Differences

We're all unique and we all perceive things in different ways. A particular system might be heaven for one person and hell for another. I find that academia is not a good system for me. I've been told that I won't have any chance of getting a position unless I've written the book. There was a time when I fixated on writing the book and all the various articles so that I would be suitable for a position. Now because I'm me and no one else I think that was where I became unstuck. If I did the book and the articles in this way it would be to improve my CV and make me more employable. If I then got the position and carried on publishing a lot of it would be about improving my reputation. If I didn't do any research I'd be living in fear of getting the boot. People around the university would make snide remarks about me the way they do about other people who don't publish. I would be going to conferences to network and make my face known, perhaps to harvest further job opportunities. I would be adapting my research to make it more fundable and everything would be built on previous experience because it'd be too risky to branch out into a completely different area.

I don't want to live like that. If I do research it's got to be because I want to learn and find out more. It's got to be for fun. I've had enough of writing things so that I can get the right qualifications. I don't want to spend the rest of my life writing things so that I can get and keep the right job. I want it to be about the subject. Maybe if you've got a different personality you could thrive in a system like the one I've just described. You would say that having to do these things for the sake of your job is good for you because it lets you keep studying something you love. That's fine but for me the pressure to publish is just a big fat turn off. If I want to pursue a career in academia I'll not only have the compulsion to publish to boost my reputation and improve my job chances, I'll also have to live where I don't want to live and delay my chances of a normal family life. When I consider that with access to a decent library and enough spare time I could study whatever I liked, academia does not look attractive.

I've just been talking to a science student who told me that the lecturers in her department are under a lot of pressure to publish. If they don't then the department's rating will fall and it will get axed. She says that the pressure is so great that no one takes the time to make any great discoveries anymore and results are announced before their time. There's an intense rivalry between the different research groups to publish first and the idea of science for science's sake has been lost. I'm lucky because I began my career with someone who is an old fashioned scholar who learns for the sake of learning. There were times when I was annoyed with him because he didn't seem to fit into this pressure to publish world, but now I'm pleased that I've met him and seen his example.