Academia as a career option

A number of people who have a high level of intellectual curiosity and like intellectual stimulation are attracted to academia as a career option. On this page, we list a number of consideration for and against academia as a career option (see our general page on career selection).

This article is written primarily based on the structure of academia in the United States. The situation differs somewhat in other countries. Specifically, the procedures related to tenure and funding are somewhat different in other countries. However, many of the general points apply.

Key takeaways

Entry versus exit asymmetry: Academia is easier to leave than re-enter. This argues in favor of staying within academia for the time being if you think there is a reasonable chance that you might want to stay there in the long term.
The funnel of academia: The number of positions available in academia decrease sharply at each stage. The number of graduate students in a discipline substantially exceeds the number of post-doctoral positions, which in turn exceeds the number of people in tenure track positions, which in turn exceeds the number of people who receive tenure. At every stage, competition is severe in the strictly numerical sense. This can have a number of repercussions.
Good venue for intellectual curiosity, but not as good as it looks: The publish or perish syndrome, high specialization, and the likelihood of not being at a top place all conspure to make it hard to rely on academia as a fertile environment for intellectual exploration.
Low earnings relative to skill levels: For most branches of academia, people earn substantially less than what comparably skilled people could earn outside academia. The comparison may not control for dispositional factors that make the people in academia unsuited for non-academic jobs.
Work-life balance: The job is fairly flexible, with minimal "turn up at the office" type requirements. On the flip side, people in academia tend to find it harder to keep a clean separation between work hours and non-work hours, so that work often intrudes on holiday time. The main difficulty with the job arises from the high pressure to publish in order to gain tenure.
Social value calculation: With the exception of some parts of academia, and/or people at extremely high levels of accomplishment in most parts of academia, academia does not produce high per capita social impact.

Entry versus exit asymmetry

In general, it is easy to leave academia for industry, but hard to join academia from industry. Some cases are discussed below.

Taking a gap before starting graduate studies

Some students consider applying to graduate school (for a Ph. D. program) after spending a year or more in industry. Keep the following in mind:

There is no specific penalty for taking years off before applying to graduate school.
However, preparing one's application and arranging for recommendation letters can be marginally harder, because graduate school admissions generally depend on the strength of the recommendations of teachers and advisors from one's undergraduate studies.
There are some subjects where achievements in a work environment can provide an asset to the application. For instance, people who work on specific projects related to machine learning or AI in companies might benefit somewhat from this experience when applying for a graduate program in machine learning. Similarly, certain types of experience with social work might be viewed as an asset in graduate schools on social work. However, as a general rule, work experience in and of itself does not constitute an advantage.

If you are a student in your final year of undergraduate studies who is unsure of whether to begin graduate school, consider the following options:

Apply to graduate schools while in the final year of undergraduate studies, then, after getting an admission, defer for a year where you can work in industry. A number of graduate programs allow students to defer admission.
Join a graduate program, and re-evaluate the decision to continue after finishing the equivalent of a Masters degree. Most doctoral programs, even though they admit students directly for the doctoral degree, allow students to leave with a Masters degree.
Take the relevant tests (such as subject GREs) and get recommendation letters drafted from your advisors so that it is easy to apply to graduate school a year or two later.

Completing a Masters and then later returning to a Ph.D.

If you finished a Masters, then took some time off to work (or raise children, or travel the world), it would still be possible to apply for doctoral programs. However, most doctoral programs will not recognize your Masters coursework and you will either need to redo the coursework or take the qualifying examinations again. The Masters is unlikely to give you an edge in admissions.

An exception is worth noting: people who do three-year undergraduate programs (such as those in Europe, based on the Bologna process) may be considered either ineligible or at a significant disadvantage directly applying to graduate programs after that. It might be advisable for them to complete a masters program in their home countries and then apply. Details vary.

Taking time off after the Ph.D.

