Here’s just a quick hit: a link to a PhD who left academia when she rediscovered her love of art. Sounds like all that time you spent watching Forbidden Love during your women’s studies BA could actually pay off!
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leaving
In many respects, I was an unlikely academic leaver. I had some modest success as a grad student (though no one was going to mistake me for a rock star). I had won a SSHRC scholarship (which, in Canada, is a real feather in your cap) to fund 2 years of my research. I’d won OGS scholarships twice (also quite the feather in your cap in the province of Ontario). I’d had a few publications (though none in major journals). I received strong teaching evaluations from students. I’d had an exceptionally supportive dissertation supervisor. I passed my thesis defence with no revisions. I worked on my entire degree very steadily, completing my coursework, comprehensive exams and dissertation all within the time alloted–5 years and 8 months, total. And I kind of had a bit of a life outside of academia, too, manging to meet and marry a lovely non-academic dude (I’d had a personal rule about never dating academics, which turned out nicely for me).
But, as so many post-academics I’ve spoken to since have testified to, I just wasn’t happy. And this sincerely seemed to me to be a sufficient reason to quit the profession and try something else. So I never went on the academic job market. To me, by the final year (though it had been building up in the years prior to that), I was pretty certain that academia was not the right fit for me.
The thing that scared me most about leaving was the possibility that things would get better if I landed a tenure-track position. This was the thought that vexed me most. What if it was the conditions of grad school itself, or my grad program, that caused so much anxiety, stress and uncertainty? Maybe everything would be better once I got to that hallowed faculty post.
What I know now, though, is that the fantastical academic dream is no longer an option for the average junior faculty member. You know that dream: the one where you get to be the kind of teacher Robin Williams was in Dead Poets Society, and where you get to contribute great scholarship to the world, and where you host incredible dinner parties for the faculty and grad students in your spacious dining room. You know: the life of the mind and all of its pleasures. Of course, Robin Williams never had to deal with piles of marking, extreme self-doubt about his research, the constant cycle of applying for external funding (and academics think they’re not trained in marketing! Ha!), or a hostile work environment.
I knew that I loved writing…but my academic writing voice had choked out my creative voice. I knew that I loved research…but I hated the idea of being boxed in to my one area of specialization, when I so often just wanted to bugger off and explore other, equal fascinating areas of scholarship. I loved teaching (when I knew I was really clicking with the students)…but I disliked the university-as-job-factory mentality that made them look at me in the same way they looked at a person delivering a pizza (which isn’t to disrespect pizza delivery persons–gawd knows how much I rely on them–but it is to say that I was a service-delivery provider to them, rather than a teacher, educator, instructor, or, in some cases, a human being).
What was very difficult for me to cope with was the constant pressure of thinking about my research 24/7. An academic’s job–no matter where you are on the totem pole, from grad student to tenured prof–is never done. I know there are a lot of other jobs where late nights are required, or doing a bit of work on the weekends is an expectation. But those expectations are understood by everyone involved, and usually lead to tangible outcomes (e.g. the LaffItOff report gets written; the big presentation to the Dinglebopper Group is ready to go for Monday). There is something I found about the hamster wheel nature of the academic lifestyle that was just, to me, totally dissatisfying.
But the thing that was the apex of what I could not tolerate was the knowledge that what I was doing was making no positive social contribution at all. It was this, most of all, that led me to ditch academia. The idea that I would be on a hamster wheel of research that was totally irrelevant, that would never be read by the public (let alone have any meaningful impact on the public), was intolerable. That was the opposite of why I had gone into graduate school in the first place.
When you’re thinking of leaving academia, there are a mountain of fears to face: what if I can’t get a job doing something else? I don’t even know what my other options are! What else could I possibly do with my life? What if leaving is a terrible decision that I regret for the rest of my life? Can I come back if I leave? What will my supervisor think? What will my friends think? My parents will be so disappointed! I can’t leave–I’m useless!
But against those fears were, for me, some basic truths: I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t living up to my creative potential. I wasn’t being an agent of change.
So leaving had to happen. And it did. And I am so thankful for it. And the fears? Pish-posh! Suddenly, I was too busy being happy, creative and a change agent to even give them any more mind.
