I have experience in both the fields,even though I worked in industry only for a limited time and lately I have been working as a research student in academia. I think working in academia as a researcher you can learns lots of things and in very very detailed way but I would also mention that this detail might not be really be important to many other people in the real world but when you learn something in industry you definitely know those are skills or knowledge which everyone would be looking around. In academia there are no assurance that whatever project you are doing in your research is something which will give data which can be further used or lead to develop into a publication but on the other hand in industry when you are working on something you know that's gonna be a part of a bigger thing. So I think there is more satisfaction and less dis-heartning in industry than in academia. But on the other hand if you are able to find a technology or a research that could be the next big thing or something that can humanity forever and if you want the credit for the thing you discovered than academia is the place to be because you work in industry than all the credit would be taken by the company instead and also the probability of you finding this big thing is more likely in academia because the amount of time you can spend, flexibility.
At the end of the day it depends on what you think and what you want to become.

Benefits of working in Academia are completely different that industry.
I would argue that while working in academia one has to be research oriented, keep on learning everyday, search for new ideas, work with students, freedom of deciding on work hours, contributing towards the field and having long term benefits. Nevertheless academia projects are not short term result oriented. They are constantly repeating and long term based projects with or without funding.I had a chance to work in Academia as a Professor for couple of years. The challenge is to pass on knowledge.
Whereas arguing that industry has been helpful in providing the best out of academia. Industry is mainly money oriented. Profits a major component, it has direct and tangible impact, problem solving in short term, target achievements, focus on technical work.

There are both benefits and disadvantages to working in the industry and working in academia. Working in industry does allow for more opportunities to move up in chain of command, or to explore different positions that will best suit a person’s interest. However, the main idea when it comes to industry is making profit. The industry works to keep up with and improve products with competing companies so they result in the greatest profit. When working in academia, research is the key idea, and people end up staying in the same position. There is not as much opportunity to go to higher positions. There is better job security when it comes to working in academia because of tenure. In industry, there is so much competition, and if you do not keep up with it companies will look to find someone else more willing to do the job. Working in the industry does give higher pay, but there are better benefits in academia. In addition, there is less time restriction when working in academia, while in industry there are deadlines. I personally do feel that industry is a better fit for me to explore my interests. However, there is no right career choice and I feel people should choose based on what is better suited for their interests.

Let me start of by saying that once I heard the words “travel the world” during the presentation I was sold on industry. I personally love traveling the world and meeting new people. Yes, there may be days spent in meetings but at least I would have a chance to escape the boring routine of life. Industry is also appearing to me because it is fast pace and employees work on fewer project at once.
But I don’t want to be in industry my whole life, especially if I don’t end up enjoying it. That is where the idea of protentional going into academia after a few years of industry come into my mind. I probably wouldn’t want to be a full-time professor but I would want to use all my failures and experiences working in industry to teach the new generation of engineers. Working in academic has always been and will always be a rewording job and potentially something I would explore later in my career.

In academia, you can do the project having flexibility in the timing. Sometimes i used to go to lab at nights and finish my work. You can extend the deadlines depending on the time taken by the work to complete. This is where your personal efforts matter a lot and to be more responsible in completing the project since there is no one to give you deadline. For a person who has passion in academia, then doing things which no one has done before, or making pilot studies and carrying out experiments to find out what is the result etc would give lots of job satisfaction over making money. I agree money is important at the end, but at the same time job satisfaction is very necessary to keep oneself happy and going.

In industry, the amount of work you do will be noticed daily. But in academia, results is the one which will fetch you your work rewards (like more publications, fundings etc). Industry gives you real world experience and helps you grow overall. Industry is promising in improving ones career at reasonable time and also to make money.

