If you had to select right now if you would work Academia or Industry, which would you decide? Their approaches to research are different and yet similar at the same time. Did their approaches to research aid you in your decision?
For me, I am ready to go into industry. I have spent my time in an academia setting, and I am ready for something new that is fast paced and constantly engaging. In academia, although, the time off is excellent, your pay is compromised and often related to “the amount of days school is in session”. Another issue with academia, is pay. Right now, an increase in pay, is important due to inflation and the effects of the pandemic. I feel that going into academia is ok if your passion is teaching / researching. However, if money is your motivation, the industry is where you should focus on. Personally, I have exhausted my love for teaching, and I am still broke. I would like an increase in pay for my knowledge and my time.
If you had to select right now if you would work Academia or Industry, which would you decide? Their approaches to research are different and yet similar at the same time. Did their approaches to research aid you in your decision?
If I could choose I would work in industry. I would work in industry because if I could get into the field that I want in a R&D laboratory, I would have the resources needed to develop the products I need if I was to make a discovery.
I currently work within the research department within my company for medical devices and I would say I would stay within industry. Although I do have a passion for learning more about the unknown advancements within my field, I enjoy having a set goal for projects and be able to run compendial and non-compendial tests on different implants and instruments. There is also still room for development where I will still run smaller studies for abstract submissions and other areas of innovation in the medical device field.
If you had to select right now if you would work Academia or Industry, which would you decide? Their approaches to research are different and yet similar at the same time. Did their approaches to research aid you in your decision?
If I had to choose between academia and industry, based on their approaches to animal research ethics, I would select industry. I have experience working in both industry and academia and have found that, in terms of live animal research studies, industry appeared to be more regulated than academia. For industry, preparing for an single animal study takes many months of planning and preparation in addition to many months or years of R&D, in academia I observed more frequent animal testing with much less preparation.
I admit, this could be due to my more limited knowledge of the animal testing field within academia. However, based on my experiences, I think industry has handled animal testing better than academia, likely due to more stringent regulations and guidelines imparted by animal rights groups.
Has anyone had more experience working with animals in an academic lab based setting? I'm hoping that other's experiences can give me more perspective on this and fill in my gaps of knowledge.
Thanks,
Matt
If I had the choice right now, then I would choose to go into industry. I very much dislike working in slow paced environments where I have to search for the unknown. However, I would like to go into academia for a year maybe just to gain a bit of experience in the field because I’m sure there are important skills that can be learned that can be applied anywhere in the future. I enjoy working in very competitive and fast-paced environments, and that’s why I would much prefer going into the industry. Also, I want to feel the sense of immediate impact and change on patient lives, which can be done by going into the industry. I think that after gaining experience in the industry, I wouldn't mind going into academia to have a job security and stability.
At this current point in my life, if I had to choose between research in industry and academia, I would choose the industry. While there are benefits to research in academia, such as being able to pursue a passion project, I would rather work in the more structured industry research. I believe research in industry provides a better work-life balance as industry requires people to work the same set hours every week. During the beginning of the pandemic, I found it difficult to find a proper work-life balance while taking classes from home, so I now have a better appreciation for having a good work-life balance. Research in academia is more open-ended, which could lead to varying hours from week to week, while industry is typically more consistent. Also, I appreciate that there is a set goal in industry that would more likely prevent scope creep than academia would, as academia has less strict deadlines. For my senior design project, my group suffered from scope creep in our project because we did not have a set goal, and it was very stressful and we barely finished our project in time. After that experience, I would appreciate doing research that is less open-ended, like research in industry. While there are still cons to researching in industry, I believe that the pros of it outweigh the cons of research in academia, so I would prefer industry over academia.
Hello arianaburch,
While both paths are feasible, I would personally go into industry. In industry, I feel like you'd sooner see the fruits of your labor when working on a project. Research can be incredibly fulfilling when it makes advances to the state-of-the-art, but when there's multiple projects spanning the last couple decades that have not been finished, I don't know if I would feel as fulfilled by my work. If there is anything that I value in my work, it is the impact that it could create, and I think that I would sooner see this impact in industry than in academia. Plus, it pays more.
During my undergrad I had the opportunity to conduct research under the "academia" and it was very difficult for, so my only motive was to gain experience. Basically unless you are really passionate about the subject or actually trying to make a difference industry might be the best option as it was for me. The thought of getting a promotion or even raise motivates me lot more than doing something for a grant or recognition. Again this might be a very raw response however, after starting my masters my views on academia have changed a lot more as I realized how much effort goes in to get a phd or publishing something, as it requires a lot of dedication and self discipline.