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This is an email I received from an academic leaver I know, someone who left ABD and now works in a non-academic position. I thought it expressed some of the sentiments of leaving in such a tender and apt way that I got permission for all of you to read it, too.
Life right now is simpler, sweeter, more satisfying… and despite the initial trauma and some of the very dramatic unforeseen consequences… leaving remains the right choice for me. Sadly, the choice is often confirmed as I interact with my peers who stayed and struggle on.
That’s not to say I don’t ever think of finishing my PhD. I do, often; but these days I do things on my terms or not at all. My terms for re-engaging the diss have partially revealed themselves to me… if it is meant to be and when the time is right the rest of my terms for completion will become clear as well.
In the meantime, opportunities abound: to do work I find politically meaningful; to experiment with ways of being political and an agent of change in mainstream work-life environments — now there’s a challenge!; and, oddly enough, to connect back to university communities in more creative ways than the mainstream university worker. Since leaving, the latter options have always danced at the periphery of my world. I can pick and choose from these now; although, mostly, I continue to stay at arm’s length until I’m sure of my terms!
It’s only in leaving and exploring other workspaces that I realised that being a researcher is a mindset that bolsters creativity and yields practice. That mindset is precious and needs to be nurtured, not disciplined. It needs engagement, appreciation and discernment, not constant judgement and correction. In the end, I think I’d actually make a better academic — certainly a kinder, gentler and wiser one — having left academe than I ever did in academe. Ironic!
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Before the global economic meltdown, the prospect of leaving academia with Ph.D. in hand was generally perceived as a pretty crazy idea. Now that the shit has hit the fan in the university sector, it’s being perceived more widely as a smart career decision, or even a sensible detour while you wait for the academic jobs to open up again.
But way back in the day–I’m talking 2006, here–my decision to leave was cooked up in a very different economic context. The idea of having a Ph.D. but not being a university teacher probably looked to a lot of people like something bordering on insanity. And sometimes I did feel a little nutty to be considering the idea at all.
I was reminded of some of those crazy feelings this weekend when my crack I.T. team and I sat down to watch Gran Torino.
You know Gran Torino–the Clint Eastwood movie. The one where he growls and becomes a transformed person. The one that is ostensibly about anti-racism but is really about an old white guy. The one that people said was “masterful,” and “a cinematic tour de force” and rubbish like that. The one that left me scratching my head and turning to my crack I.T. team to say, “Huh?”
Now, Gran Torino, like grad school, has a lot of things going for it. It has a shiny, exciting car, an empathetic underdog character who you love cheering on, and most of all, it has Clint Eastwood. I understand that in many corners of the cinema-going world, Clint Eastwood can do no wrong. And really, he does turn in a great performance in this movie. Every time he turns around hefting a pistol or rifle in his hand, you get a little thrill, a little “Oh, shit! Clint Eastwood‘s got a gun!” kind of a thrill.
Similarly, grad school has little thrilling moments. There are those times in the classroom when you feel like you’re really connecting with your students. There are those moments in a seminar when your prof is setting your mind on fire. There are those amazing hours you spend getting lost in the stacks, devouring books and journals.
But then you start to realize that the whole isn’t the sum of its parts. You get to the point where you can’t deny that your relationship to this thing is breaking down. You start thinking, as I did over the weekend, “Um…WTF is going on here? Where is this plot going? Did Gran Torino get destroyed in the editing room?”
The difficult part about this, though, is feeling like you’re the only one who ever thinks this way. “I thought Gran Torino/grad school was going to be fantastic,” you think. “Everyone said it was a good idea.” “Am I the only one seriously not enjoying this?” “Am I crazy to just want to just press ’stop’ and try something different?”
Folks, I’m telling you, I watched Gran Torino to the end and I kind of wish I hadn’t. The first 1/4 of the movie was satisfyingly quirky in its own, poorly-edited way. The rest was craptastic. Whether you make the choice to leave grad school mid-stream, after the Ph.D., or once you’ve already got tenure, you’re making the choice to open yourself to possibility. You are sparing yourself–even if you don’t get to see the ending of that particular story.
