I QUIT my academic job. Here are three signs you should too.

Looking for a sign it’s time to quit your job? In this video I share the signs it was time for me to move on from my tenure track academic job. If you’re thinking of quitting, this video explains how to minimize risk so you can be your best self.

Quitting your job is scary, and it helps to know you’re not alone.

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// About me
Hi, I’m Cheryl. I want everyone to stop doing things they hate.
I’m an organisational psychologist with a PhD in inequality at work.
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction
00:40 Sign 1: Pointlessness
01:35 Burnout
02:00 Sign 2: justifying your unhappiness
04:10 Sign 3: Running someone else’s race
05:35 Finances
06:02 Quit for the right reasons
06:42 Talk to someone

[gazoontight]

I stayed a postdoctoral associate and adjunct instructor until my late thirties. Leaving academia was hard but once I did it my real life started. Best thing that I did.

[Erintii]

I left Academia lest year and are now in the industry. I have lived in burnout, feeling of meaninglessness for years but feeling there is nothing awaits for me outside Academia. I was told my contract would not be prolonged week after I came back from my Mother's funeral. Started applying outside Academia but it was hard as my CV wasn't right, but got help and find a job. Taking entry level in late 30s is hard but better than meaningless, post-doc like jobs in Academia. I got federal fellowship, I was involved in federal grants, got 38 papers in PubMed but felt like loser. Still feel all after my PhD is a waste of time and need to live with feeling I blunder away 9 years of my life. I have no one to socialize but I have stable job and with experience can get better job in better location and not blasted countryside I hate.
I was applying for jobs in major cities but so many years of Academia did not help. Now I started new chapter in my life and at least I am no longer wasting my life. To all reading this comment: leave Academia ASAP. No matter how hard you work, most of you will never get tenure-tract position. No one cares what you know but who do you know. Academia job market is extremely completive and 10% of PhD graduates has chance to stay. Don't make mine or other people's mistake. Leave Academia, think how your skills will be transferable, what you can add. Academia is toxic environment of lowly paid, unstable, fixed-term contracts. It is fine for those in 20s but this is all. Academia freedom and flexibility is not worth your mental health. I waited too long. Don't repeat my mistakes.

[pauljones]

90% of people in academia will relate to this

[Clint]

Still fighting for a permanent position.

Earned over a million in grants over 4 years since my PhD. Published plenty. Created new collaborations with 3 different universities (and an internal one). Created and taught a new course.

Turned down for positions given to people 6 years my junior straight out of their PhD. No papers. No grants. Correct ethnicity and/or gender.

Kinda done with it if im honest. Kinda really fucking done with it.

[nickreid]

I left a tenured lectureship in English twenty years ago, for similar reasons. Fortunately, I had also majored in Economics in my first degree, and that got me a job in the Australian Treasury. It took me a couple of years to find an area I liked working in, and I didn't climb the greasy pole--but I was earning more than I had as a senior lecturer in NZ, and as a junior employee I could go home at 5pm. 

I bought myself a hammer and saw and built a house, and I spent my evenings reading what I wanted to, rather than marking endless student essays. I've gone on publishing, but only when I had something to say. There were small humiliations, like having your prose edited by illiterates, but I've certainly been much happier having stepped off the pointless hamster wheel. 

Academia was still a happy place when I was a student in the 70s and 80s, but once we let the dementors (I mean the managerialists) in, they sucked the life out of it.

[ericv]

Before starting college, I spent 6 years in the US Marines (most of that time infantry). I was young; I thought I could do anything! It didn't hold a candle to grad school, though. The competitiveness, the brownnosing, the backstabbing, every waking hour taken up by research. I discovered that I hated teaching, though, so I dropped out and went on to do other things. I still have friends who went on to finish their Ph.D, and then teaching, and talking to them is like talking to a strict religious practitioner - academia is all they know, their only point of reference. All I can think is, "How did I get so lucky?"

[viktorsaurus]

Oh boy... I relate too much with everything you brought up :/
Edit: thanks for sharing your experience, I cannot tell you how grateful I am to hear someone else feel this way

[ms.saiyan]

I absolutely relate to the apathy part. This video showed up for me just as I'm about to take the plunge of quitting my academia job, especially since I've been recently denied promotion after years of working as an adjunct instructor. Thank you for your honesty and insight!

[sahilgupta]

I can relate to it.
I left the industry in 2014 and started pursuing a master's in India and Phd degree in the US.
Looking at my advisor's condition.
I decided to shift to Industry again with better perks and pay packages this time.

