Here’s why I’m sharing this — my academic trajectory might look like smooth sailing from the outside, but I experienced it as bumbling and meandering. Much of the time I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. So here are some things I wish I’d known when I started.
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1. A six-year tenure clock isn’t that long! It takes a year or two to settle in and become productive in a new research area, especially if you need to build a team. And your tenure application will likely be due at the end of year 5. So you really have something like 3-4 years.
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If you feel like you haven’t done much at the end of year 1, don’t be discouraged. My first high-impact work wasn’t until the end of year 2. What’s crucial early on is figuring out your research direction(s). If you need to pivot, pivot early — it’s much harder to do it midway.
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2. Tenure advice doesn’t generalize well (including, of course, this thread). You’ll often find yourself violating other people’s heuristics for how to be productive as a professor. Listen to your mentors, but have the confidence to do your own thing if you need to.
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For example, at first I followed the usual advice to travel regularly to present my work and to network. Then I realized that my online presence gave me most of those benefits anyway, and I drastically cut back on travel. That’s the single best decision I made.
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3. Don’t become a manager! I thought the secret to productivity was to hire a bunch of grad students and spend all my time advising them. In the short run, this will probably lead to a big increase in output. But the downside is that your skills will rust over time.
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Arvind Narayanan Retweeted Arvind Narayanan
Besides, it’s far less enjoyable than doing a mix of advising and your own research, in which you're coming up with the ideas or writing the code or whatever. In recent years I've tried to maintain a healthy balance, but it takes conscious effort.https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/918219301542334465 …
Arvind Narayanan added,
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4. It’s stressful even if you’re doing well. In comparing notes with other professors who were up for tenure, I thought their tenure cases were slam dunks, and I was surprised to learn that they were stressed about it. Turns out they thought the same about me.
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Arvind Narayanan Retweeted Arvind Narayanan
The good news is that while an academic career is stressful, it’s no more so than being a doctor or lawyer or any other profession. A major cause of stress is randomness. There’s a lot of it in every walk of life. We just have to learn to cope with it.https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/950789126843961344 …
Arvind Narayanan added,
Arvind NarayananVerified account @random_walkerThere's a great book about this. In every walk of life, we dramatically underestimate the role of randomness in how things turn out, and overestimate the effect of intentional actions. https://www.amazon.com/Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules-Lives-ebook/dp/B001NXK1XO …Show this thread1 reply 11 retweets 61 likesShow this thread -
A final thought: I was a reluctant academic. When I decided to take the plunge, I promised myself I’d opt out of the aspects I disliked (e.g. secrecy, publish or perish). I’m fortunate it’s worked out. Nonconformism may be riskier, but far more rewarding and worth considering!
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Congratulations!!! So well deserved.
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