Leaving academia reddit. You have a lot of education and skills.

Leaving academia reddit on your WLB in academia, it can either feel like you suddenly have much more time off (because you can leave work at work) or much less time off (because you can't just fuck off in the middle of the day after you're done teaching); Leaving academia happens all the time. Not everyone can become or wants to become tenured researchers/professors. 5 months pregnant, and when she gives birth our money will become very tight. 30% pay increase that would have required me to get a Department Chair position and multiple promotions in academia. I am a mid 20s professor. There's a possibility I may not leave with the PhD, but I did get a top MBA degree along the way. " There are Facebook groups full of folks. Be thankful for that. I was on great terms with my department chair and Dean, but when I left, they were super angry about it, even though I was very reasonable about leaving, transitioning my students, etc. I would talk to your department chair about what support they can provide for you. 2K subscribers in the postdoc community. Few days ago we had a nationwide walkout of graduate students and postdocs in Canada. For example, one of the resumes I rejected for a software developer job was full of bullet points about how great they are at course design. Someone once told me that leaving academia is like ending a toxic relationship - you start grieving it after some time and want to get I'm also finding these cultural difference in my attempts to leave academia. If you see a pun, report it here. I’m in the process of leaving a tenured position in humanities. Employers will value that. Overall I'm content in the decision and the many pros and cons to leaving academia. He can choose a given company and can choose what research team to join. Are there any clinical psychologists here who left academia? I’ve been miserable in academia balancing research, clinical work, and other service responsibilities. Go with the new job. I’ve advanced from simply taking notes to managing complex projects, and I know I’ll lead a team one day. 243 votes, 57 comments. He’s left jobs to seek more interesting research projects, etc. So much passion and interest drained out of me. Sure! Lots of people are leaving academia now because it sucks as you know. Academic medicine does a great job convincing people that leaving academics makes you a failure or a lesser doctor. The best place on Reddit for admissions advice. Like all things, leaving academia is a trade-off. You have a lot of education and skills. I've held on to the dream of Academia for so long but it just doesn't pay the bills anymore. The point is, in 10 seconds, I found jobs for physicists. They say that stipends / fellowships were not increased for 20 years. I do not love my job anymore. In a nutshell, the PI handed mi over a project, which I had to start from ground up myself. I think thats the type of thinking that makes academia so toxic. I don’t really go to many conferences. I had a steep learning curve to appropriately setup my LinkedIn acct. I've also gotten interviews when directors, CTOs, and hiring managers come across my LinkedIn page and message me. If you don't want to stay in academia, others will see the value in your past experience. At new gig I'm at the bottom of the totem pole. The guys on my team who did post docs etc all went through the same process after they left and there were times they regretted it. That service is in line with the missions and goals of this sub. I was regularly dealing with anxiety in graduate school and most of my academic career. You owe them nothing. The answer is zero. I currently have deathly ill family members and am on a leave of absence, I've received little to no emotional encouragement or support from uni or supervision, my primary supervisor abandoned me, literally left the university without telling me, promised he would still advise me from his new uni, but that hasn't really been happening and now I Our feelings are valid and important Reddit friend! Let's say, 50% decided to leave academia for some workshop. you aren't alone if you are leaving! I left academia escaping a toxic postdoc supervisor. My key piece of advice is don't let anyone on reddit or in person tell you that you're not qualified enough for an entry level professional job. You never know how someone will take you leaving. If you get a job, just move on. How they went from 0–>284 in 5 years then 284–> 1. Later on, as my coworkers left for other positions, they'd contact me and want me to join them. I felt really conflicted about leaving early from my postdoc, but I’m glad I did (tho I was ultimately never aiming to be a PI). By academia standards I'm doing well (TT assistant professorship at an ivy straight from my PhD), but I'm not sure my heart is in it anymore, especially as this job has made my partner and I long-distance. Some of that work looked like community organizing, some of it like public humanities, some of it like grassroots media work, some of it like arts administration. I had always wanted to have thoughtful, provoking discussions with students about intriguing topics. Not gonna lie, getting paid more and having better benefits is great. This idea that becoming a PI is the highest purpose and superior to other vocations. I'm close to submitting my PhD and I know (given my research output) that academia doesn't want to play with me anymore. Because he’s in industry (tech) he gets paid fairly for his work and