Academia and how it distorts your perception of age

9-month academic contracts and
a little vacation in Barbados

Being a student can be fun. Yes, childhood and school days are fun. But I am not talking about that. I am referring to the university life. Especially if you do not have to earn separately for that. A lot of people, including me, lived with their parents during their undergraduates. It is very common when your university is in the same city where you already lived with your parents or family. That makes the undergraduate life more of an extension to the high school. For me, the real fun started when I went to grad school - two years after the graduation from my undergraduate program. For most grad students, one year gap between their undergraduate studies and grad school is inevitable. Because, you apply when you are done with your undergraduate program (usually in the fall semester) and that means, you are accepted for the following fall - making it a year-long wait. Some choose to apply for grad school while they are still in their final year of their undergraduate program. Works best if they already are extra-ordinary. But does not work for most. However, working a little before applying for grad school can be good idea if your grad school is going to be in a foreign country. So I worked for one year before applying for grad school. That gave me a two years of job experience in between my undergraduate program and grad school. In Sri Lanka, school years is meant to be 1 - 13. It shifts the US K-12 system by 1, with kindergarten becoming grade 1. So, there is no additional time. But our A/L exams, at the time I was a student happened in next year August (a delay incurred by 2004 tsunami) and then the university entrance was following year's August. Two extra years added! I was among the youngest in my undergraduate batch and I was among the oldest during my MSc... because of these two additional years and that I had worked for two years - compared to 0 to 1 year of the others.

Then, in Europe, compared to countries like Australia and the US, you usually must do a masters before starting a PhD. However, their BSc programs are usually 3 years compared to our 4 years. Oftentimes, in the EU, students do an integrated MSc of 5 years, where they complete their BSc coursework in 3 years and do the MSc courses in the last two years. For me though, that was a 2 years of MSc followed by a separate PhD program. In the US, MSc is often coupled with the PhD. You could start your PhD with just a BSc, and you could quit with an MSc in around two years if you have completed the necessary credits, on your way to acquire your PhD. I went on to do a PhD in Europe (Erasmus+ for the win!). I loved it. I was not in a rush. I spent five years to complete my PhD. I had scholarship after all. It allowed me to live comfortably. While US grad programs usually last up to 5 years, my MSc + PhD was 7 years. This added two more years, compared to my US peers.

I went ahead and completed a postdoc for 4 years, before moving on to my tenure-track position. In the US, a postdoc is usually considered a trainee. Or even a "student." Being referred to as a "postdoctoral student" was annoying to me. Postdocs are not very common in computer science. I did mine in biomedical informatics, as part of the school of medicine. Postdocs are more common in medicine after all. They last up to 5 years. Anyway, compared to many of my CS peers in tenure-track positions, my postdoc added 4 more years. So, I started my tenure-track position after a whole ten years, compared to someone who entirely studied in the US and then went on to their tenure-track position without spending time in a postdoc position. A decade spent extra indeed: one extra school year, one gap between school to undergrad program, two years working in middle, two extra years during MSc + PhD, and the four years of postdoc! I started my tenure-track position at 36. This is basically the early career in the academia, whereas, one in IT industry in this age will be in a mid-senior level as an engineer director or manager. The tenure-track assistant professor position lasts up to 6 years before you get tenure and get promoted to associate professor. These "early-career" years give you some benefits - such as additional training opportunities and grants targeting just you! You are young again, while you are heading towards tenure and (first) promotion in your life, in your early 40s! Fine, I just admitted I spent a whole decade with the slow academic progress due to my Sri Lanka -> Europe -> US migrations and long years spent due to these circumstances. But I tend to believe academia in general makes you feel younger since you are early career while those who went to industry are well into their mid-career. I know there are goods and bads in how this distorted perception of age. That probably is for another post.