{"id":2483,"date":"2019-05-03T13:08:27","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T13:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/three-years-after-leaving-academia-i-dont-feel-like-a-failure-anymore\/"},"modified":"2025-04-05T13:22:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T13:22:25","slug":"three-years-after-leaving-academia-i-dont-feel-like-a-failure-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/three-years-after-leaving-academia-i-dont-feel-like-a-failure-anymore","title":{"rendered":"Three years after leaving academia, I don&#8217;t feel like a failure anymore!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 115%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">Last week,\u00a0Nature published (another) piece about\u00a0<a style=\"color: blue; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-018-05838-y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">why it is not a \u2018failure\u2019 to leave academia<\/a>. Now that I am on the outside it feels surreal that this is\u00a0<i>still<\/i>\u00a0an issue, but I am close enough to academia to understand where this comes from. The article has a lot of nice suggestions of how to find your place outside academia, and what supervisors can do to help. But it doesn\u2019t really talk about the actual\u00a0feeling\u00a0of failure.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 115%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">Yes, the struggle is real.\u00a0There is a general feeling of failure once you leave academia. In my case, after being in academia for 20+ years, I seriously thought that was the\u00a0only thing I was capable of doing, and most worrying, the\u00a0only thing I\u2019d love to do. If you go through my blog posts from when I started blogging (2013), I was a postdoc and so almost all my posts were about the struggle of finding an academic position. But as years went by, more and more I feel like this feeling of failure is something that happens mainly in your own head. As\u00a0<a style=\"color: blue; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sennoma\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@sennoma<\/a>\u00a0put it brilliantly on Twitter a couple of years ago, it takes a lot of time (and work) to overcome that feeling: <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\" xml:lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Doctor_PMS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Doctor_PMS<\/a> Because academia instils a little voice in your head saying &#8220;if you leave, you fail&#8221; and it takes time to kill that fucker.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bill Hooker (@sennoma) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sennoma\/status\/730394803641405441?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 11, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 115%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\"><b>Leaving academia<\/b><b>\u00a0is not easy<\/b>. It takes a lot of courage to take the leap and jump out there in the open, into the unknown. Because we have been in academia for so long, we are surrounded by other academics, and it is easy to get swamped in feeling that if everyone around you succeeds in academia, you should succeed as well. And if you don\u2019t,\u00a0you are a failure. It is so easy to think that you\u2019re all alone, and the only person going through those feelings. That\u2019s one of the reasons we created\u00a0our\u00a0<a style=\"color: blue; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"http:\/\/recoveringacademic.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Recovering Academic Podcast<\/a>,\u00a0to help others cope with their feelings about leaving academia.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 115%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">For me,\u00a0that feeling of failure started to go away as I started getting exposed to other recovering academics, other\u00a0<a style=\"color: blue; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23NonAcademicScientist&amp;src=typd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#NonAcademicScientists<\/a>, and other people with a PhD who\u2019d succeeded outside academia. Talking to other people that had gone through similar experiences was so valuable! In the beginning, most of my interactions came from Twitter. I had a lot of support from\u00a0other PhDs who were happy with their decision of leaving academia, but still remember how hard it was for them to actually leave. During my last trip to San Francisco,\u00a0<a style=\"color: blue; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lteytelman\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@lteytelman<\/a>\u00a0and I went through a DM we had back in 2014[published with permission].