I would never go back to academia. Here's why.
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the speaker addresses whether they regret leaving academia after earning a PhD and then working in the tech industry before being laid off. They explain that they do not regret leaving academia, as it allowed them to pursue a more fulfilling career on YouTube and as a writer. They discuss the shortcomings of American universities, including high costs and declining educational quality, and why they wouldn't return to academia. Ultimately, they feel they can make a greater positive impact through their current work than they could as a professor.
Takeaways
- 🎓 The speaker does not regret leaving academia after obtaining a PhD and transitioning to the tech industry, as it allowed for new opportunities.
- 💼 Despite being laid off from a tech job, the speaker sees leaving academia as a step towards pursuing a true vocation rather than a dream given up.
- 📚 The speaker believes that American universities are not serving students well, with a focus on providing an 'experience' rather than a quality education.
- 💸 Universities are criticized for marketing experiences that lead to high tuition fees and increased student debt.
- 🏫 The speaker observes a trend where universities prioritize marketing and amenities over academic quality and teaching.
- 🔢 There is a noted increase in administrative staff compared to faculty, which diverts resources away from the core educational mission.
- 👨🏫 Many introductory classes are taught by graduate students or adjuncts, who, despite qualifications, may not provide the same educational experience as tenured professors.
- 📈 There is a push to make classes easier, which the speaker argues lowers students' expectations and capabilities.
- 📘 The speaker has found more impact and satisfaction in encouraging people to read philosophy and challenging literature through YouTube than in a traditional classroom setting.
- 🌐 The speaker's mission is to convince people of their capability to engage with complex ideas and enrich their minds, which they feel they has achieved more effectively outside of academia.
- 🐾 The speaker's cat's appearance serves as a light-hearted conclusion to the discussion, suggesting that the speaker is content with their current path.
Q & A
Why did the speaker leave academia after obtaining a PhD?
-The speaker left academia because they felt like they were wasting their life in jobs they didn't love and believed that leaving academia allowed them to pursue what they actually wanted to do, such as starting a YouTube channel and writing for an audience.
Does the speaker regret leaving academia?
-No, the speaker does not regret leaving academia. They believe it was the right choice and it allowed them to pursue their true interests and goals.
Would the speaker go back to academia if offered a tenure-track position now?
-No, the speaker would not go back to academia even if offered a tenure-track position because they believe that American universities are not serving students well anymore and they feel they can do more good outside of academia.
What is the speaker's main criticism of American universities?
-The speaker's main criticism is that American universities are diverting resources away from their core mission of teaching and research towards providing an 'experience' for students, which leads to higher tuition costs and student debt without providing a high-quality education.
What is the speaker's view on the quality of education in American universities?
-The speaker believes that the quality of education in American universities is declining because resources are being diverted away from academics to non-educational amenities, leading to less demanding classes and lower expectations for students.
How does the speaker believe universities are failing students?
-The speaker believes universities are failing students by making classes easier and less demanding, lowering students' expectations and their assessment of their own capabilities, and not providing the high-quality education that justifies the high tuition costs.
What role does the speaker believe they play on their YouTube channel and Substack?
-The speaker believes their role on YouTube and Substack is to convince people that they are capable of engaging in life-enriching and mind-enriching activities like reading philosophy and hard books, and to provide recommendations and encouragement.
What feedback has the speaker received from their audience?
-The speaker has received feedback from their audience that they were able to read and understand philosophy and hard books because of the speaker's videos and recommendations. Some audience members have even shared that they initially found certain books too hard but were able to read them after following the speaker's advice.
Why does the speaker believe they have a greater impact through their YouTube channel than they did in academia?
-The speaker believes they have a greater impact through their YouTube channel because they can reach and help more people understand and engage with philosophy and literature than they could in a university classroom setting.
How does the speaker describe the current trend in university education quality?
-The speaker describes the current trend in university education quality as declining, with universities making classes easier and lowering expectations, which they believe signals to students that they are not capable of doing higher-level work.
