Does it really have to be so painful?
I’ve been talking to a bunch of my friends from grad school in the last few weeks, some of whom have switched fields and are in new careers. This was related to the talk I gave a few weeks ago at the university where I did my PhD– I sent out some questions about life after grad school to my friends, and incorporated their answers in the slides for my talk. I got very emotional reading their answers– it was very sad to hear how people described the "heartbreak" of leaving their PhD field to pursue other paths. In my PhD program, going to industry tended to be seen as a failure— the successful route was to be a research professor at a top university. And yet, few alumni achieve "success" by this definition. Just looking at the numbers, it’s impossible. Most people do something else, which should be just fine.
And yet… the transition can be painful. Three years after graduating, even 10 years after graduating, there is still a lot of emotion there– the pain of giving up long-held dreams. One friend said it was like a long and painful breakup– I think it’s more like a divorce. You spend such a long time in grad school, that leaving academia for the "outside world" can be heartbreaking. It’s the only home you’ve known, even if it never seemed like a comfortable one. It makes me sad. I don’t think it has to be this way.
I think that engineering is doing a better job than the sciences in this respect– in engineering, both students and faculty are aware of a wider range of options for life after graduation. But in the pure sciences, it is science, science, science, straight ahead, or else you disappear over a steep cliff. No one seems to have much of an idea what happens outside of academia, particularly the faculty. In my program, doing anything "applied" tended to be sneered at.
These are gross generalizations, of course. Not everyone is clueless. I hope that they will become less and less clueless as time goes on. I hope universities will continue to sponsor career panels and talks by alumni and networking events, more and more. I hope faculty will take increasing pride in all of the different types of success that their students achieve after graduation, not just success in a research career. Bringing in smart, hard-working people, training them in critical thinking, analysis, project planning and execution (for that’s what a PhD teaches), and then making them feel like failures for not being academics afterwards is just plain stupid, and a gigantic waste of talent. And I think it hits the women particularly hard.
Industry is awesome. It is so much cooler than academia. I’d love to blog at length about this, but industry is also busier- so at present I do not have the time.
Comment by Lab Lemming — October 22, 2007 @ 6:50 am
I guess the heartbreak could be reduced somewhat if one is prepared for the possibility of “failure” throughout the journey, although I know that when one is going through the journey, it is easy to lapse into that “I won’t be hit” kind of feeling that blinds one from the ever-present possibility of “failure”. It is sad that there is a stigma within certain fields that if one ends up outside of academia, or even if one ends up in academia but in a different more “applied” field, one is considered a “failure”. The odds of “failure” is just too high - all the academic jobs in the world won’t be enough to accommodate all the people who are not only passionate but capable in their fields. Perhaps it could be seen as a justified means to filter through till only the creme-de-la-creme gets to do the science, but, alas, the reality is the factors that come into play are not that simple. However, I kinda admire amateurs who maintain a sharpness and a certain edge in the field that they started in or were trained in, long after they left. Cases like these are rare, but I wonder whether it can be considered a viable alternative. There are also those who end up in research institutes, but I have not really looked into that path, so am really wondering how different it is to end up working in a research institute.
Comment by musafiremes — October 23, 2007 @ 8:58 am
You are so right.
I am in the midst of my divorce with academia. I feel like cutting ties *before* I suffer the heartbreak of not being wanted on the tenure track.
Thanks for helping me articulate what it feels like for my friends & family who do not *get* why I am looking elsewhere.
Comment by Field Notes — October 23, 2007 @ 8:48 pm
If it makes you feel any better, it’s not like that everywhere.
In fact, most people I know (and most of the people who comment on my blog) are former academicians, who are happy in industry and didn’t struggle much with the transition. If anything, they all think I’m crazy for wanting to (try to) stay to academia.
And people come back to academia but retain their connections with industry- just this morning I was thinking about how I know 3 people who went to industry and then got faculty positions. They all happen to be men, which I think helped them find and secure academic positions. And one of their major selling points was that universities want ties with industry due to the neverending funding crunch. Bridges are being built there, so it’s getting better, it’s not such a steep cliff as it once was.
Comment by MsPhD — October 25, 2007 @ 7:20 pm