I stayed a postdoctoral associate and adjunct instructor until my late thirties. Leaving academia was hard but once I did it my real life started. Best thing that I did.

90% of people in academia will relate to this

I left Academia lest year and are now in the industry. I have lived in burnout, feeling of meaninglessness for years but feeling there is nothing awaits for me outside Academia. I was told my contract would not be prolonged week after I came back from my Mother's funeral. Started applying outside Academia but it was hard as my CV wasn't right, but got help and find a job. Taking entry level in late 30s is hard but better than meaningless, post-doc like jobs in Academia. I got federal fellowship, I was involved in federal grants, got 38 papers in PubMed but felt like loser. Still feel all after my PhD is a waste of time and need to live with feeling I blunder away 9 years of my life. I have no one to socialize but I have stable job and with experience can get better job in better location and not blasted countryside I hate. I was applying for jobs in major cities but so many years of Academia did not help. Now I started new chapter in my life and at least I am no longer wasting my life. To all reading this comment: leave Academia ASAP. No matter how hard you work, most of you will never get tenure-tract position. No one cares what you know but who do you know. Academia job market is extremely completive and 10% of PhD graduates has chance to stay. Don't make mine or other people's mistake. Leave Academia, think how your skills will be transferable, what you can add. Academia is toxic environment of lowly paid, unstable, fixed-term contracts. It is fine for those in 20s but this is all. Academia freedom and flexibility is not worth your mental health. I waited too long. Don't repeat my mistakes.

Still fighting for a permanent position. Earned over a million in grants over 4 years since my PhD. Published plenty. Created new collaborations with 3 different universities (and an internal one). Created and taught a new course. Turned down for positions given to people 6 years my junior straight out of their PhD. No papers. No grants. Correct ethnicity and/or gender. Kinda done with it if im honest. Kinda really fucking done with it.

Imagine your journey, except having terrible, bad psycho anti mentors... this has been the journey for me... I think I have been surviving just to prove them wrong... which is wrong... I love science but I don't respect the way the system works... and specially the injustice and the rampant lack of shame that many of they actors present every day when they are micromanaging, harassing (work and sexually -yess), passive aggressiveness and open aggression... anyways im still here... Thanks for sharing. you are very brave.

Oh boy... I relate too much with everything you brought up :/ Edit: thanks for sharing your experience, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to hear someone else feel this way

I can relate to it. I left the industry in 2014 and started pursuing a master's in India and Phd degree in the US. Looking at my advisor's condition. I decided to shift to Industry again with better perks and pay packages this time.

Got it. I'm there now. Sort of quiet quitting.

Yep, totally. I didn’t give a s*#t about what I did or published while I was a postdoc. So glad that I left academia. The time to make a choice is always now, not later.

I absolutely relate to the apathy part. This video showed up for me just as I'm about to take the plunge of quitting my academia job, especially since I've been recently denied promotion after years of working as an adjunct instructor. Thank you for your honesty and insight!

I have been an MD for 20 years. After the pandemic, my job became unbearable. My life was heavily affected by the new conditions in which it was supposed that a doctor and medical researcher had to work: no rights, continued psychological abuses, no respect. I started a psychological consult, and it helped me to regain myself. I am a human, have my rights, and deserve respect: if, after 20 years, this is not clear, it is time to leave. I have saved during my career, so money was not an issue. I resigned on July 1st, the best day in my life. I will remember forever my responsible screaming at me: "You cannot do this! (plus various insults)" and me smiling and telling her: "I already did; have good times." I graduated in philosophy in less than a year. Now, I am a writer for an excellent philosophical magazine. I am also a consultant for an ADV company, where my skills are appreciated. I do not work more than I can: I am trying to work the less I can. It is not easy to quit, but if you reach the "enough is enough" point, it is the best decision you can make. We are not a job; we are human beings.

How does KZfaq know that I am struggling with this? I hate my actual position (Associate professor), I'm not too fond of the papers and the little help the university gives to my research. But I love my students, and the projects I develop with them. At this moment, I don't feel burnout, and I still like my job... It is an important job that influences a lot of people.

Very good video! I can really relate to the points even though my situation is quite different. Just speaks for the quality and thought behind all of it 👍

Before starting college, I spent 6 years in the US Marines (most of that time infantry). I was young; I thought I could do anything! It didn't hold a candle to grad school, though. The competitiveness, the brownnosing, the backstabbing, every waking hour taken up by research. I discovered that I hated teaching, though, so I dropped out and went on to do other things. I still have friends who went on to finish their Ph.D, and then teaching, and talking to them is like talking to a strict religious practitioner - academia is all they know, their only point of reference. All I can think is, "How did I get so lucky?"