Outlines
🎓 Leaving Academia and Career Reflections
The speaker addresses a common question about whether they regret leaving academia after getting their PhD and working in the tech industry. They explain that despite losing their tech job, they do not regret their decision, as it allowed them to start a YouTube channel and pursue writing. They discuss how their previous jobs felt unfulfilling and how leaving academia opened up new opportunities for personal growth and career development.
🏫 Challenges in American Universities
The speaker explains why they would not return to academia, despite the appeal of reading, teaching, writing, and researching. They believe American universities are not serving students well anymore, often focusing on providing experiences rather than high-quality education. The increasing tuition and student debt are highlighted as significant issues, with resources being diverted away from the core mission of teaching and research to fund luxurious student amenities and excessive administration.
📚 The Decline in Academic Quality
The speaker criticizes the decline in academic standards and the over-reliance on adjuncts and graduate students for teaching, which they believe undermines the quality of education. They argue that universities have lowered expectations and made classes easier, resulting in students not developing necessary skills and confidence. This, combined with high tuition and debt, makes them reluctant to return to academia, as they feel the system is failing students.
📖 Inspiring Lifelong Learning
The speaker shares how their mission on YouTube is to inspire and empower people to engage with challenging content like philosophy and literature. They believe they have been more impactful through their online presence than they ever were in a classroom, as they receive feedback from viewers who have been encouraged to read difficult books and expand their minds. The speaker concludes that they can do more good through their current work than by returning to academia.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Academia
💡Tech Industry
💡Laid Off
💡Regret
💡Vocation
💡Tenure Track
💡Debt
💡Education Quality
💡Administrators
💡Adjunct
💡Personal Feedback
💡Reading Comprehension
💡YouTube Channel
Highlights
Leaving Academia allowed me to start a YouTube channel and pursue writing as a career.
Despite being laid off from a tech job, I do not regret leaving Academia.
I believe American universities are not serving students well, leading to my decision not to return.
Students are taking on massive amounts of debt without receiving high-quality education in exchange.
Universities market themselves on providing an experience rather than focusing on academics.
Resources are being diverted away from teaching and research to provide luxury amenities.
Students often receive education from underpaid adjuncts or graduate students, not experienced professors.
Classes are being made easier, lowering students' expectations and assessment of their capabilities.
The education system has failed students by not preparing them adequately for college-level work.
Universities are not challenging students to meet higher expectations.
I believe in the capability of students to engage with difficult materials like philosophy or literature.
Talking about philosophy and books on YouTube has had a more significant impact than classroom teaching.
I've received positive feedback from viewers who have been encouraged to read challenging works.
I feel I can do more good and make more connections through YouTube than in Academia.
I choose to continue this project because I believe it helps people and makes a difference.
Transcripts
today I want to address a question that
I often receive which is basically would
I go back to Academia after all I left
Academia after getting my PhD and then I
went and worked in the tech industry and
then you might have known if you saw a
video fairly recently that I was laid
off and I lost my tech job and so that
has inspired some people to ask me um do
I regret my decision to leave Academia
knowing that maybe the tech world wasn't
going to work out for me and also would
I go back so let's answer that first
question first do I regret my decision
the answer is no um I still think that
leaving Academia was the right choice
I'll talk more about why that is when I
talk about why I wouldn't go back but in
general things did work out fairly well
for me after I left Academia I moved to
around to a couple of jobs which is
pretty normal and honestly as I look
back at those jobs I realized that I
didn't really love them I didn't really
love those jobs they were fine but I
kind of felt like I was wasting my life
um I don't think I would have gotten
better employment if I had stayed in AC
after all and so you have to kind of
compare relatively but also leaving
Academia allowed me to start this I
don't think I would have started a
YouTube channel if I were a professor I
don't think now I would be writing every
single day and for an audience and
actually trying to make a career out of
it I used to think of leaving Academia
as me giving up on my dreams actually
I'm now seeing that maybe leaving
Academia was the thing that allowed me
to pursue what I actually want my
vocation to be so I don't regret it but
the question of like would I go back now
knowing what I know or in my current
