The Afternoon I Decided to Leave Academia

I remember the day I decided to leave academia with crystal clarity.

It was the end of my third year on the academic job market. I had spent the fall and winter teaching as an adjunct, paying my way to conferences, applying and interviewing for academic jobs, and losing sleep over what might happen if I didn’t land a more secure position.

It was June. I had lined up a few adjunct classes for the Fall, but was hoping to land something more permanent.

That day, I learned that I had come in second for a visiting assistant professorship. It was four courses per semester and it paid $38,000. Not enough, I was told, to really live in the town where the university was located.

If I had landed the job, it would have meant living across the continent from my partner. He had accepted a dream consulting job in Washington, D.C.

And I had come in second.

I walked down the road a few blocks to where one of my faculty mentors lived. I told her my disappointing news. With encouragement, she said, “but you were so close!”

But close to what?

That afternoon, this dream job I had been pursuing for my entire adult life suddenly looked more like a disappointing nightmare. Rather than providing me with secure pay, meaningful work, and the life of the mind, academia had delivered underemployment, stress, depression, and anxiety.

I returned home and called my best friend, Harry.

“I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” I told him. I felt emotionally depleted, but also liberated by the decision. I had no idea what else I was going to do; I just knew I couldn’t go on being this depressed, feeling hopeless about my future.

Harry understood. He was finishing his PhD in English literature and had struck-out on the job market. Although he’d won a university prize for the best dissertation and had secured a book deal, he couldn’t even land an interview.

The academic job market had collapsed in 2008, had upended all of our planning, and ended our dreams.

I had wanted to be a professor from my sophomore year of university. I wanted the life of the mind, to teach and study history, and to be surrounded with people who were creative, innovative, and passionate about their work. It seemed like a charmed life.

When the job market collapsed, it felt like a bait-and-switch. We had been admitted into our PhD programs because we were promising scholars. Then the jobs disappeared and we were left to figure out what on earth we were going to do with our humanities PhDs.

That Fall, I poured my heart into my teaching, knowing it would probably be my last time in a university classroom teaching history. At the end of my last class, my last semester, I took photos of the empty classroom, cried, and closed the door.

Despite the sadness of letting go of my dream job, I knew I was making the right decision.

The problem was, I had no idea what else I could do, how to begin exploring career options, or applying for non-academic jobs.

In January, I moved to D.C. to join my partner. I was totally lost, lonely, and depressed.

I started my job search asking the question most PhDs ask: what can I do with my degree in this very specific discipline. It turns out, that’s the wrong question to ask. Focusing on subject matter expertise instead of skills traps you into narrow career opportunities.

In D.C., I did informational interviews with people who worked at the archives, but that didn’t align with my interests, and I would probably have needed to earn a library science degree. I already had student loan debt, so taking on more loans for yet another degree seemed like a bad idea.

I started volunteering at an historic house and did an internship at an historical preservation society, hoping to break into historical preservation or public history. But, I quickly realized that those organizations seldom hired historians; they wanted project and program managers, fundraisers, volunteer coordinators, and event planners.

I read job ads, but nothing seemed like an obvious fit.

This all left me even more demoralized and depressed.

After a few months in D.C., I felt like I wasn’t qualified for any job.

If that’s how you feel, I empathize completely.

One day, my partner came home to find me in frustrated tears about my lack of progress on landing a new career.

“I don’t know what I want to do with my life!” I exclaimed.

His advice: “Maren, nobody does. We just say yes to opportunities, and then a new one comes along and you evaluate it and decide if you’ll take that or stick with what you’re already doing.”

That was such a revelation. I had been thinking of “careers” in an out-dated sense: the thing that I was going to do for the rest of my life.

That’s easy to do when you leave academia. You are used to thinking of your career trajectory as graduate student > postdoc > assistant professor > associate professor > full professor > professor emeritus > death.

But that’s not how careers work for most professionals in today’s economy. People apply their education, skills, interests, and talents in a variety of different roles across a wide range of organizations. In fact, most people change jobs every 3 to 5 years, especially at the beginning of their careers