[blululu]

There is more to life than a paycheck. Historically professors made unimpressive salaries but enough to live at a quality middle class level. When you consider the prestige, respect and job security that was afforded to professors it makes sense that the non-remunerative aspects are sufficient to our weight the money. Of course these days the pay cut is perhaps too deep to justify these days, but not unambiguously so. An adjunct might have a chance to publish a big result and land a tenured position. The odds are slim but it’s important to pursue your dreams even if it is a gamble. The cost of not doing so is higher than you might thing.

[BeetleB]

> The cost of not doing so is higher than you might thing.

There are plenty of people on HN, including myself, who abandoned academia for industry. I think we are more aware of the cost than you probably are. Especially because we have friends who did stay and get tenure, and can compare our experiences with them.

Hint: It's not a large cost.

The trap many academics make is being singular in pursuing a dream. There are lots of great things they can strive for, and they're blind to them because they want that one thing.

And talk to most older professors in the liberal arts and most will say "Money matters!" Heck, when I was a grad student I recall talking to an engineering professor in my alma mater and mentioned how great it is that he gets to pick what he researches on. His response was that "Yes, you can pick whatever you want. But while they can't fire you because of tenure, you will be on the bottom of the pay scale. That's fine if you have no family."

While certainly some professors go that route, the reality is: Money matters!

Especially if you're in a bigger city. I recall a little over a decade ago there was an interview with a full professor of history - she made $60K/year and lived in a big city. On top of that, the university was forcing her to teach really large classes to save money. She was looking for an exit.

[drewmassey]

This is true; my father was - and my husband's parents are - all professors so I know that small town academic life (for tenured faculty) is one flavor of the American Dream.

And pursuing your dreams is important. But I've also seen pretty talented people adjunct for decades at a stretch, because they believe that some day they will get a TT job - and I've also seen those same people seemingly only taking advice from their doctoral advisors, who (in my experience) consider anything besides a TT job as "failure".

If people want to live that way, they should. But the ideology of "pursue your dreams," when it comes to employment as a tenured professor at an American University - is often used to just string along adjunct labor in the home that someday their ship will come in.

[lolinder]

> The odds are slim but it’s important to pursue your dreams even if it is a gamble. The cost of not doing so is higher than you might thing.

Can you elaborate on what the cost is? Because there are a lot of cases that I can see where reevaluating your dreams might be a much better bet than pursuing them. I don't think it's a given that your dreams have any inherent value to them, nor that achieving them would make you happy.

I know someone who can't imagine pursuing a different career than being an Astronomy professor. He's still an undergrad at a middle-tier university and is consistently a C-grade student with a particular weakness in math, which is a major problem for what is essentially a Physics degree. Even if he succeeds at getting into a decent graduate school and getting a PhD (not a guarantee given how hard his undergrad has been for him), he'll be competing for a very small number of professorships that are available in Astronomy, and he'll be up against people who did much better in their undergrad and got into much better grad schools. And if he does beat all the odds and manage to land this professorship, will he just end up hating his career as much as he's hated school up until this point?

Is it still important for him to pursue his dream? Or is it time for him to cut his losses and find something else that interests him and is within reach?

[blululu]

The cost of not making at attempt is regret which can be expensive. The objections to “follow your dream” that people have mentioned are real. The basic “follow your dreams” advice should be tempered with realism and a sense of when to shift gears and call it. Don’t destroy yourself over something. But also, making an earnest attempt to accomplish goals is important. Setting and achieving goals is a key part of living a happy and fulfilling life and it is important to at least try.

From the sound of it, your friend has put in an honest effort and it is just not working out. I have nothing but respect for the effort, but tapping out is probably the best choice. That’s a hard lesson but one that you need to learn at some point in life.