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You know how I made a remark last week about the fact that, now that I’m no longer in academia, I carve out boundaries with my time? And how commenter Steve had said:
When we’re in academia, we’re sorta like 7-Eleven. We’re not always doing business, but we’re always open.
(And he then offered a cookie to the first person who could name the movie reference. He’s still waiting, people! Free cookie to be had!)
The near-unwavering practice I have of restricting the number of hours I work each week is probably a rebound reaction from my days in grad school. Back then, I felt like I was always on the clock, always under pressure to be producing, no matter the time of day or year.
Well, it turns out that I was actually producing quite a lot, as evidenced by a weird discovery I made a few weeks ago. While dissertating, I used a free, web-based time-tracking tool over at myHours.com. I found it was a really helpful way of having an accurate sense of how much work I was getting done. It helped me to stay on top of my work, but more importantly, it helped combat the feeling that I wasn’t doing enough or getting enough done. You know how it is: when you’ve got all that open, unstructured time, if you take five minutes to make a sandwich, you think, “I’m wasting time!”
Well, I was poking around my myHours.com account, thinking about using it again, and I made a shocking discovery: when I was in grad school, I worked like a dog. This is what the 10 days before I got married looked like, when I was madly finishing the final draft of my dissertation:
Date Activity Task Start End Total
12/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 10:00 16:00 6:00
13/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 10:00 16:00 6:00
14/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 09:30 16:23 6:53
15/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 08:40 16:00 7:20
16/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 10:30 19:30 9:00
17/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 05:54 09:26 3:32
18/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 07:44 11:50 4:06
19/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 08:00 17:00 9:00
20/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 10:00 16:00 6:00
21/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 06:30 16:30 10:00
22/12/2005 Dissertation Writing/editing 05:35 08:11 2:36
Now, for those of you who haven’t left academia, you might not be particularly surprised by this. Working for 6- 7 hours a day on your dissertation, with a few 9 or 10 hour days, sprinkled with a few 2 or 3 hour days, might actually be pretty representative of grad student hours. But for me, I saw this and thought:
a) why did I have the constant feeling that I was frittering away my time when I wasn’t?
b) what the hell was I doing working on the weekends?
Moreover, this was clearly one of those periods in my life where I actually made my lunch the night before so that I could sit and eat it at my desk (yes, in my home office), uninterrupted. I know this because when I kept tabs on my writing time like this, I was writing. I wasn’t futzing, I wasn’t emailing, I wasn’t noodling around on Facebook (well, there was no Facebook back then). So those were solid hours of cranking out the diss. And because there was nothing I hated more than being on a hot writing streak and having to cave and give in to the demands of my stomach by taking the time to prepare lunch, I’d prepare it the night before.
The constant feeling that I should be working was something that I disliked most about grad school. Fast-forward to 2009: I really treasure having my time contained and clearly labelled with the words, “Work,” “Family” and “Personal.” When I made the decision to go into business for myself, I also made the decision that I would only do it if those boundaries around my time remained.
The beauty of this decision means that, when I’m hanging out with friends, my husband, my kid or myself, I do it with a clear conscience. I know the work will still be there when the time for work comes. And when Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. rolls around, I am excited and ready to start the week.
How about you? What would your dream hours be? What kind of lifestyle do you see yourself having at your postacademic dream job?
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Last week, I received a wonderful email from one of my readers–one who said he’d visited the Leaving Academia site many times in the middle of the night when overwhelmed with doubt. His email was so great that I asked his permission to run part of it here. Call it this week’s dose of inspiration (and a rejoinder to those who believe changing careers during a recession is a bad idea).
This happy academic ex-pat wrote to tell me that, earlier in the spring, he had quit his six-year long academic career when he was about a year away from earning his Ph.D. Like so many others, he wrote, he was ABD but found himself stalled after exams. He and his partner discussed how miserable academia was making him, and together, they decided he should quit. But right around the same time, he had also gotten involved in getting the graduate teaching assistants at his university organized and into a union. Once he decided to quit, he writes, he informed his committee:
“They were shocked that someone ‘like me’ would leave when I had, according to them, such a promising career ahead of me. They were worried I’d never find a job given the economy. (I was tempted to joke that being in grad school isn’t a job, but more like an insult; of course that isn’t true. The insult is the treatment and pay).
