Jeff Montgomery edited interdisciplinary 3.tex  about 9 years ago

Commit id: 243bdc3f09b12a4c59b4e5ed0017a31b5290be1a

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At the end of my Postdoc, I found myself with a good amount of publications (about 30) lacking that lacked  a concretedisciplinary  focus. Interdisciplinary career, indeed. The problem at this point was that despite my modest publication  recordof publications  and researchwork  experience, I was essentially "\textbf{unemployable}" by most academic departments. My entire life I had wanted to be an academic (and that is why I did a Ph.D. in the first place) but at the end of the day to become a tenured professor you have to be able to show disciplinary focus in order to teach a number of core classes. That was not my case: \begin{itemize}  \item An Astronomy department would not hire me for I don't have a Ph.D. in Astronomy.  \item A Computer Science department would not hire me for the same reason.  \item An Information Science department would be my only choice, but there's not many of them and most of them would consider me too much of an Astrophysicist (due to my undergraduate and my postdoc).   \end{itemize}  What did I do? I ended up \href{https://www.authorea.com/users/3/articles/5287/_show_article}{quitting my Postdoc to become an entrepreneur} without even exploring the possibility of a professorship, but professorship. But  I hopethat  my experience will be useful toa number of  Ph.D. students who are embarking on interdisciplinary projects. Unless the current academic infrastructure changes, together with its tenure and funding system, the chances of getting tenure advancement  are smaller for interdisciplinary researchers than they are for traditional highly-focused scholars. So, dear Ph.D. student, as much as you may enjoy being a \href{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox}{Fox}, I advise you to be a \href{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox}{Hedgehog}. --- Yours truly,\\  \textit{The Fox who left academia}