My dad worked in academia so I have an understanding that working in academia is much more comfortable than working in industry. In academia, you'll have a life where as long as you get your work done, teach your classes, and get grant money, you can go to work and leave whenever you want. In industry, there is less breaks and less slow periods BUT I think you get paid more. My understanding is that life in academia is slow and pleasant, whereas in industry you are always working at least 9-5 every weekday, but you also get exposed to things you'd never see in academia and the weekends feel better.
Hello,
Currently I am pursuing MS in BME. I did my undergrad in Instrumentation engineering. I have chosen thesis option. I have started my master's right after my bachelors. So I have no industry experience. Now that I have choose between Phd and working in the industry, I am still not sure what will I do. As much as I want to be in academia, I also want to work in medical device industry to gain some experience in real world. But I also want to get to work in the lab and work on inventing new technology. I am hoping after my thesis I will be able to choose the right path that will help my career.
Working in academic may have choice to work on whatever they want , they can choose their research. In industry people following whatever the company needed. they can not change the way and strategy of the working. In industry a person will be one of a team and have a mutual goal and working toward the exact same thing. people can lunch to the industry early but academic require more degree.
For academia, the most important thing is to get a sense of accomplishment at work. In the lecture, we can know that working in academia not only has a moderate pace of work, but also has some benefits. If we can make outstanding discoveries or research, we can bring ourselves a sense of fame and achievement. These things are hard to get in the fast-paced business industry.
For industry, the advantage is higher pay. Companies need financial support to maintain stability, so bosses will require employees to complete their work regularly and quantitatively. Because there is a fast-paced and high-pressure working environment, employers will pay employees more. If a person has enough ability to complete the work on time, then the person can adapt to the industry career.
I have worked in the industry for 2 years before starting my master's in the university and having completed 1 year already with my master's, I can better say the pros and cons of both working in the industry and academia.
Let's start with academia first.
Pros:
1. You decide what do you wanna do and you act accordingly in that direction.
2. You have lots of options to go to and lots of new things to learn.
3. You learn lots of new things each day.
Cons:
1. Does not prepare you for the industry.
In the industry:
Pros:
1. You learn a lot each day and get better at it with time.
2. You get recognition for the good work you did.
Cons:
1. Your Job becomes your life after a while and you have less time for other things.
2. You are responsible for all the work and a small mistake can impact your carrier.
The merits of Industry and Academia vary depending on various factors. Although I do not have any industry experience but the merits of Industry as seen from the lecture and as heard from people already into the industry is that it is fast-paced and deadline oriented which eventually gets you learn a lot of new things each day and helps you understand and face the real world. It offers a higher pay as compared to someone in academia with the same level of education. The projects worked on always gives a result which was never done before.
However in academia it is result-oriented which always keeps you at the peak of innovative and creative ideas. Though the pay may be less but one always gets credit for the work done as the work is new mostly done individually and keeps you boosted. There are a lot of projects to work on and funding available from organizations for the same. Also as mentioned in the lecture you get exposure to a lot of new places as you travel for conferences.
I believe that Academia is more focused on what the individual would want to do and is more flexible whereas the Industry is more focused on what the company wants to do and that individual is working on something he/she may not be fully interested in. Academia is more adjusted to assisting each student finding their passion, whether it's actually going into industry or purely siding with research and academia (becoming a professor). On the other hand, the Industry gives each individual an enhanced perspective as to what an engineer actually does in the field. There are several processes and skills that academia does not provide to fully equip someone for industry. There also comes a high level of stress in the industry due to the very strict deadlines of the project or company which ultimately can have significant impacts on the business or even the patient whom uses said medical device in the long run.
One of the very big matters at hand when discussing these two topics is money. Everyone wants money, whether they are doing something they love or being forced to do something they are either neutral about or even hate to acquire money. The downside to academia is that the student will be drowning in a ton of debt in which adds even more stress to the student. When I think of these two, I believe that having perspectives of both fields will be a tremendous help in figuring out exactly what you want to do.
I believe industry leans more towards practicality than academia because in industry your device has to be mass produced. Which means manufacturing cost of your device has to be low and it needs to work efficiently. Industry faces challenges when it comes to developing new devices because people in industry have to apply theoretical knowledge that they gained in university to building new device unless that device was developed by researcher in academia in which can industry people have to figure out how can they modify this device so it costs less to manufacture. In industry you can not make mistakes because it is more money driven then academia, where you can get funding and grants.
I believe academia is more theoretical then industry because when you are doing research in university you don't have to worry about manufacturing cost as long as you prove your research. In academia you have time to prove your research where as in industry you have deadlines which needs to met.
One difference that stands out to me between academia and industry is the source of funding. Researchers in academia often need to seek out funding in the form of grants for the particular research that they are trying to conduct. The nature of the projects is often different too - it often goes down the path of answers a particular research question that could be developed further down the line. Timing is more flexible, but you must be able to present what you found (or did not find) once your grant is up.
In industry, there is much more pressure to deliver. After there is a proof of concept, the pressure is on to create a marketable device. This is where "Research & Development" splits into research and development (separate). Often the team that develops the product is not the same team that research the novel concepts. Everything is industry is measured by deliverables, and if the project is behind schedule or a competitor beats you to market then the project may be cancelled very quickly.
