You have a very hard awakening in queue. Of course I can only speak of my direct experience, in Mexico, but here it goes:
1. Business people tend to mistrust highly educated people with no at least as impressive industry credentials. The meme of the crazy scientist with the head on the moon an no concern to real concerns runs deep and wide. Once you have both the schooling and the provable hands on experience it starts to pay off, but getting there is not trivial. Also, to make it pay it off you must go into consulting, since no employer will think they can afford you full time past some point. And to make it as consultant you need to pick an specialty that provides hard qualitatively measurable value.
2. Scratch that immense job security in the private university. As a matter of fact, they tend to hire a lot of adjunct professors and post-doc lecturers in order to avoid giving the sinecure for full professors. Public universities and research centers are still ok, but you will have a hard time in any education center whose bottom line depends on undergrad tuition.
3. Don't count on the flexibility thing either. University may be happy to hire part time lecturers with lots of industry experience, but not the other way around. I had a very hard time crawling out of this particular hole and have know others that never were able to make it back after a "short stint as a teacher".
4. Jobs prospect after 50 might be right, but you have to know how to play your cards really well. It is not a given, and in any case you are probably better off knowing your way in industry than relying on academia.
1. Business people tend to mistrust highly educated people with no at least as impressive industry credentials. The meme of the crazy scientist with the head on the moon an no concern to real concerns runs deep and wide. Once you have both the schooling and the provable hands on experience it starts to pay off, but getting there is not trivial. Also, to make it pay it off you must go into consulting, since no employer will think they can afford you full time past some point. And to make it as consultant you need to pick an specialty that provides hard qualitatively measurable value.
2. Scratch that immense job security in the private university. As a matter of fact, they tend to hire a lot of adjunct professors and post-doc lecturers in order to avoid giving the sinecure for full professors. Public universities and research centers are still ok, but you will have a hard time in any education center whose bottom line depends on undergrad tuition.
3. Don't count on the flexibility thing either. University may be happy to hire part time lecturers with lots of industry experience, but not the other way around. I had a very hard time crawling out of this particular hole and have know others that never were able to make it back after a "short stint as a teacher".
4. Jobs prospect after 50 might be right, but you have to know how to play your cards really well. It is not a given, and in any case you are probably better off knowing your way in industry than relying on academia.