Do you know what career path to take?

Happy new year! Here’s looking forward to a great 2015 for me and for all of you. Here’s my first post of the year, over at University Affairs. It begins:

“When did you decide to leave academia?” This question, or some version of it — “How did you know that you didn’t want to be a professor?” for example — is one I’m regularly asked. It comes up in conversation, on Twitter, or when I’m on a careers panel. It’s a fair inquiry, and the questioner tends to ask because she is wrestling with making a decision about her own future. But it’s a question that I can’t answer. There was no one moment when I knew the tenure-track wasn’t for me, and there wasn’t an easy process to come to that decision either.

To read the rest, head over to UA. Let me know what you think! What metaphor do you like to use?