I firstly like to say that no matter which job you have, without loving it and having a passion for it, no job in the world is satisfying. But, I believe that the industry has a wide range of options such as regulatory affairs, management, technical, research, and marketing. Also, they co-exist and are interdependent and hence, you can change job role from one to another based on your interests. A career in an industry is fast-paced and recognition is fast whereas in academia, the research is a very slow process and sometimes it takes years to get reliable results. However, in terms of time flexibility, I do agree that academia has an upper hand. Also, in academia, you get to go to conference, meet and network better and travel around the world. But, I feel that career in the industry gives you an all-around development and helps you the advance in your career well.

I prefer industry over academia, as I learned in the course, we can earn more money from industry. Besides, industry is about marketing and I love marketing. But I feel that industry requires more from their employee. I saw many people who worked in the industry move to the academia now. They were not fired but laid off because of company's financial problem. So I feel that working in the industry is more competitive than working in the academia.

There is a huge difference in working at bench in industry and working at bench in academic. In industry there is an advantage of working with a supportive team in a good environment and there is always some meaningful projects and you will be paid well. Performance is accurately measured and used for bonuses, promotions and salary raises. In order to aligned company's vision of growth it took advantage of someone' specific skills. In academic lab there is too much independence and loneliness. while in industry everyone is trained to support each other. Industry career also has the advantage of time flexibility ,location flexibility and tasks that directly benefits your career. In industry ultimate product is an entity and no one shared the information along the path of that ultimate product while in academic information is shared in form of publications , lectures. There should be a balance between academic and industry jobs for people who want to do basic research.

Academia & Industry are more similar than is realized at times. There are differences (i.e. pay) that can cause someone to choose one over the other, but the two overlap in some places.

Politics: Working with other individuals and being able to keep a certain level of professionalism affects both Academia & Industry. As a professor in academia, you have to work with grad students and colleagues in order to move projects along at a steady pace. In the industry, you generally work in a team. Everyone in the team supports each other to move the project along and meet the set deadlines for the project. In both of these instances you may not enjoy all of the personalities of the people you work with, however, you will need to at minimum keep a cordial professional relationship in order for the project not to suffer.

All about the money: In the industry, everything comes down to the profit margin for the company that you work for. If doing something a certain way works but is too costly, you'll have to find a way to cut down costs while having minimal negative consequences on the overall product. This same concept transfers into academia through grants. The money received through a grant is finite. You may have had a plan for what to do with the grant money acquired, however, costs for different items fluctuate that you will have to budget around. Because of this, you may have to go with slightly cheaper materials in order to make the project you are involved in work.

These are just a couple of examples of the unison between Academia & Industry. To pick between the two, one would have to ultimately evaluate the kind of lifestyle they wish to live. Academia promotes a large amount of multitasking and refreshing. If you are the type that likes to bounce your focus between different projects in order to keep things fresh but are also adept at prioritizing your time, I would recommend academia. You'll be able to work on multiple projects at a time, and will have grad students to continue the work for you as you shift your focus to a separate project.

Okay so looking at the pros and cons of Academia Vs Industry, I think each has it's own advantage. Anyways I support Industry. Yeah you end up making more money in Industry!In Industry you can move your tracts and work with different people on different areas but in academia you are fixed up in one tract. In academia you have to do PhD that stretches your study for 6 more years and here you get a job and can work instead. I would also like to say some advantages of academia that is you are your own boss. Your own lab, you mentor students, grade them. Most important advantage of academia is you won't get switched or swapped from your job but in Industry due to competition risk factor for your position will always be there.

Arguments that go in favor of Academia is that it gives you more security with your job position since you have the ability to gain tenure. This takes off a lot of stress from worrying about losing your job due to budget cuts and the company needing to release employees. Also, it allows you to do research into the topic that you care most about and what interest you the most. That way you are certain you love your job and what you are doing. Also, because you have so many projects you can pick different topics that interest you and by having graduate students help you, your are able to look over all of them and still diversify your portfolio. The advantages of Industry is that you have an increase in pay, which may be enticing to some, so even though you may not fully enjoy your job, the pay can be good enough to keep you there. If you are a very hard worker, who prides themselves on building their portfolio and resume, then industry is better. You can earn a higher merit and get a better paying position that better reflects your credentials, where as in academia you can spend years on research and projects going after grants and funding to support your project before earning the money you deserve. If you prefer to not be working in a lab for most of the time then industry is better for you as well, where you get more interaction with outside people besides other students and professors. I prefer industry as I like to be more involved with other people and it still allows me to work on developing a product and I can also get involved in research as well.