I told them that for six years I had felt like a failure, like none of my projects were coming to fruition, and critically, that my work and contributions were in no way valued by the department, my colleagues, or the university. And as for the job, it wouldn’t take much to replace the puny salary they were paying me [...]
Within four days in mid June, I was offered THREE union organizing jobs, including the dream job I thought I’d never land, in a place I’ve fantasized about living for ten years. I’m starting work soon, and can’t wait. I’ll be paid nearly five times what I’ve been making for the past six years, in addition to a generous benefits package for myself and my partner. I’m going to get to do work that is important, enjoyable, and challenging. My employers value my experience and potential to contribute to their organization. Wow, that was so easy!”
I wanted to run this man’s story because I thought it was such a great example of how much one’s bravery can pay off. It also points to the ways in which our “sideline” activities–in this case, union organizing–can become a full-time gig, even if it has little direct connection to your area of study. It also shows that, no matter how much of an academic whiz you are, academia still may not be the thing that satisfies and nurtures you. It says a lot about confronting those powerful feelings of failure, disenchantment and insecurity on the road to something better. Of course, it also shows the importance of having a supportive partner who’s willing to demonstrate a lot of flexibility in the face of a career change and a move, and not everyone is in that situation. And, this former academic adds,
“Times are indeed really tough, and that is certainly an obstacle to quitting, but it is hardly the only one. Obviously for me, the biggest obstacle was within myself rather than out there in the world. But I do feel VERY fortunate to have had such good luck with the job search.
I think that is a testament to how the skills we learn in grad school
can help afterward — I was able to think on my feet and give good
interviews, strategically and practically compose an effective resume,
and say with confidence that I have the communication skills necessary for this new gig.”
In a few months, I’m going to follow up with this academic escapee to check in and see how post-academic life is faring for him.
In the meantime, readers, I’d love to hear strategies that you are using to shift into post-academic work. Are you jumping off from your sideline projects and interests? How much do you think luck plays a role in finding work? Are you doing anything in particular to create luck or opportunity for yourself?
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Well, this just goes to show that we really are connected. Yesterday, commenter RFYL noted that most of the people I’ve interviewed for my podcast are women, and a fifth of the fans of the Facebook page are women. I can also tell you that most of my clients are women and most of the people who send me “Yay!” or “Can you blog about this?” type of emails are from women.
As it happens, I was actually just discussing this fact with a friend of mine the night before RFYL left his/her comment. I’ve been aware, ever since I started this project, that I am in contact with far more women who are thinking of and who have left academia. I’ve been wanting to post about this for a long time, but the reason why I haven’t is because I don’t have any strong theories to explain this phenomenon. For someone who spent most of her time in university studying theories of gender, this is a real stumper.
On the most systemic level, you could look at the ways in which academia is hostile for women. There are overt instances of sexual harassment and sexual assault, of course. But as the book title
There are also particular pressures on women of colour in the academy (though I’ve read more data about women of colour and their completion rates in the U.S. than in Canada). There are particular pressures on feminists in the academy. And although I never experienced being a mom while in grad school, but I think we’ve all heard the dire news about the rates at which moms get tenure. Fact is, they generally don’t.
You might wonder how much my own biases skew my choice of podcast interviewees (since I run another website addressing women’s issues and can easily say that some of my best friends are women). I can’t tell you how much my sub- or unconscious plays a role here, but I can tell you there is no deliberate intention on my part to only speak with women. My interview subjects are gleaned from a variety of sources. Sometimes I just happen to stumble upon information about someone that I find intriguing (like Rebecca Steinitz). Sometimes it’s a friend of a friend (like Krista Scott-Dixon). Sometimes it’s a former colleague (like Michelle Lowry, who left her Ph.D. program to do a Master’s of Social Work instead). Sometimes it’s someone that someone has alerted me to (like Sharon Blady).
