The culture in academia that you must be willing to pick up and move anywhere in the world for a TT job prioritizes single men over everyone else. What if you can’t move? What if you have family obligations? What if your spouse has a good job? Or your kids are in a good school?

As a 3rd year post-doc, I made as much money as my dad - he got his GED & never went to college. My parents wanted me to go to college so I could have a better future. Instead, I was stuck in a low-paying post-doc for years. No one encouraged me to pursue other options.

Ten years ago I was stuck with an abusive and erratic mentor and thinking about leaving my PhD program. Ultimately I switched advisors and fields. Seven months ago I left academia to work in a national lab. I could never have predicted the way this journey has played out.

we’re gonna need university professors teaching about disability to actually listen to autistic people when we tell you how to refer to us I have no idea what is wrong with academics that they refuse this kind of feedback but it’s happened to me & this is your problem to fix

There are now papers showing that the migration of academic communities from Twitter to other social media sites mostly failed. But they never fully returned to Twitter either. I wonder if we will ever see so many different communities interacting in the same online space again.

Today marks a significant turning point in my career. In two weeks, I will begin my new role as a Systems Consultant at Omilon, where I will be working on technology implementation. I am very excited about this opportunity. This also means I will be leaving academia... 🙂

that academia was a meritocracy

Today’s breakdown: I’m thinking of leaving academia because I simply can’t make enough money to live comfortably. This industry has always been for the independently wealthy, and I’m not marrying rich, so I don’t know what to do.

Nothing beats being on a committee that meets for 90m every 2wks and where I listen to faculty (who makes LITERALLY 4x my salary) complain about they aren’t paid “enough” to update their canvas sites or do other parts of their LITERAL job ✌🏽✌🏽🥰🥰

"Postdoc positions can be exploitative." My latest story—about a study showing that international postdocs in the U.S. are paid less and received less careeer support and guidance than U.S. citizens. #AcademicChatter #postdocs Science Careers science.org/content/articl…

The new generation of ChatGPT "thinks" like a PhD. The o1 models score better than PhDs on the "Graduate-Level Google-Proof Q&A Benchmark" - 448 "extremely difficult" questions that assess physics, biology, and chemistry knowledge.

Two days ago, a lawfirm filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against 6 commercial publishers (incl Elsevier & Wiley) in the federal district court in New York. They allege a 3-part scheme on part of publishers. 🧵 lieffcabraser.com/antitrust/acad…

It’s a lonely job, leading a research group (professor, principal investigator, group leader – whatever you call it). You talk all day with everyone, but you’re mostly alone with the doubts and risks of the biggest decisions. Doesn’t have to be this way and I’d love to change it.

A young academic told me--with a smile--that he had an epiphany: Academic jobs are bad enough that he is no longer worried about not getting tenure. Is the feeling common?