I'm related to a few professors, and they largely carry massive chips on their shoulder about this. For example:
And for those of us whose research directly translates to the real world (e.g., in my case — persuasion, crisis communication, strategic communication), the so-called professionals look down their overpriced noses at us. That means that even if we did want to move back to the ‘real world’ — we have to basically apologize for our PhD, our time spent training them (Where do they think new professionals come from? Are they hatched?), and kiss their asses for handouts. So, basically until we write our book and ‘become’ a pundit or consultant later in our careers we’re stuck because Americans are scared of smart people.
is a great example of the genre. There's huge amounts of rank jealousy directed at classmates who took a look at the (readily available) evidence of what a PhD's career track looked like and decided against it.
(Amazingly, despite hearing terrible complaining about the stresses of tenure-track professors every time I meet my family, they always ask "So when are you going to grad school?")
I'm sorry but this is a very ignorant assessment. I spent 5 years doing research in academia and none of the professors on our team had as easy of a work life as 99% of the software developers I have worked with do. I am in no way criticizing developers, being a professor is just damn hard and very stressful in comparison.
The demands of the sink or swim nature of academia, the need to be constantly seeking grants, teaching classes, participating in running the department and being an active member of their research area (organizing conferences, editing journals, etc.) are enormous. A good academic is expected to do all these things and do them well.
I grad school I was mostly a night person and so would frequently be at school around midnight. So would several professors on our team, except they would also be there at 8:30 in the morning every day, and work at home on the weekends. In the 7 years I have been a developer I have never seen a workplace that puts as much demands on it's employees. Not even close.
Yes, they may complain about society/"industry" not caring enough, and that's mostly because it is true.
Let me offer an analogy: when veterans are badly treated, everyone's angry because society isn't valuing their contribution enough. If scientists and professors contribute at least as much (and think of how far we've come in just the last 50-odd years), I think it's fair they're miffed if you trivialize their jobs as "least stressful" when they're not.
There's huge amounts of rank jealousy directed at classmates who took a look at the (readily available) evidence of what a PhD's career track looked like and decided against it.
The problem being that in most of the natural or social sciences, there are few job-options for researchers, or even for applied scientists, outside of the Academic-Governmental scientific complex.
Yes, yes, yes, everyone is about to point out their favorite example of a profitable industrial firm doing Real Science. Very nice for you at Microsoft Research or your chosen pharmaceutical company.
Problem is, those companies can only afford to do a small piece of the total research load every year, and only in subjects where research can translate into profits in the next 10 years or so.
So it becomes a decision of society's values: should scientific research be done without a prospect of profits in the next 10 years? And at the moment, most people hate being so much as confronted with a question like that, let alone actually paying taxes and engaging in the political-budgeting process to make sure allocations to science happen so that scientists can do their/our jobs.
And for those of us whose research directly translates to the real world (e.g., in my case — persuasion, crisis communication, strategic communication), the so-called professionals look down their overpriced noses at us. That means that even if we did want to move back to the ‘real world’ — we have to basically apologize for our PhD, our time spent training them (Where do they think new professionals come from? Are they hatched?), and kiss their asses for handouts. So, basically until we write our book and ‘become’ a pundit or consultant later in our careers we’re stuck because Americans are scared of smart people.
is a great example of the genre. There's huge amounts of rank jealousy directed at classmates who took a look at the (readily available) evidence of what a PhD's career track looked like and decided against it.
(Amazingly, despite hearing terrible complaining about the stresses of tenure-track professors every time I meet my family, they always ask "So when are you going to grad school?")