Maybe I'm wrong about this, but haven't most of these 'quit/don't go' essays come from academics in the humanities? Are there similar essays coming from science or engineering grad students / tenured professors?
I see the "I quit" genre more from CS/engineering professors, but that's probably because I'm on HN a lot. It would be somewhat interesting to compare the humanities subgenre and the STEM subgenre.
Also yesterday I had a long conversation with my neighbor at work (former math professor) about everything that's wrong with academia. He mentioned the phrase "loan farming".
I don't see many "I quit!" or "don't go!" essays from science, but you do see scientists expressing concerns about continuing to accept so many PhD students who won't have a clear career path.
Scientist here: I am tempted to write one, I haven't yet, I'm just doing it. Incidentally, my former postdoctoral boss is one of these academes who quit... One year after getting tenure. Interestingly, her decision to quit and abandon her project, in turn, enabled me to quit my "semi-academic" track (I've worked predominantly at "academic" nonprofit research institutes that are not generally colleges) - by trying to resurrect the project that she abandoned. Details in my bio, if you're curious.
1) Tenure is a different beast at some medical institutions where your funding comes almost entirely from your own grant support. There are tenured professors and it's fair to argue that tenure is important as a promotion, but if a tenured professors loses his/her grant funding, they can lose their office just like their un-tenured associates (I've heard of it but have not seen it personally).
2) The bigger problem is that tenured professors leave and head for prestigious jobs in the private industry. I always wondered why this was the case; I was enlightened talking to a spouse of a prestigious professor who said that in general the academic system treats even the tenured professor terribly. The big, big opportunities (and accompanying explosion in salary) are only in the private sector.
1. There is more money in being an engineering professor
2. Lots of PhD students in engineering never bother being professors of any kind (even non-tenure track) and just find an industry position with a big salary.
Yeah, you can find basically identical complaints (not always prestige-format essays though) from bio, chem and physics PhD's. Those job markets are nearly as bad as humanities and social sciences. And since pharma is in a state of disarray, the job prospects in industry aren't so hot either.
I do think that chem, bio, and physics PhDs who quit are less needy in the "need to broadcast it with an essay" department. I am tempted to write one, but only because I'm bootstrapping my nonprofit research operation and want eyes on it.
more than that in the humanities, the identity of the academe is hugely invested in producing words. In the sciences and engineering fields, the identity of the academe is hugely invested in producing data, results, or products.
I see the "I quit" genre more from CS/engineering professors, but that's probably because I'm on HN a lot. It would be somewhat interesting to compare the humanities subgenre and the STEM subgenre.
Also yesterday I had a long conversation with my neighbor at work (former math professor) about everything that's wrong with academia. He mentioned the phrase "loan farming".