Man, these former-academic-bloggers are just coming out of the woodwork now, aren’t they? Here’s Tony Funk, a man with three university degrees under his belt who became The Accidental Agrarian. His tales about farming and raising animals in British Columbia kinda remind me of former academic Jo Van Every. Jo supports researchers–and yes, I mean those of you who are struggling to finish your dissertations, or land funding for your project, or figure out how to push through that last chapter of your book. Like Tony, Jo lives on a farm with her partner and child, and they raise animals. I’ll spare you the details of all that is involved when you’re living cheek by jowl with nature, and let Jo share that with you instead.
Then there are the people out there who may make you feel a little less alone, like the tenure track prof who suddenly feels like bailing. There’s also the very interesting discussion about using the recession as an excuse to bail from academia. But you can’t have a link roundup without the slightly more jaundiced view, this time from an economist talking to humanities folks.
Tagged as:
postacademic
I got an email recently from a reader who pointed out that most of my podcast interviewees were people who could quite literally afford to step off the academic career path because they had each had a partner who could support them financially.
It’s true that I have interviewed a lot of academics who transitioned out of academia while having a partner (or, in some cases, a parent) who earned enough money to cover things until stable employment was secured. And it’s true that not everyone is in this situation. If you’re single, or if your partner is also an academic whose labour is cheap, you are not in a position to just up and quit without a plan. That’s it. Bottom line.
So, if you want to quit academia, I guess you need a plan, then.
But even if you want to stay in academia, you’re gonna need a plan, too; I bet that the number of people currently in your cohort at your institution vastly exceed the number of jobs advertised in your field in the entire country (US or Canada, you choose) this year.
Either way, grad students (and the post-docs, contract faculty and full-time faculty who dream of a different life) are currently in a situation where they (feel they) have to simultaneously work their butts off to gain their academic credentials (publishing, primarily) and create contingency plans for non-academic jobs. This is one of the many things that makes academic career-changers different from other career changers: the requirements of grooming yourself for two different streams of career change are quite separate, without a lot of overlap.
One thing academics do share with any other worker who is looking for a job is the basic fact that the more lead time you have to create a plan for your career change, the better (don’t hate me for stating the obvious). But the thing with academia is that there are so many stages where your exit from the profession is built right in to your role. If you’re a grad student, you’re going to graduate from your program at some point (or, depending on your situation, you’ll be shown the door). If you’re contract faculty, maybe you won’t get enough courses to teach. If you’re faculty, maybe you won’t get tenure. Those are all moments when you’re faced with an opportunity to stay in or get out. So your lead time for creating your plan may be limited, depending upon where on academia’s ladder of precarious employment you sit.
These are the realities. But the overarching philosophy of this blog has always been to illustrate that there is life after academia, even if that immediate stage after leaving is rocky and scary. Whether you choose to leave academia or are forced out, whether you have time to plan your transition or not, whether you have a partner to support you or unpaid bills stacked up on your desk, you are faced with two new research projects: ways to make money, and a path into a new career. Ideally, these two things will coincide, but for people who leave academia without a partner’s support, making money may have to come before the fab new career.
Dog-walking, house-cleaning, working for a parent and temping are some of the ways academics I’ve met have paid the bills while figuring out the next step. Taking jobs that only take advantage of one set of skills–like transcribing or taking notes for disabled students–are also other ways people I know have transitioned out of academe before settling into other careers. In my own case, I took a job as a closed captioning editor at a national broadcaster as a way of grooming my English skills, moving back into media/communications and earning a steady paycheque–even though the work took advantage of very few of my analytical skills (which was a very, very welcome relief at first).
I’m not advocating for a blind jump from the ivory tower and I’m not denying that finding a job and changing careers is as difficult as surviving grad school. What I have always maintained, through this blog, is the belief that there is life after academia. When you’re on the inside, the prospect of leaving seems, at times, both foolish and impossible. But the idea of not making a plan, in the current economic climate, seems equally foolish, and the execution is actually very, very possible.
Tagged as:
money,
postacademic
Yesterday, I had a great phone chat with Paula Chambers, whose name you may know from the WRK4US listserv. Paula and I were yakking about all things post-academic when it dawned on me why, exactly, I like the phrase “post-academic.” More specifically, I finally clued in as to why I’ve never, ever used the expression “alternative careers.”
My reason? The idea that doing anything with a PhD other than replicating the professoriate — that is, taking on a so-called “alternative career” — only reinforces the belief that taking a faculty job is the norm. The phrase “alternative career” suggests a deviation (in the many sense of the word) from the acceptable mainstream. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit. MAs, ABDs and PhDs have long been exiting academia and going into any and all other fields (or, in some cases, giving up paid work altogether and focussing on raising a family). And yet the belief that graduate training only qualifies you for one career path persists. The phrase “alternative careers,” IMHO, reinforces that.
As I type this, I have a vague feeling that I may be echoing what Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius write about the issue in “So What Are You Going to do With That?”: Finding Careers Outside Academia. To me, their use of the phrase “post-academic career” rather than “alternative career” always seemed like the most respectful and accurate way of looking at the career trajectories of people coming out of academia. Over at Carolyn Steele’s Career Sense blog, she mentions that the University of Chicago is now using the phrase “post-graduate career.” This sounds nice, but some people leaving Ph.D. programs do so without parchment in hand. Sure, they are graduates of a Master’s degree. But I think “post-graduate” isn’t all-encompassing enough–plus there’s all that confusion with the UK and their definition of “post-graduate.”
But what do you think?
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Tagged as:
nomenclature,
postacademic
Way back in the mists of time (er, that would be 2006), when I was thinking about leaving academia, I came across an article by Kenneth Mostern, Ph.D., called “On Being Postacademic.” This piece totally rocked my world. Both scholarly and inspiring, both critique and criticism, Mostern totally nailed so many of my feelings about scholarship and my flagging relationship to it. Little nuggets just leapt out at me, like this:
…The scariest thing a young faculty member experiences is not, as is conventionally supposed, the “need to produce” and therefore her/his experience is not aided by the “mentorship” of an experienced scholar. Rather, the young scholar’s fear stems from the fact that no one in the department is talking to each other about scholarship. Faculty are socializing, going out, schmoozing all the time, and the ideas that supposedly drive the work they do are not being discussed…The one conversation everyone is having incessantly is the one about the micropolitical maneuvers within the department…
Since then, Mostern has taken the site down where that article was hosted, but by generous permission, I’m able to provide it for Leaving Academia readers here. It’s a lengthy piece, but when you’ve got the time, give yourself a chance to sit down and chew on it. It’s well worth reading, both for those who choose to leave and those who stay.
A final note: after I’d first read Dr. Mostern’s piece, I sent him an email to let him know how much I appreciated it. This is what he wrote back:
Thanks for checking in. The happiest people I know — and I’m not talking about one or two, more than one or two dozen — are people who did their Ph.D.s and then went off and did something besides academia with their lives. Enjoy yourself.
Tagged as:
leaving,
postacademic