In a number of disciplines, particularly the "pure" ones where experience outside academia rarely helps with making academic progress, it is very difficult to re-enter academia if you take time off after your Ph.D. For this reason, students who want to experience life outside academia generally take a leave of absence for up to a year within graduate school. While it's also possible to take leaves of absence later in academia, the tenure clock starts ticking once one has completed graduate school, so people with their sights set on tenure generally avoid this.

Moving out of academia

It is relatively easy to move out of academia, but the following points should be noted:

For a number of jobs, people may find that they do not get much of a premium for graduate work or later work. So, they may find themselves assigned to similar jobs and earning similar incomes as people who have just completed undergraduate degrees. This can be somewhat disconcerting.
There do exist some jobs that pay a premium for Ph.Ds but this is mostly because of the signal of intellectual sophistication conferred by a Ph.D. At the object level, people may find that they are using very little of the skills and knowledge base they painstakingly developed in the course of acquiring a Ph.D.
There are a few rare jobs in industry that draw on skills honed while doing a Ph.D. An example is jobs at Google and Facebook for people who have done their graduate work in machine learning, artificial intelligence, or some forms of graph theory that are directly used at these companies. The same may be true of some forms of engineering and biomedical research that are directly relevant to factories or industry labs. This is more the exception than the rule, and people who want to have such options in the future should choose their subject of graduate work as one of the rare few that have applications outside academia.

The pyramid scheme of academia

The following general points are worth noting:

At every stage of academia, there is a significant narrowing of positions from earlier stages. The number of undergraduate majors significantly exceeds the number of graduate student positions every year, which in turn significantly exceeds the number of new postdoctoral positions every year, which in turn exceeds the number of tenure track positions every year, which in turn exceeds the number of people awarded tenure every year.
The fraction of this can be explained by the increasing size of academia is nonzero but very small. Explicitly, the number of people from the current batch of people entering graduate school this year who will eventually earn tenure exceeds the number of people who earn tenure this year, but this difference is quite small compared to the difference alluded to in point (1).
While part of the contraction arises from people voluntarily leaving academia (rather than leaving because it is very difficult to continue in academia), that does not come close to explaining the narrowing.
Despite the fact that a large fraction of the people at any given stage in academia are unlikely to proceed to the next, the discourse and incentives are generally set up in a way that gives people the superficial impression that continuing within academia is the natural option. For this reason, many people who would otherwise find it quite easy to transition out of academia harbor the mistaken impression that they are unemployable outside academia.

The narrowing of positions within academia

In nay hierarchical organization, there are fewer positions at the top than at the bottom. This is for a variety of reasons -- the functioning of the hierarchy and cost considerations being dominant. Thus, the "narrowing" as we move up the academic ladder is not a priori surprising.

What makes academia different from promotion systems within organizations is its up or out system. In a non-academic setting, one can remain in a low-level job for one's whole life. In academia, it is not possible to stay at a low level for too long -- one either moves up or leaves. A student can stay a few extra years in graduate school, but not forever. Somebody may do two or three postdocs instead of one (usually at different places) but cannot keep doing postdocs for his or her whole life. Once somebody gets on the tenure track, they either get accepted for tenure or eventually have to leave academia.

The increasing size of academia does not explain this

The number of academics in most academic disciplines is increasing, but the increase is very gradual. (Put numbers here). Explicitly, the number of people from the current batch of people entering graduate school this year who will eventually earn tenure exceeds the number of people who earn tenure this year, but this difference is quite small compared to the narrowing.

It's not just that people leave, they often have no choice

Applications for academic positions can be very competitive.

Discourse within academia can obscure the fact that most people will not continue forever in academia

Academia is an insular system where the general stated convention is to assume that people are planning to continue to do research, even though many people do not end up staying in academia. Thus, somebody in the first few years of a Ph.D. program may fail to explore options outside academia and develop the contacts and skills that might help him or her transition to such a career after completion of the Ph.D., on the mistaken belief that academia is the only place for him or her. In some cases, people are led not only to overestimate the ease of staying within academia, but also underestimate the ease of moving out -- they may believe that they are unemployable outside academia.

