Alberto Pepe edited interdisciplinary 3.tex  about 9 years ago

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At the end of my Postdoc, I found myself with a good amount of publications (about 30) lacking a concrete disciplinary focus. Interdisciplinary career, indeed. The problem at this point was that despite my modest record of publications and research work 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 I hope that my experience will be useful to a 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 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}