Thursday, May 31, 2007

Soul-Searching

I envy people who seem to know what they want out of life. I'm confused. When I'm trading instead of focusing on my job and on academic research I feel guilty. And when I'm not trading I feel bad I'm missing out on making money. I think grad school is a brain-washing process where students are persudaed that nothing is more worthwhile than academic research - at least for many it is. On the other hand society tells us it is important to make money. And when my trading works out I feel good about it. These different feelings are coming to the fore as decisions on the future are coming up. I'm scared by the huge roll of the dice coming up. But not taking the gamble would make me terribly regretful too. Maybe I just think too much. Tomorrow evening Snork Maiden will be back - that will certainly make me feel better.

I recently commented on this post and there was an interesting follow up discussion. My thinking at the moment is that I will need to continue some dimension of my academic career just as Brett is both trading and practicing psychology unless I end up entering the financial industry full time or finding some other occupation. Or is it academics that is making me unhappy? Can I unlearn this behavior and "live in the moment"?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I completely agree with you that "grad school is a brain-washing process". Applying for PhD program was only a bridge for me to come to study and work in the states, but after few years in the program, I started to believe that "academic research" is the only worthwhile thing in life. Yannick did not intend to be in the acadmic world when he got his PhD admission. But after graduation, he started to apply for post-doc and assistant professor positions.

For some fields, such as finance or accounting, you can get fame and money from academic research. For most other fields, it is difficult, unless you can turn your research to business like google or genetech.

I can not stay in academic, and Yannick's field does not pay well to the professors. Not sure this is good for us or not. But now both of us are out of academic dream. Yannick has finanlly said no to postdoc and tenure track, and we are on our way to a 9-5 normal life.

mOOm said...

Before I got into this pf-blogging world I spent some time posting on the Chronicle of Higher Education website. There was a lot of discussion of this there. It is like a religion. Quitting is like apostasy. It's interesting that as I've been mentioning to my colleagues about Snork Maiden's job offer none of them have asked me whether I'm planning to quit. Rather they ahev expressed sympathy that we'll be a long way apart. The only person who said "you'll quit if your girlfriend moved to Australia" was a guy with a PhD who doesn't do research but works as research funding guy. I've told some academic people elsewhere that I'm likely to quit academia or at least my tenured position.

Anonymous said...

I understand the mix of emotions that you're experiencing. I'm also in the midst of transitioning out of academia. Once I had a family, priorities shifted. Pulling the long hours for a sub-average salary and missing out on my daughter's childhood moments to chase tenure just isn't worth it.

I have become quite skilled at trading profitably and have launched a company based my investment strategy. The start-up venture is fun and challenging but doesn't pay the bills (yet!). I'm currently searching for a position in the financial services profession that can co-exist with my investment research firm. Risk Analyst positions are on the radar.

Good luck with your big decision. In these situation I try to remember the philosophy that there are multiple paths to happiness (not just the academic one ;).

Thanks for a great blog. I love to visit here reguarly.

Indigo

mOOm said...

Hi Indigo - sounds like you are a couple of stages further along than I am maybe in directions I will go. Money wasn't a problem for me in academia and I got tenure. On the one hand I sacrificed a lot probably to move around the world in pursuit of a good academic position. On the other hand the adventures have been good too. But the road seems to end here. I don't seem to be able to get another academic job, so either I stay in this location which is suboptimal for Snork Maiden or quit and move. But my interests also have shifted after almost 20 years of doing research