Have you heard of the soggy potato chip theory? It goes something like this: A kid would always love a crisp, new potato chip, but if soggy potato chips are all there is, they can be satisfying too. It’s an analogy to attention, and the way kids would always prefer positive, supportive attention, but if negative, critical attention is all they can get, they’ll take it. Attention is that important.
Many of us in academia are like those kids.
We want the tenure-track job in our preferred geographic area for a decent wage and a reasonable teaching load. We want friendly colleagues and a supportive research environment. But if adjunct teaching or a non-tenure-track and thus year-to-year job with a high teaching load and crappy conditions is all we are offered, we’ll often take it.
We want so badly to be part of academia, to live that life that we imagined for ourselves that we’ll accept a watered-down version that actively drains us – because it’s less painful than walking away from what we really, actually want.
I say this not in condemnation. Not at all. I say this because walking away from what we want is incredibly, terribly painful.
That’s why it takes so long
It would be great if we could sit down, make a pro and con list, and rationally decide that yep, leaving is the way to go, then dust off our hands and dive in to the process of finding another job, maybe moving.
Maybe that’s how it works for some people. That’s not how it worked for me, and that’s not how it works for most of the people I talk to.
For most of us, it looks more like this. Spend weeks or months or even years miserable and ground down and exhausted. Consider leaving. Get excited about a few possibilities. Look at real estate somewhere we actually want to live. Have a lovely weekend imagining a different life. Go back to work on Monday energized and excited. Teach a great class. Have a nice conversation with a colleague. Start doubting that you really need to leave. Maybe you just need an attitude adjustment. Maybe you just need to buckle down. Spend a few weeks throwing yourself into your work. Find yourself crying or angry for no apparent reason. Start looking at job ads. Find a few that seem exciting. Sit down to try to draft an application. Freak out and decide you’re staying.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Leaving is a process, not a point
You are going to doubt yourself. You are going to question every single one of the experiences that led you to consider leaving in the first place. (Maybe they weren’t that bad.) You are going to go back and forth between hope and despair. You are going to try to talk yourself into staying. You are going to try to talk yourself into leaving. There may be weeks when you get nothing done at all, in any direction.
This is completely normal.
Leaving academia is an enormous thing. It affects your identity, it affects your sense of the rightness of the world, it affects your belief in yourself.
None of that means that you’re a bad person, or that you should stay or that you should go. It means only that you’re grappling with something huge, something that will likely be a fork in the road.
It is not fun. But it is normal.
Ways to make it a little bit easier
If you can accept that this is as much a part of the process as everything else – i.e., you avoid beating yourself up for all of the back-and-forthing – it’ll be easier on you.
If you can give yourself the space and understanding and compassion to just watch all of the doubts and fears and hopes and dreams arise, you’ll learn something about what you really want and what matters to you and what’s standing in your way.
If you can be patient, you’ll arrive at a point that has some foundation to it. You’ll find a place to stand and a decision you’re committed to, however scary it is.
If part of what’s standing in your way is a fear that there’s nothing else you’re qualified to do, join Jo VanEvery and me for a six-week class designed to help you expand your sense of what careers are possible for you. It starts June 12, and you can find out more by clicking here.
Thanks a lot for this! Quite useful, in a somewhat surprising way. Your analogy to children and attention touches my empathetic fiber and I can relate to much of the narrative.
In my case, the decision was to “put my PhD on the backburner.” Took a very long time to make. But it was really freeing when I finally made it. A few years in, I can confirm th it was the right decision to make.
Thing is, I didn’t really leave academia. I just changed my attitude toward it and made my space in it.
The key, to me, was when I realized that I could teach part-time and do other things around it. Simple, but incredibly liberating.
It was an epiphany. Grasping this simple idea has changed my life.
In fact, just remembering it gives me something close to goosebumps.
I remember the spot, the context, the feeling… It opened up so many possibilities! Suddenly, I was allowed to dream.
And, while there have been a few hurdles along the way, it now seems that it was indeed a path to fulfilling some of my dreams.
A dimension of this is that’, while I haven’t left academia, I did escape the Ivory Tower. At least, that’s how I feel. I still “belong” to the university, but I’m not owned by the university. On occasion, I might use my academic affiliation to describe myself but my academic status doesn’t define who I am nor does it imply anything in terms of what I can do. And I now get a strong feeling of academic freedom, much more so than what I’ve noticed among tenure-track and even tenured colleagues. Not only am I able to do research on anything I please and may I write about any topic I fancy, but I don’t feel pressure to comply to the academic model surrounding me. Plus, I get to teach under really nice conditions.
As you may imagine, my attitude toward adjunct positions is quite specific. I heard from many bitter adjuncts but I have no bitterness in my academic life (unlike my coffee- and, formerly, beer-related activities). Indeed, I find many advantages to being an adjunct, not least of which being the fact that I can have a well-rounded life.
The key point, though, is that I’ve never perceived adjuncting as a road to the tenure-track. Even when I let others convinced me that tenure was my ultimate goal, I fully realized that there wasn’t any connection between the tenure system and other academic work. Furthermore, I was fortunate enough to have known a few people who were “true adjuncts,” working in the field and teaching on a part-time basis as a way to share their insight, expand their reach, and maybe supplement their income.
My current involvement is a bit different. I may be spending more energy on my work as “part-time faculty” than these people typically did. Not that I absolutely need to or that my courses are better. But my work outside the university isn’t really full-time, at this point. So, not only is teaching still the most significant chunk of my income but it also tends to remain front and centre, in my mind.
And this might be a transition. I do want to keep on teaching, for the forseeable future. But the number of credits I’ll be teaching might vary quite a bit, from year to year. This coming academic year, already, I’m scheduled to teach 1—2, instead of 2—2 as I did this past academic year. It wasn’t necessarily planned, but it’s pretty much what I hoped, as I’m getting interesting projects in the Fall.
Some of these projects are for applied research, with community organisations. In some ways, the type of thing university professors are supposed to do. Since it “doesn’t count for tenure,” I’m able to truly involve myself in it, collaborating with non-academics and exploring issues important for actual members of the community. What I’m doing isn’t meant as a line in my annual report. It’s worth more to me and, I’m told, to others.
I envision doing more of this, and professional development is easier to plan outside of the Ivory Tower, even when some parts of it are meant to happen in a university context.
Of course, like all transitions, it can be rather challenging. For instance, it’s still hard for me to require payment for things I gladly do without financial incentives. I’m at the stage, now, that I rationally understand the value of the service I’m providing as a freelancer but I’m still reacting as a teacher.
I’ve also been able to get rid of my impostor syndrome, but there are some lingering side-effects from that long period of academic imprisonment as an ABD.
All told, I’m truly very happy with the decision I made. I just wish someone had told me earlier that it was possible to escape the Ivory Tower without leaving academia.
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Alexandre, I love that you get the distinction between being in academia on your own terms and being caught in the Ivory Tower. I’m so glad to hear that you’ve found a way to keep the parts you love and get rid of the rest!
Thank you for this! I am going through the “Why it takes so long” section … exactly. And this is not the first time. Arrgghh! This time around I hope I’ll be able to give myself compassion, understanding and space.
Moni, I’m so glad I can help normalize the process, even if I can’t make it less sucky. Good luck!