circumstances you know someone offered
me a tenure track job right now would I
go back and the answer to that is also
no the main reason that I would not go
back to Academia despite the fact that
in many ways it's the dream because you
get to read and you get to teach you get
to write and you get to research and
that just sounds amazing but the reason
I wouldn't go back is because I don't
think American universities and I only
really know about American universities
I don't think they're actually serving
students well anymore and I really want
to clarify this is not an argument
against going to college in general it's
it's not one of those college is useless
kind of rants I am pro-education I think
that college can be a really great thing
and I wish that college and universities
in the United States were even better
but right now what we do is we have
students take on massive amounts of debt
the average of something like $30,000
per year for an undergraduate degree and
then we incre inre inly are not giving
them a high quality education in
exchange when I went to college and then
I went to grad school and then I adjunct
it at a few places I got to see
basically what students were expecting
when they went to schools and I got to
see how universities marketed themselves
and I came up with the impression that
many universities are marketing
themselves as providing an experience
for their students these experiences are
things like events activities speakers
that they bring in um entertainment um
bigger and more luxur ious gyms or uh
new and better dorms really fancy dining
Halls those sorts of things and those
things though cost a lot of money it's
just a really expensive thing to provide
that to you know 20,000 students at a
time and students are drawn to it
because they're speaking in terms they
can understand yeah you'd like to have
four years where it's Pleasant to live
there and you get to do lots of cool
things but what they're not telling
students is that this is causing one
their tuition to just go way way up and
thus to cause them to take on more and
more debt but it's also coming at the
expense of academics and actually the
education that they can receive so I
looked up for a little bit of context
Harvard's numbers about how many
administrators they have and for every
one faculty member at Harvard there are
over three
administrators some of those
administrators are part of the core
functionality of University it's really
hard to imagine a university actually
functioning with zero Administration but
many of those administrators are also
part of student life or of providing
these kinds of experiences for students
that are I would say diverting money
away from the core mission of a
university which is teaching and
research and turning it into a kind of
product that they can package and sell
to undergrads because resources are
being diverted away from the core
mission of the University students are
not actually receiving the education
that they deserve you know when you
first start going to college what's
going to happen is you're taking these
massive lecture classes your first
couple of biology classes will be taught
in rooms full of 300 other students
where you can't possibly get any kind of
personal feedback from your professor
and a lot of the direct teaching that
undergrads receive from you know early
on those first couple of years in school
are going to be from either graduate
students like what did when I was a
graduate student I was teaching I would
to teach a lot of intro level philosophy
classes or from adjunct who are
underpaid who are not permanent members
of the university community who don't
have a lot of institutional support and
are really pretty transient they're just
moving wherever the jobs are so you're
not going to be getting I would say like
that top quality education that you can
really only get from an established
Professor who gets to teach the same
class at the same places so even if
those graduate students or those adjunct
are qualified to teach or they are
really dedicated to teaching which I
think many of them are they're not going
to be able to provide the same high
quality experience as a professor just
because they don't have as much they
just don't have as much experience
behind them or they're not being allowed
to develop their classes over time
they're bouncing from place to place and
just teaching whatever class they're
told they get to teach that semester to
bring this back to the main point about
why I wouldn't go back is that even if I
were a tenure track professor and I
could do a good job and I think I would
do an okay
job My worry is that I would be part of
a system that is just ripping students
off it's not actually doing a good job
at the thing that we're saying you're
paying for you know the promise of an
education is that you're going to be
able to expand your mind or that you're
going to be introduced to lots of new
and exciting and competing ideas or
you're going to learn lots of new skills
that you couldn't get elsewhere
especially skills that you couldn't
learn on your own but I mean if I'm
being completely honest when I was
teaching at universities pretty much
every single year I saw a push to make
classes easier and less demanding and
what happened was that when you made
classes easier and less demanding for
your students um as you lower their
