptionist than this hell of poverty and future tense living.

I quiT my tenured professorship at 45 yrs old. I got tenure at 28 yrs old - I work in metallurgy. I had industrial contacts and worked as an engineering consultant to a multi-billion dollar company who actually appreciated what I had to offer, my no nonsense approach and getting the job done quickly. I've never looked back and have tremendous freedom to work wherever I happen to be. Why did I quit? Incompetence of those in the uni admin trying to tell me what to do and basically using my multi million $ grants as their own personal piggy banks was one - a second was discovering rampant plagiarism in grant applications and academic publishing - and finally and the politics, cliques and pettiness in academia. I've had a great life since. I've worked in several countries at high end institutions, written books, papers etc and was getting nowhere at my university because I was always the foreigner with different views who would not tow the line and it got to me depressed.

Im fortunate, early on In grad school my academic mentor and i were having a discussion about a potentially awesome therapy model I was starting to research that had shown promise in limited research groups elsewhere. It really looked like all the pieces were there but no one had put them together. Somehow the discussion landed on “we are not in the business of curing diseases but if managing symptoms because if we’re in the business of curing disease we’d soon be out of business.” That was my last discussion with them and my last semester in university.

Failure is good ... provided you learn from your mistakes! After earning a PhD (geology), I decided to avoid a career in academia in favor of industry and, later, consulting. After deciding to become an independent consultant, I made a number of mistakes, but I recovered and developed a rewarding career that enabled me to retire comfortably. I do NOT regret my decision to purse a career outside of academia. I had seen enough of politics and backstabbing in the years I worked on my PhD to know that I wanted nothing more to do with higher education by the time I finished my degree program.

Thank yo so much.

So, because you got screwed out of a tenured-track academic position, you now try to screw people out of their homelands by aiding and abetting illegal invaders to take over their countries?

WOW! This guy is the definition of a "careerist." A guy who's 'product' is himself. His time in academic boot-camps makes him valuable to any number of state and corporate-oriented entities/bureaucracies (essentially the same thing ) which need his kind of self promotional mind-set and uncritical loyalty. These are the guys that make things like the MSM and Perpetual-War-States run!

You lost me when you got to the illegal immigrants. Call them refugees all you want, but what you're doing now is aiding human trafficking and contributing to the erosion of women's rights in Europe. Funny how few people are interested in us victims of the illegal immigrants.

Did you know the process of getting a tenure track professorship in your PhD? I don't know about your field, but for STEM (my field is is in physics) you have to do at least 1 post doc position before even being considered for a tenure position.

Im trying out all the tricks you have mentioned! Waiting for a response now

I like how you talk. Very professional, very soothing yet informative

Get a K99 and you'll get hired.

Excellent video that I’m listening to repeatedly! A quick comment about job-hopping: a possible consideration before the hop is your employer’s vesting for retirement. During my sordid and misspent youth, I did some job-hopping without knowing that I might have qualified for at least a tiny pension down the road had I stayed in place just a little bit longer. I’d rather reach age X with $Y/monthly than sans $Y! It might be worth waiting a short period. OH: don’t swallow what the nitwit from the State retirement system tells you at the retirement orientation hook, line, and sinker, as he may well steer you wrong as he did me! Read what’s in print, as I did! :)

I recall asking my adviser in grad school about work outside of academia after graduation. She said that she didn’t know anything about that.Many of those people have literally been in school since they were 4 or 5 years old and never been elsewhere.

Excellent video! Long story EXTREMELY short: I got soured on academia after being hosed a few times-I’m an American 🇺🇸 expatriate in Taiwan 🇹🇼-such as: being voluntold to do copyediting for everyone at both our military academy and the adjoining hospital to the point that I couldn’t get any professional writing of my own done and I barely managed to finish my US-based dissertation and graduate. This took up all of my days off, evenings, and weekends. My StupidVisor called it “service”! Some of my “service” included getting dragged to her office past suppertime to work on her excrement while neglecting my own. Plus-I’m a school-trained retired Licensed Court Interpreter, etc.-seeing my StupidVisor place an extremely underqualified new hire into the Spanish Professor position that I had worked hard for (Levels 6 & 8 Certificates in the Spanish Language, National Autonomous University of Mexico 🇲🇽; Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education, etc., etc.). She single-handedly negated YEARS of training and experience. Again, long story short: I’ve since redirected my efforts to online teaching. More $$$ and No StupidVisor’s crap! While I teach part-time at universities, I teach English, Spanish, and pedagogy all over Asia. I’m on track to earn more online than from my future pensions. To The Theological Place of Eternal Punishment with full time academia!

Chris, you are doing righteous work!

Chris, thank your courage, your compassion, and your kindness in sharing your experiences and observations. Your integrity, insight, and wisdom are much appreciated.

On your journey, a lot of jobs that paid well were offered to you in spite of the fact that you had no experience or training. That is the definition of white privilege. Privilege doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard once you got the job, it just means someone was willing to take a chance on you and give you the benefit of doubt when they had no discernible reason to.

I do not understand this at all 'why you left academia', you were pretty much never in academia...... Doing a PhD is just the start, not really 'being in academia'. You 'left' right after your PhD....