What field are you working in? I am a prospective physics graduate student, and I want to do physics research as a career. However, I am uninterested in going into academia after attaining my PhD, and I am also financially independent due to inheritance.
I develop genomics software - my company is in my profile.
If you are financially independent then you should look at becoming an adjunct professor as a long term goal. If you don't cost the university any money and you generate papers and grants then you will not have too much trouble finding a position.
You should use this freedom to work on areas that other less fortunate scientist can't like project that may not generate any results for 3 or more years. No grant funded scientist, or even tenured staff member, can afford to tackle projects that don't generate publications within a relatively short timeframe as any breaks in publication output is career killing.
Hm this is an interesting thought but I'm having trouble parsing it. Isn't there a contradiction there? If you generate grants and papers, you can find a job, but then you should tackle stuff that doesn't produce any results for awhile and doesn't get grants?
Long term I am curious about going back to academia, and finances aren't a big issue. But being forced to do short term work is a dealbreaker. I have done some original research outside of academia (mostly in the form of source code, some semi-published), and I'm curious about thoughts on how to "work the system".
EDIT: I looked at what an adjunct professor actually is, and it sounds sorta horrible? You don't even get benefits? I assumed low pay, but at least with benefits, but apparently that's not the case. What do you get out of it, other than a title? Access to facilities? Since I am in software I don't really need facilities....
Or do you get students to do work for your pet project? I imagine the good ones would want to work for a "real" professor.
"I have done some original research outside of academia (mostly in the form of source code, some semi-published)"
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Source isn't something that gets published, source code is at best a demonstration of the concept you publish about. Either you have some papers published (that means, peer-reviewed from a real journal, not uploaded to xyz 'open access' journal) or you don't.
To 'work the system', you need to get real papers published, several, for a number of years, and work with people in positions that can get you into a university. That way you can sidestep the several years postdoc route. Or become an adjunct.
As an adjunct professor you are 'affiliated' with a university, giving you access to some resources (usually) and a name/email address to put on your papers. So yes you need a source of income besides that.
" Since I am in software I don't really need facilities...."
Yes you do, maybe not in the sense that you need hardware, but you need an environment to reflect your ideas on, and to give you social proof that you're not a quack working from his basement. Yes it's theoretically possible to get published without an academic affiliation, and it sometimes happens, but you'll never be taken serious to the same extent your competition is.
If I were independently wealthy, an adjunct professorship would be pretty appealing (in the right institution). Getting frontline access to very smart people working on potentially world-changing problems while having very few hard responsibilities/commitments (lectures, committees, etc) seems like a nice way to work. Being independently wealthy is a pre-requisite as the institution offers nothing but access.
I agree - it is a pity I was not born to really wealthy parents.
There was a paper in Science about 15 years ago that was on how the independently wealthy worked in science that was really interesting (I might see if I can find it online).
If we go back to the foundations of science all scientist were just wealthy dilettantes :)
Edit. Found it - actually it was from 16 years ago :P
If only generating papers and getting grants made it easy to get a job in science - most of the lament in this story is that even being a great and productive scientist won't get you a job these days.
In regards what you get out adjunct professorship is access to the academic environment, things like lab space, shared equipment, intelligent people to talk to (students and postdocs mostly). Sure you aren't paid, but if you are independently wealthy it is not an issue.
Yes students will work with and adjunct professor - actual in some cases it is better as the adjunct actually has more time to train student.