I have interviewed men–most recently, I interviewed a former colleague, Fred Ho, who is a union organizer here in Toronto. My interview before that was with Kenny Mostern, who penned the On Being Postacademic article I’ve got posted here. A while back, I interviewed Michael Anderson, another entrepreneur who helps entrepreneurs. I’ve also done off-the-record interviews with men who didn’t want their accounts to be public (one because he didn’t think much of his accomplishments; the other because he was still dealing with a lot of negative feelings from the whole Ph.D. experience).
Still, that’s comparatively few. Yet I don’t purposely seek out women–but it seems that women readers (commenters, clients, Facebook folks) do seek me out.
On a micro-level, there could be something about me being a woman that draws women to my work. Conversely, there could be something about me being a women that makes men uninterested (which is not to render you male readers invisible! I know you’re out there, ye who lurk and email me confidentially!).
And then there could be something in between, something about gender formation more generally that informs how men and women make decisions about their education and their careers. I mean, we do know that women systematically make choices about their careers that often leave them in pink-collar ghettos, or reliant on their (often male) spouse’s income.
There is also data to indicate that women are voracious users of online communities, though I think that data skews towards moms. But perhaps women more generally turn to the internet for community and for help than men do. Perhaps men who are making the decision to leave academia would be more likely to turn to their traditional (i.e. real-world) networks. I have no idea.
I honestly have no good theories (and for a former theorist, it kinda hurts to say that!) and very little evidence to explain why this is the case. But you KNOW that I would love to hear your ideas about why my work draws more women (which proves absolutely nothing about how frequently men and women leave academe).
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Last week, the Globe and Mail (one of Canada’s national newspapers) asked, “Should you go to grad school?” and answered with “Yes and no.” There’s a Facebook discussion on this matter at the Globe Campus Facebook page, in case you’d like to offer your own experience on the issue. Katie from Twenty-Something weighed in on the matter and said something that I think gets left out all too often in this kind of discussion:
I can also thank grad school for my current perspective on the world, for a stronger sense of self, for a greater degree of confidence in my abilities, and of course, greater maturity. Grad school was my trial by fire, and I think I came out on the other end a better person because of it. It didn’t make me more employable. It didn’t ensure I got a better salary when I did join the workforce. But…I did something I truly loved, and from that perspective, grad school had (and still has) immense value to me.
In my tooling around, I also found this person over here asking people why they had quit grad school. Some of the answers aren’t especially illuminating, but some of them are really interesting. Hands down, the one I thought was the best (i.e. greatest combo of funny and smart) was written by someone called Mason Dixon (whose website can be traced to Boston Sutras) who wrote:
I am completely serious: Do you feel full? You know deep down if you are full or not.
When people ask me why I quit I I tell them: “I was full so I got up from the table and quit eating,” and that is what it felt like to me.
The prospect of cigars in the parlor with those who finished dinner was not a strong enough lure to keep me sitting there stuffing my gob –even though the food was fine. I said, “Thank you, Good Night and Goodbye.”
I decided that if I want to learn more about “X”, I’ll do my own snacking later. I have yet to have any regrets about it.
So chew on that, Leaving Academia readers. Do you feel full?
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This morning while I was lying in bed trying to decide whether or not I had penumonia (yeah, like the “Dr.” in front of my name is REALLY going to help me with that), I came across this post by Alexis over at her A Blog to be Named Later. The post is titled, “Why leaving academia is harder than I thought it would be,” and boy, does she really hit the nail on the head. Even though it’s been three years since I left, Alexis’ summation of her feelings really brought back memories of my own departure. Anyone who is undergoing this transition can no doubt connect with Alexis when she writes,
It’s not just leaving a career or changing jobs; it’s leaving behind an old identity, a false, ill-fitting one, so that there can be room for my authentic self to emerge.
This was, hands down, absolutely how I felt when I left academia. And of course, it’s precisely because I am more myself now than I ever was in all the years I spent in grad school that making the choice to quit was absolutely the right one. But even though I knew the life of academia was too narrow for me, and even though I had a strong feeling I would be of much greater use to the world in a different professional capacity, making the decision to leave was fraught with intense emotions. Alexis speaks about those emotions so honestly. Check it out and see if you identify.
