[DrewADesign]

It certainly echoes my experience having just left a professional dev job in academia after an 11 year stretch. Anybody without academic credentials relevant to the subject matter is "the help" no matter how much you contribute, and it's flat-out demoralizing.

I worked on a tech-heavy project large enough to get an NYT feature article covering its launch. For it, I collaborated heavily on the service design and logistics, and singlehandedly designed, built, administered, documented, supported, and provided training for the technical infrastructure and more than a dozen related interfaces and tools. In lines of code, it probably landed somewhere in the low 5 figures, but that was certainly way more than it needed to be. It was hackish but durable and performant. It was an exercise in pure generalism— no individual accomplishment was close to technically innovative enough to warrant a novel white paper, but I was invited to speak at a few related conferences about it.

But the professor overseeing the project didn't even mention me or my role in his launch party speech for the folks in our building, let alone anywhere that would have provided career visibility. He thanked and spoke about the contributions of every other major contributor— even the temp worker who ran the machines (he wouldn't want to appear classist after all)— but I got a hand shake and quiet thank you after his speech for my 5 year effort. I was at every related manager's meeting and largely seen as one of three "go-to" people for the project in general, not just tech stuff.

This sort of gatekeeping is a part of academic culture I just don't get. At least in business there's some predictability to people stepping on each other to get to the top, but what's the purpose of this?

[psyc]

This sort of gatekeeping is a part of academic culture I just don't get

This is just a hypothesis, but I'd predict a high correlation between becoming an academia lifer, and having certain preexisting personality disorders, stemming from having never derived a sense of self worth from anything other than academic achievement since they learned to speak. Or maybe I'm just speaking for myself :)

Similar to the top tier of tech companies being destructive and amoral in their own ways, not only because they're corporations, but also because programmers see technical challenges waiting to be solved like a moth sees a porch light, but see ethical problems dimly. (still probably speaking for myself...)

[908B64B197]

> Anybody without academic credentials relevant to the subject matter is "the help" no matter how much you contribute, and it's flat-out demoralizing.

That's my number one advice regarding academia: unless there's a path toward a valuable visa, or it's paid work while getting a valuable degree (read, something that will have the prestige to open doors) or your co-author at a good university you're much better building something for yourself somewhere else.

> no individual accomplishment was close to technically innovative enough to warrant a novel white paper [...] But the professor overseeing the project didn't even mention me or my role in his launch party speech for the folks in our building, let alone anywhere that would have provided career visibility. He thanked and spoke about the contributions of every other major contributor

That's because papers are the metric by which visibility is measured. Pretty much the only way to move forward is getting your name as author on the main papers.

[DrewADesign]

This is different, though. I was a professional developer working in a non-academic lab doing work the academic world really cared about. Public recognition for big accomplishments is what distinguishes me from the 'web guy' at the help desk who knows how to customize Wordpress themes, and will lead to progressively interesting roles that pay well in exciting organizations. Just having X number of publications under my belt wouldn't budge the needle for my career. It's a weird sort of in-between spot without obvious career trajectories but you can get a decent salary while working on cool stuff.

[linuxftw]

What you did doesn't matter, and they gave you the right amount of recognition. There are 1000's of imported indentured servants that will happily do your job the moment you leave. Of course, we don't call them indentured servants any more, we use terms like 'academic visa' or such.

I'm sure they also didn't think the electricity company for keeping the lights on, or Microsoft for creating Windows to write their speeches, or the guy that emptied the waste baskets in the office so the PHD guy didn't have to.

Don't carry water for someone else. Enrich yourself. That's all anyone else is doing, all the 'research' is for personal enrichment and prestige. Don't prop up the broken academic industry with less than market wages, let them fail.

[DrewADesign]

Nothing anybody does matters. It's all a big scam, man. ::hits birthday cake flavored vape and sips energy drink:: I'm looking out for number one from now on, bro.

[sampo]

> no individual accomplishment was close to technically innovative enough to warrant a novel white paper

There are so many academic journals, from scammy, to bad (yet honest), to average, to good, to the top. You can publish almost anything, if you select an appropriate, less prestigious journal.

[DrewADesign]

Yeah— wouldn't have helped in this situation. I was a professional and (deliberately) not in an academic career path, and at this very prestige-conscious institution, publishing in a scuzzy journal probably would have made me look worse.

[the_only_law]

Yeah but am I going to get the job if all I have is garbage published in no name journals?