Great video!!! Could you make a video on how you transitioned from academia to industry? How long did it take you to find a job you want, and how did you go about applying, networking, etc.?

Thank you SO much for this video. As an organizational psychology graduate student contemplating leaving academia, this video was immensely helpful and resonated so much.

This video and others have helped me a lot; great stuff and I look forward to more of your videos!

Oh, you exactly described how I feel about my employment in academia. I had all the feelings but couldn't find the right words, but you captured my feelings exactly. Thank you for this video.

Sounds like you have an intuitive mind and ways of making decisions and it works for you. So well done! I am curious what happened to your career next!

Omg totally relate. I am now on 4th year of phd and the only thing left to do is to write my thesis. I think about dropping out everyday, however first I decided to go on a therapy and then decide. Guys Keep fingers crossed for me!!

Excellent! Hope the change do you good.

I take my job in academia very seriously … I got m my full professorship and my teaching media is also 100. But my challenge is that the environment of corporate politics hurt me. Jealously since I got my professorship by few people has hurt me. So many narcissistic people but I assume they are everywhere? I have a hard time to say to abusive people to Stop a lot given to how I built my career myself with no help and it became really traumatic and this is not easy to overcome. I love academic work but not the corporate life. Unlike what others wrote here I am not into funding applications or networking. I am pretty a scholar with understanding industry and good teaching. That is why I love my work and corporate stuff are hurting. I m afraid many people in academic environments must leave and leave the place for people who are into this job. Some people have no prospect and don’t leave and cause corporate politics. I always encourage my students to just do what you love and be good in that.

I wasnt an academic but was a corporate lawyer for many years. I'm now chasing a career as an electronic nusic producer, so a lot of the reasons you gave for leaving i strongly resonate with. Thanks for the video!

I totally relate, looking forward to see more of your story

Love this video! And wow the thing that your friend said was exactly the same sentence my brother told me when I finished PhD. Talking to someone we trust is very important indeed.

Hi Cheryl thank you so much for sharing this. It is clear, articulate and relatable. I also watched your other video and you keep saying that we should leave for right reason, not only running away from something, which is very true. However, I also have difficulties in articulating what my aim and I want, all I know is just I don't want to be in academia anymore, and that thought started 1.5 year into my PhD (3 years ago) and now I am doing postdoc. In your next video can you talk about it more. How you navigate yourself toward what you want if you are kind clueless about it? Should we check our core value? Should we see the sector in industry? etc. Thank you so much.

I left a tenured lectureship in English twenty years ago, for similar reasons. Fortunately, I had also majored in Economics in my first degree, and that got me a job in the Australian Treasury. It took me a couple of years to find an area I liked working in, and I didn't climb the greasy pole--but I was earning more than I had as a senior lecturer in NZ, and as a junior employee I could go home at 5pm. I bought myself a hammer and saw and built a house, and I spent my evenings reading what I wanted to, rather than marking endless student essays. I've gone on publishing, but only when I had something to say. There were small humiliations, like having your prose edited by illiterates, but I've certainly been much happier having stepped off the pointless hamster wheel. Academia was still a happy place when I was a student in the 70s and 80s, but once we let the dementors (I mean the managerialists) in, they sucked the life out of it.

I came to academia later in life after having experienced many other jobs. .There is so much to keep you interested in teaching subjects you love. Sometimes we need experiences to appreciate what we have. There are certainly negative points to academia, but, comparatively speaking, an academic position is better than much that is out there,. Keep in mind that people think jobs will fulfill them in some way. This is not the case for any job. Life-satisfaction involves a list of items, most probably.. There are people who go through a PhD and are done with writing papers or research . To that, I would say go into something else. If you like research, academia is a good option. So, I would defend academia to a point, and that is based on the amount of jobs that are far more boring and useless. When you talk about the best part of your day was going to the gym, keep in mind that you had the time to do that. Many do not. Nevertheless, I thank you for the signs that are outlined; they are helpful.

You remind me of Brit Marling (essay content and vocal inflections). She "quit" the corporate Wall Street scam and moved to LA to make movies. We all need to take chances. Thanks for sharing your path.

Feeling this right now, everything you're saying is stuff I've hit on. However, I'm deeper in than you were- I got tenure just now and can tell you it's MUCH worse the longer you stick around. Salary compression in the academy is brutal and you will actually end up getting paid less as a person with tenure than a brand new hire. And in my university the hierarchies across fields (STEM vs not) mean my department was always getting shit on. Academia operates by entrapping and exploiting- We aren't taught how to prepare our CVs or resumes for non academic jobs and the longer we are there the more the sunk cost becomes. But at the same time, the scale your institution's leverage against increases. By year 10, you've bought a house, would be passed over as overqualified for many transitional positions, and are trying to start a family. All this makes it harder and harder to bail out. And don't get me started on the cult-y vibe around the "life of the mind." I love the flexibility academia has afforded my life, but it's a very, very sick institutional setting for a lot of people.

