This strategy would quickly lose its merit outside of Harvard. Failing to gain tenure at Harvard is the expected outcome, so a) the sense of rejection is less, and b) your remaining job prospects are good because this is generally recognized (and it's Harvard).<p>Asking somebody at a high-tenure-rate, second-tier school to treat their tenure track position as an extended post-doc is essentially asking them to have a failed career, on the other hand.<p>(it's worth noting that Harvard has actually changed tack recently, such that they're increasingly promoting junior faculty...the above is still true regardless, at least for the time being)
The author of this article is a friend and former colleague (I had the office next door to hers at Harvard, when I was on the faculty there). Many of the reasons she cites for being "miserable" as a faculty member reflect why I left a tenured faculty job for industry. Nearly all junior faculty I know describe it as a survival process. Given this I fail to understand why being a professor remains such an attractive career path.
Relatedly: Philip Greenspun, on why it's difficult to convince women and other sane people to enter an academic career in the sciences.<p><a href="http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science" rel="nofollow">http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science</a>
Not to sound overly critical, but is it just me or does this come off as a somewhat selfish point of view?<p>My father was a tenured professor and growing up I heard enough horror stories from his department to know that a career as a professor at a research university is no easy career.<p>But at the same time, isn't a major part of your job instructing students? I understand the importance of grants, conducting research, etc. as it relates to getting tenure, but if your only focus is jumping through hoops with the end goal of getting tenured there are probably a lot easier ways to get job security and at higher pay. My point is that I would hope that those who go into a career in academia as a professor have a major interest in teaching and aren't just there to get the next promotion.
As someone headed into academia, I ponder how the tenure-track process filters out folks. Simply put, I think many of the best scientists have been nerds, and many smart nerds really don't see the utility in playing the political tenure game. I'd argue that the competition is fiercer now than it's ever been in the sciences, so these selectionary forces against nerd-types are getting stronger.<p>We end up with the situation where scientists in academic jobs are enriched for those good at politics and playing the game, and we lose brilliant minds to companies. Companies also do their part, and offer alluring salaries and job security (I've had quite a few recruitment attempts for wonderful companies, and almost left academia on several occasions).<p>With the folks in academic positions being political (and sometimes downright manipulative), it's no surprise that some make terrible mentors. Their success quite often relies on extracting work from postdocs that will never have their success. Sadly, there's no incentive for symbiotic relationships sometimes. Luckily, finally, I have met mentors that are exceptions to this, and are nerds like me (and quite frankly, keep me in the sciences). But it took a long time to find such mentors, and other very smart people are not so lucky as to find these types of mentors and they leave the sciences. Sadly, this enriches for more bad mentor types. I think the role my mentors' mentors had is huge too; often my mentors talk about how important their mentors were.
At Harvard it really <i>is</i> easy to stop worrying, if you have an open mind.<p>As a mathematician, I know excellent academics who narrowly missed getting tenured at MIT and Princeton. They were highly in demand, and are now happily working at other top-20 universities.<p>(ed: I am in math, and described what I observed. I see elsewhere in the thread that mdwelsh observed the opposite.)
This article is great because the author has an authentic voice and explains how she achieved a measure of success without succumbing to outside pressures or norms.<p>It's a good framework for thinking about any high stress, competitive career track. Ultimately, stress/pressure greatly affect performance and peoples' perceptions of you, both of which are paramount in ascending hierarchies.
First off, it's inspiring and courageous to write candidly about such a topic. Including the epiphany: <i>That what I can do, is try to be the best whole person that I can be.</i> That mindset would be helpful outside academia too.<p>But the more I read through stories like this the more I become convinced it's important to fool yourself: to convince yourself there's no pressure. As if the act itself unblocks some kind of neural pathways that allow you to do things you wouldn't have let yourself do otherwise.<p>The author might be a lot more courageous that they think, even if they hadn't realized it at the time: "<i>But its not because I have extra courage. Rather, by demoting the prize, the risk becomes less.</i>"<p>Anecdotally, a professor once told me (when they look back on their tenure track) that it now seems irresponsible to them that they were devoting such little time to revising journal papers or writing such few grand proposals. (I got the feeling they were doing things that don't scale). Another said they were sure upfront they'd fire them at the end, so they tried to enjoy they ride while it lasted. Both of them got tenure.<p>Another thing this story shows is how logistics become manageable if you try. Like the approach to give the other person a weekend day off as counter-balance to you going on an extra trip is probably what prevents you from going astray. It's the right sort of tension. You pay twice for a workday like that (one for the trip, one for parent duty), so you now have a concrete measure to make that decision rather the vagueness of "it will help my career".
Awesome.<p>On the "stop taking advice" idea: when I was a grad student (and postdoc), I kept notes in a personal wiki. I had a page entitled "Things Other People Have Suggested I Do". I didn't do most of them. Even more so, it was such a liberating feeling to look at it and tell myself, "I don't have to do any of that crap, I have my own research plan."
It's unbelievably easy and condescending for someone who has a tenure-track junior faculty position at harvard to call it a "seven-year postdoc". However, the advice is generally good.<p>I do however take issue with this: "I guess my hope is to add one more option to the list, which is covering your ears and making up your own rules." No... That shouldn't be a hope. You should just do it.
Even if not all of the aspects that she wrote about may related to everybodys problems, it's a very good read because it allows to relate to her situation. Being a post-doc in CS myself and having two kids I exactly know how hard it is to juggle everything. In addition, I think that many of the comments here try to interpret the article as a list of advices and treat them as such. But If you read carefully you would have seen that this is especially something she didn't want to.<p>My key take-away from this post is that: Yes, the system is designed for young, childless PhDs who are willing to put 80hs/weeks into work and robot-like follow the advice of others. But, it does not have to be like that. It's <i>paramount</i> to remember everyday why you are doing this job and why you love research <i>and</i> teaching.
For those interested in the Harvard tenure process, this article detailed some of the history and statistics:
<a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-harvard/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-...</a>
I highly recommend reading The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. The essence of the book as well as this article are interesting in that the more relaxed you are the higher your productivity and interestingly enough you can only learn/do so much in a day. The point being, likely not pursuing the tenure track made her more productive and allowed her to form better relationships, making her one of the better junior faculty (or at least one of the more pleasant).
I like the idea. When you free yourself from undue external pressure creativity comes out. This doesn't work for everyone. You have to be very prescient to avoid all advice. Being smart and in computer science allows one great backup plans. (Tell the 7th year English professor not to worry)
I think the key to nailing this her way is to become a time management nazi and to be profoundly efficient and productive in every category. And that is where most of us fail unfortunately.