has a I always knew the time would come when I would leave academia. admin isn't taking a pay cut, and they're spending more on dumb frippery while spending less on the actual instructors that are the engine and profit center for the whole school. There’s much talk about leaving academia for an industry job. I'm in the UK. Incredibly supportive and helpful (and private, and you can post anonymously if you wish) We are the Pun Patrol, keeping Reddit safe from puns since 2018. Also realise that if you get a "normal" job (outside of academia, or simply outside of academic research but maybe in a support role at a college/uni), you will likely work just your contracted hours on most weeks. My dh has a STEM PhD and he left academia for industry. But current academia is not the best thing that could have happened to it. Perfect place to build my craft. I am looking for someone who has been in academia and left successfully. The people I know who've stayed are either in remarkably healthy departments, or people who genuinely cannot imagine being happy doing anything else. That doesn't mean you shouldn't leave things in good order when you leave and it doesn't mean you're not free to help them however you want after leaving, but you don't owe them anything after leaving and you are perfectly free to simply ignore them if you feel like it. Fast forward a year and I'm still out of luck- I've sent 132 applications. I have secured a part-time job in the strategic communications industry that will help meet household expenses while I look for more substantial work. Great. Be professional, humble, and open to new ideas. Hiring in my country is never transparent or open, and most of the time they bring in their own people from their own country into the faculty. We have 48 happy-go-lucky research fellows, who hope to apply for their permanent job. I'm also about as hard to fire. Here, we can discuss I left academia and came back. Overall, the majority of my colleagues are glad they escaped academia. PTO varies, but dep. And that people leave academia because they couldn’t cut it. But I think asking about what matters to you and in what ways is a good place to start. What is your field that a job outside academia would pay less? In STEM, jobs outside academia usually pay (a lot) more. I'm running out of time, as I only have 2 months left and nothing concrete in hand. And there it is, the university is hiring again, 4 same spots this year. 6. I grieved for my academic career a long time before I actually left. And guess what, we have 100 more successful PhDs ready for action! u/leaving_academia. Two things have changed recently, which I think has made me wonder about leaving academia. I'm sure if I took longer than 10 seconds I could find jobs outside of academia specifically in theoretical solid state physics. Thanks for reading. It has to happen, actually, to many It also feels like a toxic political game built on exploitation and free labor. Take a read through the comments, it'll shed some light. I am having trouble identifying alternative career pathways, and I’ve been so burnt out Leaving academia feels right, but difficult because I worked so hard to be a good candidate, and I feel like once I leave the door is closed. Members Online. A few different things converged, but overall, Leaving academia, for me, meant starting over in many ways. These are just some of my favorite things as they apply to junior scientists 🧑🏾‍🔬👨‍🔬👩‍💻in academia aka academia’s primary research workforce. But academia has certainly failed nearly all of us. During my time working non-academic jobs over 2. At that time I had a lectureship at a good university but I was deeply unhappy with the job and restless. Academia is really good at weaponizing your passion to exploit you and enrich the institution. But years of 1-2% raises will quickly lower your comparative salary. My first jobs were in the industry but not in the DS area :/, I started my biotech career in food industry and then in quality control laboratories, after that, I entered academia. I actually do love research, but hated the other aspects of the job - the petty politics, gamesmanship, and in-fighting. I think it's important to understand the (now deleted) context in which OP's exchange occured. In a year from now I hope to defend my dissertation. Here, we can discuss reasons to leave or to stay, how to smoothe the transition and how to succeed "outside". As one of my professors put it, academia is about “having smart conversations with smart people”. . 33 applications and 5 interviews for 4 jobs later I finally got out of academia after being ranked 2nd and the 1st candidate declining their offer!! For example, if one of your reasons for leaving academia relates to pay or work-life balance, there are sectors/jobs that you'd maybe want to avoid. 7K subscribers in the gradschoolmemes community. You are not a failure for leaving academia, for any reason. Sorry to be so blunt but if you have decided that leaving Academia is the best. 