In week one, Dr. Simon went over different aspects of working in Academia vs Industry. He asked us to make an argument for working in either option. As we start going into each role of Medical Device Development, there are going to be pros and cons that favor Academia vs Industry.
For this week, the topic is research. Comparing Academia vs. Industry, what arguments could you make for someone choosing to work (in research) for academia? What arguments for industry?
The benefit of working in research in academia is the fact that it is much less stressful. You have no strict deadlines to meet, no devices being developed as a direct result of your research - you are simply performing research to discover new information (i.e. research for the sake of research). In most cases, people performing this research are truly passionate about the topic they are researching, so they are invested in their work. They also have the potential to win awards based on their findings, and as long as their grants are approved and are tenured, they have job security.
The benefit of working in research in industry is that you will directly see your research being applied to specific products. This will also occur much faster than in academia, since research in industry is usually for a specific company or with a specific product in mind. Another big plus is the financial compensation. Dr. Simon mentioned that someone starting off in an industry research position will make around $60K a year, compared to academia research salaries of ~$18K for a grad student and ~$30K for post-docs.
I would like to work in the industry as it gives an experience of delivering what I have studied to the real world. The pay is more in industry and we do not need to seek for grants. There is a lot of competition and you have to constantly try to stay at the top. Working in industry is more money driven than passion. Working is academia is more relaxed and is more passion driven more than the target of earning money. They also have to seek out grants for carrying out research
Working and conducting research in an academia is like a passion or a thrill of discovery or curiosity over interest as said by Dr. Simon. It’s like doing experiments and getting grants from the University out of own interest. The timeline is not specifically framed for academia compared to an industry. In an academia, it’s we who do research and self-questioned of our interest. But in an industry, it’s like working for a stable objective along with the team in a more compacted time schedule. It is of course working for the sake of helping people and getting high pay compared with academia. Rather, the hurdles are even more for industry; which is also helpful in learning and tackling difficult situations. So I prefer industry over academia.
As I currently work as a research assistant at NJIT, I would first like to share some of the pros and cons that I experienced working research in academia. One positive in particular is that timing and deadlines for the most part are quite flexible and lenient. Personally, since I am a full time student, I am able to work in the lab for the most part when it is convenient for me. Therefore, if I have a busy class schedule throughout the day, I can come into the lab and start working early in the morning or late at night after my classes. Another positive of doing research in academia is that it is much easier to discuss the progress of the project or propose changes as there aren’t multiple departments to go through. The professor whose lab one works for is usually there every day for the most part or can be easily contacted through email. Another positive is that in academic research if the results of an experiment are not as expected, it is not always seen as a negative as it can be used as a learning block for the next experiment or trial. On the contrary one con of working in academic research is that without strict or any deadlines, some projects are left uncompleted for periods of time as time is dedicated to another project that may be proposed.
On the other hand, taking in the con of projects left uncompleted for some periods of time in academic research that is not a desirable case in industry. Due to the strict deadlines, research projects in industry are more likely to be completed on time. Therefore, a positive of research in industry is that one may feel more fulfilled to see their research being implemented in a commercial product at an earlier date. Despite this sense of fulfillment, a con that arises as a result of this, is increased stress and pressure to get research completed in a timely manner. Similarly, undesirable experimental results may add to this stress and make deadlines harder to reach unlike in academia where it can be regarded as a learning block for the next experiment or trial due to lenient deadlines. Nonetheless, I believe for many the sense of fulfillment that is experienced when a commercial product one worked one is ready to be marketed, may compensate for some of the cons mentioned for doing research in industry.
I will choose to work in academia over industry. Biomedical has a huge scope for research and development. I would like to work on the devices that no one can think of. Yes, it is mostly for curiosity, but I succeed, the whole mankind would be helpful. Research takes patience. I think I can perform better when I am working on my pace rather than under stress.
According to me, Industrial research sells out easily because the scope and output is more or less predictable. Most of the times there is already a similar model or proposal made by the industry. When I worked in an industrial R&D project we had to bring out the better version of an already existing proposal. It had set time frames to work on it and expected outcome was delivered smoothly. Whereas in Academia, we never know what are the hurdles that may arise when venturing into a project. As an individual or team it will be hard to navigate through the hurdles but as long as the passion and curiosity is there the purpose can surely be met.
Academic research always puts out new knowledge. When I was working as a Research Assistant at NJIT in the last semester, I was given the topic to learn about and generate code and work with the data within a time frame which allowed me time to do my other school work as well. Everyone in the lab who was there knew what they had to do and that they had pretty much as much time as they needed.
When I was interning in the industry during my undergrad, it was a lot more fast-paced, which I have realised I prefer. The deadlines were set, there was somebody managing the work and making sure the deadlines are met. The research moves along faster as companies are less hesitant to spend money if it means their product can hit the market faster too. I think research in the industry is more exciting than research in academia. Also, the financial gains are higher in industry. So I definitely am inclined towards a career in the industry personally.
