Hi friends,

A bit of controversial topic, but a I thought I would give my personal opinions here on this from my own experience. This is my own opinions and other people might have a completely different views.

One of the major pros to work in academia is flexibility. There are no set hours to sign in and out. You can work from home if you don’t have experiments to do or if you are sick.

Even though after Covid we are still able to mostly work from home if not needed in the lab or on site, however we have hours to do and have to track how many we do a week.

Flexibility to do experiments as you want when you want in academia. In Biopharma to do an experiment you have to have everything in place for it prior to doing it. Protocol to draft and approve by several people from different departments, depending on intent of work (very lengthy process). Placing an Ad-Hoc for materials that are needed and waiting for them for couple of days. Booking the instrument week in advance.

Pro for academia – Purchasing materials if you have funding when you need them yourself and getting them within days of ordering. In pharma from ordering materials to receiving them can take weeks if not months.

Pro for Academia – Having time for lunch and breakfast and being able to go out to have those for longer if needed. In pharma we get paid breakfast (20 minutes) and unpaid lunch (30 minutes) so that instead of working 8 hours a day you have to work 08h 30 min.

Traveling to conferences and seeing the world in academia. In Biopharma, there are possibilities to travel to other sites and customers once you are high enough in position or have relevant skills. However, typically you would not have time to see the country you are visiting as it is a completely work event.

So what am I not missing?

I thought that would miss the variability of work in terms of investigative work, however I have plenty of that in biopharma. I work in product development field at the moment and any deviation from norm has to be investigated and figured out. I have daily troubleshooting sessions with my team to make sure that we figure out solutions to any problems or questions.

One of the major pros for biopharma is permanent contract. I received mine within 3 months of working for my company. There is a complete security knowing that I have a job and if my role is no longer needed that I will get another one where I am needed within this company.

Another major pros for working in biopharma is ability to switch off and disconnect after finishing work. Come half five o’clock in the afternoon, my computer is shut and I can focus on spending quality time with my family.

In academia because of nature of job you are in, you are always on computer, always having to publish, to apply for grants, to grade papers, etc. I had a visit from my family this Christmas who are all academics, they were constantly worried about missing deadlines and had to go on computer to do what they needed to do every day over weekend.

Progression is another major pros for biopharma. In academia, because of my luck more so than my abilities ( I understand that now), I was becoming what is known as stagnant post doc. I believed that I was stupid and unable to achieve anything in my life. Thoughts of feeling stuck and wanting to quit were daily event in my life. I was miserable..

Working in biopharma gave me a chance of finding myself, of feeling complete, respected and believing that I can achieve anything I set my mind to. I am very confident in doing my job well, being able to teach others (yes there are plenty of opportunities to train and coach others in biopharma.

I have been promoted 3 times in last five years and am Team Lead now for a year and a half and am well on the way to become a manager. I see myself going far in this company and am very proud of myself for achieving and realizing myself. I am happiest I have ever been in my other jobs in academia.

I hope this post helps someone who is feeling stuck atm. Grass is sometimes greener on the other side.