<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-width: 3px; border-style: solid;\" title=\"Default Title Text\" src=\"http:\/\/insights.cactusglobal.com\/sites\/default\/files\/3%20years%20after%20leaving%20academia%2C%20I%20don%E2%80%99t%20feel%20like%20a%20failure%20anymore%20image%201.png\" alt=\"Default Alt text\" data-file_info=\"%7B%22fid%22:%228035%22,%22view_mode%22:%22default%22,%22fields%22:%7B%22format%22:%22default%22,%22field_file_image_alt_text%5Bund%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D%22:%22Default%20Alt%20text%22,%22field_file_image_title_text%5Bund%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D%22:%22Default%20Title%20Text%22,%22field_image_tags%5Bund%5D%5Btextfield%5D%22:%22%22,%22field_image_tags%5Bund%5D%5Bvalue_field%5D%22:%22%5C%22%5C%22%5C%22%5C%22%22%7D,%22type%22:%22media%22%7D\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-width: 3px; border-style: solid;\" title=\"Default Title Text\" src=\"http:\/\/insights.cactusglobal.com\/sites\/default\/files\/3%20years%20after%20leaving%20academia%2C%20I%20don%E2%80%99t%20feel%20like%20a%20failure%20anymore%20image%202.png\" alt=\"Default Alt text\" data-file_info=\"%7B%22fid%22:%228036%22,%22view_mode%22:%22default%22,%22fields%22:%7B%22format%22:%22default%22,%22field_file_image_alt_text%5Bund%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D%22:%22Default%20Alt%20text%22,%22field_file_image_title_text%5Bund%5D%5B0%5D%5Bvalue%5D%22:%22Default%20Title%20Text%22,%22field_image_tags%5Bund%5D%5Btextfield%5D%22:%22%22,%22field_image_tags%5Bund%5D%5Bvalue_field%5D%22:%22%5C%22%5C%22%5C%22%5C%22%22%7D,%22type%22:%22media%22%7D\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 115%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">And he was absolutely right!\u00a0I left academia about one year after that conversation. I got my first job outside academia in July 2015. Life changes, and slowly you start to realize that academia is not the only way to be happy. Today, it\u2019s been 3 and a half years since I left academia, and I am more certain than ever that this was the best decision I could have taken. I admire those who continue in academia, but as more time passes, the more I feel like this was not the life I wanted for me. I feel like now I have a much healthier work-life balance, and also, a much better salary. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\" xml:lang=\"en\">Indeed. My postdoc PI was extremely disappointed and he told me &#8220;you know that if you leave academia, there&#8217;s no coming back&#8221;. After 3 years, I think he was totally correct, but for totally different reasons \ud83d\ude42 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/80Y9yffDUC\">https:\/\/t.co\/80Y9yffDUC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Doctor PMS (@Doctor_PMS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Doctor_PMS\/status\/1019587628847550464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 18, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 115%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">Indeed. My postdoc PI was extremely disappointed and he told me, &#8220;You know that if you leave academia, there&#8217;s no coming back.&#8221; After 3 years, I think he was totally correct, but for totally different reasons. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 0in 0in 10pt;\"><span style=\"font-size: 11pt;\"><span style=\"line-height: 115%;\"><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,sans-serif;\">Of course,\u00a0you may still feel pressure\/disappointment from family, colleagues, and mainly from your supervisor when you decide to leave. But the more you are certain you are taking the best decision, the more they will understand and support you. So stay strong, reach out to your network, and don\u2019t forget:\u00a0<i>there\u2019s sunshine outside the ivory tower<\/i>!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><i>Cleyde Helena<b> (<\/b><\/i><a style=\"color: blue; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Doctor_PMS\"><i>@Doctor_PMS<\/i><\/a><i><u>)<\/u> is an Academic Account Manager, Analytical Instruments. This story<b> <\/b>was published on March 16, 2019, on Cleyde\u2019s blog, <\/i><a style=\"color: blue; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/doctorpms.wordpress.com\/\"><i>Science Reverie<\/i><\/a><i> (available\u00a0<a style=\"color: blue; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/doctorpms.wordpress.com\/2018\/08\/08\/3-years-after-leaving-academia-i-dont-feel-like-a-failure-anymore\/\">here<\/a>)\u00a0and has been republished here with permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week,\u00a0Nature published (another) piece about\u00a0why it is not a \u2018failure\u2019 to leave academia. Now that I am on the outside it feels surreal that this is\u00a0still\u00a0an issue, but I am close enough to academia to understand where this comes from. The article has a lot of nice suggestions of how to find your place [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1511,"featured_media":33313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2414],"tags":[2677,2668,2454],"new_categories":[],"new_tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-2483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiring-researcher-stories","tag-leaving-academia","tag-motivational-stories","tag-researcher-stories"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Three years after leaving academia, I don&#039;t feel like a failure anymore!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My postdoc PI was extremely disappointed and he told me, &quot;You know that if you leave academia, 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