That was my father.

At 80 he went to teaching only one class so he could keep his office and spend the rest of his time doing what he wanted.

At 90 he finally retired. He wrote dozens or articles and finally left us in Jan this year at 92. The last day he was alive, he dictated a book review to me he had promised to a journal. His final wish, that I type it up and send it in for him and let them know he would not be able to take on any more book reviews.

TwoAstronauts.jpg "Wait, it's all Grant Committees?" "Always has been"

I think it’s grant committees dictating the research agenda all the way down. They’re after all the ones with the money.

precisely why I left with my Master's. working a 'regular job' is a lot more liberating.

Zero freedom to pursue the truth, infinite demands to support other people's ideological agendas.

I didn't get it that bad personally, but I watched a few friends have research derailed by some random committee member's bullshit.

I don’t have a tenure committee and nobody cares what I research as long as I publish and get grants. Ymmv. Edit: also, the comic skips postdoc, which is probably the most care free career stage (you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want as long as you manage to impress your supervisor every now and then with original stuff and follow through to turn them into papers).

Odd, I know a fair few PhD students and post docs and they all researched what they wanted to research. They either didn't have a professor or they found one who offered the right subject.