My background

My name is Phindustry, I used to be a spy (I loooooooved Burn Notice).

Well, actually I was someone with the mind of an academic that accepted an industry position. I never ever wanted to go into academia when I was in grad school. I hated the grants, papers, mentoring, etc. But as I got into my third year I realized I have a lot of fun in doing that stuff. But I had tuned everything I did to get into industry. So I decided to go into industry to get practical experience prior to getting back into the ivory tower.

I was undercover; learning everything I could about industry’s culture. I moved up pretty quickly, eventually controlling my own group. But as soon as I realized I was too deep: focusing only on the bottom line, not really putting as much effort into mentorship, etc. I knew I had to leave and make my way back to academia. A couple years ago I started applying and here I am in my cushy office with grad students knocking at my door and the semester about to start. My previous blog about some of my thoughts about industry can be found here (http://phdinginindustry.blogspot.com/).

Bottom line: until I get tenure…I’m not going anywhere.

(If you don’t get the Burn Notice references, sorry. It’s not as good as some other shows I like, but the spy thing seemed to work for this post…)

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