Exceptions: academia in developing countries and in obscure places within developed countries

Some developing countries, such as India, have a rapidly expanding academic sector. For these, the growth effect may outweigh the funnel effect. Further, since many people from these countries leave for other countries in academia, this further reduces the competition for top positions.

In addition, a number of lower-ranked universities even within the developed world can have fairly lax system for promotion and tenure.

The flip side of these is that the faculty peer group may not be sufficiently attractive to make staying in academia worthwhile. However, if you simply want to stay in academia and are not too concerned about pay or the immediate peer environment, this option is worth considering.

Job satisfaction

There are many different reasons people enter academia, but the most striking ones are deep interest in a particular subject, intellectual curiosity, and a desire for intellectual stimulation. In terms of providing these, academia is a mixed bag. It is arguably preferable to other professions in these terms, but may not be as good as choosing to do a high-paying day job and seeking intellectual stimulation in one's free time.

Some of the plus points of academia are:

A dense concentration of smart and intellectually curious people with whom one can discuss issues, both within one's discipline, and in general.
A large number of events and venues for such discussion.
Teaching can also be a venue for feeling satisfied at helping people understand intellectually difficult but beautiful material.

However, the following need to be kept in mind:

The publish or perish incentive system in academia means that people are often focused more on delivering publishables than intellectual exploration. Even if you personally resist this, people around you may not, and therefore you may not find much of a peer group for intellectual exploration.
There is a huge degree of specialization within academia, making it difficult to communicate insights to colleagues outside your specialty.
Given the difficulty of getting into top places, the group of colleagues one has at a typical place may not be all that smart or intellectually curious.
For any given university, the undergraduate student body is less strongly selected than the graduate student body, which in turn is less strongly selected than the faculty. Therefore, your students are likely to seem frustratingly slow to you, and teaching them may not be as pleasant an experience as teaching a younger version of yourself.

Earnings

Academics have higher earnings than the median residents of their countries. However, becoming an academic requires a number of qualities not found in median residents. People in a position to consider academia as a serious option are therefore likely to have many of these qualities. The relevant comparison is between academia and other options available to people with these qualities. The rough takeaways are:

Academia requires a high level of intelligence (general cognitive ability) as well as conscientiousness (dedication, perseverance, organization, willingness to work hard). People outside academia with similar levels of intelligence and conscientiousness significantly out-earn academics.
There may be other qualities that are harder to measure that academics possess and non-academics lack, or conversely, that non-academics possess and academics lack. For instance, academics probably have higher intellectual curiosity and intrinsic motivation to learn, since academia offers somewhat greater rewards for these. They are also likely to have lower ability to get through material that is tedious but not intellectually stimulating, though this is not universally true (academia often involves a lot of gruntwork, albeit within a context that is more intellectually stimulating overall).
For the most part, the subject matter knowledge acquired in academia beyond undergraduate studies does not lead to greater earning power (see the discussion at the section of this page on moving out of academia).

In particular, if earnings matters to you a lot, academia is at a significant disadvantage.

Work-life balance

There are mutually contradictory stories about work-life balance in academia. On the one hand, the small number of hours that one has to spend "reporting for duty" leaves considerable flexibility. On the other hand, the workload can be very demanding. The following are some considerations:

