Industry meets academia: my year of retooling from practicing professional to tenure-track professor

Abstract

The ultimate industry-academia partnership is when a member of one group joins the other. I left an 18-year career in industry to become a professor. The initial reaction from my friends and colleagues in industry ranged from insulting to encouraging: "You'll have to take a pay cut," "You'll be great with students," "They don't do any real work there." The feedback from academic colleagues has been similarly diverse. This paper explores the real challenges and rewards I experienced as a practicing professional turned professor. Specifically, it explores how my industry experience affected the job search, classroom teaching, service and research agenda, as well as my general response to the academic environment.