🤷I left because institutionalized cycle of abuse was not for me, and because of how non-transparent, inefficacious, awkward, useless, and unpredictable NIH, its directorship, individual program officers, and funding mechanisms are. A reddit community for dental students (students studying to become dentists BDS, DDS, DMD, etc) to share the latest news, articles, ideas, and anything else pertaining to the field of dentistry. D. It’s less secure and predictable. Leaving Academia . My wife is now 4. You did the right thing. All the stuff about networking to me seems very middle+ class. This, for instance, would allow me to transition smoothly from academia, because the idea of completely leaving everything behind is also painful (Stockholm syndrome again, I guess) *In case you are wondering, I have a chronic medical condition that delayed my studies and finished my masters late. Yet if you leave the system, you may be cut off for good, and left to fend for yourself in a market that frequently doesn't seem to value academics (at least here in the U. I love I decided to leave academia in January, which was a few weeks after I defended my dissertation and midway through my first cycle on the market. So I'm about a year out from leaving a tenured position (microbiology) I was in for 7 years. I also got a sense that, perhaps, my having a teaching position earning money, saving up that retirement fund, worked against me in the PhD application cycle. I left to a state government senior scientist (biosecurity) position: Job security and pay - As a permanent government employee, I get paid about 50% more than I did as a prof and get 15. View community ranking In the Top 5% of largest communities on Reddit. has proved valuable after all. Finishing papers, performing incomplete experiments, etc is not your problem anymore. Mine offered to serve as a temporary adviser until I found a permanent adviser. Hi all! I apologize if this breaks any subreddit rules. 5 years, I did continue to publish because I still I'm leaving academia when I submit my thesis in a few months time so I've been looking for jobs and I wanted to share my success story. I still wonder about academia sometimes, but the extra money and time with my family are too important at this point. If you don't get personal or professional satisfaction from academics, then stop doing it. You're so right. 7K subscribers in the LeavingAcademia community. The whole academia industry is a sh*t-fest. You will need to look at how other industry scientists set up their accounts because the style is To be honest, any of us in the "Leave Academia" community should be all too aware of how academia has tricked us into gobs of unpaid labor for years. It has to happen, actually, to many people. I'm in the field of languages and literatures (not English). 100% planning to go back to industry. So, by the same logic initiating applications during a period of not teaching shouldn't be a big deal. I'm not completely sure if I want to leave academia for good - I genuinely love research and teaching, and there are a lot of things that I appreciate so much about my current lifestyle, which would be hard to find in other spheres. I mean leaving academia does not need to be "forever and ever". 4% on top of my salary as retirement. You can make so much more money, still get to explore scientific interests, and have work-life balance with 40-hour work weeks in industry (at least in STEM fields I’m familiar with). People in industry make way more - like double or triple - than in academia. It just feels strange to be so far into life and have had that rythym of school to structure life around. Or check it out in the app stores Two of my closest friends left academia for industry for the $$$. They're providing a service. However, it is a great idea to set up a portfolio with the projects and bioinformatic methodologies used in my PhD. One thing I think people overlook in comparing industry to academia - if you are talented and hardworking enough to be an academic, you will most likely be a top performer in industry if you find a good fit. Almost leaving academia, currently in between academia and industry but life could not have been better for me right now. Luckily a few papers trickled out from collaborations through that time, including a high impact one, and after the 3 years out I managed to secure another research position - in a less prominent institution, in a lower wage Even my PhD advisor left academia two years after I did (he was a tenured professor at an R1 but had been debating leaving for years), and is so much happier now. Biggest change from Hi there, I transitioned from academia a few years ago, too, after my PhD. Payoffs aren’t bad in and of themselves, as we Congrats! I left right after my PhD to consulting I still work on things I think are cool, I work with people who are more appreciative of my work. Members Online 2021 to 2022 marked the biggest decrease in US-citizen postdocs ever recorded. 2 million has an explanation, and I’d bet it’s completely specific to that person, not academia v industry. The friendlier part of Reddit. I was told by other people, with no evidence, that once I left, I wouldn't be able to go back. You're also leaving academia for industry, which is sacrilege in many academic circles (but not all). reddit's new API changes kill third party apps that offer accessibility features, mod tools, and other features not found in the To be honest, I want to leave the toxicity of academia anyway. You can succeed but expect blood sacrifices. I see posts online pretty regularly about how great it is leaving academia, and how I left out a lot of the actual toxic dealings with my PI because I would prefer not to get recognized. I feel lost and angry. They f*ck with people’s lives and Zero. I left after my PhD in English for instructional design and technical writing. Members Online Info for those considering leaving academia I didn’t leave academia, but I left the publish-or-perish part of it. I found out they were leaving