podcast

I first heard of Rebecca Steinitz way back in 2006 when I was making the decision about whether or not to leave academia. The once-tenured professor had written an article for Inside Higher Ed about why she chose to leave academia that; it was a piece that, at the time, reassured me that my thoughts about getting out of the scholarship trade weren’t completely crazy. The piece is well worth reading if you’re someone who has ever wrestled with yourself over whether or not to ditch the ivory tower (and if you’re reading this blog, that probably means you). It was my pleasure, then, to phone Dr. Steinitz at her home in Boston and talk a little bit about her former life in academe, her choice to leave and the eminently satisfying work that she does now.

Click on the “play” triangle below to hear the podcast.

Some of the highlights include:

• 1:30 – 2:15  Why she wrote her article for IHE–and the one thing she’d change.
• 2:15 – 8:00  She was a successful academic, yet she had to face up to the aspects of the academic life she didn’t like–and discovered that she wasn’t unique in thinking about leaving.
• 8:00 – 11:00 Academia creates abjection; while your non-academic friends are developing their lives, academics are continually in a subordinate position, depending on the approval of others, not feeling grownup, leading to an acute self-doubt.
• 11:00 – 12:30  The hostile comments at her IHE article demonstrates how defensive people were about Rebecca speaking the truth about the lives of so many academics–and no, not the happy ones.
• 12:30 – 14:45  Why getting tenure doesn’t always make you happy; how external measures of her success suggested that she stay in the profession.
• 14:45 – 16:45  How well she’s “hacking it” in the real world as a writer, editor and educational consultant, and how this work emerges out of her former academic work
• 16:45 – 20:45  How she transitioned into her post-academic career, including the 1.5 years she spent networking and job-hunting before she left her tenured post. “It’s work that I’m passionate about, it’s work that feels very meaningful to me, it’s work that uses my skills.”
• 20:45 – 22:45  Networking, saying yes to opportunity and staying flexible have been the keys to her success. She left academia because she said to herself, “I don’t feel about my life the way I want to feel about my life.” Having  multifaceted career works for her. Luck plays a role.
• 22:45 – 26:15  Her advice is to look at your reasons for wanting to leave: how much is it about you or your circumstances? Her other suggestion is to try to arrange for a substantive leave of absence: “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”

Listen to the podcast here.

Apologies, listeners! The last 20 seconds of the podcast (you know, the part where I give my contact info and tell you the music is by Soft Copy) got cut off for some reason. Computer: 1. Me: 0.

Tagged as: podcast

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This is the third in my three-part series of podcasts with Dr. Krista Scott-Dixon. The first two podcasts focussed on Krista’s career transition from a women’s studies Ph.D. to a web editor, magazine editor and research director. This third and final podcast touches on some of the problems in academia that alienate people and make them want to leave. You might find yourself identifying with what Krista talks about, which includes:

• 1:45 – 5:45: Krista explains her accomplishments (like finishing her Ph.D. in four years) aren’t a result of being particularly exceptional, but are just a matter of showing up and doing the work–even when you suck at it.
• 5:45 – 8:45: What she learned from Gail Sheehy’s book Pathfinders: that people who are successful were able to mobilize their life crises and turn them into learning experiences.
• 8:45 – 11:50: Academics are working under a Cartesian mind/body model. “We are here for our brains; our bodies are containers to carry our brains around.”
• 11:50 – 14:50: Do academics live in an ivory tower? Yes, says Krista, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have any social obligations.
• 14:50 – 18:30: Original ideas in academia are often disparaged in favour of critique but the vampiric drain of continual critique without creation makes it difficult to sustain yourself.

Listen to the 19-minute podcast here.

Tagged as: podcast

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Krista Scott-Dixon was an academic superstar. She had great teaching evaluations, she’d published a couple of books, she had articles in peer-reviewed journals, she’d won external funding, and most amazing of all, she finished her Ph.D. in just under four years (yes, you read that right–four years). She was set for that glorious tenure-track appointment we’ve all fantasized about.

But after working at a research institute while doing some contract teaching, Krista decided she’d had enough of the academic life. Now she’s the research director for the Healthy Food Bank, editor-in-chief of Spezzatino magazine, web editor for Precision Nutrition and a weightlifting powerhouse. And she’s got so many interesting things to say that our conversation spans three different podcasts.

This first podcast covers:

• 0:00 – 2:00: intro
• 2:00 – 9:00 the intense feelings you have when you’re thinking of leaving academia, including panic, feeling stuck, and, “I’m not qualified to do anything else, so I might as well just be here.”
• 9:00 – 11:00: her lateral move to a research-based job in health care (and how she got the job)
• 11:00 – 14:00: the story of her decision to bust out of research and into a career path that she boldy forged on her own
• 14:00 – 18:00: how she applied her women’s studies Ph.D. to weight training (”It’s all about transfer of research and information”).

Listen to the 20-minute podcast here.

Tagged as: podcast

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Last week’s podcast was with Dr. Krista Scott-Dixon, a Ph.D. in women’s studies who is now a web editor, magazine editor and a research director (not to mention a woman who knows her way around the weight room at the gym). This week, I post two more podcasts with Krista, simply because she had so much great stuff to say that I didn’t want to deny your ears any of it.

Podcast two with Dr. Scott-Dixon gives you all this goodness:

• 1:00 – 3:40: Krista advises not to get preoccupied with the job title you want, but the job that will allow you to mobilize your values–and stay open to the awesome things that will happen to you.
• 3:40 – 5:00: why Krista was so afraid to leave academia. “I’m going to spend 40 years freaking out about what might happen when I turn 65. That’s a little bit stupid.”
• 5:00 – 7:00: how she became the editor-in-chief of a food magazine that supports a local non-profit.
• 7:00 – 9:40: how being a magazine editor uses the skills she cultivated in academia: finding cool researchers, collecting stories, doing research, doing talks, mobilizing her knowledge of migration, employment, identity.
• 9:40 – 17:20: Three of Krista’s four pieces of advice for academic-leavers: 1) how to know if you should leave or not, 2) how to know what you can do, 3) how to figure out what to do next, 4) recognize that you may come out of academia feeling really traumatized and you’re going to need some self-care.

Listen to the 19-minute podcast here (did you miss the first one? Don’t worry, it’s here).

Tagged as: podcast

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