[Ken-ercq]

The pointlessness is really horrible. It is a really bad sign when you realise that the paper that you are writing is for only one reason, and that is to add to your c.v. The research isn't interesting, it doesn't solve a real problem, it just is there because you have to have an output. Then it gets rejected, and you have to make major changes to this paper that you didn't want to write in the first place. Several people I know left to go to industry, and they now work on things that have a purpose. I retired.

[monochromios]

I have been an MD for 20 years. After the pandemic, my job became unbearable. My life was heavily affected by the new conditions in which it was supposed that a doctor and medical researcher had to work: no rights, continued psychological abuses, no respect. I started a psychological consult, and it helped me to regain myself. I am a human, have my rights, and deserve respect: if, after 20 years, this is not clear, it is time to leave. I have saved during my career, so money was not an issue. I resigned on July 1st, the best day in my life. I will remember forever my responsible screaming at me: "You cannot do this! (plus various insults)" and me smiling and telling her: "I already did; have good times." I graduated in philosophy in less than a year. Now, I am a writer for an excellent philosophical magazine. I am also a consultant for an ADV company, where my skills are appreciated. I do not work more than I can: I am trying to work the less I can. It is not easy to quit, but if you reach the "enough is enough" point, it is the best decision you can make. We are not a job; we are human beings.

[loodwich]

How does YouTube know that I am struggling with this?
I hate my actual position (Associate professor), I'm not too fond of the papers and the little help the university gives to my research.
But I love my students, and the projects I develop with them.
At this moment, I don't feel burnout, and I still like my job... It is an important job that influences a lot of people.

[os]

Imagine your journey, except having terrible, bad psycho anti mentors... this has been the journey for me... I think I have been surviving just to prove them wrong... which is wrong... I love science but I don't respect the way the system works... and specially the injustice and the rampant lack of shame that many of they actors present every day when they are micromanaging, harassing (work and sexually -yess), passive aggressiveness and open aggression... anyways im still here... Thanks for sharing. you are very brave.

[Akerfeldtfan]

Feeling this right now, everything you're saying is stuff I've hit on. However, I'm deeper in than you were- I got tenure just now and can tell you it's MUCH worse the longer you stick around. Salary compression in the academy is brutal and you will actually end up getting paid less as a person with tenure than a brand new hire. And in my university the hierarchies across fields (STEM vs not) mean my department was always getting shit on. Academia operates by entrapping and exploiting- We aren't taught how to prepare our CVs or resumes for non academic jobs and the longer we are there the more the sunk cost becomes. But at the same time, the scale your institution's leverage against increases. By year 10, you've bought a house, would be passed over as overqualified for many transitional positions, and are trying to start a family. All this makes it harder and harder to bail out. And don't get me started on the cult-y vibe around the "life of the mind." I love the flexibility academia has afforded my life, but it's a very, very sick institutional setting for a lot of people.

[cocs]

Yep, totally. I didn’t give a s*#t about what I did or published while I was a postdoc. So glad that I left academia. The time to make a choice is always now, not later.

[wrbl]

Omg totally relate. I am now on 4th year of phd and the only thing left to do is to write my thesis. I think about dropping out everyday, however first I decided to go on a therapy and then decide. Guys Keep fingers crossed for me!!

[Mishule]

Oh, you exactly described how I feel about my employment in academia. I had all the feelings but couldn't find the right words, but you captured my feelings exactly. Thank you for this video.

[Aokaimusic]

I wasnt an academic but was a corporate lawyer for many years. I'm now chasing a career as an electronic nusic producer, so a lot of the reasons you gave for leaving i strongly resonate with. Thanks for the video!

[kungfumartialarts]

I came to academia later in life after having experienced many other jobs. .There is so much to keep you interested in teaching subjects you love. Sometimes we need experiences to appreciate what we have. There are certainly negative points to academia, but, comparatively speaking, an academic position is better than much that is out there, . Keep in mind that people think jobs will fulfill them in some way. This is not the case for any job. Life-satisfaction involves a list of items, most probably.. There are people who go through a PhD and are done with writing papers or research . To that, I would say go into something else. If you like research, academia is a good option. So, I would defend academia to a point, and that is based on the amount of jobs that are far more boring and useless. When you talk about the best part of your day was going to the gym, keep in mind that you had the time to do that. Many do not. Nevertheless, I thank you for the signs that are outlined; they are helpful.

[ariannaaddis]

Thank you SO much for this video. As an organizational psychology graduate student contemplating leaving academia, this video was immensely helpful and resonated so much.