academia like two weeks before the semester ended, and like a month before they moved out of state. The answer is leave academia. I used to idolize academia as a PhD student and now I feel so lucky I left after graduation. In the UK academia = all the stress of industrial work, 1/3rd higher workload for 1/2 the pay and 1/4 of the respect from management, plus in industry I was actually able to use my annual leave allowance! You don't need to leave academia necessarily. Over a decade ago I got a Ph. Which is lovely, but doesn't tell me they have any dev skills. Academic leaders (former professors) take advantage of and exploit administrative staff who are loyal and competent and will have zero interest in your career or personal development. My take is that when a passionate, motivated person leaves academia because of burnout and mental health issues (I’m dealing with much of the same and while I haven’t yet chosen to leave it’s becoming a bigger possibility by the day) it is not because they failed to accomplish their goal, it is because the Turns out, at least in my PIs eyes, I'm a sh** scientist. The same situation happened to me. 9. Over the past 10 years I feel like my job is becoming more and more like the schoolteacher job I left. However, I know the academia is harsh to people who wanna come back. I've decided to leave academia after my postdoc, mostly due to burnout/health concerns and, of course, the absolutely dismal job market. Reddit tends to be a pro-WFH echo chamber but a lot of people feel increasingly atomized spending most of their waking hours working in jobs where they have little-to-no actual contact with their co-workers. I understand that my situation may be very different from others with better mentors. And I speak as someone who has worked in both industry and academia. I feel so uncertain right now as I have never considered leaving academia until now and it felt like everything is just very chaotic and uncertain. I publish 1 paper a year. your "less money means less money" comment is addressed by like, the next couple paragraphs in the story. Like with all other ads, you're free to ignore and move on. ⁠Work-life balance is a myth. Both like the money but hate the newly restrictive work environment: they have *much* less time off, they have to work on certain things, etc. I've finally found a place that is in the I left academia after completing my PhD in Neuroscience at a top R1 for many reasons: burnout, abusive advisor, broken peer-review system (one of my papers only got I left being a schoolteacher to become a professor. I have 3 unpublished paper (1 first author, 2 co-authored), which should be published within this year. You will also repeatedly hear people brag about working when they should not. Check out the sidebar for intro guides. This might sound strange but once you have your list of skills/experience/duties, take a look at a thesaurus or do a quick Google to see what other words might be being used for those skills etc. Having a career in academia has been my main goal for the past several years and it has become a big part of my identity. I had a few post-doc and an assistant professorship position opportunities lined up, but the salaries are just so ridiculously low and the work conditions suck. On average, they give up about 1/5th of their earning potential in the first 15 years after finishing their doctorates (~$239,970) The most common problem I see with folks wanting to leave academia is they give me a resume more suited to a teaching job. S. Luckily it only cost me a couple of weeks of salary. for your life, you are worrying way too much about the job you are leaving. Second, a good I left academia about three years after completing my PhD. When do you leave academia? Whenever you feel that it is enough, postdoc positions can be used as an alternative to unemployment for a couple of months. My Ph. There's a whole genre of literature on the topic called "quit lit. Have a fun conversation about anything that is on your mind. I'm looking for some advice, anecdotes or wisdom to help me with the process of leaving my current postdoc. Post any questions you have, there are lots of redditors with admissions knowledge waiting to help. I feel as if I've reached a crossroads about what to Leaving academia happens all the time. In the current climate of guilty until proven innocent, even one false accusation by an angry coworker or student can result in a black mark against a professor Compared with peers who started working outside academia immediately after earning degrees, ex-postdocs make lower wages well into careers. This person doesn’t explain any of this at all. If you were to personify academia, though, I think it should feel guilty for letting you down, not the other way around. My first informational interview was awkward because the person was from a much higher background than mine and it was clear that it was that, not our shared transferable skills, that had opened doors for People don’t leave academia just because ‘they realized they wouldn’t make it to a PI position’. Getting a job for a while, a year, a decade might be just what I really need to eventually go back and not feel awful about it. I’ve been researching overwork/workaholism in academia, and a lot of the reasons we work so hard (and have sunk cost fallacy, tie our identities to our work, berate ourselves for being lazy, among other things) is because we’re hoping for some kind of payoff—emotional, financial, professional, etc. Can’t wait to retire. To