Analysis of an Academic Environment as a Place of Studies and Work

Abstract

In order to find out the causes of universities’ waning popularity as a place of work, the researcher sets the following tasks: to analyze specific features of an academic career to determine at which stage it starts to lose its appeal; to reveal influences in choice of postgraduate courses as an alternative to introduction to the labour market, as well as to reveal influences in choice of a university as a place of work; to evaluate advantages and disadvantages of taking postgraduate courses and working at a university. The researcher conducted 27 semi-structured inter views with the facult y and postgraduates in th ree Russian higher education institutions and one Canadian one: the National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics, Siberian Federal University (Krasnoyarsk) and University of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, Canada). On the basis of the findings maps of career lines are produced as patterns of changes in terms of positions (job positions or geographical ones) during a person’s job cycle; the research also revealed types of careers followers of which are of potential interest for Russian universities in terms of professional personnel reinforcement. The researcher found that motivation to take postgraduate courses is not limited by an interest to scientific work but is mostly connected to alternative objectives (like achieving a certain status, draft evasion) or to absence of any definite goal (reluctance to leave the university because of an attachment to it, a sense of discomfort because of the necessity to search for a job outside it). It is shown in the article that on the whole the academic career structure in Canada is similar to that in Russia, but perception of advantages and disadvantages of a work in an academic setting is different for each country.