Finding your identity outside of academia

This morning, I went for a run before work and listened to this week’s Recovering Academic podcast. In this episode, they talked about how a large part of being an academic in recovery means having to figure out how much of your identity is being an academic scientist, and if that is gone, what is left? I very much recognize this feeling, even though I’m still a scientist, just not in academia. I did, very much, have to redefine myself - not just on the outside (new outfit, different haircut), but even more on the inside. What I am mostly still struggling with is the difference in achievements and how visible those are. In academia, I was very much motivated by getting papers published and being able to search for my name on Pubmed and finding an increasing number of hits. The output is very tangible and is celebrated with press releases and such. Now that I work for a company, the end-product that we make is even more tangible (an actual thing that can sit on the table), but my part in it is much less visible, especially to the outside world. Think about it - you can read everywhere who invented CRISPR or optogenetics, but many inventions coming out of companies are celebrated in a much less personal way (to the outside world at least). Sort of connected to that is the fact that I took pride in the things I finished (experiments, papers), whereas now it is much less clear when something is actually finished and the work leading up to that thing which can sit on the table is much longer most of the times.

On the other hand, the fact that everything was so personal was also a reason for me to leave academia. Because the downside of celebrating personal accomplishments was the fact that criticism on papers and grants proposals also felt very personal. Anyway, these are just some rather incoherent thoughts after listening to that episode, which you should do too!

Babyattachmode (@BabyAttachMode) is the pseudonym of a neuroscience PhD turned industry scientist. This story was published on November 2, 2016, on her Scientopia blog, In Baby Attach Mode (available here), and has been republished here with her permission.