- If I had to choose with academia or industry I would pick going into the industry. After having much work in academia under several professors and seeing how frustrating it is for me to work in what seems like endless circles because of how slow it seems and non-purposeful for others. I have not worked in the industry yet, and would like to finally get a taste of it, by being able to change the work pace, meet new people with goals to excel to help benefit people with any sort of device or biomaterial, it would be a new exiting endeavor. Not only that, but just seeing how I can apply my knowledge and skillset, while also gaining more would be best case scenario. I feel like academia limits the amount of projects I successful do or also I feel I do not know rules and regulations of the FDA because of only being in academia, so by being in the industry I can further learn about this when doing projects.
Industry is more appealing to me because of the fast paced environment. There is a greater opportunity to obtain additional knowledge due to the constant rotation of projects. Over the years, I have learned that I strive to understand different areas, regardless of how different they may seem, for the sake of learning. I also want to be a part of a company that has the resources to help a large amount of people. In academia, it may take years before a new discovery can help others. I would rather spend those years putting my time to good use to help people in the present. My decision was not influenced by the approaches to research, but it did help to sort the differences in both fields.
@arianaburch @troy-lovette I totally encourage Troy to move on to the industry setting. Like Troy, I also did research in the academic setting. it is slow paced and you would have to hope for it to work sometime in the future to make an impact. However, I like doing research in the industry setting because I can see that my work directly makes an impact as I do developmental work on a product that is already launched. Because industries are fast paced systematic, driven by a specific goals and business mindsets, doing research in the industry setting can be both challenging and rewarding.
Majority of this thread has chosen industry over academia, and I can very well understand why as I too would choose industry over academia. After coming out of undergrad, where most of what it felt like we did were heavy researching to write papers and present, it seemed all too mundane and receptive. I really disliked academia for that reason, it seemed to emphasize more on skills important in pursuing graduate studies rather than in industry. There were few times where I felt like what I was learning could be applied to an industry setting.
While the research process is not what swayed me to go into industry over academia, I will say I do prefer performing research in an industry setting over research in academia. After completing research in an industry setting, I usually receive quicker responses on what further steps I should take and what else to look into and then after a couple of days, it's time to begin purchasing samples, etc. However, in academia, I found that it is usually back and forth emails for awhile, pleading to go further with your intended plan while also making heavy changes and repeating this over and over again. I really appreciate the fast paced setting industry provides. While doing research in undergrad I was really conflicted on whether I wanted to pursue this after graduating, however, seeing and experiencing the different process of research in industry, I am extremely fulfilled.
@cb447 I think the choice between academia and industry is really based on the personality of the individual. When choosing my own career path (ultimately went for industry), I considered what brings me satisfaction on a daily basis. Do I like a high-paced or slow-paced work environment? Do I enjoy interacting more with other professionals or more with the science directly? Do I prefer specific work hours or do I love the feeling of being in a lab for hours on end? What kind of reporting structure am I most comfortable with? What kind of personal development do I want to have and will I get that support in academia or in industry? These are the kind of questions that I would recommend exploring to discover where you will thrive.
If I had to choose between Academia or Industry I'd choose Industry. For one, as much as I love research and as curious as I am, I feel like the wait when researching in academia is just far too long and quite a gamble to be worth my time. In Industry I feel like I can satisfy my curiosity more so because results come into fruition far quicker. Viewing that expeditious effect on society and seeing the smiles on a person's face because of something I worked on makes me feel successful and makes me feel like the research was worth it far more than something like a noble peace prize. I've gotten several honor rolls, president's awards, trophies, etc. growing up, all as motivations to become a professional and use those talents of mine to make my impact on society not so that I can continue to garner rewards that're essentially a pat on the back for trying/discovering something new. Not to take anything away from it, those are still very hefty accomplishments and obviously not given out to just anyone. Quite frankly without them, we wouldn't be where we are today and couldn't keep progressing. But the truth of the matter is making money is essential to living a sustainable life and the same satisfaction that those get in academia, I will get in the industry in my opinion far quicker.
I have already begun life in the industry. As a Life Care Solutions (LCS) field engineer what gets me going in the morning is knowing that when I go to the hospital I will be fixing a medical device that will help diagnose someone of an illness or install new equipment that is literally life-saving. These are pleasures I do not believe would be found in academia for me.
