Eight Signs That You Might Be Ready to Leave Academia (and How to Decide)
Since I left academia (read more about my story here), I’ve been surprised by how many other academics want to hear about how I made my decision. Ultimately, this came about due to a variety of factors, but was influenced by my deep unhappiness with my job and some aspects of academic life (including the long work hours, low pay, and unrelenting stress).
Lately, several of the faculty whom I’ve talked with about this issue want to know how I knew that it was time to leave (I’m now an academic developmental editor and coach so have this conversation a lot!). My guess is that most of us who leave aren’t 100 percent sure that we want to; after all, we’ve put years (sometimes decades) into getting our PhDs and pursuing academic careers. But here are some of the things that stood out as signs that indicate it was maybe time to go. When possible, I also suggest exercises you might try to help you figure out how you really feel about leaving.
I am a white cisgender woman anthropologist who was in a tenure-line position at a regional liberal arts college so my background obviously affects my experience; but I think that many of these observations apply to people of different backgrounds and/or academic tracks.
1
You are unhappy in your job. Ok, I know that this one sounds obvious. But the trick is that it isn’t always easy to know how unhappy you are with your job. How unhappy is too unhappy? Again, there isn’t a neat answer to this question, but here are some things I would pay attention to. How do you feel on Sunday night? Are you dreading Monday the way I did? Do you find yourself often up at night feeling anxious and stressed about your job? Are there certain times of the semester when you feel miserable or does your unhappiness extend throughout the whole semester?
An exercise you could do to try and suss out how unhappy you are with your job is to keep a daily journal where you track your feelings about work. You wouldn’t have to write a lot (or maybe even anything), but consider rating each day on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being a day when you feel happy with your work experience and 1 being one where you really do not). Then use these rankings to track trends over time. This can give you a clearer sense of how you really feel in your work. If you rate most days on the unhappy side of the scale, that’s something to take seriously. But if the unhappy days fall primarily at busy times of the semester (midterms, etc.), maybe the negative feeling are more situational. Jotting notes about what made you feel happy or unhappy each day might also help you to determine what aspects of your job are contributing to your feelings.
2
Rewards have stopped feeling like rewards. Sometimes rewards are pretty weird in academia. Like if you get asked by a higher-up official (Chair, Dean, Provost etc.) to serve on a special committee, thus having to do more unpaid labor, this is considered a reward. But uncompensated work aside, this important person is singling you out as someone who is competent and has a real contribution to make to the university. How do you feel when asked to do things like this? Are you excited to contribute (some people really are)? Or do you feel annoyed and angry? If it’s the latter, this is a sign that you at least haven’t super bought into the culture. The more I got asked to do, the more I found myself resenting how this was eroding my personal time.
3
You don’t want to do what your more senior colleagues are doing. We all know that the more time you spend at an institution the more you will be asked/expected to do. This is obviously true for tenure-line faculty, but also can be true for contingent faculty. When you look ahead to your future, how do you feel? Do you want to be chair or director of undergraduate studies? What other roles will you likely be asked to take on at one point or another? If the idea of occupying these positions fills you with dread (as it did me!), that’s something to pay attention to. Because that’s very likely your future.
4
You feel lonely. Do you feel isolated in your work? Do you feel like the competitiveness of academia makes it difficult to build relationships? I had wonderful colleagues at my institution, but often felt on the fringes of the discipline at academic conferences or other gatherings (I think many folks at smaller teaching schools feel this way). This wasn’t enough to push me out of the profession, but it did make me feel like I might benefit from a profession where I would feel more confident and less competitive. Many faculty of color or other minority groups also feel isolated at their institutions. If this is the case for you, think about whether there are genuine attempts among the administration, faculty and staff to help make all community members feel welcome as full, valued parts of the campus community. If not, that could be a sign that this school isn’t the right match for you.
(Note, if you want to try and build some new forms of community, I’m hosting some upcoming scholarly writing groups. You can learn more and sign up here).
5
You can’t afford it. How much are you making? How much does it cost you to live right now? Are there things that are important to you that you are putting off because of your salary (or lack thereof)? Is it worth it? Many of us accept low salaries in academia (as adjuncts, lecturers, and often even tenure-line profs). This can definitely be worth it. Some people do it because they feel this work gives them freedom and flexibility and summers off. But if you don’t already, I’d encourage you to think through your budget (maybe even write it out) and your financial goals and see whether your current salary is enough. And, honestly, I don’t miss having the summers off much since I am now able to easily take time off at other parts of the year. I’ve heard others who left academia say similar things. So if you’re feeling unhappy, think carefully about whether the perks that are keeping you there are really worth it.
6
Your job clashes with your core values. This isn’t an easy one to tease out either because it requires doing some hard thinking about who you are and what is important to you. The idea of core values is that you should identify the values that you truly believe in and then make career (and general life) decisions that align with them. When I first started thinking about this in a formal way, I realized that some of my values included building community, fostering strong ties with family, exercising control over my time, and having flexibility in my schedule. I also care about feeling centered and in control. The more I thought about the things that are really important to me, the more I wondered if academia was the best fit. Here’s an exercise my therapist shared with me to help you start thinking through your core values. You can then reflect on how your work relates to these values.
7
You feel really angry. How mad are you at work? And what are you mad at? Students? The administration? Continued racism and sexism in the academy? That old white mansplainy professor in your division (many of us are mad at him!!!!)? My guess is that almost no one is never mad at work. But then the next question is, how mad are you? Is your anger proportional to what is going on? Is it something you can leave behind at work or does it seep over into the rest of your life? In my last year or two in academia, I felt angrier than I ever had before and it was very hard to let go of what sometimes felt like a burning rage at the end of the day. I didn’t like who I was in that anger and it was a big part of what made me realize it was time for me to go. If you can identify the sources of your anger, think through whether there are things you can do to help improve them (or whether you can find support from others to help change them or figure out how to deal with them). But, if not, this might be a sign that it’s time for a change.
8
You’re not super excited about teaching. Or research. Or service. Ok, we all have parts of our jobs that we don’t like (as an editor, I don’t love writing contracts, for example). So I think the thing here is to try and be really honest with yourself about how you feel about each of the major pieces of your work. One of the challenges of this is that most of us were taught in graduate school that we should love research. So it took me a long time to admit that I really didn’t like doing some major parts of research in my discipline (like the field research, which is an essential part of most anthropological projects). Most of us can probably do fine in a job where we aren’t super excited about one area, but if you find yourself not liking several of these areas, you might want to think pretty hard about whether this is the right career for you.
Drawing on the exercise from sign #1, you might try rating how you feel about these areas daily (scholarship, teaching, and service). If you find that you don’t like one area, but the other two are pretty good, maybe there is a way to decrease your commitments in your least favorite area and increase them in the others. Tracking these feelings, could also push you to make changes to a particular area (like before I left, I was thinking about turning to more archival research to avoid fieldwork). Just be sure to be honest in your ratings. It’s how you feel, not how you imagine others think you should feel!
It's ok to not like academia. And you might very well not like some parts of this job, but decide that the parts you like make staying worth it. Hopefully, some of the above exercises will help you to figure out how you are feeling about your job right now. If you’re looking for some more details, I chart in a bit more detail how I personally realized it was time to leave here.
If you are feeling pretty miserable, believe me that it’s possible to find something that makes you happier. It might take a while and require some work, but anyone with a PhD in any field has the skills and smarts to start on a new, intellectually stimulating career path. And you may also be able to find a position in an institution that is a better fit or find ways to make academia work better for you. Good luck in making this decision and know that you very much aren’t alone!
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