Leaving tenured academia for government or industry

[Anonymous]

I am a tenured academic (engineering) and I am really tired as my kids are very challenging and require more work not less as they get older (they are elementary age). I would like to find a way to downshift but there is no easy way in academia, despite the pap that we only work 4 hours a week in practice we create original materials for classes so 3 hours of teaching is 20 hours of prep and 10 hours of grading a week for just 1 class, and I also raise $1m 8! Federal grants and then supervise the research done with that money, which is actually 2/3 of my
Job. So hours are long. No easy way to downshift since if you do less research they make you teach more to keep your job.

I would like to find a job that is 30 hrs a week so I can do more. I would hope to make similar to what I make now- any hope? I have a cross section of skills in management, highly technical engineering (biotech and computers). Really open minded as academia creates this tunnel vision so despite having worked in industry for a few years I am totally naive. Also have always been a workaholic but I just am totally burnt out at this point like so many others.

[Anonymous]

Op here. I make about $160k so not that much by DCUM standards, although benefits are pretty good by industry standards probably less than fed.

[Anonymous]

Can’t you just do a mediocre job and not get fired? You have tenure.

[Anonymous]

Okay I'm a tenured prof at an R1 school. Not engineering. I do understand you have a lot of funding pressure to support PhD students.

I'm not sure I believe you are really a professor and if you are, it sounds like you have severely, severely not cracked the code of teaching. 20 hours a week of prep for one class? 20 hours is my total prep time for the YEAR for one class, and that includes updating all my materials, revising assignments, posting everything online, etc.

With all that funding it should also be easy to hire a TA to do the grading (I'm surprised your department/school doesn't do this automatically). If you're spending more than 5 hours per week in total on teaching (outside the classroom) as a tenure-track or tenured professor, that's shocking to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. I make about $160k so not that much by DCUM standards, although benefits are pretty good by industry standards probably less than fed.

You want a 30 hour week making $160k? I think that will be hard to replicate.

I know in our gov contracting company we have many part time employees (mostly moms), but they probably make $90k at best.

Does anyone work at a FAANG, with their high salaries, would a part time job pay this much? Would OPs credential land them a job there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can’t you just do a mediocre job and not get fired? You have tenure.

No because then they make me teach more classes every term. I could do a worse job with those but there is a limit to how little you can do. Plus I hate teaching. I only took the job for the research. I would rather quit and do almost anything else than teach. I was hired because I am I am an excellent researcher, writer , analyst, programmer, physicist, chemist and project manager and understand how to get things done. Those would be highly useful elsewhere but not if I done away classroom teaching 40 hours a week and doing grading for another 20. Tenure isn’t what it used to be, friends. Even at the “elite” school where I work.

[Anonymous]

You have $160k a year and job security and you want the same $ for less work and less job security? (Unless govt).

[Anonymous]

You would give up tenure for some part time gig? That is crazy short sighted. And your pay is quite high for a professor outside business school.

I would stick with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t you just do a mediocre job and not get fired? You have tenure.

No because then they make me teach more classes every term. I could do a worse job with those but there is a limit to how little you can do. Plus I hate teaching. I only took the job for the research. I would rather quit and do almost anything else than teach. I was hired because I am I am an excellent researcher, writer , analyst, programmer, physicist, chemist and project manager and understand how to get things done. Those would be highly useful elsewhere but not if I done away classroom teaching 40 hours a week and doing grading for another 20. Tenure isn’t what it used to be, friends. Even at the “elite” school where I work.

Sorry that should be “drone away” not “done away”. Autocorrect stinks. And for those of you worried about your children in elite schools, I am a wonderful research adviser who has helped tens or more talented undergrads of all sorts go on to fulfilling work and grad school, and I am not a bad teacher, I just hate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have $160k a year and job security and you want the same $ for less work and less job security? (Unless govt).

Do you need your salary? Does your DH make the real $$$?

Getting tenure and having older kids, you are already likely mid-30s right? So switching to industry, as a part timer you would be vulnerable to lay offs.

A govt job could be strict 40 hrs/week, and fairly secure but unlikely to get that high pay without supervision.

You should look at National Academies of Science -- are you in DC region?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t you just do a mediocre job and not get fired? You have tenure.

No because then they make me teach more classes every term. I could do a worse job with those but there is a limit to how little you can do. Plus I hate teaching. I only took the job for the research. I would rather quit and do almost anything else than teach. I was hired because I am I am an excellent researcher, writer , analyst, programmer, physicist, chemist and project manager and understand how to get things done. Those would be highly useful elsewhere but not if I done away classroom teaching 40 hours a week and doing grading for another 20. Tenure isn’t what it used to be, friends. Even at the “elite” school where I work.

PP tenured professor who you conveniently have not responded to. I have never heard of an "elite" school without TAs for grading, so now this post is extra fishy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay I'm a tenured prof at an R1 school. Not engineering. I do understand you have a lot of funding pressure to support PhD students.

I'm not sure I believe you are really a professor and if you are, it sounds like you have severely, severely not cracked the code of teaching. 20 hours a week of prep for one class? 20 hours is my total prep time for the YEAR for one class, and that includes updating all my materials, revising assignments, posting everything online, etc.

With all that funding it should also be easy to hire a TA to do the grading (I'm surprised your department/school doesn't do this automatically). If you're spending more than 5 hours per week in total on teaching (outside the classroom) as a tenure-track or tenured professor, that's shocking to me.

I have tried to hire help. That is what is breaking me. HR is so broken at my school that I have been trying to hire a casual assistant since a July and it is still “processing”. I get a strict TA quota assigned by the school land no way to hire more. Definitely cannot use federal research money for that also. (Your tax dollars, not my slush fund, by law.). I agree none of it makes sense, but o feel like this has been the battle of my job.

Lovely for you that you can prep that little. My teaching assignments change every year. Not my choice but because the school is constantly redesigning the programs so my classes get eliminated and we are assigned to teach new things to cover new hot topics everyone wants now. Or the USNWR standards change and the school hustles to keep up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You would give up tenure for some part time gig? That is crazy short sighted. And your pay is quite high for a professor outside business school.

I would stick with it.

This. BTDT.

[Anonymous]

You don’t understand industry. I’m a science PhD in industry. It is a constant cycle of proposal writing to bring in contracts while executing current projects. It would not be downshifting at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can’t you just do a mediocre job and not get fired? You have tenure.

No because then they make me teach more classes every term. I could do a worse job with those but there is a limit to how little you can do. Plus I hate teaching. I only took the job for the research. I would rather quit and do almost anything else than teach. I was hired because I am I am an excellent researcher, writer , analyst, programmer, physicist, chemist and project manager and understand how to get things done. Those would be highly useful elsewhere but not if I done away classroom teaching 40 hours a week and doing grading for another 20. Tenure isn’t what it used to be, friends. Even at the “elite” school where I work.

PP tenured professor who you conveniently have not responded to. I have never heard of an "elite" school without TAs for grading, so now this post is extra fishy

We have TAs just not enough. And I have to grade final reports myself. And I also have to have 2 hours of office hours a week, so I am counting that. And a 1 hour TA meeting to organize the TAs. And spend 2-3 hrs a week reading the emails pleading for grade changes from students and handling them. And, lately, handling the crisis situations (medical and mental) of students. Yes I refer them to the professionals at the school but there is always something. I also have a phd student in crisis and one stuck in another country because of lockdowns and visa stuff. I was kind of simply lumping all this together for simplicity. I am sorry if you thought I was a troll. I don’t know why anyone would troll this post, but social media expert I am not.