I came upon the Waggle Labs blog today*, and saw a quote by Stephen Wolfram that struck me as touching on postacademic life, and one of the challenges of making the transition from an academic career to another career:
A lot of what goes into starting companies is turning nothing into something. Starting with a blank slate, and just inventing all kinds of stuff.
You’ll never know if it’s ultimately correct. You just have to use your judgement, make decisions, and move on.
To some people, that’s pretty scary. Not to have any answers to look up in the back of the book.
As a brilliant mathematician, entrepreneur, and author, Wolfram is someone well worth listening to on this subject. Having now spent more of my professional life outside of academia than inside-- or rather, since I've still got an academic affiliation, more of my of my life being paid by corporations or nonprofits than educational institutions-- it strikes me that one of the defining characteristics of academic careers is the amazing, and in many ways reassuring, clarity of their career structures.
[To the tune of Ike & Tina Turner, "River Deep, Mountain High," from the album "Soul Sisters".]
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