Careers in Academia: Why

1
Careers in Academia Why How

• Lise Getoor
• Jonathan Katz

2
Academia

• Variety of Academic Jobs
• Research university or teaching university
• PhD-granting or not
• Teach on the side while working full-time

3
Academia

• Interact with students
• Teaching, mentoring
• Better make sure you like this aspect!
• Academic environment
• Wide range of intellectual activities
• Comaraderie
• Collaboration across disciplines possible
• Tenure and job security
• Nice, but not if this is your only reason for
  academia

4
Academia

• Travel
• Independence and academic freedom
• Limited to some extent in practice, but not in
  principle
• Hard work!!!

5
Research Labs

• The top research labs have many of the advantages
  of academia
• the top research labs are (mostly) out of
  business or not hiring

6
Research Labs

• Biggest difference no (or limited) students
• No (or much less) grant writing
• No service
• Compensation equal to or more than academia
• Geographic considerations

7
How?

• Early on
• Get involved in research
• Find out what research is done at UMd
• Reading groups
• Interact with professor, even if just to read
  articles
• Interact with other students
• Work on something, even if not your thesis topic
  or even if not publishable

8
How?

• Middle of grad school
• Work on what you find interesting
• Dont always think about whether it makes a
  thesis topic
• Your advisor will be worrying about that
• Believe it or not, your exact thesis topic is not
  that important for an academic job
• Try to branch out beyond your area
• Can you apply what you are doing in other
  contexts?
• Remember that grad school is 98 persistence

9
How?

• Middle of grad school
• Get to know people outside UMd
• Get to know people outside Umd!
• Get to know people outside Umd!!!
• Conferences, summer internships, email(!)