FAQs of academia versus industry
Some thoughts after experiencing both sides
So we all heard “The grass is always greener on the other side”, I think the same concept applies to the the career path between academia and industry. A bit of introduction of myself, I am a rising 4th year bioinformatics PhD student, and I am conducting a summer internship in a big pharma now. After experiencing both sides, I’d like to share some of my personal thoughts on the some of the frequently asked questions regarding this topic.
It is impossible to cover every questions that you may have, because there’s a lot I am still struggling to figure out myself and might be better answered by more senior people. But I am hoping to provide some insights to folks at similar life stage and trying to make a decision.
Before jumping into the following sections, I just want to first quote from Yaniv Erlich on Twitter, “both academia and industry are short words for vast ecosystems with strong inequalities within them”. There are places in industry that more resemble academia and vice versa, so what we discussed here is general differences and the exceptions always exist.
Another note is the working environment will hugely impact your experience and how you perceive academia or industry, choosing a conducive environment is crucial no matter which side you will be. In this article, let’s keep the arguments within the inherent differences between industry and academia themselves, assuming people you are working with are just awesome.
Q: Does industry have a better work-life balance?
In general, the short answer is yes. But there are deeper reasons behind it that worth being discussed. The type of researches that we conduct in academia are curiosity-driven and inherently more unpredictable. As a result, it is relatively harder to comply with preset deadlines and 9-to-5 working mode. I won’t say it is necessarily a disadvantage of academia, as this is where innovation comes from, you are tackling the challenging problems and exploring uncharted territory. Although I really hope to maintain a better work-life balance, I can not deny the joy I have when solving a hard problem or uncovering something new that nobody has ever looked at before.
Another point is, a bad work-life balance is more often the result of poor communications and planning. Let your mentor and manager know you can not take more tasks because you don’t have enough bandwidth, and you need to make a reasonable plan in terms of how long it will take you to finish it. This is a skill that we all need to learn and get better at, no matter which side we end up with being in.
Q: What’s your thoughts on “publish or perish”?
So, there are two parts implied in this sentence, the first part is “publish”. Personally, I still think publication is essential, it is not because I am a big fan of impact factor (IF) or citation, but being able to produce robust research, articulate your discovery, and defend your work is divine to me as a scientist. If you are doing rigorous and meaningful work, then why you are afraid of publication and reviewer’s critiques? Those critiques, as long as not personal, will make your work better, and help to filter out untenable discoveries.
However I really hate the “perish” part, the lack of alternative recognition in academia is just driving me crazy. If I don’t publish my work, even though I’ve been working on it for several years, nobody will even know the efforts I’ve put in. Without the publication, my career is just stagnated and never move forward. In industry, even you don’t publish papers due to other priorities and limited time, your work will still be recognized by your team and larger organization, reflected in your bonus or even promotion, you can just see the value you create for the company and the world.
Furthermore, the lack of recognization also makes “publish” become trickier. Your curiosity of exploring more is conflicting with the pressures of having publication. People’s critiques now become a barrier in your career because it slows down the speed of getting your paper out.
Last but not least, the incentive for producing high-impact papers and the unhealthy competition force people to do a lot of additional works that, in my opinions, deviating from the initial ideas and curiosities, but just for the storytelling, visual effects, fits to the goal of the journals, and of course, grant application.
Q: What about the freedom and innovation of research in industry?
This is the most important mindset shift I think we need to adjust when making this transition to industry. Instead of directly answering this question, we have to understand, the whole point of doing research in industry is trying to advance the product development in the company (drug in pharma, various products in biotech). So If you propose anything you can not justify the value that will add to the company, you have less chance to proceed. However, if your proposal aligns with company’s goal, I would say you will have a lot of freedom you need and even more resources you can get compared to academia.
Industry also loves innovation and it can happen in industry as well, but like I described, you can imagine that innovation is easier to occur in academic setting because of the distinct narratives between two sides. Academia craves for novel discovery, expanding the body of existing knowledge, disseminating your contribution and inspiring other scientists around the whole world. Industry, instead, aims to develop products, translate and apply the existing knowledge into real-world applications.
Q: Do you think industry have better management and planning?
Yes, absolutely, I am genuinely surprised by the efficiency of communication, hierarchical management, compliance of key deadline dates in industry. Industry is like a giant machine that everyone does the job well to propel the engine. But this doesn’t mean we, as people in academia, can not adopt some of the advanced management skills. Since management skills are less emphasized compared to the ability to produce high-quality research in our academia training, whereas it is literally an essential skills for folks in industry to acquire, it is not difficult to understand which side has a better management and planning.
Let’s be more concrete, to just name a few, in industry, If you need to schedule a meeting with someone, you can just go to his/her calendar and find an available time slot, no need to email back and forth to find a time works for both. We have internal Teams or Slacks for spontaneous communications, which saves a lot of times for writing an email. When you need to contact with someone in another group, just ask your manager and a conversation can be initiated. People respect other’s time, every meeting is well-organized and has an agenda. And so on…
Q: What are the added values of being in industry or in academia?
I would say salary is definitely an added values of being in industry, it is the sad truth and I also don’t want to emphasize that too much, because there’s nothing we can do about that and emphasizing it too much will cause harm. We are all human beings, we of course want to work in some places with higher payment, but it will be detrimental if all of us just flee academia and become money-driven. Without the hard work being conducted in academia, there won’t be any real-application in industry at all.
The added value in academia, I would say teaching and being able to interact with young scientist is very valuable to me. I never perceive teaching as a burden but a fun activity to do, which makes me realize the meaning of doing research and make a positive impact to other people’s career. When I was an undergraduate, there are some excellent lectures that literally ignited a spark in my mind and even today still guides me on my research focus.
Let me know if you have other questions that I might be able to answer!
