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The Times, They Have A-Changed

Academia is no longer as fun or rewarding as it once was - at least for me.   Now, I am very well aware that my view of academia might be more, as the kids say, a me-thing than an it-thing. I suppose you could argue that after a certain number of decades, everyone has nostalgia for the way things were and is convinced the system is going to the dogs. I’m fully open to the possibility that some of my feelings are just sentimentality for what was, and a certain kind of arrogance that amounts to thinking that what existed when you were young is better than what exists now.   To take an example from a different domain, I suspect all of us know people who assert that there’s no more good music, and who claim that the last good decade for music was — surprise! — the decade when they were in their teens and early twenties. This idea strikes me as completely implausible, even at some basic biological level - like why would humans suddenly lose their ability to make good art? Instead, ...
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Money Changes Everything

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Compared with a lot of other jobs, academia is a funny business: you can just keep going and going until finally you get taken out in a coffin. I’ve known a few people who kept working as professors even into their 80s, and I sometimes thought I’d do the same. I didn’t really see much reason to retire, and since I liked my work, I figured I’d go into my 70s at least. So what changed? Why did I decide to retire? As usual, when it comes to complicated decisions, there isn’t one factor - it’s a combination of things. So here’s my first reason for retiring, and the focus of today's post: financially, we can, and therefore we probably should. John and I have been serious savers for most of our working lives, and it’s worked out well for us. Of course, I wasn’t always financially sensible. I still remember one of the many times in grad school when I’d run out of money and needed an infusion of funds from home. When I mentioned to a friend that I was in this predicament yet again, he said...
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Fernanda's Forever Sabbatical Starts Soon

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In one month I will be retired from my position as a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Davis. I’ve been a professor for almost 40 years and I’ve been collecting a paycheck since I was 15. As you would guess, then, this is a big life change. And indeed, I was planning to work one more year, taking me to 66 on my retirement day, but about a month ago I realized I’d had enough and I wanted a big change. I love working and I loved being a professor, but I’d begun to feel that the changes in society, in academia, in students, and in my own research field all added up to more negatives than positives. I want time to pursue some other interests, and, if I’m being honest, I want time to do pretty much nothing sometimes.  This will be somewhat of a “soft retirement.” I have three PhD students I still supervise, two of whom will be in their fourth year of our graduate program this fall and one who will be in her second year. I will see them through to their degrees, wh...
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