Getting Established in Academia

摘要

Although the academic career track may seem fairly straightforward, the path from undergraduate studies to tenured professor is riddled with obstacles that make the climb ever more challenging. The demand to publish in top-tier journals is at an all-time high, the probability of landing a National Institutes of Health or National Science Foundation grant is at its lowest, and hundreds of qualified postdocs eagerly await the opening of tenure-track positions. Universities and scientific institutions continue to raise overhead costs, increasingly rely on non-tenure-track faculty, and often offer tenure without a commitment to fund a scientist's salary. What should be our advice to students who are considering graduate school? Prosanta Chakrabarty's A Guide to Academia offers helpful pointers on how to succeed in graduate school and land a tenure-track academic j ob.