Update on another great blog: I’ve just found YoungFemaleScientist, written by Ms. Ph.D. This is the first time I’ve stumbled across this blog (and it sounds, from this post here, like she’s planning on leaving academia, actually). It’s quite enjoyable reading, even for a former social scientist like me (especially because she’s got quite a solid gender perspective). But this post, Feeling Not Good Enough, might also resonate with readers of this blog.
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Yesterday I asked, “Should you quit grad school during the recession?” My answer was roughly, “Well, why not?” Related to this is the larger question–which a few people have asked me to post about lately–about timing. If you’re going to quit academia, when should you do it?
To me, the answer is, “Whenever it’s best for you.” How’s that for precision? But seriously, the answer is going to be completely up to you. The major considerations are many: financial (what will you do for an income if you leave at this stage?), career (what field will you switch to?), family (do you need to support family members? Are you all living together?), geographic (will you need/want to move when you quit?), and so forth.
But deciding on the timing of your departure also has to do with the delicate matter of cutting your losses. Calculating losses, though, is an imprecise science because there are so many unknown factors. For example, if you quit after, say, completing your comprehensive exams, are you cutting your losses by sparing yourself years of the gruelling dissertation-writing process (which can be totalled up in dollars, tears, therapists’ bills, damaged relationships, etc.)? Or are you incurring a new loss by not finishing a project you’ve started (an emotional toll) and having to work to explain what you did during those years on a résumé (a potential financial toll)?
Well, the answer is both, isn’t it? When you leave academia–regardless of when you do–you carry around a balance sheet of losses and gains. Gains: a deep relief, a feeling of freedom, a sense that you’ve narrowly escaped something that temporarily had control of your soul. Losses: debt, regret, the struggle to find a new career and life path.
Sometimes, the dividends blur and the gains start to look like losses; the feeling of freedom, for example, can quickly turn into a terrifying landscape of possibility with no clear direction of where to turn. Sometimes the losses look like gains: struggling to find a new life and career path reminds you of how many wonderful interests you have and all of the fun ways you can pursue them.
This is where the matter of the timing of your departure comes in. The dividends of leaving are going to be felt more and less sharply depending on when you jump ship. The longer you stay in your Ph.D. program, your debt load goes up, but so do your credentials. But do those credentials even mean anything to you if you’re depressed, disillusioned and miserable?
For those of you who are thinking of leaving mid-degree, and are tortured by the thought that you’ve wasted your time and money: here’s a timely link to a post Seth Godin wrote earlier this week. I think it’s brilliant, and although he’s not even thinking about grad students when he’s writing this post, it applies perfectly. The post is called “Ignore Sunk Costs.” Among other golden advice, Seth says:
When making a choice between two options, only consider what’s going to happen in the future, not which investments you’ve made in the past. The past investments are over, lost, gone forever. They are irrelevant to the future.
Here’s a breakdown of the balance sheet referring to different stages of leaving. I’d love to hear more thoughts on your analysis of the gains and losses in the comments section. If you…
1. Leave after the M.A. You’ve got yourself a valuable degree with great income-earning potential. But maybe you feel skeptical about your academic prospects, you don’t think you’d enjoy teaching and although you enjoy your research, you don’t feel crazy about doing 5-10 more years of it. So you quit.
Gains: High. You may have some student loans, but this recent report from StatsCan shows there is a 33% wage gap between someone with a B.A. and someone with a Master’s, but someone with a doctorate only earns 8% more than someone with a Master’s.
Costs: Low. Unlike a Ph.D., a master’s makes you feel good about your capabilities.
2. Leave after the first year of your Ph.D. You’ve had a taste of the program, the university, your colleagues and your potential supervisors. Maybe it’s not a good fit, and when you look at the faculty, you’re turned off by the constant search for external funding, the “publish or perish” mentality, and the lack of value placed on family time (like, uh, making one at all). So you quit.
Gains: Medium-high. You’re sparing yourself the time and emotional aggravation and expense of staying in grad school. You can be honest on a resume about what you did with your year.
Costs: Low. Some debt, maybe, and maybe a little bit of “What if…?”
3. Leave around the comps process (before, during or after). When I speak with former academics, this time of intense stress (comprehensive exams are now also called qualifying exams at some schools) can really bring one’s feelings about academia to the forefront. Maybe it’s taking you years to finish your comps, you’re riddled with insecurity, you feel like a total fraud, and you’re on the precipice of clinical depression. So you quit.
