My Personal Take
There is no right or wrong — you must find out which career path fits you best.
Often, it’s hard to imagine that in a company you will have almost daily meetings before doing your research to align with your team. I guess you have to experience it yourself.
However, there are a few questions you can ask yourself to get a feel for whether industry should be a serious consideration:
Do you seek application?
In industry, you will do research that contributes to a clear purpose. If you are annoyed by research papers that are inconclusive, that lack robust approaches, or investigate questions you consider too abstract — industry might suit you better.
Do you appreciate structure?
In academia, you will mostly be thrown into the water — and either you swim or you don’t. You must organize yourself. And this won’t get easier, especially since there are no set working hours.
In industry, you are given tasks and goals. You get structure and won’t easily get lost.
Do you seek a team?
In academia, you will mostly work on your own. Even with collaborators, you will likely tackle complementary questions. As a professor, you lead your group, but you won’t be in the lab following the nitty-gritty.
In industry, you often have closer cooperation with others. Internal competition is usually secondary to collaboration (depending on your position). Together, you work toward a unified goal.
Other Factors
In academic research, you will struggle with limited contracts and comparatively worse pay than in industry. Moreover, in many countries there is legislation limiting your postdoc research time to a few years — after that, you must either get a permanent university position or become a professor.
Having no industry experience at that point can become a disadvantage if you don’t find a position that values your specific research expertise.
In industry, on the other hand, you provide a service — and tomorrow your research question can be exchanged for a completely new topic.
In Essence
I would approach the question like this: If you get the chance to gain experience in industry, definitely do it — no matter how or when.
If you can imagine becoming the stereotypical professor — being absorbed in a few questions that you want to follow according to your personal preferences without anyone telling you how to do it — then academic research is for you. Writing grants and spending less time in the lab will be challenges, but you might feel too limited in an industry environment.
If you doubt you can live in that world — if you seek meaningful applications or limited working hours — consider industry.
Written by Patrick Penndorf – Connect via LinkedIn
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