For me the answer is yes, despite all the problems, for two reasons.
Firstly, I'm lucky enough that I do have considerable freedom to work on the things that I'm interested in. If I was more interested in success or if I was on a 'soft money' position and forced to chase constant grants, I don't know if that would be true. But, such luck is rare.
Secondly, as a socialist I would feel very uncomfortable spending my creative energy on most of the non-academic things I'm qualified for: advertising and surveillance (i.e. tech companies), finance, or startups (making venture capitalists even richer). I could imagine academia getting bad enough that I'd make that choice, but for me it's not there yet. I completely understand that it is that bad for others and I mean no criticism of them.
In a way I suppose this is a sort of defence of academia, but it's a half hearted one at best. I think it's absolutely tragic and depressing that academia has become like this. Doing research should be one of the most joyful and creative things anyone could do with their lives.
I don’t deny anyone’s experience. Thus story is horrible and I believe that all this happened to her.
That said, I’m worried about encouraging the next gen to watch this video as representative of academia and decide if they want to sign up. I certainly don’t agree that all the statements in the video about science at large are true!. Certainly if I experienced what she experienced, I would leave too. The thing I’d like to emphasize is that we aren’t all experiencing that (and this is why we stay; we’re not suffering hopelessly). I would go as far as to say with confidence that hers is an extreme case.
I acknowledge that I’m coming from a position of good fortune here, surrounded by other fortunate people. And we have to be careful about survivor bias, absolutely. But let’s also be equally careful about making academia sound like a horror show. (I suspect that wasn’t your intent here! But could be interpreted that way maybe?)
@NicoleCRust what would you say specifically doesn’t apply to a universal academic experience from the video?
Personally I think it’s important to expose the reality of the current academic system to anyone who might want to enter it. When I decided that what I wanted to do with my life was research, I thought the path to permanent researcher was straightforward: masters, Phd, permanent position. Haha.
Would I have not entered “academia” had I known how convoluted, compromise-based and basically unscientific getting a permanent position was - a position which doesn’t even involve doing that much research in most cases? I don’t think so personally but I know many others would go a different way if they had the full picture. Plus the general public is the one basically funding this system and should be made aware that it’s not going well and needs to be improved somehow!
Academia isn't about knowledge discovery; it's about money making.
Science is a money making machine in which students and postdocs are burnt out to bring in money for the institution.
Most of academic research that your taxes pay for is almost certainly bullshit.
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I'm not claiming that she isn't raising some important issues about the scientific pipeline and how women/families are treated. These are important and we need to address them! But by mixing them in with these over-the-top (and I would say misleading and inaccurate) statements - I just don't see how that's productive.
@NicoleCRust@elduvelle the tax one is unfortunate because it's a freebie for the right who are quite happy to make academia even worse or destroy it entirely. It's true that most research is wrong and even wrongly concerned but I'd argue that's a necessary and unavoidable part of doing science. The other two points are kind of reasonable I think. Science isn't just those things, but it is partly those things. A significant part.
@NicoleCRust@neuralreckoning I see, yes these are a bit over-the-top, they would probably be more realistic if more nuanced…
In my experience (i.e. in my field) they definitely have some truth to them… the exploitation of postdocs and phd students… the pressure to get grants… the need to ask for funding for “cool & quickly feasible” projects that may not be the ones you’re actually interested in… the papers that get published with misleading or just wrong results because that’s what the “top journals” demand… 😕 I know that not all researchers submit to this system but there is no question that some do, I guess the question is: to what extend does this happen?
Yes! These are important topics for conversation, absolutely. I agree. (In fact, earlier this week I had many of these on a slide in a talk). We are unified in wanting to pinpoint problems and find solutions, for sure.
@NicoleCRust I don't claim that everything that happened to her will or has happened to everyone, of course, but this stuff does happen and to be honest my impression from my own experiences, what I've been told by people I know, and from accounts I've read from people I don't know, is that it happens a lot. I don't think hers is actually an extreme case. And I think a lot worse happens too. What I don't want to do is give the impression that it's worse in academia than outside. I don't know enough to say whether that's true or not and I've heard some pretty hair raising stories from outside academia too, so a priori I've no reason to think it's better and wouldn't be at all surprised to find out it's worse.
The bias is real and ever present: I feel the same, video comes across as an extreme case because my environment has been mostly populated by fortunate people who did the right thing at the right time and place. Took lots of effort too, so those living through it felt like they deserved it. About half of my lab members ended up as faculty.
@NicoleCRust@neuralreckoning agreed. Loved her, loved the video. But it doesn’t reflect my experience either. It’s not that I haven’t encountered the challenges, it’s that they haven’t played out in the same way for me. That’s largely good fortune, but maybe also some different expectations as I experienced other professional environments prior to academia. Much of the bad stuff strikes me as not unique - we just expect academia to be better (and we should hold it to that!).
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