R.I.P. my academic career

X Dr Hanson — Reflections

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Why did I even bother with a PhD?

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X Jack H — Reflections

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It didn't help that fem-radical (Misandry) Social Services purposefully moved me back into Milton Keynes in 2006 intentionally messing up my GCSEs and thus leaving me to go through Key Skills every Academic season. Time ran out and I had to chose between: a life of crime and homelessness to get the money to complete the courses needed for my dreams; A life of dead-end minimum wage jobs that make no difference in the world. Being on the ace end of the spectrum, I now merely exist ._.

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X VC — Reflections

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There lies the minority who fought to not be tokenized, needed an income, drown in debt and got denied tenure. She tried, she failed, she did not survive🥀

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X Unemployed PhD — Reflections

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Dead dreams take long to rot.

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X Bp — Reflections

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He’s in a better place now and no longer suffering.

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X JS — Reflections

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Still, and always will be hopeful

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X Recent Ph.D. Grad — Reflections

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Great idea! I hope that this helps me find closure.

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X Meritorious Anon — Reflections

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Teaching writing is thankless work.

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X A. Z. B — Reflections

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Having a child in academia is a bad idea.

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X CD — Reflections

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Thank you for this site! Didn't realise how much I needed to mark the loss of what I thought was going to be my career (I've gone from precarious Associate Lecturer to full time lecturer to part time precarious RA and I'm on my way out for good!).

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X AAH — Reflections

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Academia is a caste system for desperate vampires.

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X Tim Rayner — Reflections

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Academia, by design, focuses attention on one's own goals, at the expense of the team and the overall objective. It doesn't have to be that way, and often in industry, it isn't.

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X CP — Reflections

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I found life on the other side

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X RDK — Reflections

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Why court the one holding the ax? Shun the woodsman and seek the favor of children and travelers instead.

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X R.C. — Reflections

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Add in an unsupportive supervisor, ruined mental health, and the two body problem... it's just not worth it!

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X AMO — Reflections

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She dared quit a tenure track job for her mental health. Forever shunned.

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X Jane Doe — Reflections

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I managed to avoid the worst parts of the academic underbelly: deep debt, mental breakdown, health crisis. But I stepped off the VAP merry-go-round when I realized that no matter what I did, I was always going to end up back in the same place. My epitath is a means to reclaim agency and subvert the narrative.

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X Hannah Alpert-Abrams — Reflections

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byeeeee

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X BJ — Reflections

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It's so frustrating to know that departments keep churning out folks with advanced degrees, but then refuse to open up hiring to anyone but adjuncts. What's the point of any of this?

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X DR — Reflections

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Brilliant scholar left broken by racism and discrimination in STEM

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X GMS — Reflections

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Great to have a place to remember and to mourn our attempts into this crazy academic life.

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X RBW — Reflections

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It took my father's death in the first year of my tenure-track position to realize the sickness and anxiety working in academia caused was NOT the legacy I wanted to leave for myself, my students, and my children.

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X LRG — Reflections

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This isn't how it is supposed to be.

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X FPM — Reflections

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Didn't realize that bootstrapping through taking customer service roles would undermine my credibility by *that much.*

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X CS — Reflections

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"You're not a good fit"

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X S.E.N. — Reflections

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Well I wasn't even let in to begin a career in Academia.

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X R — Reflections

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Research that was not trendy enough and a last spark of self-worth drove me out.

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X AJH — Reflections

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If you were meant to be an academic and didn't become one, you must find a way to live like a pianist who lost their hands. Learn to live through the music of others.

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X Altha Jane Cravey — Reflections

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I sued my chair and UNC over sex discriminiation and retaliation and retired abruptly a year ago (as part of the legal settlement). I'm glad to see a site like this where I can express my grief and my rage.

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X LF — Reflections

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Lack of support surrounding disowns long term illness. Exceptions made to my healthy male peers but not available for me

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X NJM — Reflections

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I still mourn even though I’ve been out 4 years and enjoy my career now. Academia is a helluva cult.

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X DM — Reflections

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I never fully pictured myself as an academic but was always told I could make it, that it would fulfill me. Paper success in graduate school fueled unrealistic expectations of academic potential. The reality is, my "pessimistic" view on the professoriate is an optimistic hope for actual happiness.

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X SP — Reflections

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Very satisfying

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X OB — Reflections

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Got funding cut from the dream job: realised that the dream job shouldn't make you constantly stressed and miserable

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X Rainbow — Reflections

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When you walk away from a prestigious institution, you take your skills and experience with you wherever you go.

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X Liz B — Reflections

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Sadly I surrendered the dream. Ridiculous pressure to produce voluminous, mindless content, feed egos, and plagiarised ideas to build selfish careers. Academia should be a place to think, be creative, improve the human condition and spirit, but the ablist, neoliberial university is mind crushing and soul destroying for early career academics.

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X BB — Reflections

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Great idea, and sad

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X Neizvestnyi — Reflections

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Between cuts affecting my master’s program, an advisor who left to administer and one year of minimum wage pay for a teaching job requiring that MA I quit before starting a PhD.

