A Defensive Guide
May 7, 2024
Persons that never set foot in the USA can be overly negative about this country, for good (e.g., lack of universal health care) and bad reasons. The fact remains that the “brain drain” do exist, and ignoring its causes can, in my opinion, be detrimental to one’s career.
This short page highlights some of the perks of working and studying in the US, following those rules: 1. nothing negative about any country (so, no comparison), 2. nothing too particular to Augusta or Georgia.
The US is a land of immigration. As you can probably see from our faculty list, being an immigrant is the norm, not the exception.
This comes with many benefits: there are resources to help you get your visa (obtaining my two visas & my green cards was, honestly, fairly easy), and there is a process for immigrants.
Ageism is nearly absent in Academia in the US: students of all ages join PhD and MS programs without being discriminated against, and instructors of all ages are routinely hired provided they meet the expectations.
Having “a gap” in their resume is in general not held against applicants, and it is relatively easy to come and go between private industries and universities.
There is a job market for faculty position in the US, universities open in the US, Computer Sciences departments grow, and they are generally keen on hiring across the spectrum of research field. There is also more diversity (from private to public, from undergraduate-oriented to comprehensive, from research-oriented to teaching-oriented) in the universities & positions.
That being said, Universities will in general prefer to hire candidates that already have “a foot in the door” since that means that they already have a visa, a diploma / experience from a place they know, and that they know the conventions (how to apply, what does it mean to be ABET-accredited, what’s instructional effectiveness, and the like).
You can, in general, live with your academic salary in the US. I’m sure it’s harder, say, in California, but I have been the only source of income for my family for many years, which is not something I would never have believed possible.
The US is a vast, beautiful country with many opportunities, and it is extremely easy to move from a State to another.
Breaking the “don’t say anything negative about Europe” rule for a second there: once you are in the US, you can access positions and opportunities on a continent. If you enter, say, Italy, and then leave even only for a year for Belgium, not only do you have to re-do all your paperwork, you also “reset the clock” that could give you access to citizenship or residency. This can be extremely detrimental to your career, sanity, or moral.
The US do have issues, as every nation, but it is also actively working on fixing some of them.
Typically, affirmative action, “girls only” clubs, development of open educational resources, offices for inclusion and belonging, freely available feminine products, universal design, certifications and training in inclusivity, etc., are some of the tools actively leveraged in the US to reduce inequities.
pdf version of this page.pdf reader to consult some of the documents: I recommend choosing an open-source pdf reader.