sum it up, OP complains about not being paid enough in academia to afford living in one of the most desirable places to live in the world, then proceeds to call people who legitimately give advice trolls. But at the same time I like doing research even if I know that it would be unhealthy for me. In response I say "what I can't hear you over the jets on my hot tub". It’s really rough right now since I’m teaching 18 contact hours my first semester (due to a departmental crisis that struck a week and a half before the semester started), but I do love the work and am immensely relieved to have I am thinking of leaving a PhD program in the social sciences that I just recently started. First, I sold a large amount of crypto and have enough in savings to retire. LinkedIn is valuable for outside academia, but (at least my experience) mocked in academia. I hope your supervisors and others who supported you in academia understand how detrimental it was to you— for those who don’t understand, it’s all the more reason why your decision to leave was the right one. Have any of you left academia for the Civil Service? CSCareerQuestions protests in solidarity with the developers who made third party reddit apps. Spent a year training for, and then two years teaching highschool. Scan this QR code to download the app now. Leaving Academia can be hard, and people need to be brave to do it. Leaving academia happens all the time. Currently I’m 27, a Lecturer in Psychology, on £38k, and I have a PhD (subject to corrections). For context: over the last ~3 months I've been deciding to leave my postdoc and academia, for many reasons I won't go into here. It was very unexpected. I have wistful periods where I miss one part or another but I think that's because I my current job doesn't have much research more than anything to do with academia. Urge you to revise your mind Here, we can discuss reasons to leave or to stay, how to smoothe the transition and how to succeed "outside". I still wasn't 100% sold on the idea of leaving academia because of the sunken cost fallacy - it felt as if I would have wasted my time getting three degrees only to leave Academia for a job that doesn't require anything higher than a Bachelor degree. You’ll see a ton of helpful posts from people wanting to leave academia for greener pastures. The Reddit Law School Admissions Forum. It ultimately came down to me understanding that I was going to milked for cheap labor for 5+ years and could not mentally handle that. And I no longer want to play its game either. He won't be able to influence your career there. There are many places to go outside of academia, depending on which direction you chose there will be others if you don't like where you are. However, my job has left me at times feeling extremely stressed, working very long hours, and I mostly do administration. in molecular biology. However, toxicity tends to follow you in academia: leave a tenure-track job, even due to harassment, and you're blacklisted; leave a lab due to toxic practices, and you're blacklisted. ). You might think about a different school or a different program where there are better norms of collegiality if you are unhappy in your current department. A subreddit for memes relating to grad school, life as a graduate student, etc. Becoming a professor was my dream. I detest academia, but it looks like I will never be able to leave it. I’m a professor at a community college. Ask a question or start a conversation about (almost I left for a PhD in economics at a top school and have been there now for 7 years. Academia looks like it's not panning out, but I'm far more proficient in Yeah, leaving was so bittersweet - I loved my mentor and was making decent progress on my research projects. The reality of it is that my program is 5 years long. I left academia while I dealt with a serious long term health issue. I have been full time in academia for 2 years at a D3 SLAC, and I am not going back. However, I have been thinking a lot about what academia practically has to offer. I don't know where to go from here and I don't even know what I want to do. The weakest schools are going out because the strong ones are eating their lunch. Follow the lunch to find a better place to I would like to add to this to-do list: 2hr of required training to learn the new purchasing and travel reimbursement systems that the university adopted (meanwhile campus wide orders are backlogged by 2 months because of this) reading comprehension this person makes $54k/year as a tenured professor with a PhD . So when I left academia the first time, I transitioned into mostly nonprofit work rooted in social movement spaces, mostly at cultural arts organizations. Look in the major part of academia that is doing pretty well to very well. The only thing I've been successful at landing is a part-time teaching job at a community college. A community of individuals who seek to solve problems, network professionally, collaborate on projects, and make the world a better place. I just wanted to share a website I founded called After Your PhD. It's the right choice for some people. I wanna leave for a year and wait for the papers to get through the publication procedures. Looking for advice from people who have worked in academic and left. Don't risk it. Now, going for consulting roles so all the stuff shared on this thread is helpful. 31 votes, 14 comments. It's clearly laid out and up front. zrsacr pgusvhf bolwz pxqlc oobheqch wput saejz bsqxznba kkbntv zrjdqm wto hsbzpeg yza skzl nvyfo