It is worth noting that academia and industry do overlap. A company may partner with a university and fund research there with the intent to develop any discoveries that are made there using their funding.
One difference that stands out to me between academia and industry is the source of funding. Researchers in academia often need to seek out funding in the form of grants for the particular research that they are trying to conduct. The nature of the projects is often different too - it often goes down the path of answers a particular research question that could be developed further down the line. Timing is more flexible, but you must be able to present what you found (or did not find) once your grant is up.
In industry, there is much more pressure to deliver. After there is a proof of concept, the pressure is on to create a marketable device. This is where "Research & Development" splits into research and development (separate). Often the team that develops the product is not the same team that research the novel concepts. Everything is industry is measured by deliverables, and if the project is behind schedule or a competitor beats you to market then the project may be cancelled very quickly.
It is worth noting that academia and industry do overlap. A company may partner with a university and fund research there with the intent to develop any discoveries that are made there using their funding.
For an argument in favor of academia, I would highlight that this job would be ideal if your career goal is to conduct research. Academia requires significant research and discovery, and those in academia, particularly professors, spend a significant amount of time working on multiple projects at once. They often have opportunities to travel and receive benefits. For a professorship, one of those benefits may be tenure, which guarantees job security.
Arguments in favor of working in the industry include making more money. Industry professionals tend to make significantly more money than academia professionals with the same skills and time in their field. Another pro, depending on how you like to pace yourself, is that the industry is a more fast-paced environment. This is beneficial for those that get bored easily. There also may be more versatility and job opportunities for careers in the industry, giving you a chance to broaden your scope for career choices.
Having spent most of my career in the academic medical center setting, where pace and business activity more closely resemble industry, as well as the academic research setting, I would concur that the academic research side does provide much more flexibility in terms of time and being better able to balance family responsibilities and even an evening course load. At the academic medical centers I worked out, my bosses had spent time at consulting firms before settling into their senior administration hospital roles. Therefore, our department culture resembled the healthcare consulting environment with constant deadlines, demanding pace and steep intra-departmental competition. Taking evening MBA classes with my schedule nearly buried me!
On the other hand, the academic research setting is more relaxed, except for cyclical crescendos of activity around the regular NIH and NSF deadline dates. Indecision and having your hand in so many prospective projects plays well as "rigorous" research activity, but if we did not deliver tangible empirical results in the hospital setting, we wouldn't be employed too long.
One thing that both settings share is that the project arc is longer than the pure business setting, where decisions are more prompt. Even with the high demand at academic medical centers, we spent SO much time in being overly thorough, "analysis paralysis" is what we called it. Countless times, we had data at the 60% or 70% mark to make solid strategic decisions, but we continued to strain blood from a turnip only to arrive at the SAME conclusion after hundreds more hours of manpower and study, which in private business industry surely what have been deemed unnecessary.
Students are the main stone in building a nation, my argument for academia is that you can be the role model in changing students life and lead them to be grater than what they Never think of. I believe is the passion of the heart to help other and lead them the right way to find who they are and what they want. Life is changing fast and people need all the help they can get. In addition to what other have said, Academia is good for people who love to be the captain of their boat.
For industry, you have an open world to walk into with a different type of opportunities. It is full of challenges and needs people who are willing to go the extra mile.
In all honesty, I have really only worked in academia (although I would not define it as, "Working" since I did not get paid and was an undergraduate student). That being said, arguing in favor of either really comes down to personal preference and personal interest. I used to view academia as the "better" choice since, as discussed in your introductory presentation, it is more focused on the discovery, collaboration, and the pursuit of knowledge. It pays less though and is apparently riddled with politics and bureaucracy. I used to view the industry as the "sell-out option". It pays better and is more focused on project completion, but at the cost of focusing on product development and the market than on pure discovery. In reality, I feel like there is a lot of overlap in both though. Many professors I know in academia have their own companies, patents, or side projects, and many of the researchers I know in industry have wiggle room to test out their own projects and experiments. There is no clear winner or better field to go into; its really up to personal preference.
As stated by others before me, the debate between academia versus industry simply comes down to personal preference. There are plenty of advantages and disadvantages to both. Personally, I have had no experience with industry but have had some research experience within academia. I know for a fact that within academia there is plenty of politics and drama. Whether it is other professors doing similar research or just receiving funding from the school, there are plenty of opportunities for politics to get involved. Dr. Simon’s presentation also mentioned how majority of the time would be spent trying to receive funding and juggling a countless number of projects. I saw this firsthand in the lab that I had worked in. The professor I had done research under (who I will try to keep anonymous) was juggling projects for the school as well as another company. He was writing up grant proposals almost every day and was constantly working. The professor seemed like he was working endlessly without taking much of a break at all. Although there are plenty of other benefits to academia, after seeing this aspect, I was turned away from it. In the future, I would like to have my own family and I would like to be able to spend time with them. I know that it would be a lot of work early on until I am tenured (as Dr. Simon’s presentation stated), but I feel that with a job in industry, you can control your time much easier. Obviously with both, I can see there being issues with time, but I personally saw that academia seemed to be more time consuming. I know others will disagree and there are a lot of other factors, but from this personal experience, I believe that I would enjoy going into industry more. That being said, I am currently still conducting research for a master’s project and maybe my mind will be changed at some point. If so, I will come back and let everyone know.
