If you have a love for academia, go for it - if you dread it, don't torture yourself, there are plenty of other options that can be very succesful.

Interesting, Darren, my definition is very close to yours, but I'd say there is another important element, the quality of the information given.To me, the derogatory use of the term is applied to those that add fluff, exaggerations, aspects that while may be technically correct but are highly improbable to replicate or simply put out bad advice with no consideration to ethical issues.I make that distinction because, some professor in some university teaching a real estate course or some instructor in a state approved real estate school for agents isn't a guru, they are teachers and instructors.The difference in being a non-guru teacher is two fold, 1. the materials taught are compliant with rules, regulations, laws, accepted in practice and are based in sound applications of the business; and 2. they are qualified by education and experience, by education that has some professional level that is determined by proof of their mastering a level of knowledge, testing and degrees earned or certifications by proper authorities in the industry or academia.

Therefore I made one of my goals to flip a property either by myself or with a partner by the of the summer.Granted, I have two parents who were also in academia their entire career and don't have much of a retirement.

I had zero real estate experience beforehand -- I was four years into my PhD in coastal geography at UH before I got soured on the whole ivory tower academia experience.

(I put in 1,501 offers over the course of two weeks, which required that I essentially play hookie from my full-time job in academia in order to submit and follow up on all of the agents who responded to my initial offers.

I was a Psych grad and recently finished up my Masters while doing some teaching, but have been finding the rest of academia a bit tedious to say the least.

Realizing I needed to get experience outside of academia, I recently accepted a position as an acquisitions analyst for a residential home builder. 

I want to teach my siblings (oldest of 9) and mother of a beautiful 2 year old to be more than just academia.

As far as the employees and academia....forget it.Tim

Everyone can agree or disagree that IRR is the exactly perfect way to calculate investment returns, and in fact, those in academia, would correctly argue that using NPV to determine total value of investments is a better methodology.