dream_weasel

Aha I will modify my last in that case. No harm no foul, but it’s got a little more background in it than necessary if you weren’t doubling down lol.

I ran a research lab in a university for 15+ years. I guarantee there’s no money in it.

Companies pay pennies on the dollar to research groups to solve problems with undergrads, grad students, and a bit of project manager time and to stay afloat, you have to over-buy projects as favors and to get publications. It is not unusual to run 7 or 8 projects at a time all on shoestring budgets in the lab. With a PhD I never broke 100k.

Maybe there’s some money in the business school, but nobody is getting rich quick for no work in academia.

Edit: reducing the wall of text

I think you’ve got your adjectives pretty crazily backward about academia.

All of this. It should also be said that if you don’t understand something in the manual that’s ok too, but at least do a quick search to see if you can solve it. You ask when you bottom out, not to skip effort.

Sometimes you may find that there are 2 or 3 things you could try and you want some help before investing too much more time (as long as you invested some). That’s also totally fine to reach out for.