Wow this is so relatable. Have been feeling the exact same way recently in academia. Thank you for sharing!

Academia doesn’t value my technical skill set other than teaching ability. Thinking about starting my own company.

Crazy times when we have to like ouur jobs and fell great about them... a job is a mean, not a destiny. However, good for you if your live is better now.

It's been more than three years since I quit my permanent teaching position and moved to another city for settling down. It felt really good initially to quit and I looked forward to a new set of opportunities. But, in the competitive market, I haven't found another position. I remain jobless, very distracted and anxious, unable to progress and produce good academic articles. With a PhD in Humanities, I don't think if there is anything interesting in the industry for me. Hopefully I'll get new perspectives on my current situation soon. Some of the comments here are, and your video of course, is comforting and making me less guilty for resigning.

I got my PhD at 39. Along with it, a big mental illness diagnosis. 2 years on, still being advised to apply for postdocs - finding it very hard to simply quit -- the feeling of one more application being all i need to write to get the big break. Meanwhile im anxious and understimulated, and chronically bored. 😢 thanks for the wisdom of this video. 😢

Wow, great video.

I can relate but I still love my research for now. I have almost never however seen a post doc with a year of salary saved. It possible to leave without that, scary but possible.

I am in a casual academic research job ATM. I got it after 10 months of being unemployed. It is important research on Covid and satisfying intellectually. I would swap for a more secure job but nobody will let me move out of the university sector.

The apartment is a huge plus, good find. I'll agree w/ most of what she's saying as long as you actually do deep work and go external first. Then go internal. The temper and flare ups are a good unhealthy sign that you need to leave yes. I'm a little resentful of her for being able to talk to her parents about this lol. I can't. Does anyone else have "simple" parents and feel that way? I'm changing careers to tech and because there are already a few tech people in my fam, they're not really "impressed" because I wasn't one of the first to get into it. I hate it lol

So what did you do instead? What sort of job did you go to after? I'm not in academia per se, but I studied for 5 years to be a teacher (high school), and I'm 2,5 years into the profession at the moment. Feelin' a bit disenchanted, lacking motivation etc. I feel like I wouldn't want to stay here for the rest of my life. And I don't want to become one of those unmotivated teachers that make school seem pointless for the students... However, I don't know that I have a back-up plan. I don't really know what I would do with my time if I quit. I wouldn't have direction. So I'm curious. When you quit your job, did you have a plan whatsoever?

omg, I can't relate more.

one gets paid so much less in academia and has to work way harder, this is a place needs a lot of passion for the job itself and one can afford the low return. it is not for everyone. I worked in academia for 20 years, and left it 4 years ago. I would say academic career takes certain type of person, who is good at applying funding and networking, which I am none of both.

Just do it! There's light at the end of the tunnel. There's so much world out there to explore.

I have a question. What you said resonates with me. However, your retirement pland could be possible thanks to your academic job in the first hand? salary, other non financial benefit, social capital etc. Can u elaborate on that?

Am quitting soon too This really resonates with him The system is corrupted especially in publishing

I guess for me it was the opposite. I remember finishing my masters and turning onto the freeway to drive home and thought "Finally, I'm free, fuck that place I'm going somewhere else for a PhD and..." suddenly I had to pull over, had a panic attack....The panic attacks would appear every time I thought of going back for a PhD afterwards, even another school, as I knew my supervisor would try to sabotage my efforts [as he had promised he would]. I decided not to go back. It is strange, I can handle meeting horrific people and work conditions outside of academia, but I don't hold others to the same standard. Academia for me is arguably worse because if anything I find most of the people involved the most brutally selfish, self-promoting, and unapologetically arrogant pricks I have ever had to deal with. The few I met that were good people didn't matter, they rarely have any power, as the system is sick AF.

I imagine a person with a PhD in organizational psychology has the luxury of quitting a tenure track job. There are a number of jobs that could be done in the business world or consulting. Many disciplines don't afford that luxury. Getting a tenure track job is like winning a job lottery. There are very few university teaching jobs compared to the number of PhDs on the job market. Think of many PhD in the humanities and some social sciences. There are not that many options in the real world. Think of a PhD in Classics or Comparative Literature.

