Why I am Glad I Left Academia

Academic quit lit is a tired genre, and eight months ago I decided to make my own contribution. It was certainly not my intention to beat a dead, overqualified horse, but after announcing I had quit my postdoc at Ghent University, I anticipated some people would have questions. I wrote the blog post to avoid having the same conversation over and over again. Recently, a few people have started asking me how I have been doing since I left. So, as a complement to my previous piece, I present to you My Contribution to the Quit-Lit 2: Electric Boogaloo. 

I had initially intended the "Why I Am Leaving Academia" post to be brief and impersonal, a dry PR statement officialising my conscious uncoupling from my hopes and dreams. But in the end, I produced something quite intimate. It felt good to write that way, and my words resonated. In the first 24 hours after I published it, tens of thousands of people read and shared the article. 

In the days that followed, I received dozens of messages, mostly from academics. Some told me in great detail how academia had left them feeling undervalued, exploited, and trapped in career-long sunk cost fallacies. Others were on the fence about whether they should suffer another year on an increasingly clogged up job market. One person told me that a few years ago they had developed suicidal thoughts after failing, once again, to secure a tenure track job. 

I struggled to find the words to respond. I thanked those who had written to cheer me on and I maladroitly wished the others luck. I didn't feel like I was in a position to be dishing out advice to miserable early career researchers. Going through with my decision had required a great deal of courage and confidence, but the truth was, I felt scared and vulnerable. I had abandoned the (short-term) security of my postdoc salary to go freelance with no guarantee anyone would hire me. I was also leaving behind my identity as a university-affiliated researcher. 

As a postgrad, and later a postdoc, I believed that my job defined me. I struggled to disconnect my sense of worth from my productivity and success as a researcher. I almost never stopped working. When I did occasionally take a break, I felt guilty because I had convinced myself that a successful academic career was more important than trivial things like my mental health or living in a place I liked, near the people I loved. I believed that my position as an academic was so uniquely privileged, that to complain, raise questions, or even check in with myself would have been obscenely distasteful. This was routinely confirmed to me during my postdoc. I received emails outside of work hours asking me to complete various tasks by the next morning as well as last minute Zoom invitations for meetings inexplicably taking place on a Sunday. I had integrated the idea that research was unlike any other form of labour, that it didn't really count as labour at all. I can now see this is complete bullshit. 

On a material level, a few things made it possible for me to quit my job. I secured a book deal and my publisher paid me a good advance. All my work is now done remotely so I was able to move to a cheaper place which I am sharing with two friends. Also, crucially, I do not have any student debt (merci French university system) or any children to feed. I am aware things are not as easy for everyone. I know that being able to stare your work conditions in the eye and simply say "I would rather not" is a rare luxury nowadays.

In February, after I sent in my resignation, I felt a great deal of relief. I am still reflecting on what that relief meant. Part of it no doubt had to do with how tired I was at the time. Over a year after handing in my thesis, and just under a year into several lockdowns, I was still recovering from a post-PhD burnout. But mostly, I think I felt relieved because this decision was a step towards taking better care of myself. The most noticeable and impactful change in my life is that I now make a point of resting. I never work on weekends and I regularly take time off. This may not seem like a big deal, but it has made a huge difference to me. My chronic anxiety has softened. My back doesn't hurt as much. I am better at figuring out what I need because I am actually listening to the basic signs my body is sending me. I am reading novels again. I am developing new hobbies. There are whole periods during which I am not thinking about work at all. Revolutionary stuff.

I recently realised that at some point between deciding I wanted to do a PhD and becoming a doctor, I lost the sense of enjoyment that research, writing and learning had once procured. Now that I have freed myself from the looming spectre of the (frankly disastrous) academic job market, some of that enjoyment has returned. 

I am writing a book for the so-called general audience. For me, this has meant writing with a kind of freedom I had never experienced in my academic work. An idea doesn't need to break new ground to be worth pursuing. I can write about something simply because I find it interesting. But at the same time, I am pushing myself a lot harder. My writing needs to be captivating enough that people will keep reading. Academics will often be forced to slog through dense, unengaging prose if it has any relevance to their research. But, most readers can choose to put a book down if they do not like it. 

Aside from the book, my main activity has been freelance editing, and the occasional freelance writing. My initial plan was to set things up progressively and see what happend (which, I'll admit, is not much of a plan at all). I quickly started finding work through my website and social media, and things have been going surprisingly well. I have been hired to oversee the publication of a new academic journal, I have provided developmental editing for some first time authors, and I have done a lot of proofreading. 

So far, I have been getting as much work as I need, but I know this might not always be the case. Freelance income is notoriously unpredictable, especially in my line of work. Some might say I have simply traded the uncertainty of early career academia for another form of precariousness. Perhaps this is the case, but at least this way, I get to do uncertainty on my own terms. I am no longer having to sacrifice the things I find vital to my overall wellbeing. For instance, next time I move homes, it will be because I want to, not because I have to follow the whims of the job market.

I wanted to write an update to my original contribution to the quit lit because, while there are a lot of examples of academics enumerating the depressing aspects of academia which ultimately led them to quit, there are fewer examples of ex-academics writing about their positive experiences outside of academia. I do not pretend to offer anything like guidance, and, as I have already said, I know that I have been lucky in many ways. But I also understand that for many, it is hard to imagine what life could look like after such big change, which is one of the reasons leaving can be so scary. For me, and for many others, leaving has been an overall positive experience. 

Earlier this year, after some of the travel restrictions were lifted, I was able to visit my family for for the first time in over eighteen months. One of the first things my grandmother told me was that she had never seen me so relaxed. Leaving academia did not automatically make everything better, but I have not once regretted my decision.