Gains: medium-high. Getting out before you lose any more of your precious time, precious money, precious brain cells and spend any more on prescription drugs is really smart. Living in a world where you don’t have to prove yourself through comps fuckin’ rulz.
Costs: medium. Suffering through the comps and STILL leaving without parchment in hand is gonna sting. You will have to explain to employers what it means to be ABD with respect to your transferable skills, which is kinda annoying.
4. Leave during the dissertation stage. Whether you’re struggling to get your proposal done, churn out that first chapter, or finally kick the final chapter to the curb, the dissertation process is a long, emotionally intense, wearing process that can tear down the mental health of the most balanced grad student. Maybe you loathe your topic. Maybe you’re burnt out. Maybe you’re making yourself miserable trying to keep up with the demands to teach, publish, present papers and produce a brilliant 300 page document all at the same time. Maybe you just don’t have it in you anymore. So you quit.
Gains: high. Though departments notoriously do not keep track of their attrition rates, I’ve read research (which I will cite for you in a follow-up post) indicating 50% of social science and humanities doctorates drop out of their programs before finishing. That means you’re in pretty good company among people who decided that life was too short to wait for a satisfying career, to move out of poverty, to save their mental health, or to just figure out that the academic life was not meant for them.
Costs: high. The niggly feelings of “what if?…” or “if only…” might linger for a long, long time. Feeling like a failure–or being worried that other people will see you as a failure–may be very intense. Your possible debt load may amplify feelings of anger, resentment, shame and bitterness. Feeling lost and unsure of how to orient your life is a strong possibility. Struggling with the concept of waste–a waste of your time, money, energy and potential–may stay with you.
5. You leave once you’ve finished the Ph.D. You’re done! Yahoo! But you got what you came for and you are outta there.
Gains: high. Freedom, sweet freedom. Sweet, quaking-at-the-knees, dripping-with-relief freedom.
Costs: medium-high. Severely compromised mental health, a significant debt, relationships that needed some nurturing after long periods of neglect. There is some belief (which I believe is a myth) that having a Ph.D. makes you unemployable.
(NB: Perhaps I’m biased here (since this was the path I chose and I’ve had three years to gain distance from the experience) by seeing the costs as “medium-high” and not “high.” To me, though, the gains far outstripped the costs, in terms of the feeling of freedom, the wild array of life choices I knew I could make, the ability to do the teaching and research and writing that I wanted that wasn’t limited by the classroom, and yes, the satisfaction of having the degree in hand.)
6. Once you’ve done contract/adjunt teaching, done your post-doc or gotten a tenure-track position. It might seem weird to lump these three types of academics into one category, but I’ll explain why below. Even if it’s news to some grad students, people do actually leave secure, tenured positions (Rebecca Stienitz is one of them–here’s her story–and so is Kenny Mostern of “On Being Postacademic” fame–which you can read here. NB: I’ll be interviewing Dr. Mostern and Dr. Stienitz for the podcast series in the next few weeks).
Gains: high. Once you’ve got your Ph.D., you can go anywhere and do anything with confidence. Contract faculty have a lot to gain by landing in a job that actually pays a living wage, and they, along with tenure-track faculty, gain by being able to move to the city of their choice, actually have free time, start a family, make more money, etc.
Costs: low-to-medium. I haven’t been there, and so far I haven’t done any interviews (yet) with people who’ve made this jump. So I am only speculating here. But making a career change at this point just makes a lot of sense to me in the same way that any other career change makes sense. I know someone who used to be an award-winning, professional Irish dancer and is now an IT guy at an art college. I know someone who used to be a professional chef and is now a naturopath. I know someone who used to make giga-bucks at Goldman Sachs and is now a freelance writer living in the English countryside with her young children. I admire people who make crazy career leaps because although there are potential costs (like failing), the gains (like actually being happy and/or satisfied) seem to be so much greater.
What do you think? If you’re going to quit academia, when is the best time to do it? What other factors are there that contribute to your decision? (You can also read a post-doc’s far more brief take on the matter here at Damn Dinosaurs).
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