Career choice Professor vs Research Scientist

[Anonymous]

I'm a PhD new grad with 2 offers. None of them are ideal for me, but well, with the current job market, I should feel lucky for getting any.

Offer 1: tenure-track assistant professor in a small town. It is a teaching focus university, so no research and funding pressure, and pretty easy to get tenured. The cons are not many young professionals and activities in town, it would be hard to meet new friends and date.

Offer 2: research scientist in a healthcare institution in DC. The job relies on soft money, I have to keep publishing and maybe apply for funding in the future to secure my position. I have no idea about the job security atm. The salary is higher than offer 1 though. And DC is a more vibrant city to work in.

I'd like to get some advice on career choice. Or if you have experience on any of the two positions, I'd like to hear you experience. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Much more potential with offer 2.

[Anonymous]

I’m biased as I never wanted tenure track and have worked in govcon my entire career but don’t let soft money scare you. Ask the company how often they have to lat off folks because contracts end. Most good govcons are stable and really don’t have to do layoffs.

The pay and growth potential is much much better outside academia.

[Anonymous]

Professor

[Anonymous]

Is the small town in a part of the country where you would want to live? Or is this a situation where you hate the heat and it's a small town in Texas? If it's a general area where you would want to live, of choose option 1. But I'm someone who was a city person on my twenties and now at 50 I'd love a stable job in a nice small town.

[Anonymous]

How much do you like teaching? How much do you want to be a professor? You could apply to an R1 if that's your end goal but you'd need to figure out a way to continue your research. My friends at teaching schools often partner with researchers at R1 institutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m biased as I never wanted tenure track and have worked in govcon my entire career but don’t let soft money scare you. Ask the company how often they have to lat off folks because contracts end. Most good govcons are stable and really don’t have to do layoffs.

The pay and growth potential is much much better outside academia.

Thank you. It seems they don't actively lay off employees. Someone told me most ppl left after gaining more experience for higher salaries in industry, some went to R1 universities after becoming PI. My concern is whether I would be able to achieve any of these after my current job funding runs out. It is very hard to get into tech industry these days, not sure if it gets better after 2~3 years; I'm also not sure if I can become a PI that soon either. I probably can find other funded projects in the same institution after completing the one they hired me for, it's just hard for me to imagine changing supervisors from time to time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the small town in a part of the country where you would want to live? Or is this a situation where you hate the heat and it's a small town in Texas? If it's a general area where you would want to live, of choose option 1. But I'm someone who was a city person on my twenties and now at 50 I'd love a stable job in a nice small town.

The weather is OK over there, just life style change is huge for me, I have lived in big cities my whole life. I probably can get used to it after a while. My interviewer told me the town's population consists more senior people, young people are leaving for more job opportunities except students. I'm kinda worried about my dating life, I can't date students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much do you like teaching? How much do you want to be a professor? You could apply to an R1 if that's your end goal but you'd need to figure out a way to continue your research. My friends at teaching schools often partner with researchers at R1 institutions.

That's a good advice, thank you! I'm OK with teaching, not very enthusiastic but definitely take my responsibilities very serious.

[Anonymous]

Teaching vs research are two very different jobs in terms of what you do all day.

I would go with the one where you would enjoy the work more. It sounds like socially you would prefer DC so if you like research more than teaching…go for option 2.

[Anonymous]

What is your end goal? Do you want to focus on research or teaching? Do you want to be a tenured professor at an R1 university? Or is that just what your advisors expected of you in graduate school, and you really just want to do research? ? If you are drawn to academia, you could always go back on the job market after a few years from the teaching job. I suspect it would be harder if you take the research job.

[Anonymous]

I thought about options 1 and 2 and decided I liked research more than teaching so took my option 2 (similar to yours). I worked like crazy and hustled for years and years and wrote literally hundreds of proposals and eventually supported my own research group. Still in DC 25 years later but now I just oversee teams of people doing research. I’m glad I went this route but it was 60-80 hour weeks for a decade at what would be around $100K salary today.

[Anonymous]

Option 1 sounds like torture for someone who doesn't love teaching and doesn't want to live in a small town.

Option 2 doesn't preclude something similar to option 1 in the future, and in the meantime you will be gaining experience doing something you actually enjoy.

This one's easy.

[Anonymous]

What is your PhD in? In my field I would say you can always leave research for teaching but not the other way around. In general research keeps things open. Are you in a field where post docs are common? I did not do one (work for the government now) and know that closed doors for me. But I would have been miserable teaching full time so YMMV.

[Anonymous]

If one takes offer 2 and keeps publishing, then it will be possible to switch to university faculty later on - and probably with a wider range of university choices. Offer 1 locks you in to academia and sets your salary lower. From here, offer 2 looks much better all around.