Academia, industry, and federal: What are the different STEM career paths?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Hopefully, you’re well on the way to answering this question. Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) participants engage in research experiences and technical projects that help to prepare them for a wealth of exciting career opportunities. However, within the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, there are still many diverging paths that your career can take, even after you’ve decided on a specialty. Career opportunities can be categorized broadly as falling within the academic, industry, and federal sectors with each pathway having its own pros and cons. The choice to pursue one path over another is completely up to the individual, and depends on your personal and professional goals, research interests, work style, and more. It’s not an easy decision to make, but we’ve laid out an overview of the three career paths below.

Academia, industry, and federal: Pros and cons

First, let’s define the three paths as they relate to STEM careers.

  • Professionals in academia conduct research at colleges or universities, where they also often teach or mentor.
  • An industry STEM professional works in the private sector, in other words, for a business.
  • Professionals on the federal career path may work in dozens of settings, ranging from national labs to regulatory agencies, public outreach, and policy analysis.

To be clear, choosing one path doesn’t lock you out of the others. You may choose to go into academia, then decide later to pursue a job at a national lab before working for a pharmaceuticals company, then teach part time in your retirement. Throughout your career, you may even have opportunities to collaborate across industries as an advisor or consultant, contribute as a co-researcher on specialized or large-scale challenges that align with shared interests, or engage in public-private partnerships to exchange knowledge, influence regulations, and build connections across sectors. 

Academia

If you’re already pursuing your degree, you’ve probably had the most interaction with academic STEM professionals. This field is filled with researchers, full and part-time professors, grad students, lab assistants, lecturers, administrators, and more.

A major draw of academia is the freedom to pursue your own research interests—which may be “basic” or “applied” on as somewhat flexible schedule. However, you also must pursue funding for your research on your own through grant applications, which requires an incredible amount of motivation and organization. In addition to conducting research, academics also publish their findings and often teach at their institutions, in addition to writing grants. Most faculty members have a relatively clear progression up the professorial ranks, with many ultimately moving into administrative posts at their colleges or universities. Likewise, many institutions have career paths in place for teaching-intensive faculty members or research staff.

Industry

Industry jobs are motivated by the company’s interests. Research conducted within the walls of a business may not be research for research’s sake, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable. Industry jobs can include anything from aeronautical engineering contractors to plastics manufacturers to everything in between. This mission-focused environment also means that you and your co-workers will all work toward the same shared goals. Funding is already secured, which means that industry STEM professionals don’t face the same financial hurdles that their academic colleagues do for funding. However, a drawback of this environment is that research must always align with the company’s goals and timelines, whether the scientist likes it or not.

When it comes to income, industry professionals tend to make more than their academic counterparts. Northeastern University suggests that industry scientists make almost $40,000 more annually than academic researchers. These types of jobs are also generally confined to the traditional 40-hour work week. Depending on your aspirations, opportunities for career growth can range from bench scientist and lab manager roles to regulatory affairs, business development, project management, or senior executive positions.

Federal

Like industry scientists, federal STEM employees are beholden to the interests of their sponsoring institutions, and the hours are typically comparable to a 9-to-5 job. However, federal STEM professionals differ from their industry counterparts in that they are often highly motivated by the public service mission of their agency. In federal settings, these missions can range from fundamental scientific research to STEM education and outreach, regulatory enforcement, policy development, program management, and more. While industry career opportunities can often be more vulnerable to economic downturns or other changes in the business environment, federal roles are historically viewed as more stable. According to Peter Fiske, Ph.D., introductory salaries in federal labs often start higher than their industry counterparts, but they tend to stagnate over time.

Which option is right for you?

Only you can determine the best fit for your career, and the answer may change depending on your life stage. Consider your research interests, work style, priorities and financial motivations when looking at these careers. If you are an ORISE participant, current student, or recent graduate, consider reaching out to your mentors, connecting with peers and ORISE alumni through the exclusive ORISE Connections virtual platform, and other networking contacts to learn more about these exciting career paths. You may also learn more by exploring the stories of the ORISE Community in the ORISE Featurecast and the ORISE Success Stories. Remember, there is no single “right or wrong” answer, and many STEM professionals move across these sectors to build fulfilling careers over the course of their lives.

Taking the first step by applying for an ORISE internship or fellowship is a great way to begin building your STEM career path today!

Sources:

https://graduate.northeastern.edu/knowledge-hub/working-in-industry-vs-academia/

https://www.science.org/content/article/jobs-industry-vs-jobs-national-labs