What do hope and faith have to do with leaving academia?

Dear Reader,

The thing about academics thinking “I love this work more than anything” (a direct quote from a professor on my Twitter feed last week) is

a) I believe you but
b) you don’t know what you don’t know.

Leaving academia—any career change—is an act of

hope for a better tomorrow, and
faith that you can have these feelings about another job.

It’s helpful to get more specific about what part of this work you love, what you don’t mind doing, and what you prefer to avoid in future.

Because I’m willing to bet that not every minute of every day as a faculty member fills you with joy or deep appreciation for what’s going on.

Doing that specifying is going to make it a lot easier to recognize what you want to keep in your career and what you’d be okay with jettisoning.

The step after that (in addition to keeping the faith) is exploring in what other roles in what other places do folks experience these things.

Because I ASSURE YOU that academia isn’t unique in giving you an opportunity to, for example

Mentor young people
Act as an expert advising policymakers
Writing thoughtfully about important social issues
Conducting exacting science experiments
Preparing teaching materials that have an impact on learners
[Fill in your own key thing here]

I can hear some of you right now: “Oh but I love everything about this. No other job has this balance of A, B, C.”

Hold up. Because, again, you don’t know what you don’t know.

And hey, it’s always possible another situation would actually be even better for you and your family!

Something different will be different, but that’s true in academia as well. Every department, university, region is its own thing.

If you’re feeling disrespected, undervalued, or simply exhausted by the demands of your current job it’s worth the effort to figure out whether you might be better served elsewhere.

That doesn’t mean quitting tomorrow! (Unless you want to.)

It does mean employing your critical thinking, information gathering, and analytical skills to your career instead of just your academic subject matter.

Please do that.

I’m in the Chronicle of Higher Education! Read my conversation with former professor William Pannapacker.

What’s Happening

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Have you seen my YouTube channel? I’ve recorded a handful of videos with fellow PhD career coach Tory Wobber. Half are on my channel and half on hers.
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Here are recent posts from my social media that resonated with folks:

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Liz Laudadio on the PhD Career Clarity Program

Read their thoughts →

🥅

Tenure doesn’t have to be your goal

My reaction to a professor’s lament →

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A peek into a live small group coaching session

What happens during these Zooms →

Can you believe it’s already the end of July? Ahh!

If you want to get a jump on your job search before you head back to the classroom, join me in the program soon.

Thanks for reading,

Jen

P.S. Want to explore working with me? Visit my Services page to learn about options, or reply to this email and let me know what you want my help with!

Jennifer Polk, PhD