Academic Wealth or Financial Wealth?

 

Can a good academic scholar be financially sound in future?

 

When a PhD student starts journey of his/her PhD life the major focus remains on the successful academic career. A conscious and serious student use to plan to finish the PhD with the best of his/her effort, to publish best papers, to attend best conferences and to submit the best thesis. That is great, and it is really an appreciating effort to be a good PhD student. But is that enough? You will ask “Enough for what?” I shall answer with the same perspective and my answer will again be a question. “Is that enough to be a smart successful person in life?”

Traps in the academia

The biggest trap in the academia is to be habituated with the problems in the career path but not with the solutions. Most of the times an academician thinks that becoming an academician is a great achievement and that cannot be compared with anything of the materialistic life. Wait…what is materialistic life? It is nothing but to have a life with financial freedom, which is horrendously neglected in the academia, specially in India. There is no doubt in the statement that ‘Academic Achievements’ are big achievements which are philosophically purer than other achievements; but it does not mean it is the ‘Best’ one.  The best achievement in life may come only with a ‘balanced success’. For example, publishing a nice ground breaking high impact paper in fundamental science is a tremendously laborious work and a big achievement for a researcher, but simultaneously acquiring 25% growth of business for an owner of a small start-up is also a ‘tremendously laborious work’ and a fantastic achievement, may be the first one is less connected to the materialistic world and therefore is tagged as purer achievement. But at the end of the day, an academic achiever per se a PhD student or a Postdoc may wake up in the morning with a fear of ending grant which will make his/her bread and butter uncertain. On the other hand, a successful startup owner will wake up in the morning with a fear of uncertainty of the market which may affect his/her bread and butter without a notification. Therefore, the uncertainty is on the both sides but the difference is there from the economical point of view. A young start-up owner can follow the market and take a decision to modify business strategies and earn stably. On the other hand, there are certain restrictions on an early carrier researcher’s activity, for an example, even after a big effort and after publishing a good fundamental research paper in a good journal it is not sure that his/her scholarship or grant will be extended or not as that is fully depended on the funding agencies policy. Hence, a fellowship earning PhD student or research scholar is not financially protected at all in an early stage of carrier until he/she get a regular position somewhere.  

The second trap of the academia is not looking to the financial future for the shake of the research and career expectations. Most of the PhD students and research scholars use to run in pace for their career from their mid-twenties to mid-thirties and do not look at their financial achievement as their only focuses are on academic achievement. This is a big trap indeed. As I have discussed in the previous paragraph that achievements or goal should be balanced to make a ‘balanced success’. If a good researcher achieved a lot of scientific success but lost his/her financial success then that would be considered as a failure and thus a ‘Good researcher’ is not always a smart person to achieve financially sound carrier.

Financial knowledge is not less than academic knowledge

It is observed in most of the young researchers that they neglect fixing of financial goal during their carrier which due to lack of consciousness and financial education as most of them are away from the so called ‘materialistic world’ and after a certain period of time when they reach to their academic goal they find they have lost some big chances of financial stability. In the mid thirty or late thirty when they use to get their academic success, they suddenly find a lot of responsibilities including family and children have been thrived those are pushing them towards extra budget but they do not have savings or knowledge to handle that responsibilities. The point is there is no mandatory need to be rich like a CEO of a corporate company or no need to be passionate about the finance or money, but it is always needed to be a smart person to handle the carrier with both academic knowledge as well as financial knowledge so that there will be no need to be worried about the financial pressure which may hamper your academic carrier.

Fellowship is sometime powerful than salary

An early carrier research scholar who may be a PhD student or may be a postdoc, use to get research remuneration from a grant or fund which is popularly called ‘fellowship’ and a big part of the career journey of that researcher depends on that. A mid-twenty researcher use to get a fellowship amount which may be less than an engineer or a managerial post holder but that does not mean that cannot be used as a capital for their future financial stability. Mostly PhD students or research scholars do not think about that and always in sub-conscious mind think themselves as under-paid which leads them to disrespect their fellowship by comparing with the salary acquired by the corporate people. The fact is if the scholars think positively then they will find that the consolidated amount what they are getting in hand is a whole amount and no CTC like deduction is happening with their fellowship, which gives them the opportunity or flexibility to use it as a whole. Now it is there choice that whether they will consume the whole amount of it or will save and invest some of it for a better financial stability in coming future that will provide them the peace of mind to reach their academic goal. In some condition, specially in India the fellowship amounts are not credited to the fellow’s account consistently. All the PhD and Postdocs in India face a ‘Fellowship Stopping’ experience, which is happened due to the fund review procedures or due to the policy of the government funding bodies. This inconsistent receiving of fellowship also put the scholars in a financial insecurity. But this can be a ‘positive point’ to the smart scholar who also want to be financially successful. This inconsistent fellowship makes the scholar a mandatory saver of the money, which is a good habit to be economic for stable future and surprisingly, a lot of regularly salaried corporate people do not have it. Moreover, if that scholar also have started investing in small amount that will be nicer and thus it makes the scholar a skilled person for facing the life successfully. In this way, during the long period of a strong academic career preparation a scholar can also build financial wealth along with academic wealth and this balance represents him/her as a smart person with a positive view towards life.