What are you doing now instead? I'm working on my PhD in biochem and I'm already feeling like this.. I think I want to go into industry leading a team and working with machines

Great video, Cheryl. I left academia (history) 20 yrs ago now. I enjoyed my role much more than (from the sound of it) you do, really appreciated many aspects, but I really didn't feel it was the "right" fit at that stage and I was looking ahead thinking, what would I be like in five, ten...yrs if I stay put. I think the demands of the sector have only got worse since then. As regards telling other people: I wouldn't tell any colleauges until you've told your boss. These things have a way of getting around it's known that you're leaving, your position has changed overnight to "departure lounge". Geeky YT q: how do you do the blue "slide in from the left" background with text? I've been trying to find something like this (for Final Cut Pro) for ages, with no success. Is it a plug-in?

As a last-year phd student, I can relate so much to your video. I've been thinking about getting a postdoc job lately, but the idea only makes me even more anxious, and I feel exactly like I am stepping into someone else's race, since I was only starting to consider a postdoc job when my peer students were competing to get one. I constantly feel burnt out, even after a day off or a 12-hour sleep. I had nightmares about mixing my supervisor and a mobster I saw on TV.......I spent more time fixing my mental state than working on my thesis. Now, I decide to find an administrative job instead of an academic job, and I can feel the pressure leaving my body....

I lived inside the academia vicious cycle for too long, so I can relate to this

That's so funny. I'm having a reverse situation where there's something inside me nagging "I should be doing academic research!"

Insightful

I work in an university as faculty. I care a shit about what others say or do. I do things my way my time. I dont work on holidays. Thats the only way u can retain sanity in academia.

You are smart and brave.

It seems that Academia suffered a strong process of precarization... may be better to do something about it. Unions in other countries also work this sector.

The pointlessness is really horrible. It is a really bad sign when you realise that the paper that you are writing is for only one reason, and that is to add to your c.v. The research isn't interesting, it doesn't solve a real problem, it just is there because you have to have an output. Then it gets rejected, and you have to make major changes to this paper that you didn't want to write in the first place. Several people I know left to go to industry, and they now work on things that have a purpose. I retired.

Permanent lectureship?

UGH, you can make the same amount of money as a high school teacher in the US.

1:13 😅 sameee

Why no one talks good stuff about PhD? Everyone just say this is BA's thing to do. Is there anyone that satisfy?

We follow you on some social media platforms?

Quit my shitty academic job as well. Thanks to Jordan Peterson, whose wise words gave me the courage to do so.

A lot of kvetching here from somebody who appears to occupy a luxury apartment.

The research part is pointless. No one who makes decisions will ever read it. The teaching part, though…

Nice apartment

Some people are quitters. I prefer to get fired. Then I get fired up!

People who feel the way you describe are not the ones at the top, not the ones doing invigorating ressearch that pushes their discipline forward. You instinctively recognized that you are mediocre as an academic. Your speech here sounds nothing like the words of visionsries, the movers and shakers, in each discipline. It's good that you left, because you were likely doing more harm than intended in the classroom. It would be better if you recognized that you weren't cut out to be a professor. There is no shame in admitting you chose the wrong career. More academics need to be reflexive, and analyze their life goals before committing to a career in the scademy. If you have the teaching mindset, and it's truly your passion, you won't wash out--you'll thrive.

Great. So glad to see that rich, beautiful, young people in a high-paying, ivory tower job can just pop right into ANOTHER high-paying job without too much trouble. Meanwhile, at 51, I'm stuck with a car that doesn't run, forced to stay home and NOT work while my rich young millennial spoiled brat narcissist roommate leaves me to feed his dog while he bangs his gf in another state.

Pity she doesnt have a real phd

2:00 "there are more important things I could contribute to the world" ... by becoming a youtube influencer?

Cientific research is 100% artificial intelligence

Sorry, losing focus as u are so beautiful, captivating, and may u get a decent job.

Academia is a religion, the religion of materialism. It has nothing to do with what it is supposed to do: finding Truth.

Academia sucks , def should leave

To be a successful academic , you must be highly idealistic. You must have the thought of ‘one day you will make an impact on the World’ even though this don’t come true in most of the time. Yet at the same time it is this idealistic thought that keeps you going in your research when you publish. When you take out this idealistic goal of ‘making an impact to the world’ , you will end up finding academia pointless where it is only about publishing papers and attaining grants . It’s just like a powerful whale but without a direction compass. Worse still, is that you have other industry jobs pulling you in all sorts of opposite direction that lures you away from academia! Academia is a fun but competitive and yet sometimes toxic industry in certain sense. But it is for the highly idealistic ones who will survive in it.