By Christine Aranha
What is Academia
Academia is a community or environment that is concerned with the pursuit of research, education and scholarship. There are three specific jobs involved. Firstly, research is constantly being done at around 40% of the time. The second job involves teaching which includes teaching students, preparing for courses, working directly with PhD students and more which is also done around 40% of the time. The last job involves the service of volunteering for boards to help with decision making, helping colleagues, being involved in strategy competitions, student groups and more which takes up the remaining 20% of time. In academia, the act of service and collegiality is an important aspect.
Pros and Cons of Academia
There are several benefits of having a profession in academia such as flexibility with work hours, being able to study and look deeper into specific topics of interest, being able to develop new interests, having the ability to find solutions to unanswered questions, independence to work on your own and more. Mainly, being able to perform work that is not only meaningful but beneficial and significant. An aspect that can be least appealing in becoming an accounting academic is the freedom of having such a vast selection of topics to research. This freedom can be rather challenging to find one specific topic/idea to focus on. In an article written by Beyer et al, it is mentioned that there is importance in finding one research idea and digging the research hole deep in comparison to getting involved in a wide range of several projects and ideas. So, It is vital to gain thorough knowledge and do research on one specific topic rather than have limited knowledge in several research topics.
Areas in Research
It is important to understand what area of research you are interested in. As a graduate student in the Accounting and Financial Management program, my interest is performing research in accounting. Some specific categories of research can be in financial accounting, managerial accounting, auditing, taxation, information systems and more. There are also four specific research methodologies which can be used within each research idea according to Beyer et al. The 4 are: Archival research which is based on previous data collected, behavioural and experimental research which is creating new data through behaviours and experiments and lastly, analytical data which creates new knowledge through mathematical proofs.
What I Found Interesting and Surprising
Through this program, something I found interesting when reading research papers was being able to locate what the paper’s broad research question was. It was important to locate this question in the beginning of the report, before reading though the whole paper to decide if the article was what you were looking for. The question was often found through reading the abstract. Another thing I found interesting was that this career will provide the opportunity to be able to constantly learn new things and building on knowledge. A job in research will help make a positive impact through meaningful work in studying problems faced in the world today and finding effective solutions. This career will not only give the opportunity to do individual research but will help build skills through presentations and sharing of innovative ideas. Something I found surprising was that having a career in academia will allow the chance to work from anywhere with your own work hours. Work can be done through listening to podcasts, reading books, reading research papers and working at your own pace. That being said, the more effort that is put into work, the better results will be achieved.
Importance of Attending Relevant Research Workshops
During my experience in the program, I was able to attend a few research workshops that helped me gain insight on the presentation aspect of research. I was able to learn how academics go about composing their research papers to answer the research question. After the topic has been discussed in the introduction, it is reported what the researcher potentially thinks will be the outcome and answer to the question stated. This is followed by stating the hypothesis, followed by analysis which can be performed through initial research, historical data as well as theory and concepts. Once the experiment is done, the conclusion is written by explaining the research question and the proven answer to that question through experiments performed.
These workshops enabled me to gain knowledge in different research subjects and concepts through the presenters research question and experiments done to answer the question. I was able to gain inspiration as to what areas I could potentially do research in as a PhD student as well as learn ways on how to present effectively. When presenting research papers, I noticed that the academics used situated cognition. They tried to keep the presentation engaging and were open to answering questions at any point during their presentation. They were confident in their speech, had good eye contact and presented professionally through PowerPoints that included appropriate font types, font sizes as well as graphs/images to further the listener’s understanding of the topic.
Overall, the mentorship program gave me the opportunity to learn and understand what a career in academia looks like through discussing relevant aspects of research papers with accounting professors, relevant workshops as well as the opportunity to present a research idea and gain valuable feedback. To conclude, when considering a career in academia, it is important to reflect on this question, “Do you see yourself interested in doing research as a career and do you see it to be beneficial for you in the long run?”
About Christine
Christine Aranha is currently in her final term in the Accounting and Financial Management Program at the University of Waterloo. She has completed four co-op work terms in an accounting capacity with the goal of achieving her CPA designation after graduation. After having the opportunity of participating in the CPMRE Academia Mentorship Program and attending research workshops, Christine has gained a strong interest in potentially pursuing a career in Academia in the future. She is also passionate about music and volunteering.