expectations they lower their assessment
of what they're capable of as well so
here is just one example this is very
much a Humanity's example this is not
something you would see so much in the
Sciences I think um because they're
going to be doing different kinds of
work but you know since I was teaching
philosophy classes one of the things
that I had to do was assign readings and
then we would discuss the readings and
we would write papers I saw this in my
time teaching but I also hear it from
people who are still teaching even at
really great universities every single
year it gets harder and harder for the
students to do all of the Reading part
of this is because a lot of students are
being taught how to read by reading
small excerpts and then analyzing them
because they're following the format of
standardized test and they aren't used
to reading novels or just whole books or
even long articles you know from their
high school education and then you come
to college and you think they're going
to be ready for it and especially in
those intro classes they often just
aren't now it is my firm belief that
they are actually capable of doing it
it's my firm belief actually that almost
anyone is probably capable of reading
like a work of philosophy or a novel and
in ently discussing it but that as we've
Lowered Expectations we're actually
signaling to those students that oh
actually sorry that works too hard for
you you're not going to be capable of
doing it and I think that eventually
they start to internalize that message
and they teach themselves that actually
they would be too hard so you assign
them 100 pages to read in a week which
if you spread that over even five days
it's just 20 Pages a day which if it's
really hard Pros maybe that takes you an
hour so all right that's going to take
you five hours to read spread it out and
it's actually quite doable but they've
been told that that's really hard
they've been told that what they need to
do is focus on selections and excerpts
and just analyze those because that's
what's going to be on the test and they
never build the skills and they never
build I would say the confidence to
actually do University level work
universities have responded to this not
by challenging their students or by
convincing them that they're actually
capable of that work but actually just
by giving up I don't think this is about
the individual failings of students or
you know about like how gen Z just
doesn't know what reading is like it's
just that I think that they've been
collectively failed by the education
system and so they haven't figured out
that they're actually quite capable of
doing all of this kind of work since
universities ask you to take on huge
amounts of debt and then I think often
don't give you that highquality
education that you deserve if you're
going to a university it's just not a
system that I would want to participate
in anymore you know I talk about
philosophy on this channel quite a bit
um I talk about books and one of the
things that I hear from people and if
this is true for you by the way I would
love to hear down in the comments or in
an email people email me all the time
and it's great um but one of the things
I hear from them is that I was able to
play some role in convincing them that
they could read philosophy or that they
could read hard books that they could
read great works of literature and
they'll they'll email me and say hey I
didn't think I could read ploh but I
watched your videos I gave it a try and
I did and I think that's amazing and
I'll even hear from people like in my
Discord who will say I tried to read
that book you recommended and it was too
hard and then I took some time off and
read some other stuff and then I went
back and I was able to read it and so
basically what I see my my whole mission
on this channel really being is to
convince you that you're actually
capable of doing these kinds of like
life enriching and mind enriching
activities like reading philosophy or
reading hard books and and I think I've
been more impactful and more helpful to
more
people talking about it on YouTube or
writing about it on substack than I ever
was in the classroom I don't know why I
was never able to get that message out
clearly when I was teaching or why it's
harder at the University level to sort
of convince people of this but for some
reason just talking into a camera on
YouTube just about books that I really
like or about why you should read
philosophy or just giving you some
recommendations on where to start with
philosophy has actually I think done
more than if I'd
stayed in Academia so while I would have
loved the life of a researcher I would
have loved the life of a professor I
think I would look quite good you know
in a tweed jacket with some elbow
patches I just think that I wouldn't go
back because I can do more good here and
that idea that I could do some good in
the world and that I could help people
or even just make some connections with
people is why I choose to keep doing
this project and I don't really even
think about what it would have been like
if I'd stayed in Academia and it seems
that my cat agrees as he has just joined
us well I think that is a pretty good
indication that I've said enough so I
hope you got something out of this I'd
love to hear from you down below and
I'll talk to you soon
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