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X WCO6 — Reflections

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I have completely run out of you know whats to give.

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X Harpy — Reflections

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Thanks for this mourning service, much needed as so many of us move forward into more nourishing lines of work.

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X BJS — Reflections

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I spent 20y trying to balance escalating workloads with raising neurodiverse kids, and held everything together during first COVID lockdown, only to be threatened with job loss if I didn’t switch to a non-research position (while working on two grant projects). Discovered I had a spine and took VR.

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X Jennifer Polk — Reflections

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As it turns out, the afterlife is way more fun and interesting than she imagined.

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X Former Assistant Professor ASF — Reflections

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Much happier where I am. I only miss teaching and meeting my best colleagues at conferences.

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X MeghanBPhD — Reflections

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Georgia Nugent is evil.

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X Alexis Santos — Reflections

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He probably still wants to run one more model.

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X EJWB — Reflections

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Me and the current academic culture kept clashing. I didn't like the expectation I should work 50+hours a week, over 6-7 days a week to progress my career, and be willing to move around the country and/or across the world. I felt guilty about this. I tried to adapt. I didn't like the focus on individual progression, on individual brilliance and exceptionalism, I wanted to be part of a brilliant team, not brilliant alone. In the end I accepted trying to adapt was making me more ill. It seemed impossible to reasonably accommodate managing my neurodivergence and chronic health conditions in the prevailing culture. I reluctantly left, finding a job where I could work less than 40 hours a week, over 4-5 days a week, serve the public directly, and be rewarded for collaborating well with others. It suits me better. But the research I wanted to pursue around what people perceive as a safe place, where we find pockets of safety in risky places, how we define and represent safety and for whom. How we have more safe and inclusive places. Research I wanted to start and find collaborators for. Research I still think is sorely needed. It didn't happen. I initially hoped I could go back to it at some point. And now I'm not sure I ever will. I am doing good and beneficial work where I am. Maybe I'll actually make a bigger contribution to Scotland doing what I do now. But over 3 years on I till grieve the loss of this sometimes.

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X Black Dragom — Reflections

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In the end, the commitments and long hours doesn’t mean anything to anyone. When they’re done with you they’ll kick you out the door

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X Grad Stud - Postdoc - Contingent — Reflections

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Higher Ed stinks.

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X Andrew Johnson — Reflections

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My heart is broken anew every day.

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X Anonymous — Reflections

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Home of broken dreams

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X Jakob Williams Oerberg — Reflections

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Universities are not yet ready for criss cross careers… other things are wrong too —> read more tombs!

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X Elisa, PhD ABD — Reflections

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In 1 of 2 US degrees in my field;

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X DISESTABLISHED — Reflections

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For shame!

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X SW — Reflections

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I am enjoying my role of finding the kimwipes for your students you are too busy to supervise

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X A — Reflections

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Don't got the courage to quit yet but PhD seems so impossible after 6+ yrs away

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X HB — Reflections

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ABD dropout. Now an adjunct. Don't know how long I'll continue as an adjunct with the dismal pay. I do love teaching though.

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X K.K. — Reflections

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Thanks for this!

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X CB — Reflections

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Work until you croak. Still don’t make enough to pay rent.

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X AD — Reflections

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I'm leaving in joyful defiance of all my well-meaning and fearful colleagues who don't dare imagine they could be happy and secure somewhere else. See ya.

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X AS — Reflections

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Tired of being unhappy; learned I could thrive elsewhere

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X K Giles — Reflections

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There is a better after-life.

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X AJF — Reflections

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Precarity was not my style.

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X Dr. Leahcim Semaj — Reflections

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I read the game early and escaped to the real world. Free to be my best self. No Limits.

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X AA — Reflections

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The admin sent armed cops every time we passed out fliers to our fellow workers

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X Dr. GFR — Reflections

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I spent my whole life aspiring to a career and industry - highly educated academics - that I later discovered was abusive, manipulative, and unsafe. Even when I had personal challenges I was unsupported. It was incredibly hard to leave but I'm so glad I did.

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X Jenna E. — Reflections

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Like many political scientists, when Sandy Hook happened in 2012, she began a new line of research. But there was plenty of work in the area already. If academics can’t prevent school shootings, why bother? On top of this malaise, she suffered a chronic two body problem and a sudden miscarriage proved fatal.

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X The Ginger Dwarf — Reflections

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When an investigation is underway, make sure you know what outcome the University desires and then coverup and lie for them if need be

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X Eli Rose — Reflections

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I spent 15 years in academia, counting graduate school. In the end, working in academia was a disaster for me — not just economically, but also emotionally, politically, morally and for my family. I finally left and found another career instead. I don't idealize academia. I'm happier. But I still mourn the losses. It's the loss of no longer getting to teach, to read, to do research. It's the loss of my own expertise and experience, and the decline of some of my social relationships and networks. I mourn the suffering I went through, the psychological damage and the sheer wasted time. And I disliked the pressure to constantly find a silver lining and stay optimistic no matter what. I want space for all those thoughts. The better to work through them.

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