I was reading Nature in the department lounge today while I was waiting for my coffee to brew so I wouldn't fall asleep in my tropical meteorology class and ran across an article that I really needed to see:
The Path Less Travelled in the NatureJobs column.
It starts out: "Most people make sacrifices to complete a PhD because they want a lifetime connected to scientific pursuits. However, only one in three new PhD scientists is likely to get a tenured academic position."
The author goes on to talk about why getting out of academia is becoming a reality to more recent grads and why it might be preferable these days. I was really happy to read this, not because I plan to own my own business or be self-employed some day (I guess anything is possible... ) but because I know I'm going to be one of those two out of three that don't end up in on the tenure track. Not because I don't think I'm smart enough, but because I don't want to and have never envisioned myself becoming a professor. This week, I've been preparing, and unnecessarily stressing out, for a conference and reading a ton of papers written by people smarter than me. It's been easy to lose sight of the fact that I won't be doing this forever, so I'm glad I picked up Nature and got a reminder.
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