Thread by @prettysmartsci

What's a scientist? I wrote about my imposter syndrome as a scientist working outside academia (link ⬇️).

This feeling is largely due to how academics made me feel when I transitioned from academia to a science editing/writing career.

And it seems I'm not alone (Thread)

We're the "science dropouts". In academia we systematically hear that people "quit science" for an "alternative" career because they didn't "survive" academia.

This type of language implies scientists working outside academia aren't "real" scientists. They're failed scientists.

Last year a PNAS paper analysing career progression in science split the scientific community into "full-career scientists" (academics) and "dropouts" (everyone else).

PhDs leaving academia with a single publication were called "transients".

How insensitive is this language?

The authors also use the term "scientific survivability" referring to the ability to stay in academia. Apparently scientists working outside academia are dead to science.

This divisive language is symptomatic of a deeper problem in academia: elitism.

I have a PhD, postdoc, I'm an expert in a field, I work with science and researchers on a daily basis. Does that not make me a scientist?

What is a scientist? And does it matter?

Yes it does. Being snubbed by my peers in academia, some with less research experience than me... It's just not right.

Come on, get down your ivory tower. Support scientists who want to move on from academia to a career that makes them happy, don't make it harder for them.

Be nice to scientists outside academia, many are helping you advance and promote your research actually.

Scientists who leave a academia aren't failures, but you are failing them.

#academia #scicomm #Scientists #phdchat