My advisor asked me to co-author a paper, but I have no interest in an academic career I recently finished an undergraduate program and obtained an engineer’s degree. I am working as a software engineer at an automotive company and I can only imagine myself having a career in “production”, meaning working for a private company for a while and eventually starting a company of my own or working as a freelancer. This is to say I have no interest in pursuing a career in academia.
In my country it is very common that people start a master’s degree immediately after finishing their bachelor’s degree. I did not enlist for a master’s program and I am still debating whether I find it worth doing several years from now or not.
However, recently the professor that acted as my advisor for my diploma project asked me whether I want to co-author a paper that would be presented at a conference and later submitted for publishing in a journal. The paper’s topic encompasses the topic of my diploma project and the professor said he would like to use parts of my project for this paper.
I like the idea of being a co-author on a published paper, but I suspect this will mean a lot of work and I wouldn’t want to do it if the only thing I got out of it was the achievement alone. Would there be anything to gain from doing this if I don’t intend to pursue a career in academia? If there is no good reason to do it, would it be appropriate to give the professor permission to use my project for his paper without asking to be listed as co-author?
EDIT: Thank you very much for all your answers and encouragement! I emailed the professor back telling him I was interested, but that the time I could invest was limited and he told me it would not be a problem since he will write the paper, my previous work being enough of a contribution already.
Congratulations! In my opinion, it is perfectly polite to write back and say that you are interested, but can't afford to make a significant time commitment to the project. Ideally, the professor will be happy to do the work himself, and your role would largely be to look over the finished product, sign off on it, and make suggestions or comments.
It's fine to invite the professor to write this paper without you as a coauthor. That said, since you did much of the work already, the professor might prefer that you be listed as an author.
If you are thinking of possibly applying to graduate school in the future, it would probably be a good thing to have a publication under your belt.