Low absolute number of hours where one's physical presence at a place at a particular time is necessitated by a job, and many months with no such constraints: Academics may have teaching loads ranging from 3 to 15 hours a week, and a few departmental meetings that rarely take more than 2-3 hours a week. This leaves a large amount of flexible time. Moreover, there are no reporting requirements during summer break.
Absence of a clean separation between work and non-work: Academics often maintain more odd hours than non-academics, carrying work through the evening and even late at night. This may be a simple result of having a flexible schedule, a hangover from their days as students, a result of the high absolute workload, or a consequence of the fact that academia relies on creative insight that often comes at unexpected moments. It is possible for people to maintain a clean separation, but this needs to be enforced through deliberate self-discipline. The absence of clean separation can be both a positive and a negative depending on the sort of life one is leading.
Opportunities and expectations of significant amounts of travel: Although the job description does not explicitly require travel, and it is possible to travel very little, advancement within many professions relies on frequent travel for conferences and workshops. People may also be expected to organize seminars, conferences, and workshops. The travel expectations are maybe around the 80th percentile of jobs with similar intelligence/conscientiousness benchmarks.
Publish or perish: People who are interested in getting tenure are judged on a combination of measures that is heavily weighted on publication record. This creates an incentive for people to try to publish as many papers as possible after the Ph.D. completion until the point of receiving tenure. This can contribute both to a heavy workload. It can also lead to academic compromises (discussed in the job satisfaction).
Tenure clock: The "tenure clock" -- the time period relative to which one's publication record is judged -- starts ticking after the completion of the Ph.D. This tenure clock means that taking time off to have children or do other activities can significantly affect one's tenure chances. There have been proposals to pause the tenure clock for people who want to take some time off to raise children, but the status of these proposals is unclear.

Social value of work

Further information: social value of academia

Your measure of the social value of work depends to some extent on how you define social value, but the general conclusion is that academia passes the social value test only in one of these two cases:

You are really good at it, so that you can change the paradigm of thinking.
The discipline you are picking has high social value, so that every minor contribution there counts for a lot.

This essay by Paul Christiano might also be of value.

Social value from the perspective of frontier academic progress as a merit good

One perspective is that pushing forward the frontiers of human knowledge is, in and of itself, valuable, even if the material is not applied. Such a perspective might justify the study of branches of pure mathematics that seem unrelated to any applications. If you take this view, academia is a more attractive option than if you do not. However, the following need to be kept in mind:

Some academic disciplines have been critiqued for not meeting the criteria for human knowledge, in so far as academic publications in these are highly subjective and do not represent clear progress in knowledge.
In many disciplines, a large fraction of progress is by a few people. For instance, Newton, Einstein, and the people who came up with quantum mechanics made an outsized contribution to the subject. It is hard to know in advance who those few people would be, but it seems in general that being substantially better than other academics at the early stage is probably a necessary but not sufficient condition.
Even academics who are capable of excellent work often need to spend a lot of time pushing out a large number of mediocre publications due to the publish or perish pressures while young, and they may be too tired to do original work by the time they have tenure.

Social value from the perspective of impact on the world

The following need to be kept in mind:

A number of disciplines, including many branches of mathematics, have advanced far, far ahead of anything that might be of practical relevance, and further progress in these is unlikely to be of use. However, a counterpoint is that a number of mathematical techniques that were considered to not have much application have been quite important: differential geometry was useful in relativity, matrices and linear algebra were important in physics, statistics, and eventually all the natural and social sciences, and number theory is critically important to much of modern cryptography. There is considerable debate on whether current work in mathematics will be similarly useful later, but the evidence currently does not seem to be strongly in favor.
Even for disciplines that are in principle of practical relevance, the theoretical questions considered in academia are often orthogonal to the manner in which those disciplines would be relevant. For instance, many questions asked in philosophy are relevant to practical ethics, but the mode of discourse of philosophy is unlikely to settle these questions. However, this may be more a question of it taking time for the insights to percolate into the real world. Many deep theoretical insights from statistics and economics have percolated into the general intelligentsia from as recently as 30 years ago.
There are huge differences between academic disciplines in terms of both the expected impact and the variance in impact. For instance, for disciplines such as biomedical research, it can be argued that every bit of research helps at the margin, by investigating and eliminating particular research pathways. In a discipline such as theoretical physics, coming across a fundamental insight comparable to quantum mechanics would revolutionize the subject, but most work is likely to have zero impact.