While I agree that academia has more flexibility in terms of work hours/balanced work life you're able to focus on the areas that you're truly passionate about, I really think working in the industry gives you more opportunity to branch out into different positions. Industry allows you to see the business side of things along with the developmental process. Someone mentioned before about having stress due to budget cuts, etc. I actually disagree; I think if you're working for a company that deals with the development of innovative medical devices, there's not too much to worry about since that field is always expanding. Also, as people stated before, the pay is definitely better!

In my personal experience, I think working in the industry is a good way to network and also learn new skills. You're forced to work with people you may not particularly like (which sounds awful), but you really learn how to deal with those issues in a professional matter. The only downside I can see is that there is always a competitive nature between different companies, which can bring unwanted politics into your work life.

Ultimately, it depends on the person and what he/she wants out of the experience.

Regarding budget cuts, keep in mind that although we do not get our funding almost exclusively from grants when we work in industry, we do have budgets and funding to worry about. When a company funds a project, there are often times that the funding is not enough, and you will need to calculate your expenditures carefully. This is of course IF your project gets funded at all.

Also keep in mind that it is possible for corporations to get grants just like professors in academia do. Partnerships with the NIH or directly with universities happen all the time. There are small business grants of various kinds as well. The whole grant structure coming from government and private enterprise is a different subject, but people do make their careers in there.

I believe that academic careers are limited because there are less opportunities offered comparing to industry. To be more clear, industry gives people the opportunities to move up to a higher positions that they deserve based on their hard work and their skills. While academic, some people don't get promoted and ranked up based on their skills so there's less opportunities offered. To sum up my point, I believe that industry makes us climb the mountain faster and give people the opportunity to reach where they want to be and to get what they deserve faster than academic. On the other hand, as the professor mentions that industries budget sometimes is not enough to fund a project for instance and the budget in industries is something that need to be considered which gives some limitation; however, I believe that industry gives better benefits, better opportunities, and it ranks up people in positions that they deserve to be and based on their skills.While, on academic, we see people work hard and have a good skills and they still in the same positions where they start.

I believe that academia and industry both have strong arguments for working in both categories. Academia will definitely give you more time for research because you work on your own schedule. You teach people the basics of your passion and interests while expanding your own knowledge. You have more of an opportunity to help others to become more experienced and successful through academia. There are also some negatives to academia such as spending time grading paperwork, more schooling required to become a professor, a lot of writing required for publications, and you’re also dealing with students who could be difficult to handle sometimes. Also, when you’re teaching a class, you’re stuck with the same materials to teach each semester/year which can get boring.

For people working in industry, they have a better paying job with less schooling required compared to academia. You can go on business trips and travel to different places for networking and learning what different companies do in those areas. Industry has more opportunities to move up in the company to become successful. Being in the industry gives you a chance to be involved in the creation of something new or modifying something that will be helpful to those in need. Industry also has many different types of jobs to pick from (depending on experiences). There are also some negatives to industry such as the possibility of working more than the 9am-5pm hours, there’s less free time, and more deadlines for projects.

Both the pros and cons have to be looked at before deciding which route you want to take. Depending on what type of person you are, academia will be a better fit verses industry and vice versa.

For me personally, I’d prefer working in industry because there’s more room for growth and finding different experiences in the field. Even though each position will require experience, I want to help make a difference in the world through technology. I also do not mind working a 9-5 job or even more if it is something that I am passionate about.