Although research in academia may be flexible in terms of time due to not having a rigid 9-5 schedule, over-working can also be an issue. In industry, you may be paid more for working over-time, but that is not the case for those in academia. I disagree with the earlier posts which mention that research in academia is less stressful than research in industry in terms of deadlines, because there will be a period when grant funding runs out after a certain number of years, so the deadlines have to be met here, even though it's much less fast-paced than industry. Additionally, if you are a PhD student, you will have to meet the deadlines set by your advisor even if they may be prone to change. This constant changing of deadlines may also be seen as a downside, as the project may get delayed. In industry, there isn't the need to worry about grant-funding running out, however, there is the stress of delaying projects to the point where they aren't worth much.
Another point that hasn't been brought up is career growth in industry vs. academia as a researcher. In industry, there are many more opportunities for career growth, whereas in academia, you're a graduate student, then you usually do a post-doc, and then hope for the promises of professorship. It's much less linear in industry, where you have many more options on which career paths you want to take.
In my opinion, the advantage of working in academic research is the ability to choose specific projects that may interest you. These projects may cover different subject areas, be in different stages of completion, or have different budgets and resources available. These are some factors that can help determine whether you would like to contribute towards certain projects or not. This is typically not the case for industrial research as projects are often assigned to teams and must be completed with haste. One advantage of working in industrial research is the higher probability of seeing projects reach completion. Academic research is more focused on long term goals whereas industrial research is more focused on fast paced development. Due to this, industrial research has shorter time between deadlines and therefore shorter time for completion. As someone who is very results driven, I would prefer working in industrial research because I would feel fulfilled with the practicality of my work on such projects. Would you prefer working in academic research or industrial research?
I would say Academia over industry where you have the freedom of exploring different horizons. It’s up to you to design and pursue your own project with or without limited direction from senior authority. Your job will be more intellectually adventurous as you will be constantly thinking, reading and exploring new ways to solve a problem.
As Dr. Simon said in the videos, the industrial research goals are three making money and one helping people, and the academic research is done for passion, curiosity, and helping people. For me, I would like to work in academia because even if the research is started for love or curiosity in the beginning, the reason could be changed at the end to helping people.
Dr.simon's lecture on the differences between industry vs academia was eye-opening. I have always wanted to have a career in academia but there are important key factor to consider. currently working for indsurty and seeing how much money you excpect to make as you grow in your career is tough to disregard as you make the decision to switch into academia. in the future i would hope i would be able to finish my PHD and teach parttime as well as work fulltime for industry
Arguments for working in Academia would be that there is creative freedom for Professors in choosing the area of research that they would like to focus on. For example, Dr. Simon mentioned that ideas for projects often come up in casual conversation between professors which is a unique aspect of research in academia. However, there may be challenges in receiving funding through grants which is a stressful aspect of Academia. In Industry, the research is based on decisions made by management and dependent on the budget that is available. The timelines for the projects may be stressful as well.
What I personally find attractive in working for academia is the creative freedom and the opportunity to work in what you are passionate about. You are able to decide the topics that interest you and create a project out of it. Your name is credited for all the work that you do, you can present at conferences and feel good about all the work you put into it. While a project never really has an end, you can watch it grow from the very beginning and appreciate all the intellectual and physical labor.
In industry, you are stuck working on whatever the company wants you to work in. It can however still be very rewarding. You may not be pursuing every genius idea you get, but you can choose what area of research you go into. You can join a company that focuses on drug development for cancer or for cholesterol if that is what you're passionate about. You might be assigned to only do tests for a part of the project which can be in a way less overwhelming than developing everything from scratch by yourself in the lab. You might not have your name tied to the big medicine you just helped develop but you will get a pretty paycheck if you exceeded expectations. You also get to see the fruit of your labor go into the market (which I think is a very interesting tedious process) and make an impact in people's lives versus dreaming about it in an academic lab for years. To me this is really what matters. I love doing research however the medical problems are happening now and it's crucial to be able to translate these health care solutions from bench to bedside!
Like many of you have mentioned there are pros and cons for both. I think that both could be demanding and rewarding at different times. In the industry, you will always have someone overseeing what you are doing at pushing deadlines for projects and results, which can be stressful and frightening if studies go wrong or something outside your control happens. In academia, like Dr. Simon mentioned there are many times that one is relaxed and kind has no deadlines, but I'm sure that the people who are not tenured have all of the stress. Yes, if you make it to be a professor you can relax a little more since you are on oversight, but what is you don't get funding? How does this impact your position or tenure? Seems likely impossible that not getting any results ever, would not have a consequence on your job.
In my case, I think I would prefer the industry. I come from a laboratory background in which many tasks and protocols have to be done in a timely manner, therefore I think it would be an easier transition for me to go into the industry. In addition, it seems like your work hard work could be more easily noticed in the industry opposed to academia; is this true? Do you get promotions or salary increases based on job and result output?
